Park City, Utah – A Murder trial A Utah mother of three who published a children’s book about grief after her husband’s death and was later charged with his murder is scheduled to begin Monday.
Corey Richins, 35, faces a slew of criminal charges for allegedly killing her husband, Eric Richins, with fentanyl in March 2022 at their home outside the Park City ski resort. Prosecutors say she slipped five times the lethal dose of synthetic opioids into the Moscow cocktail he was drinking.
She is also accused of trying to poison him a month ago on Valentine’s Day Sandwich laced with fentanyl This caused him to suffer from hives and lose consciousness, according to court documents.
Prosecutors argued that Richins killed her husband for financial gain while planning a future with another man she was seeing on the side. Richins has strongly denied the allegations.
She faces nearly three dozen charges, including first-degree murder, attempted murder, forgery, mortgage fraud, and insurance fraud. The penalty for murder alone is 25 years and life imprisonment.
Her defense attorneys, Wendy Lewis, Kathy Nester and Alex Ramos, said they were confident the 12-person jury would allow Richins to return to her children’s home after hearing her side of the story.
“Corrie has waited nearly three years for this moment: the opportunity to have the facts of this case heard by a jury, far from the prosecution narrative that has dominated headlines since her arrest,” her legal team said in a statement, adding that “what the public has been told bears little resemblance to the truth.”
In the months before her arrest in May 2023, Richins self-published the children’s book Are You With Me? About a father with angelic wings watching over his young son after his death. The book, which was promoted on a local television station, could play a key role for prosecutors in charging Eric Richins’ death as a calculated murder with an elaborate cover-up attempt.
Years before her husband’s death, Richins opened several life insurance policies for Eric Richins without his knowledge, with benefits totaling nearly $2 million, prosecutors allege. Court documents also state she has a negative bank account balance, owes lenders more than $1.8 million, and has been sued by a creditor.
Witnesses who could be called to testify throughout the trial include a housekeeper who claims to have sold fentanyl to Richins on three occasions and the man with whom Richins allegedly had an affair.
The state’s main witness, housekeeper Carmen Lauper, told an investigator that she sold Richins as many as 90 blue and green fentanyl pills that she obtained from a dealer. Lauber has not been charged with any crimes related to the case, and investigators said at a previous hearing that she had been granted immunity.
Defense attorneys are expected to argue that Lauber did not actually give Richins fentanyl and had a motive to lie for legal protection. Nothing was ever found in her home, and the dealer said he was in prison and detoxing from drug abuse when he told investigators in 2023 that he sold fentanyl to Lauber. He later said in a sworn affidavit that he only sold her the opioid OxyContin.
Other witnesses could include relatives of the defendant and her late husband, and friends of Eric Richins who recounted phone conversations from the day prosecutors say he was first poisoned by his wife nine years ago.
A friend said in written testimony that they noticed fear in Eric Richins’ voice when he called on Valentine’s Day and said, “I think my wife tried to poison me.”
The trial is scheduled to continue until March 26.