The Case Against Kouri Richins

Episod

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  Why Did Kouri Richins Roll Her Eyes As Her Children Described Their Fear? 12.07.2026 53min

  Kouri Richins sat in a courtroom while her own children — all under fourteen — described locked doors, threats against their pets, and a mother they no longer call "mom." Every one of them asked the judge to put her away forever. And Kouri rolled her eyes. This look back, with psychotherapist Shavaun Scott, sits with what those reactions revealed.The judge had asked for no outward reactions. She couldn't hold it for four minutes. As Eric's sister Amy described having urged her brother to leave the marriage, Kouri mouthed "what?" to her lawyers and made faces. As her own family stood to call her a good person, the tears came — reserved, it seemed, entirely for herself. Scott reads each reaction: what the contempt means, what the eye-rolling reveals, and what it tells us when a mother's response to her children's fear looks indistinguishable from her response to a minor annoyance.Then the boys' words, read by their counselors. The youngest said hearing her name makes him feel "hateful and ashamed." The oldest, just nine when his father died, wants her locked away because he's afraid she'll come for them. The middle son, prosecutors said, was a material witness whose account of that night contradicted hers. And through all of it, the woman convicted of poisoning their father looked annoyed. We revisit where the case stood at the time of our reporting, with Scott's analysis framed as professional insight into behavior rather than a clinical diagnosis. This is what it looks like when someone reveals themselves without saying a word.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #ShavaunScott #RichinsSentencing #VictimImpact #UtahMurder #TrueCrime #BehavioralAnalysis #ParkCity #TheRichinsCase
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  What Did Kouri Richins' Own Sons Ask The Judge To Do? 08.07.2026 49min

  The most devastating voices at the Kouri Richins sentencing weren't the lawyers. They were her children. This look back sits with the hearing where three boys, through their therapists, told a Park City courtroom what life with their mother had actually been like — and what they needed to happen now.They described fear. Locked rooms. A home where they had to take care of each other because the person who was supposed to wasn't. The older boys said they feared for their safety if she were ever released; a younger son indicated he'd finally feel safe and happy with her in prison. And as those words were read, Kouri was seen rolling her eyes and making faces. Then her own family rose to call her devoted and innocent, and the tears came — reserved, it seemed, for her own suffering. That contrast became the defining image of the hearing.On what would have been Eric Richins' forty-fourth birthday, Judge Richard Mrazik sentenced her to life without parole. She spoke for more than half an hour, telling her sons to "be like your dad" — the father she was convicted of taking from them — insisting their memory of what happened was wrong, and asking them not to give up on her. She never acknowledged a single thing they'd described. We revisit where the case stood at the time of our reporting. The clearest verdict in that room may not have been the judge's at all — it was three children asking to be kept safe from their own mother.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #RichinsSentencing #EricRichins #LifeWithoutParole #UtahMurder #TrueCrime #ParkCity #VictimImpact #TheRichinsCase #HiddenKillers
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  What Did Kouri Richins Say After Her Sons Begged To Be Kept Safe? 08.07.2026 1j 17min

  Kouri Richins' children asked a judge to keep her locked away forever. Minutes later, she stood up and told them she's coming home. This look back sits with both — the words three boys wrote, and the response their mother gave.Their statements, read by therapists because the boys still can't face her, described a childhood most people can't imagine: locked bedroom doors, a mother they said was drunk almost daily, threats made against their pets, an older brother quietly feeding and looking after a younger one because no adult would. They wrote about a father who'll never coach another game or teach them to drive. And every one of them asked the court for the same thing — keep her away, because they finally feel safe, and that safety disappears the moment she's free.Kouri's response didn't acknowledge a single thing they said. Not the locked doors. Not the threats. Instead she spoke for more than half an hour about herself — her marriage, her love story, her fight to come home — told the boys to "be like your dad," the man she was convicted of killing, hinted his death may not have been what prosecutors said, and promised children who are afraid of her that she'll be back. Reporting later surfaced a message she sent after the verdict, vowing to expose everyone involved and warning they'd "seen nothing yet." We revisit where the case stood at the time of our reporting. This is the hearing where the distance between what those children needed and what their mother offered them was laid completely bare.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #RichinsSentencing #UtahMurder #TrueCrime #VictimImpact #FentanylCase #CourtSpeech #TheRichinsCase #HiddenKillers
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  Why Couldn't Kouri Richins Stop Performing The Grieving Widow? 07.07.2026 25min

