An eerie 911 call was played to jurors trying a cheating ‘grief author’ accused of killing her husband with a fentanyl-spiked Moscow Mule that recorded her sobs as she told the operator her spouse was lying ‘cold’ and motionless in their bed.
Kouri Ritchins, 35, is accused of the March 2022 murder of her husband Eric who was 39 when he was found dead at their home in Kamas, Utah .
After years of legal wrangling, the case finally got underway in Park City, Utah on Monday morning.
Prosecutors told the jury Ritchins had been in an unhappy marriage and was having an affair with an Iraq war veteran called Robert Josh Grossmann at the time of her husband’s death.
But the defense, which opened their statement with the 911 call, said that while the marriage had its ups and downs, there was no evidence whatsoever that Ritchins provided her husband with the fentanyl that killed him.
Ritchins herself sat silently throughout the opening arguments, occasionally shifting from side to side as the prosecution laid out their case.
Dressed in a white blouse and black blazer and with her hair scraped back in a bun, she looked down at the table as the call was played while her attorney Kathryn Nester described it as the moment ‘a wife became a widow’.
A few months before her arrest in May 2023, Richins self-published a children’s book “Are You with Me?” about a father with angel wings watching over his son after dying.
Kouri Richins is pictured Monday as she stood trial for the 2022 murder of her husband Eric
Richins is pictured with her late husband Eric. She cheated on him and allegedly took out $2 million in life insurance policies behind his back
The tome, which Richins promoted on a local TV station, could be used by prosecutors to suggest she plotted the murder of Eric and went to great lengths to cover it up.
Richins took out $2 million in life insurance policies on her husband without his knowledge before his death, prosecutors say.
She is said to have been $1.8 million in debt at the time of his passing. Richins and Eric were building an enormous $2 million mansion on 10 acres of land at the time of his death.
Veteran defense attorney Nester is no stranger to a high-profile case and is also on the defense team for Tyler Robinson – the man accused of murdering Charlie Kirk.
Meanwhile, the Park City Justice Court has seen its own share of high-profile trials and was the venue for the civil case against Gwyneth Paltrow in which the A-list star ultimately prevailed over a man who claimed she had seriously injured him in a ski accident.
The Ritchens case has been wending its way through court for several years, with the mom-of-three arrested in May 2023 and charged with aggravated first-degree murder as well as attempted murder.
Dressed in a neat charcoal suit with a light-gray patterned tie, prosecutor Brad Bloodworth said Ritchens had killed her husband for financial gain and to escape an unhappy marriage.
He also claimed she had been too overwhelmed with guilt to face her sons and Eric’s father on the day he died and repeatedly googled how to scrub clean an iPhone remotely.
Richins was cheating with Joshua Grossman, pictured, at the time of Eric’s death
A few months before her arrest in May 2023, Richins self-published a children’s book “Are You with Me?” about a father with angel wings watching over his son after dying
Richins and Eric were building an enormous $2 million mansion on 10 acres of land at the time of his death
She is also said to have searched whether police can force you to take a polygraph test.
Texts between Grossmann and Ritchins were also brought up, with the mom-of-three telling her lover that she missed him and wanted a divorce in one.
Another saw the pair discuss a luxury all-inclusive trip she had booked for herself and her new man in St Marten in the Caribbean – scheduled for a month after Eric’s death.
Nester, meanwhile, said that while Ritchins had purchased street drugs via a housekeeper, the purchase had been for oxycodone and not fentanyl/ court she.
Nester told the court she did it with Eric’s knowledge and to help him with pain caused by a Lyme Disease diagnosis.
She also said that Eric had been in Mexico two weeks before his death, asking the court: ‘And where does fentanyl come into this country from? Mexico.’
The case is now continuing with the examination of witnesses, starting with Eric’s grieving father Eugene. Grossmann is also scheduled to appear.