8 Damning Pieces of Evidence Against Kouri Richins in Husband Poisoning Case

her husband with fentanyl to get his money is finally having her preliminary hearing and our cameras are there as the prosecution shows the court why this case needs to go to trial we're breaking down the top moments from day one for you right now welcome to sidebar presented by law and crime I'm Jesse Weber it's been years since now 34-year-old Corey richens found her husband 39-year-old Eric richens dead in their bedroom near Park City Utah richens has always maintained her innocence swearing she has nothing to do with Eric's death but prosecutors say she slipped five times the lethal amount of fentanyl into his Moscow Mule in March of 2022 and what makes this case very unique and what caught the attention of many people and the media is that richens wrote a children's book about grief after Eric's death even went on a local news station to promote it this was before she was ultimately arrested now our case is finally having its preliminary hearing after so much time after a defense team switch up hearings over alleged prosecutorial misconduct a fight over the victim's estate now a preliminary hearing is where the prosecution has the burden to prove through evidence that probable cause exists that the defendant committed the crime in order to bound the defendant over to trial relatively low standard in my opinion in this case given all the evidence that has been put forward by the process secution that we've heard so far in the reporting Financial transactions crime scene data key witness I believe that there is enough here enough evidence to move forward now the defense in a preliminary hearing has the opportunity to challenge the evidence they can cross-examine Witnesses they can call their own Witnesses but stepping back for a second things really went off the rails back in May when the defense team announced that they would be objecting to all of the prosecution's planned exhibits and the prosecutor said he'd had no advanced warning that he was going to have to argue whether every single one of his exhibits was admissible you know sometimes there's an agreement between the party stipulations that things can come in so the hearing was delayed and then just Days Later Sky Lazaro the lead attorney on Corey's team someone we have interviewed before here on sidebar filed a motion to withdraw from the case now the specific details of that weren't given but it sounds like there may have been some sort of conflict so a new defense team got up to speed on the case history evidence they came prepared this week to argue against richens going to trial and richens herself has been locked up without bond since her arrest which came a year after the murder in May of 2023 and she's facing multiple charges including aggravated murder attempted aggravated murder distribution of a controlled substance insurance fraud for forgery and there's more the state says that Cory richens killed Eric because of money to get to his substantial Financial Holdings that Eric had recently cut her out of his will richens had took out life insurance policies on Eric without him knowing he was reportedly Consulting with a divorce attorney there's an allegation that richens had been having an affair with a handyman and by the way richens was reportedly in financial trouble thanks to this huge purchase of a multi-million dollar Utah home that was never completed and Corey seemingly wanted to flip the home but Eric was against it and this wasn't the first time that richens had allegedly poisoned or tried to poison her husband no the Valentine's day before his death richens allegedly gave Eric a sandwich and he immediately broke out into hives had trouble breathing that's part of the charges that richens currently faces also during a vacation in Greece richens allegedly gave Eric a drink and he became violently ill and this is all important for another reason too because Eric allegedly told his family at one point quote if something happens to me check out Corey so we want to talk about three major witnesses that testified on Monday in this preliminary hearing the lead detective on the case a cell phone expert and a financial expert now the hearing is expected to last at least two days as multiple Witnesses are expected to testify again it's kind of like a mini trial so the hearing started out with Detective Jeff odris with the Summit County Sheriff's Office on the stand he's already testified at Rich's detention hearing and the court didn't really want to waste time repeating all of that so the defense was up first to cross-examine him on what he had to say during that prior testimony and detective O'Driscoll talked about his interviews with the state's star witness Carmen Marie laber she is a convicted drug dealer and had worked as a housekeeper for the Rich's family she allegedly confessed to authorities that she supplied richens with 15 to 30 fentol pills on separate occasions approximately one month before Eric death and said that Corey paid her about $900 each time all right so what did she tell you in that first interview about her associations with Cory richin she confirmed that she had worked for Corey in the past um she told us that she knew Corey through Cory's Aunt Dorene who whom Carmen worked for cleaning houses um she initially stated that she didn't know anything about what had happened with Eric's death or anything about fentol um and we explained to her that the position that we were in to try to investigate anything that might have happened whether that was inculpatory or exculpatory for anyone um and that any information that she might have about it would be helpful to us me just break that down just a little bit what did she tell you about um ever dealing fentel at that time she said she said that she hadn't really ever in her Works messed with fenol then she later admitted she had tried it once and didn't have a good experience with it did she tell you a daughter had overdose St I don't recall I could review the video and give you an