  After Eric Richins died, Kouri did something that still unsettles people: she put out a children's book about a father who dies and watches over his children, then went on morning television and performed the grieving widow for a national audience. Prosecutors said she killed him. This look back sits with that need to control the story — and pairs it with one of the eeriest parallels in true crime.Oregon novelist Nancy Crampton-Brophy took the same impulse to its furthest edge. Years before her husband Daniel was shot and killed at the culinary school where he taught, she published an essay titled "How to Murder Your Husband" — surveying methods, musing that a killing meant to free her shouldn't cost her jail time. The essay was kept out of her trial for being too old, and a jury convicted her of second-degree murder anyway. She'd owned the same model of gun used in the killing, driven her own minivan past the scene, and published her fascination with spousal murder under her real name.The throughline this segment draws is uncomfortable: the person who needs to be seen as clever, or sympathetic, or in control of the narrative often can't stay invisible. Kouri wrote herself as the grieving mother. Nancy wrote herself as the murder expert. Both stepped into spotlights that ultimately helped expose them. We revisit where the Richins case stood at the time of our reporting and treat both convictions as the legal findings they are — while sitting with the strange, recurring pull these cases share toward self-exposure.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #NancyCramptonBrophy #EricRichins #AreYouWithMe #TrueCrime #UtahMurder #NarrativeControl #WidowPerformance #MurderConviction #TheRichinsCase
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  What Comes Next For Kouri Richins After The Guilty Verdict? 06.07.2026 28min

  The jury wanted to find her not guilty. That's not spin — that's close to what the foreperson said. The panel came in sympathetic, hoping Kouri Richins was innocent, looking for a way out. They deliberated about three hours and couldn't find one. That may be the most telling detail of the entire case: eight people who didn't want to convict still came back unanimous. The evidence didn't just clear the legal bar — it defeated wishful thinking.So what happens now? This look back breaks down everything that comes next, starting with the appeal. Her attorneys have potential grounds: a denied venue change, multiple mistrial motions, evidentiary rulings throughout. But the trial judge was meticulous — when Kouri waived her right to testify and the defense rested without a single witness, he confirmed both decisions on the record, closing off appellate arguments before they could be raised. Former prosecutors call it an extraordinarily difficult appeal to win. Beyond it sits a separate case of more than two dozen pending financial felonies — mortgage fraud, money laundering, bad checks — that hasn't even gone to trial.And then the deeper question: what does a guilty verdict do to someone who built an identity around a false narrative? She published a children's grief book dedicated to the husband she was convicted of poisoning. Prosecutors say she wrote a six-page letter from jail that amounted to instructions for a relative's testimony — a claim she denied, calling the papers privileged. When the story needs protecting, the pattern is to construct something. A verdict may not stop that; it may just become the next chapter. We revisit where things stood at the time of our reporting. This is far from over.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #KouriRichinsVerdict #EricRichins #KouriRichinsAppeal #FentanylMurder #UtahMurder #TrueCrime #WhatHappensNext #GriefBookMurder #TheRichinsCase
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  Why Do Killers Like Kouri Richins Always Get Caught Eventually? 05.07.2026 38min

  Every long con depends on one thing: silence, forever. And forever turns out to be a very long time. This look back uses the Kouri Richins conviction as the starting point for a hard truth about these crimes — the people who build a life on a buried secret almost always watch it come apart, because the people who know never stay silent for good.Kouri's case proved it in real time. The friend. The boyfriend. The housekeeper. One by one, the people around her talked, and the story she'd constructed collapsed under their testimony. To understand why that's the rule and not the exception, this segment turns to one of the most chilling parallels in modern true crime: Denise Williams. Her husband, Mike, vanished on a December duck-hunting trip in 2000 — the official story was that he'd drowned and been taken by alligators. Denise collected more than a million dollars in life insurance, and years later married Mike's best friend, Brian Winchester, the man who would eventually admit he shot Mike and buried him miles from home. They raised Mike's daughter together and built a life on his grave.Mike's mother spent years being told she was paranoid, and kept fighting anyway. She was right. Winchester eventually cracked — his own survival mattered more than the secret — confessed, and led investigators to the body. Denise was convicted; her conspiracy conviction was upheld on appeal, and she remains imprisoned. We revisit where the Richins case stood at the time of our reporting and draw the line between the two: every long con requires permanent silence, and someone always, eventually, decides to talk.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #DeniseWilliams #MikeWilliams #BrianWinchester #LongCon #TrueCrime #UtahMurder #LakeSeminole #TheRichinsCase
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  How Did Kouri Richins Target A Man Who Had It All Together? 04.07.2026 38min

