Show Notes
Kouri Richins owed $7.5 million. Her forensic accountant used one word: imploding. Two hundred thirty-six bounced checks. Fifteen failed renovation projects. A house-flipping business hemorrhaging cash. Eric was quietly meeting with divorce attorneys, removing Kouri from his will, cutting her from his life insurance, and building a trust she didn't know about to protect their three sons. Her prenup made murder the only exit that paid. She secretly purchased $1.9 million in life insurance on Eric's life without his knowledge. She texted her housekeeper about "the Michael Jackson stuff." She was texting Robert Josh Grossmann about marriage while still married to Eric — asking if he'd marry her "tomorrow." Prosecutors laid out an alleged escalation: a poisoning attempt in Greece, a fentanyl-laced sandwich on Valentine's Day that left Eric gasping for air and reaching for his son's EpiPen, and a final dose in a cocktail two weeks later — five times lethal. Eric told friends he believed his wife was trying to end his life. He was right. The criminal investigation stalled by fall 2022. Deputy Jayme Woody acknowledged it on the stand. But the Richins family had already hired Todd Gabler — a 34-year defense investigator who'd never worked the prosecution's side — on a civil matter. What Gabler found in the phone records made staying on the civil side impossible. He identified the woman prosecutors say sourced the fentanyl before law enforcement did. He searched the Richins home for days after police released the scene, documented everything with body cameras, and found things the initial search missed. Nearly 50 interviews. Multiple vehicles tracked. A body of evidence that broke open an investigation that had gone cold. A jury convicted Kouri on every count in under three hours. The judge sentenced her to life without parole. This is the full story — from the financial implosion to the Moscow Mule — told for the first time with the investigator who was inside it before anyone was charged. Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #KouriRichins #EricRichins #ToddGabler #FentanylPoisoning #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #ParkCityUtah #MoscowMule #InsuranceFraud #JusticeForEric
More from The Case Against Kouri Richins
Kouri Richins is serving life without parole, yet the next fight over her murder conviction reaches beyond her own defense team. Two sheriffs have been indicted on allegations of interfering with the prosecution. Her lawyers pointed to the related investigation when they sought to delay a ruling on a new trial.
Kouri Richins' own marketing manager told her on a recorded jail call that he was helping a sheriff's reelection campaign because the lead detective on her case had 'helped create this problem' for her. That call sits inside the obstruction case that produced indictments against two Utah sheriffs, unsealed October 7, and it complicates the story her lawyers want to tell. Wasatch County Sheriff Jared Rigby and former Summit County Sheriff Dave Edmunds pleaded not guilty to obstructing justice in State v. Kouri Richins. Investigators allege Rigby tried to force Detective Eric Mainord out of the sheriff's race by circulating thirteen allegations about him, allegations that would have forced prosecutors to disclose them and weakened Mainord as a witness against Kouri. The envelope, the anonymous letter that Rigby's lawyer says the charges accuse him of sending, the records request in Edmunds' name: all of it is in sworn affidavits and court filings, none of it is proven. Greg Hall met with Rigby for twenty minutes in January and says he offered campaign help for free. Prosecutors seized his phone on day seven of the trial to learn whether he helped use the allegations to hinder it. He has not been charged. Mainord was dropped from the state's witness list, never testified, and appeared only on a video the jury watched of his interview with Carmen Lauber. Kouri's lawyers argue the sheriffs' case supports a new trial whether the allegations are true or false. Prosecutors answer that the witness never testified and the judge screened the material before trial. Her last filing is due October 16, and a November 4 hearing decides whether the blacked-out indictments become public. Tony Brueski weighs whether any of this can touch a conviction built on fentanyl toxicology, a housekeeper's testimony, and a forged insurance policy. Listen Anywhere You Get Podcasts: https://pod.link/1655749292 Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod?sub_confirmation=1 Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #KouriRichins #JaredRigby #HiddenKillers #EricRichins #DaveEdmunds #EricMainord #SummitCounty #WasatchCounty #TrueCrime #ObstructionOfJustice
