Utah grief author breaks silence to give marriage advice to kids during sentencing for her husband’s murder

Moments before a Utah judge sentenced Kouri Richins to life in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering her husband, the children’s grief book author spoke publicly for the first time.

Richins stood at the podium in a lime green jail uniform on Wednesday and sobbed as she delivered a message to her three young sons, offering marriage advice while pleading for forgiveness and insisting she never abandoned them.

She begged her sons, who were not present in court, “Please just don’t give up on me.” She later encouraged them to always “be like your dad.”

The 35-year-old was sentenced Wednesday to life without the possibility of parole after a jury convicted her in March in the fentanyl poisoning death of her husband, Eric Richins.

“The one thing I need you boys to know is that I did not abandon you,” Richins said through tears. “Regardless of what anyone tells you, I would never ever leave you boys. And I am so sorry that even for one second you think that I did.”

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Prosecutors said Richins poisoned her husband in 2022 by lacing his cocktail with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City. Jurors also found she attempted to poison him weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day using a fentanyl-laced sandwich.

Authorities said the real estate agent and house flipper was drowning in debt, secretly opened multiple life insurance policies on her husband and believed she would inherit more than $4 million after his death. Prosecutors also alleged she was planning a future with another man.

Despite the conviction, Richins maintained her innocence during Wednesday’s hearing and used the opportunity to give advice to her children.

“God did not put me in this world to take a life,” she said. “Just because someone may not be perfect, that’s a far reach for them to be capable of murder, to kill someone.”

She told her sons she had been unable to contact them since early 2024, after custody was transferred to Eric Richins’ family, and claimed her letters and calls never reached them.

“I did not just walk out of your lives one day, never return, never call, never show up, regardless of what anyone tells you,” she said. “I would never, ever and I am so sorry.”

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Richins also told her children not to give up on her and said she hoped one day they could reunite.

“And one day when this is all over, we can sit down and talk about all of this, sort it all out,” she said. “I promise you, boys, one day it will be over.”

Much of Richins’ statement focused on advice about love, marriage and resilience. She described her relationship with Eric Richins as imperfect but enduring.

“We stopped keeping track of each other’s wrongdoings and we forgave and moved on and we loved,” she said. “Our love was enough.”

Richins admitted both she and her husband, the boys’ father, had made mistakes during their marriage.

“I fell in love with someone who wasn’t your dad. Your dad fell in love with someone who wasn’t me,” she said. “I did things behind your dad’s back and he did things behind my back.”

She urged her sons to “choose forgiveness and choose love,” warning them not to let resentment control their lives.

“Forgive those who turn their back on you, but never forget,” she said. “Don’t hold hate in your heart. It only brings you down.”

Richins also encouraged her sons to stay true to themselves despite public scrutiny surrounding the case.

“Don’t let anyone choose the direction of your life by their opinions or their judgments,” she said. “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. It doesn’t make it true.”

She ended her remarks by telling the boys, “I will love you forever.”

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Earlier on Wednesday, licensed therapists read the children’s victim impact statements to the court.

One child talked about how Richins would “put us in the basement while she was with the neighbor.”

“I felt scared because I thought something really bad was happening again,” the child said in his statement. “She would take me to places that smelled really bad. Everything she did made me feel uncomfortable.”

Another child told Richins: “You took away everything from me and my brothers.”

The oldest boy, now 13, said he also felt like he had to take care of his siblings while in his mother’s care, but his younger brother “mostly took care of me, though, because I was locked in my room.” He said his mom would lock him inside “pretty much daily” after he pointed out that she was drunk.

All three children have undergone intensive therapy and are being raised by Eric’s sister and her husband, according to the memo.

The case captivated true-crime enthusiasts when Richins was arrested in 2023 while promoting her children’s book about a boy coping with the death of his father.