  Everyone assumes the people who end up with a dangerous partner are vulnerable or naive. The Kouri Richins case tells a different story — and this look back sits with the harder, more unsettling version of it. Eric Richins was capable, successful, and by all accounts a man with his life together. According to prosecutors, that's exactly what made him a target.Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott, who has spent more than thirty years working with both survivors and perpetrators of intimate partner violence, joins to break down the opening playbook of someone operating with narcissistic or borderline traits — and why the people who seem least likely to fall for it often do. What love bombing actually feels like from the inside. How the earliest stages of a relationship like this are engineered to slip past your defenses. Why moving fast, building intense dependency, and rushing major milestones aren't signs of passion but mechanisms of control.Using this case as a real-world framework, Scott traces the targeting, the mirroring, the performance, and the moment the mask first starts to crack. We revisit where the case stood at the time of our reporting and keep the focus on the human pattern underneath the headlines — framed as professional insight into behavior, not a diagnosis of any one person. If you've ever watched a true crime case and wondered how someone didn't see it coming — or lived something like it yourself — this conversation is built for you.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #NarcissisticAbuse #LoveBombing #IntimatePartnerViolence #ShavaunScott #TrueCrime #UtahMurder #ToxicRelationships #TheRichinsCase
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  What Did Eric Richins Quietly Do When He Found Out About Kouri? 03.07.2026 1j

  The defense wanted the jury to picture Kouri Richins as a wife trapped by a controlling husband. The paper trail in this case points somewhere else entirely — and this look back walks through what the record reveals, and the quiet, devastating thing Eric did when he discovered it.According to charging documents, court records, and forensic accounting testimony, the financial picture was staggering: a $250,000 line of credit secretly taken out on Eric's premarital home using a power of attorney, money funneled into a real estate business that ballooned to roughly $7.5 million in debt, falsified records used to chase loans, $45,000 taken from a friend who was later evicted, and a lawsuit from buyers who say they were sold a mold-contaminated home. By the time Eric died, the walls were closing in financially.And Eric's response wasn't rage. It was a quiet visit to an estate-planning attorney, where — per the indictment — he cited "recently discovered and ongoing abuse and misuse of finances," then restructured his estate to protect his three children and place his assets beyond his wife's reach. He stayed in the marriage. He said nothing publicly. According to prosecutors, about a year and a half later, he was dead. This segment is Tony's take on what the documented record actually shows, with every figure tied to its source — and the unsettling pattern it traces. We revisit where the case stood at the time of our reporting.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #FinancialFraud #UtahMurder #TrueCrime #CourtRecords #TheRichinsCase #ForensicAccounting #TrueCrimeCommentary #HiddenKillers
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  What Did Eric Richins Tell People About Kouri Before He Died? 02.07.2026 48min

  Eighteen days before he died, Eric Richins reportedly told more than one person he believed his wife was trying to poison him. He was right. This look back at the Kouri Richins case stays close to that devastating fact — a man who saw it coming, said so out loud, and died anyway.Kouri Richins was convicted of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, forgery, and insurance fraud after a jury deliberated only about three hours. The story underneath the verdict is almost unbearable in its details: an earlier Valentine's Day attempt that failed, a reported text from her boyfriend that he'd blacked out after taking something she gave him, a cocktail carrying roughly five times a lethal dose of fentanyl, millions in debt, a forged insurance application — and the children's grief book she published after Eric was gone. We revisit where the case stood at the time of our reporting.This segment is for everyone who can't stop thinking about the warning that went unheeded. Eric named what was happening to him before it killed him. His family kept fighting for the truth long after — a private investigator they hired even became part of the prosecution's case. More than forty witnesses, no defense witnesses, five guilty verdicts, and a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Kouri Richins has maintained her innocence and vowed to appeal. This is the human center of a case that still leaves people cold: how someone can say "I think she's poisoning me" — and still not be saved.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #FentanylMurder #UtahMurder #GriefAuthorMurder #TrueCrime #MurderConviction #TheRichinsCase #KouriRichinsGuilty #HiddenKillers
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  Why Did Eric Richins Tell His Family "If Anything Happens To Me, It's Kouri Richins"? 13.06.2026 40min

