Utah woman who wrote book about grief charged with murdering husband

Man told friend he thought his wife was trying to poison him before his death, say investigators

Kouri Richins publicises her book in April 2023. AP

A US woman who wrote a book on dealing with grief after the death of her husband has been charged with his murder.

Kouri Richins wrote Are You With Me? in the months after Eric Richins was found dead in their bedroom in Utah in March 2022.

Ms Richins told police she had mixed her husband a drink and taken it to him in bed. When she came back later, she found he was “cold to the touch”, Fox 13 reported.

A postmortem revealed he had died from an overdose of fentanyl, with five times the lethal dosage in his body.

Investigators found Ms Richins had asked an acquaintance to get her strong prescription pain medication, specifically “some of the Michael Jackson stuff”.

She received up to 30 fentanyl pills.

A few days later, Mr Richins “told a friend that he thought his wife was trying to poison him”, investigators' documents said, according to Fox 13.

Ms Richins obtained another batch of fentanyl shortly before her husband died.

Her book, which was published almost exactly a year after her husband died, is described by its blurb as “heartwarming and reassuring”.

“Written by a loving mother who personally faced this challenge, this book is designed to offer comfort and solace to young minds,” it reads.

“Are You With Me follows the story of a child who has lost their father, but who is reminded that his presence still exists all around them, just like an angel watching over them.”

The couple, who had been married for nine years, had three children, all boys.

Ms Richins has been charged with aggravated murder and three counts of possession with intent to distribute controlled substances.

The charges come less than a year after a woman who wrote a tract entitled How to Murder Your Husband was jailed for his killing.

Nancy Crampton Brophy shot her spouse twice at the culinary institute where he worked in Oregon in the hope of collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in life insurance.

The author, whose Wrong Never Felt So Right series of novels include The Wrong Husband and The Wrong Lover, was caught on CCTV driving around the murder scene, but claimed she had no memory of being there, offering instead that she had probably been trying to get inspiration for a new work of fiction.

A movie about the killing — called How to Murder Your Husband — featuring Moonlighting star Cybill Shepherd, and Short Circuit actor Steve Guttenberg was released in January.