Prosecutors portrayed a Utah mother and children’s book author as a money-hungry killer Monday on the first day of a murder trial in her husband’s death, while her defense team urged jurors not to make judgments before hearing her side.

Kouri Richins, 35, faces a slew of felony charges for allegedly killing her husband, Eric Richins, with fentanyl in March 2022 at their home just outside the ski town of Park City. She has vehemently denied the allegations.

Prosecutors say she slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a cocktail that he drank. She is also accused of trying to poison him a month earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him break out in hives and black out, according to court documents.

After her husband’s death, Kouri Richins self-published a children’s book about grief to help her sons and other kids cope with the loss of a parent.

As arguments in the case got underway Monday, Richins sat next to her attorneys, taking notes and passing some to them. Her legal team has not said whether she will take the stand in her defense.

Summit County prosecutor Brad Bloodworth told jurors that Richins was $4.5 million in debt and wrongly believed that if her husband died she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million. Prosecutors have argued she was planning a future with another man she was seeing on the side.

“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.”

No history of illicit drug use

Defense attorney Kathryn Nester started her opening statement by playing the recording of Richins’ 911 call from the night of her husband’s death. Richins was sobbing on the call and seemed barely able to answer the dispatcher’s questions.

“Those were the sounds of a wife becoming a widow,” Nester said.

Eric Richins had Lyme disease and was addicted to painkillers, Nester argued. She suggested he may have overdosed.

However, in body camera footage shown later Monday, Richins tells police her husband had no history of illicit drug use.

Eric Richins’ sister, Katie Richins-Benson, also testified that their mother was a drug and alcohol counselor who had instilled in the siblings from an early age the dangers of drug use.

The trial is slated to run through March 26. A few dozen people hoping to watch camped outside the courthouse in lawn chairs starting at 4 a.m., four and a half hours before the trial began.

Richins faces nearly three dozen counts, including aggravated murder, attempted murder, forgery, mortgage fraud and insurance fraud. The murder charge alone carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

In the months before her arrest in May 2023, Richins self-published the children’s book “Are You with Me?” about a father with angel wings watching over his young son after passing away. The book could play a key role for prosecutors in framing Eric Richins’ death as a calculated killing with an attempted cover-up. Bloodworth told jurors Monday about how Richins promoted it on local TV and radio stations.

Almost $2 million in life insurance policies

Years before her husband’s death, Richins opened numerous life insurance policies on Eric Richins without his knowledge, with benefits totaling nearly $2 million, prosecutors alleged. Court documents also indicate she had a negative bank account balance and was being sued by a creditor.

Bloodworth showed the jury text messages between Kouri Richins and Robert Josh Grossman, the man with whom she was allegedly having an affair. She had texted Grossman about her dream of leaving her husband, gaining millions in the divorce and one day marrying Grossman.

Bloodworth also showed Richins’ internet search history, which included “luxury prisons for the rich America” and “Can cops force you to do a lie detector test?”

Body camera footage shows night of husband’s death

The body camera video shown in court from Summit County Sheriff’s Deputy Vincent Nguyen showed Richins distraught as she told police that her husband had chest pain before he went to sleep and may have taken a THC gummy.

“My husband’s active. He didn’t just die in his sleep. This is insane,” she said in the video.

Richins appeared to be in pajamas as paramedics worked to resuscitate her husband in a nearby room, the video showed. She held her head in her hands at times and paced around while talking to a deputy and family members who later arrived.

Richins-Benson testified that she entered the house that night to find Richins looking “well-put together” with her hair “all done up.”

Empty pill bottles and marijuana gummies

Among the key witnesses expected to be called later in the trial is the family’s housekeeper, Carmen Lauber, who claims to have sold fentanyl to Kouri Richins on multiple occasions.

Defense attorneys argued Monday that Lauber did not give Richins fentanyl and was motivated to lie for legal protection. Lauber is not charged in connection with the case, and detectives have said she was granted immunity.

No fentanyl was found in Richins’ house, and the housekeeper’s dealer has said he was in jail and detoxing from drug use when he told detectives in 2023 that he sold fentanyl to Lauber. He later said in a sworn affidavit that he sold her only the opioid OxyContin.

Nester showed jurors photos of an empty pain pill bottle sitting on Eric Richins’ bedside table the night of his death and bags of gummies he was known to use regularly. She said he had asked his wife to procure opioids for him.

—AP