  Eric Richins told his family. He called his sister Katie from overseas years before his death and said Kouri Richins had tried to harm him. He consulted a divorce attorney. He rewrote his will. He restructured his estate so his three sons would be protected. He told the people closest to him that if anything happened to him, Kouri was responsible. And he went home every night.Katie testified at sentencing that Eric stayed because he was terrified of what would happen to his boys if Kouri got equal custody. He believed he was the only thing standing between her and them. A father who saw the danger clearly and decided that being inside it was safer for his children than leaving them alone with it.Valentine's Day 2022 showed how he held it together. He called two friends the same afternoon. One heard a joke about an allergic reaction — they were laughing. The other heard fear. Eric told him straight: he believed Kouri was trying to poison him. Same event. Two realities. He wasn't in denial. He was living in both versions at once because that was the only way to keep functioning inside something he hadn't escaped yet.His children's statements at sentencing revealed what the household looked like from the inside. Locked rooms. A brother sneaking food to a sibling. Animals dying because nobody cared. Children who called her "Kouri," not Mom. Every one of them asked the judge for the same thing: keep her away forever. What Eric was trying to protect and what was already happening under the same roof — the gap between those two things is devastating.Then Kouri got her forty-five minutes. She rolled her eyes during their words. She sobbed when her family praised her. She told her sons the verdict was an "absolute lie." She admitted the affair. She called the marriage a love that "never failed." And she told three frightened boys: "Never apologize for something you didn't do." Eric died trying to shield those children. Kouri used the podium to plant something in their minds designed to grow for decades. That's the final act of a psychology that cannot concede — aimed at the only audience she thinks she can still reach.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #FentanylPoisoning #Psychology #HumanShield #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #ParkCityUtah #SummitCounty #JusticeForEric
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  Why Did Eric Richins Stay With Kouri Richins When He Knew She’d Kill Him? 11.06.2026 23min

  Eric Richins wasn’t the only person living inside the world Kouri Richins built. His friends were in it. His family was in it. The systems that might have intervened were in it. Everyone around the Richins marriage was processing a situation so far outside the template of ordinary life that nobody had the framework for what they were seeing.When Eric told a friend about the Valentine’s Day sandwich incident, the friend heard a funny story about an allergic reaction. When he told another friend the same thing that same afternoon, that friend heard genuine fear. The defense attorney told 48 Hours the couple were at the best place they had ever been in their marriage. Eric’s family knew the truth, begged him to leave, and couldn’t physically remove a grown man from his own home when he said no. The family court system doesn’t have a category for someone whose spouse hasn’t yet succeeded at the thing you’re afraid they’ll do.That’s the world Kouri built — not just a home where danger lived, but a reality where danger stopped looking like danger to the people close enough to see it. Eric saw it clearly. He told his sisters. He told friends. He changed his will and restructured his estate in secret. He told family members Kouri would kill him for money. And the world around him kept offering ordinary explanations for extraordinary things. An allergic reaction. A rocky marriage. A wife who seemed happy.This episode examines how that normalization radiates outward from the center of a dangerous relationship, trapping not just the person inside it but everyone around them. It looks at why Eric’s preparations protected everything except the person who made them. And it asks the question the audience will sit with long after: what do we do about a world where staying looked like the safer option?Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #TrueCrimePodcast #ParkCity #UtahCrime #FentanylPoisoning #TrueCrimeCommunity #JusticeForEric
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  Why Did Kouri Richins Call A Scripted Testimony Letter A Novel About A Mexican Prison? 07.06.2026 32min

