Kouri Richins, a Utah realtor and the grief author charged with murdering her husband in 2022, allegedly asked her secret lover if he’d ever killed anyone days after her husband consumed a fatal dose of fentanyl.
Robert Josh Grossman, 43, an Iraq War veteran and handyman, revealed the exchange with Richins and their months-long affair during testimony in her case on Wednesday (March 4) via KSL. Richins allegedly asked Grossman the question while they were discussing her husband Eric Richins‘ sudden death for the first time.
“We sat there and talked for quite a while… I had never seen her that way, obviously, and it was a heavy conversation, and I’m not used to that with her. She’s not used to being open like that,” Grossman told jurors. “She asked if I had ever killed anybody … She asked me how it made me feel or something along those lines. And then I answered her.”
Grossman confirmed to Richins that he had taken a life while serving in the Iraq War, at which point she asked him “how it made me feel or something along those lines,” according to his testimony. The conversation took place about 10 days after Eric Richins died after consuming a Moscow mule cocktail laced with four ties the lethal dose of fentanyl.
Richins was also accused of attempting to poison her husband one month prior with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him break out in hives and black out on Valentine’s Day. Richins self-published books to help her sons and other children cope with the grief of losing a parent following her husband’s death.
Summit County prosecutor Brad Bloodworth claimed that Richins was $4.5 million in debt and falsely believed she would inherit an estimated $4 million from her husband’s estate if he died. Prosecutors also claimed that she was planning a future with Grossman prior to her husband’s killing.
“The evidence will prove that Kouri Richins murdered Eric for his money and to get a fresh start at life,” Bloodworth said. “More than anything, she wanted his money to perpetuate her facade of privilege, affluence and success.”
Richins’ defense team argued that her husband died of an accidental overdose and had asked his wife to get him pain pills to cope with chronic back and knee issues stemming from his work as a stone mason and outdoorsman. Richins pleaded not guilty to nearly three dozen counts including aggravated murder, attempted murder, forgery, mortgage fraud and insurance fraud and faces a sentence of 25 years to life in prison on her murder charge alone.
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