A word of warning, this podcast explores graphic and disturbing stories and includes some strong language. It therefore may not be suitable for our young listeners or other folks who may find it disturbing.
Hello and welcome to True Crime News, the podcast covering high-profile and under the radar cases from across the country every week.
“I’m your host, Anna Garcia, and our case this week, a mother who wrote a children’s book about grief following her husband’s sudden death, has now been convicted of killing him. The father of her three children, the ones she wrote the book for. It is a diabolical full circle like nothing I have ever seen. The father is dead, the mother likely behind bars for the rest of her life. What book is she going to write now to help these children cope with this trauma?”
“We are recording this on Friday, March 20th of 2026. Our guest today is Dr. Judy Ho, a clinical and forensic psychologist, author of several books, and a dear friend of the show. And Judy, if we’ve ever needed you, we need you today for this case.”
“Oh my gosh, I can’t even. As we were just saying right now before we hit record, it’s an unbelievable case and just the level of deception, right? And how much she’s able to compartmentalize by writing this book and seeming like this grieving widow when clearly that’s not the case.”
“Judy, what really troubles me here is well obviously a life has been taken, but I am worried about these three boys because she co-opted them to help write this book. At least that’s what she said. She said that when the father passed that there were no books available that she thought were suitable for her boys and that they were having the hardest time at night. Of course, that’s when the father died in bed at night when he went to bed. So, Judy, the kids are part of this, right?”
“Yes.”
“And now they find out that their mother has been convicted of killing their father. How in the world do you undo this damage?”
“Well, it’s going to be a very long process and I don’t think that this is something that the kids will ever be able to fully resolve even as adults. This is going to be a trauma that stays with them. It’s really just about how much they can process and heal and learn coping strategies. But I mean, how do you erase that from your history, right? You can’t. So, you have one parent that’s left. This was the parent you’re clinging to because it’s the living parent. And now you realize the living parent is responsible for your other parent’s death. So it essentially probably feels like for kids who have been through this — and sadly Anna, as you know, this is not the only family that’s been through something of this nature — they feel orphaned truly. Like, ‘Well now I have no parent really because one parent is the murderer and the other one’s no longer here.’”
“And that’s true. We sadly have seen this before, but I have never seen a case where the children, these little boys, become part of the process. They experience their grief through the writing of a book with illustrations where the dad looks like their dad except with wings on.”
“I mean, I get the whole thing makes me ill, but there’s something about their process of doing that with their mother unless maybe it’s entirely possible you think that was therapeutic in a weird way?”
“Right. I mean, I think it probably was in the process, but now their memories of that and their grief processing essentially has been robbed, right? That healing experience has been tarnished now. So that’s really hard. I feel like for the kids it’s sort of like, ‘What’s real and what’s not?’ It probably is very, very challenging for them to know who to trust going forward when someone says something, when somebody seems like they’re doing something in good faith. They’re probably questioning that now. ‘Well, is this something to be believed or am I going to get another curveball later on?’ I think that’s going to be the question that’s probably going to be in these kids’ minds.”
“Oh my gosh, I’ve just never seen anything like it.”
“Well, a jury in Park City, Utah, took just three hours to convict a mother of three of killing her husband with a drink that was spiked with fentanyl. Why? Because she was millions of dollars in debt. Her house flipping business was a flop, and she was having an affair.”
“Thirty-five-year-old Kouri Richins has been found guilty of murdering her husband, Eric Richins, who was only 39. He died on March 4th of 2022 of a fentanyl overdose. She was convicted of aggravated murder, attempted murder for trying to kill her husband with a poison sandwich on Valentine’s Day — nothing says ‘I love you’ like that — plus she also is convicted of mortgage fraud and forgery.”
“It took investigators almost a year to build this case against her. And at the time, while they’re investigating, she’s grieving supposedly helping her children. That’s when she writes this book that I’m so upset about. And it’s called Are You With Me? The illustrations look like dad with wings on and his trucker hat because he had a masonry business. She went on television to promote this book.”
“You know, we always want to know what’s going on in the jury room, right? So ABC News interviewed one of the jurors after the verdict, and she shared — Judy, this is amazing — she said that when the jurors heard the testimony about the book part, because remember, we may know a lot about a case, right? But jurors are not supposed to. So for them, when they walk in and they sit there, everything should be presented to them mostly fresh. Maybe they heard a little something here or there. So she said it was so unsettling when the jurors heard the testimony about the book. It changed everything. It didn’t change the facts. It didn’t change the evidence, but what it did was it made the killer look that much more scary.”