  Deputies found it during a medical episode. A six-page letter inside an LSAT prep book in Kouri Richins' jail cell. The letter scripted her brother's testimony. When they confronted her, she didn't deny writing it. She said it was part of a fictional novel about a Mexican prison.That answer is Kouri Richins in one sentence. Every threat produces a story. Not a planned lie — a reflex. Something that fires automatically under pressure before her brain decides to fire it. Every call was recorded. Every letter was monitored. She was facing life in prison. And she still couldn't stop. Her first attorney withdrew citing ethical issues. She told an admirer from jail she'd "expose this county, the prosecution, the judge, the Richins." She turned Eric's grieving family into jealous competitors in her version of events. Each new threat produced a bigger story. The stories kept making everything worse. She kept producing them.Then her attorneys told her to stop. Zero witnesses. No defense case. Three weeks of a murder trial where Kouri Richins said nothing while the prosecution's witnesses tore her apart. Her housekeeper described the fentanyl transaction. Her boyfriend broke down crying on the stand. A forensic accountant proved her success was a lie — approximately $4.5 million in debt underneath the image she'd built.For a woman who runs on narrative production, being ordered to say nothing isn't strategy. It's suffocation. The stillness the jury saw wasn't composure. It was a system in overload — a brain that doesn't have a setting for accepting reality without first rewriting it, forced into silence while reality was being read into the record one witness at a time. Every piece of testimony should have triggered the reflex. The reflex had nowhere to go. What looked like calm was collapse.The jury convicted on every count in under three hours. The speed told Kouri something nobody in her life had ever communicated: she wasn't even a hard question.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #FentanylPoisoning #Psychology #NarrativeControl #WitnessIntimidation #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #ParkCityUtah #JusticeForEric
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  How Did Kouri Richins Write A Grief Book While She Was The Reason Her Kids Were Grieving? 06.06.2026 37min

  She wrote a children's book about grief. Went on TV to promote it. Talked about helping her boys cope with their dad's "unexpected" death. Hugged them on camera. Cried in interviews. Fourteen months of a woman the world believed was a grieving mother. Every friend who testified at trial said they never doubted her. The whole time, she was the reason those children had no father.The question isn't how she faked it. The question is whether she was faking at all. The psychology behind Kouri Richins doesn't perform lies — it migrates into them. Moves in. Furnishes the new reality. Lives there. In the room where she's a grieving mother writing a book, the grief is real to her. The room where she put fentanyl in a Moscow Mule exists somewhere else in her mind. She's not visiting it. That's not acting. That's compartmentalization so deep the person living inside it doesn't experience it as deception. And that's what made her convincing — to her friends, to television audiences, to everyone — for over a year.The 911 call. The party the next day. Google searches for luxury prisons and insurance timelines. The TV tour. All of it makes sense once you understand the wiring.Before the cover-up came the crime. Valentine's Day. Eric survived. He gasped for air. He reached for his son's EpiPen. He told friends his wife was trying to end his life. For the next seventeen days, Kouri slept in the same bed, parented the same kids, closed the same deals — and built a second plan with five times the dose. She didn't panic after the first attempt. She refined. Approximately $4.5 million in debt. An affair that was a rehearsal for the next chapter. Insurance policies Eric didn't know about. The moment her husband stopped being a person and became a math problem.Not a rehash. A breakdown of how a mind justifies every step — from Valentine's Day to the Moscow Mule to the children's book tour — without ever believing it crossed a line.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #FentanylPoisoning #Psychology #MoscowMule #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #ParkCityUtah #SummitCounty #JusticeForEric
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  Kouri Richins Told Her Sons to 'Never Apologize' — What Did She Mean? 05.06.2026 17min

  The eye rolls came during the pain. Her children's statements. Eric's family's grief. The therapists describing what those boys endured. Kouri rolled her eyes, smirked, and mouthed objections through all of it.The tears came during the praise. Her mother. Her sister. Her brother. Telling her she was innocent. Telling her she was the center of the family. Then the sobbing started. Visible. Uncontrolled. The first real emotion of the day.That tells you everything you need to know about what happened next — forty-five minutes at the podium, aimed at three boys who'd asked the judge for life without parole. "Never apologize for something you didn't do." Not comfort. Not a goodbye. An instruction. A seed. A recruitment pitch from a mind that can't stop producing narrative, even when the narrative's only remaining audience is three frightened children.The final episode in a five-part series. The broken brain on full display. And three boys who deserve to be free of it.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #KouriRichinsTrial #Psychology #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #FentanylPoisoning #SummitCounty #TrueCrimeCommunity #Justice
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  A Juror Felt Sorry for Kouri Richins — Until the Evidence Started 04.06.2026 17min

