“Author of ‘Comforting and Reassuring’ Book on Grief Charged with Husband’s Aggravated Murder”

Kouri Richins was charged on Monday with aggravated murder. After the death of her husband, she had however started writing a book presented, in its advertising description, as “comforting and reassuring”.

An American, who had written a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband, has been charged with his murder. Kouri Richins had started writing her book Are You With Me? (“Are you with me?”, in French) in the months following the death of Eric Richins, found in their room in Utah, in the west of the country, in March 2022.

Kouri Richins, 33, told police that she made and brought a cocktail to her husband, who was in bed. Later, when she came back and touched him, he was “cold,” she said, according to local Fox 13.

Overdose de fentanyl

An autopsy had shown that he had died of an overdose of fentanyl, a particularly powerful synthetic opiate of which he had ingested five times the lethal dose.

Investigators had discovered that his wife had asked an acquaintance to provide him with strong painkillers, “stuff like Michael Jackson” – who had died of an overdose of Propofol, an anesthetic.

Kouri Richins had received up to 30 fentanyl pills. A few days later, Eric Richins “told a friend that he thought his wife was trying to poison him,” according to police documents seen by Fox 13.

Kouri Richins was charged on Monday with aggravated murder. Her book is presented, in its advertising description, as “comforting and reassuring”, “written by a loving mother who has been through this herself”.

Less than a year ago, another American novelist, author of the essay “How to Kill Her Husband”, was convicted of the murder of her husband. Nancy Crampton Brophy, who shot her husband twice in the heart in June 2018, is serving a life sentence.