Kouri Richins.Photo:Rick Bowmer/AP Photo
Rick Bowmer/AP Photo
The accusations against Kouri Richins already read like an Agatha Christie mystery novel: The Utah soccer mom of three is accused ofkilling her husband, Eric Richins, lacing his evening cocktail with five times the amount of lethal fentanyl in March 2022.
And now the woman who already wrote one book based on her life as a widow — a children’s book about a child dealing with the sudden death of his father — is writing another: a jailhouse mystery thriller taking place in Mexico, and which she is writing from her jail cell in Summit County, Utah, her brother, Ronney Darden, tells PEOPLE, saying the book is “loosely based on what’s going on, but definitely fiction.”
News of Kouri’s second book comes on the heels ofa 6-page letterthat prosecutors filed into evidence September 15, and which they allege in court documents she was “engaging in witness tampering,” directing her brother, Ronney, “to testify or inform falsely.”
Kouri and Eric Richins.Kouri Richins/Facebook
In the letter, Kouri allegedly reminds her brother – vis-à-vis the letter to her mother – of a conversation he had with her now-deceased husband in which Eric confides in him about his alleged fentanyl habit and says that he gets drugs from the family’s ranch hands. She allegedly further notes that Eric had instructed Ronney “not to tell me because I would get mad because I always said he just gets high every night and won’t help take care of the kids.”
Page 1 of the 6-page letter recovered from Kouri Richins’s cell in September.The Third Judicial District – Summit County, Utah
The Third Judicial District – Summit County, Utah
Adding asterisks around the words, Kouri also allegedly told Lisa that Ronney could “reword this however he needs to, to make the point. Just include it all.”
“Those papers were not a letter to you guys, they were a part of a freaking book,” Kouri allegedly said in the September 16 phone call.
Kouri Richins at her June 12 bail hearing with her defense lawyer, Skye Lazaro.Rick Bowmer/AP
Rick Bowmer/AP
“I go to Mexico and I’m trying to find these drugs,” Kouri says to her mother on the call, describing what happens to her protagonist. She adds that the protagonist goes into a Mexican prison, where she drinks lots of coffee — thus the need for the Crest White Strips that are requested in the letter.
Kouri tells Lisa on the call: “You can tell the whole thing is very much a story.”
Fictitious mystery novel or not, the letter allegedly violated three jailhouse rules, according to the incident report, noting that Kouri was locked down “pending discipline and issued a violation.”
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Prosecutors have requested a no contact order between Kouri and her mother and brother. The court has not yet issued a ruling, Brittanie Martindale, a judicial assistant at the courthouse, tells PEOPLE.
Ronney tells PEOPLE that a no contact order with his sister “would be excruciating for us but especially for Kouri, obviously.”
Kouri has not yet entered pleas to the murder and drug charges she faces.
source: people.com