  "At first, I was thinking that Kouri was definitely feeling trapped." That was a juror's first impression. By the verdict: "Like a statue." What happened in between is the subject of this episode.Three weeks of prosecution witnesses dismantling Kouri Richins' constructed identity while she sat in mandated silence. The defense called nobody. She didn't testify. The woman who has produced stories under every kind of pressure — from jail cells, on recorded lines, in hidden letters — was told to stop. And what emerged wasn't composure. It was psychological shutdown.The housekeeper. The boyfriend. The forensic accountant. The Google searches projected on a screen. Each one a sealed compartment being opened for public inspection. Each one a piece of the person she'd built herself into being taken apart. And a three-hour verdict that told her the narrative she'd constructed for four years wasn't even a close call. Part four of five.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #KouriRichinsTrial #Psychology #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #FentanylPoisoning #SummitCounty #TrueCrimeCommunity #Justice
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  Why Couldn't Kouri Richins Stop — Even With Every Call Recorded? 03.06.2026 14min

  From a jail cell. On recorded lines. Through smuggled letters hidden in LSAT prep books. Through phone calls where she read other inmates' mail to her mother. Through video calls where she held up documents for her mother to photograph. Every rule broken. Every consequence ignored. And when caught, not silence — another story. A fictional novel. About a Mexican prison.The question this episode answers is why. Why couldn't Kouri Richins stop managing the narrative even when every attempt to manage it made her legal situation worse? The answer isn't recklessness and it isn't stupidity. It's a reflex — a story-generating mechanism that fires automatically under threat, overriding risk assessment, self-preservation, and rational calculation.Part three of five in a deep dive into the psychology behind Kouri Richins' decision-making. The "Walk the Dog" letter. The fictional novel defense. The fired attorneys. The escalating narratives. And a machine that can't be shut down because shutting it down means facing what's underneath.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #KouriRichinsTrial #Psychology #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #FentanylPoisoning #SummitCounty #TrueCrimeCommunity #Justice
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  How Did Kouri Richins Write a Grief Book and Mean Every Word? 02.06.2026 16min

  For fourteen months, Kouri Richins walked through a community as a grieving widow. She closed deals. She socialized. She published a children's book and went on television. Friends testified at trial that she seemed like a good mother dealing with a terrible loss. Nobody saw through it.The reason nobody saw through it is the subject of this episode — and it's more disturbing than you'd expect. Because Kouri wasn't suppressing tells or fighting micro-expressions. In the psychological compartment she occupied during those fourteen months, she WAS a grieving mother. The compartment where she put fentanyl in Eric's drink was sealed. She wasn't visiting it. And the sincerity that comes from genuinely inhabiting a constructed identity is what makes this kind of psychology undetectable to the people closest to it.Part two of a five-part series breaking down the decision-making of a broken brain. The 911 call. The searches. The book. The television appearance. And the question nobody finds a satisfying answer to: did she believe her own story?Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #KouriRichinsTrial #Psychology #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #FentanylPoisoning #SummitCounty #TrueCrimeCommunity #Justice
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  How Did Kouri Richins Function for 17 Days After What She Did on Valentine's Day? 01.06.2026 20min

  The Valentine's Day attempt failed. Eric survived. And over the next seventeen days, something happened inside Kouri Richins' psychology that separates this case from almost any other.She didn't stop. She didn't panic. She didn't wonder if she'd been caught. She spent those seventeen days acquiring more fentanyl, adjusting her method, and planning a second attempt with five times the lethal dose. The failure didn't produce guilt. It produced a better plan.This is the first installment of a five-part psychological breakdown of Kouri Richins — from the years before Eric's death through the 45-minute sentencing speech that revealed who she still believes she is. Every episode examines the broken decision-making process behind a different phase of the case. This one starts with the foundation: how a $4.5 million debt, a Park City identity crisis, an affair that doubled as a life rehearsal, and a prenup that made divorce worthless created the conditions for a mind to justify the unjustifiable.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #KouriRichinsTrial #Psychology #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #FentanylPoisoning #SummitCounty #TrueCrimeCommunity #Justice
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  Why Was Kouri Richins Worth More To Herself With Eric Dead? 31.05.2026 42min

