Utah mom accused of killing husband before writing children’s book about grief tried changing his life insurance policy

According to Fox 13 Salt Lake City, 33-year-old Kouri Richins attempted to remove her 39-year-old husband Eric's sister from his life insurance policy, and make herself the sole benficiary before he died in March 2022.

The insurance firm alerted Eric about his wife's attempt to remove his sister as the beneficiary and he was able to thwart that request, deciding to completely remove his wife from his will without telling her, KUTV reports.

Tensions have increased within the family following Eric's death, and it has been alleged that Richins assaulted her sister-in-law at a party she hosted just one day after her husband's death. According to previous reports, Kouri had been "drinking and celebrating” during the event.

Both immediate and extended families have been battling it out in court over Eric's $3.6 million estate, FOX 13 reports.

According to warrant documents, Eric's sister, who is named as the beneficiary, told police that Kouri had allegedly attempted to poison Eric in the past which prompted him to tell his family that "if anything happened to him she was to blame."

Kouri Richins was arrested on Monday under suspicion of fatally poisoning her husband Eric Richins last year in Kamas, Utah.

A medical examiner said that they discovered five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in Eric's system when he died on March 4, 2022. Fentanyl is a painkiller that is approximately 100 times stronger than morphine.

Kouri claimed that she had prepared her husband a Moscow Mule and gave him a gummy with THC in it as a way to celebrate him making a sale for their real estate business. However, she claims that she left him alone to go check on one of her three sons, and when she returned to the bedroom at 3 am, her husband was allegedly “cold to the touch."

After her husband's untimely death, Kouri wrote "Are You With Me?" The book sought to aid children in the grieving process of a loved one. Now, authorities have suggested that she caused her own children grief by fatally poisoned her husband.

Richins has been charged with first-degree aggravated murder and multiple counts of second-degree possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, New York Post reports. She is set to appear in court on May 19.