“Right. Absolutely. And I think again when you think about this element of pre-planning, premeditation, deception, involving children in the deception, even doing essentially a media tour about this book and the journey of grief and how she has tried to overcome and develop resilience despite this tragedy — this is not someone that is painting a picture of a trustworthy individual.”
“And I’m not sure if I mentioned this to you in an earlier time when we’ve gotten together, Anna, but juries are very unforgiving of female defendants who are known or suspected of, for example, using deception that might be related to their looks, to what they look like on the outside, their presentation. Generally, juries do not look kindly on that in terms of their decision-making.”
“And I think it’s because, putting myself in the mind of the jury members, you see that this person is essentially using something that is sort of like a God-given gift. Like, it’s nice if you’re an attractive person. It’s nice if people perceive you to be a nice and kind person. And you’re using that to pull the wool over other people’s heads. People get upset about that.”
“That essentially you’re using a blessing, a gift that you have, whether it’s physical attractiveness or just this sense of propriety — that this person is a well-liked, kind individual in the community — and they realize that behind that is just a web of lies.”
“I’ve seen juries physically react to testimony that really hits at the heart of what’s happening with children.”
“For example, there was a case once out of Florida and the grandmother in the case was telling the jury how the accused, who had been convicted as part of a conspiracy to kill her son, threatened the grandmother and basically said, ‘Look, if you pursue this and try and pursue what happened to my husband, I will withhold your granddaughter from you.’ I saw the jury physically fidget, change in their seat, sigh, get physically upset.”
“And whether you are a man or a woman, whether you are a parent or not, when you hear that in the totality of a case — that there are threats to withhold or use the children as pawns — in this case, their grief process. And according to prosecutors, they said in this case that because Kouri got into a fight with Eric’s family over the estate because apparently he was on to her and he had pretty much cut her out, but she didn’t know it, she threatened his family allegedly to withhold access to the boys.”
“I’m telling you, jurors are human beings. When they hear and they see things like this, that may not be a fact of a crime or an alleged crime or evidence, but it goes to the person when you ask yourself, ‘Did this person do it? Could they have done it?’”
“Right. Exactly. And I think that’s the tough part, right? Juries, they have certain instructions in terms of what to consider, how to weigh the evidence when it’s a criminal case. It has to be beyond a reasonable doubt. But like you said, juries are made up of human beings like us. We all have feelings. We all have our preconceived notions. We also have our emotional responses when we hear something.”
“And I feel like as much as you want to instruct a jury, for half of the jury members probably they’re not thinking so much about that, but they’re just thinking about the feeling of who was hurt, who was harmed. And of course they’re thinking about the evidence, but also they are making decisions based on their feelings in part because humans are emotional beings.”
“Who do you believe?”
“Right. And is there enough evidence for this initial belief of yours? Does the evidence support this belief or not? And that’s what happens in the jury room. And they argue back and forth.”
“This one was not an argument. It was very interesting.”
“That was a quick one.”
“Yeah, it really was.”
“So, we originally covered this case when Kouri was arrested, but since the trial just ended, so much more has been revealed. And we had a lot when we first reported this case. I mean, it was shocking and now there’s even more.”
“There have been so many dramatic twists here, including her former lover taking the stand. Now, the big shocker for me honestly as I was watching this case is what the defense did not do.”
“Oh my goodness.”
“So, the prosecution rests its case. It’s pretty strong evidence that they’ve presented, right? And then when the judge turns to the defense attorneys, the two attorneys representing Kouri, saying, ‘Are you ready to go?’ One attorney says, ‘Yes. Just one second, your honor.’”
“As you’re watching this live, the two women are talking back and forth. They’re covering their microphone. They’re whispering. So everyone thinks they’re just discussing who they’re going to call as their first witness.”
“And all of a sudden, the defense attorney says, ‘Your honor, we rest.’”
“They never put on a defense.”
“Oh my goodness. That is very rare.”
“Very rare. Very rare. I mean, interesting to not even put on a fight, right?”
“What does that tell you?”
“Sometimes I have seen this — it’s very rare — because the prosecution’s case is honestly so weak that it is so obviously weak. But in this case that wasn’t it at all.”
“Now they did, I will say this, that the defense attorneys on cross-examination did go after all the prosecution’s witnesses. But that’s still not a defense. So they stop. That’s it. The case is over and they move on to closing statements. Man, that was shocking.”
“Very shocking. Again, almost unprecedented. I’ve not heard of that before.”
“Yeah, I still don’t know why.”