A recorded jail call connects the pieces of Kouri Richins’ latest post-conviction move — and the trail leads back to someone who sat in her corner at sentencing. Prosecutors are calling her sealed court filing ‘a misleading pretext,’ and the investigation she’s trying to use as ammunition may involve her own associate. Kouri Richins was convicted of aggravated murder for poisoning her husband Eric with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl. She attempted it first on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich. Two weeks later, she mixed it into a cocktail. Eric didn’t survive. The jury found her guilty on every count, and she’s now serving life without parole. After conviction, Kouri’s defense filed a motion for a new trial, arguing the judge was biased. When a different judge rejected the bid to disqualify him, the defense owed prosecutors a response on the new trial motion itself. Instead, they filed a sealed motion to pause everything — citing an ongoing obstruction investigation into a local sheriff who allegedly tried to use anonymous allegations against the detective who helped build the murder case. Prosecutors responded publicly. What they revealed: the sealed motion introduces completely new judicial bias claims that have nothing to do with the original new trial arguments. The new claims involve a closed pre-trial hearing — not the conduct the jury saw. Greg Hall — the man prosecutors describe as Kouri’s admirer and media advisor — spoke at her sentencing and told the court she volunteered at soup kitchens. On a recorded jail call, Hall said he helped the sheriff’s reelection campaign ‘primarily because Mr. Mainord helped create this problem with Ms. Richins by investigating her.’ The detective Hall targeted never testified at Kouri’s trial. His credibility was never before the jury. Listen Anywhere You Get Podcasts: https://pod.link/1655749292 Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod?sub_confirmation=1 Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice. #KouriRichins #EricRichins #HiddenKillers #truecrime #MisleadingPretext #SealedMotion #fentanyl #ParkCity #lifewithoutparole #postconviction
Kouri Richins appeared by video from the Utah State Prison on August 28. A judge told her she owes $1,369,581 — every dollar she collected from her husband’s life insurance policies after poisoning him with fentanyl. Her attorney didn’t challenge the number. The judge sent the balance straight to the state’s debt collection office. The money is already gone. The prosecution’s forensic accountant testified that Kouri spent $1.35 million within three months of receiving it. She had $7.5 million in debt, $80,000 a month in lender payments, and four payday lenders collecting daily. By September 2022, she had $800 to her name. She was declared too poor to hire attorneys. Summit County taxpayers paid for her defense. Prison wages in Utah cap at $1.75 an hour. Working full time at that rate, she could pay off the restitution in about 376 years. And the restitution is only part of what’s ahead. Twenty-six fraud charges are pending in a separate case — prosecutors allege she ran a years-long scheme involving forged documents, laundered money, and a best friend who lost $45,000 and her home. October 9 is the next court date. This episode explains what the restitution order means, where the money actually went, and what the fraud trial is designed to prove about who Kouri Richins was long before the night Eric Richins died.
Everyone knows Kouri Richins poisoned her husband. The jury said so in three hours. She’s serving life without parole. But the murder conviction is one case. The fraud is another. And the fraud case tells a story the murder trial couldn’t fully tell on its own — the story of who Kouri Richins was to every person she touched, not just Eric. Twenty-six felony charges are pending against her in a separate filing in Summit County. Prosecutors allege she secretly drained a quarter million dollars from Eric’s premarital home through a power of attorney he didn’t know she’d used. She allegedly built a house-flipping business on that stolen money, forged his bank documents to secure more loans, and wrote herself bad checks to keep the accounts looking clean. By the end of 2021, according to charging documents, her business owed more than twenty-five lenders and was burning through debt faster than it could generate revenue. Then came the moment that reveals more about Kouri Richins than any verdict can. According to prosecutors, she signed a rent-to-own agreement with her closest friend, collected forty-five thousand dollars as a down payment, spent every dollar on her own debts, and let the friend’s family get evicted when the lender foreclosed. That was January 2022. Two months before Eric was dead. This episode goes charge by charge through the financial operation prosecutors say was running beneath the surface of Kouri Richins’ life — the prenuptial clause, the trust Eric secretly built to protect his sons, and the debt spiral that led to the night he didn’t wake up.