  Kouri Richins owed $7.5 million. Her forensic accountant used one word: imploding. Two hundred thirty-six bounced checks. Fifteen failed renovation projects. A house-flipping business hemorrhaging cash. Eric was quietly meeting with divorce attorneys, removing Kouri from his will, cutting her from his life insurance, and building a trust she didn't know about to protect their three sons. Her prenup made murder the only exit that paid.She secretly purchased $1.9 million in life insurance on Eric's life without his knowledge. She texted her housekeeper about "the Michael Jackson stuff." She was texting Robert Josh Grossmann about marriage while still married to Eric — asking if he'd marry her "tomorrow." Prosecutors laid out an alleged escalation: a poisoning attempt in Greece, a fentanyl-laced sandwich on Valentine's Day that left Eric gasping for air and reaching for his son's EpiPen, and a final dose in a cocktail two weeks later — five times lethal. Eric told friends he believed his wife was trying to end his life. He was right.The criminal investigation stalled by fall 2022. Deputy Jayme Woody acknowledged it on the stand. But the Richins family had already hired Todd Gabler — a 34-year defense investigator who'd never worked the prosecution's side — on a civil matter. What Gabler found in the phone records made staying on the civil side impossible. He identified the woman prosecutors say sourced the fentanyl before law enforcement did. He searched the Richins home for days after police released the scene, documented everything with body cameras, and found things the initial search missed. Nearly 50 interviews. Multiple vehicles tracked. A body of evidence that broke open an investigation that had gone cold.A jury convicted Kouri on every count in under three hours. The judge sentenced her to life without parole. This is the full story — from the financial implosion to the Moscow Mule — told for the first time with the investigator who was inside it before anyone was charged.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #ToddGabler #FentanylPoisoning #HiddenKill
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  Why Was Kouri Richins Worth More To Herself With Eric Dead? 30.05.2026 56min

  Kouri Richins owed $7.5 million. Her forensic accountant used one word: imploding. Two hundred thirty-six bounced checks. Fifteen failed renovation projects. A house-flipping business hemorrhaging cash. Eric was quietly meeting with divorce attorneys, removing Kouri from his will, cutting her from his life insurance, and building a trust she didn't know about to protect their three sons. Her prenup made murder the only exit that paid.She secretly purchased $1.9 million in life insurance on Eric's life without his knowledge. She texted her housekeeper about "the Michael Jackson stuff." She was texting Robert Josh Grossmann about marriage while still married to Eric — asking if he'd marry her "tomorrow." Prosecutors laid out an alleged escalation: a poisoning attempt in Greece, a fentanyl-laced sandwich on Valentine's Day that left Eric gasping for air and reaching for his son's EpiPen, and a final dose in a cocktail two weeks later — five times lethal. Eric told friends he believed his wife was trying to end his life. He was right.The criminal investigation stalled by fall 2022. Deputy Jayme Woody acknowledged it on the stand. But the Richins family had already hired Todd Gabler — a 34-year defense investigator who'd never worked the prosecution's side — on a civil matter. What Gabler found in the phone records made staying on the civil side impossible. He identified the woman prosecutors say sourced the fentanyl before law enforcement did. He searched the Richins home for days after police released the scene, documented everything with body cameras, and found things the initial search missed. Nearly 50 interviews. Multiple vehicles tracked. A body of evidence that broke open an investigation that had gone cold.A jury convicted Kouri on every count in under three hours. The judge sentenced her to life without parole. This is the full story — from the financial implosion to the Moscow Mule — told for the first time with the investigator who was inside it before anyone was charged.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #EricRichins #ToddGabler #FentanylPoisoning #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #ParkCityUtah #MoscowMule #InsuranceFraud #JusticeForEric