THE PLOT THICKENS

She wrote a book about grief after her husband’s death – now she’s accused of killing him

- SIPHOKAZI ZAMA

SO BRAVE is how people described her when she wrote a book about grief and coping with loss. She was just 33 when her 39-year-old husband died, leaving her with three kids aged between six and 10.

Kouri Richins was praised for Are You with Me?, the book she dedicated to her “amazing husband” Eric. The cover shows a little boy chasing a football, as an angel resembling Eric smiles at the boy from behind a cloud.

“My kids and I kind of wrote this book on the different emotions and grieving processes that we’ve experienced in the last year, hoping that it can help other kids with this and, you know, find happiness some way or another,” Kouri said then.

“I just wanted some story to read to my kids at night. I took some things that my kids have said to me and we kind of articulated it and put it in a story.”

The book was released in March this year, exactly a year after Eric died. Now three months later a plot twist has led to his wife being arrested for his murder.

Kouri poisoned Eric to claim his life insurance policy payouts, authorities in Utah in the US, where they live, allege.

They accuse her of administering five times the lethal dose of fentanyl, a powerful painkiller, to her husband of nine years by slipping it into a cocktail to make his death appear natural.

Eric’s sister, Amy Richins, made a statement to prevent Kouri being granted bail. “I am tormented at the thought of what he endured,” she told the court. “I play it out in my head. I go through the terrible sequence of events. I wonder when he realised he was in mortal danger. I wonder what Kouri may have said to him in his last moments.”