answer on that but I don't recall and isri she told you she never dealt with them that she dealt in pain pills and marijuana and other things of that sort in the first interview yes and what did you tell her you could do for her if she gave you information about Eric Gran's death or anything that could help you in the investigation of Eric Gran's death we explained to her that if she had information regarding Eric Rich's death that we could work with the prosecutor who was responsible for her charges for both the search warrant and the drug court charges we didn't make her any specific promises but we told her that we were willing to work with the prosecutor's office on those charges yes so the defense pressed O'Driscoll about lauber's possible motive to lie in order to protect herself from being prosecuted laber has a letter of immunity from the US attorney's office and is not in custody despite allegedly selling narcotics so when you testified before did you testify as to how many times Miss lobber had allegedly provided drugs to miss Richmond I believe so yes and how many times did you say that that happened at that time of testimony we understood there to be three transactions that Miss lber participated in with Mr Jones and did you interview other people regarding those transactions investigators from the Su County Sheriff's Office did yes I wasn't involved in every single interview but yes did she tell you um how many pills total that she provided to miss richens or that she Rec one moment please Mr L same rev it relevance and objection what what's going on here is is the is defense council is asking questions about the detention heent which the defense Council has a a transfer F did she tell you this well we we know this because he testified to it let's just assume that this question which goes directly to the probable cause determination is foundation for whatever is coming next so I'm going to allow this I appreciate that in your honor all these recordings are um all these interviews are recorded in Discovery can I understand uh your objection to the extent it's the relevance is overruled as L please proceed did she tell you a number of pills the number of pills she provided to the are you meaning in total or per transaction either either way whatever is easiest for you she made an estimate um of approximately 15 to 30 pills per transaction so a total of Maximum 75 30 to 90 45 to 90 pills all right did you have any of those pills ever been found no not in Rich's home correct and in this Rich's Car correct so you've never had the opportunity to test any pills that were allegedly provided from Miss lobert Miss rich is that correct correct in other words how do we know these drug deals are real by the way when you watch this and you see the arguments from both sides I think it highlights the importance of great lawyering right and how could I talk about great lawyer without mentioning Morgan and Morgan our sponsor America's largest injury Law Firm you know why they're so big because they win a lot this is a firm with over a thousand attorneys clients get a dedicated team case investigators pargal customer case Specialists the whole process is so userfriendly too because from starting your claim to talking to your legal team it can all be done on your smartphone there's no upfront fee so if you're injured you can easily start a claim at forthepeople.com LC sidebar now detective O'Driscoll admitted that investigators did more interviews in this case but Corey richens had pretty much always been the prime suspect since the beginning besides Cory richens did you interview or investigate into any other possible suspects in this case interview no we tried to I personally try to keep an open mind as to all possibilities of what could have caused ER grit's death um but I didn't conduct interviews with any other um suspects that were person Persons of Interest labeled as suspects you didn't collect phones or look at anything else from any other suspects corrected we collected several phones from involved individuals in this case um and potentially people that you know could have had access to the Rich's home at different times um that could give alternate explanations of how defend n system but I didn't conduct any interviews individuals regarding their involvement by the way even if this defense argument or line of questioning doesn't persuade the judge here to dismiss the case it could still be brought up during trial nonetheless this cross-examination can still be the same thing and highlighting this previous Point once again the defense pointed out that there's no real way to prove that any pills allegedly sold to richens by Alber were actually the drugs that killed Eric so as you're sitting here today detective can you say with certainty that the pills that M lber allegedly gave to miss Rich were the pills that were taken by Eric rich or what pills that were taken if any pills were taken by ours no and as you sit here right now do you have any idea like actual knowledge not an idea let do you have any knowledge of how fentanyl got into Mr Richardson system Mr Rich syst I'm sorry no I okay moving on after lunch a cell phone analyst Christopher kachad demos took the stand to talk about what he found on Rich's electronic devices and what wasn't on the phone anymore did you observe a forensic extraction of that phone yes and did you Analyze That extraction I did did you notice any uh information or data deleted from that phone between January and mid-march of 2022 yes and can you describe what type of or types of data have been deleted off that phone uh a lot of data um P primarily and most relevant to the investigations in this case the call Locks texts web history and web search So when you say that the textt have been deleted does that mean the entire text threads between different parties reason yes and was it everybody or in that time frame or were there specific people pretty much [Music] everybody may you mentioned that uh web history had been deleted yes and was there a specific date that uh that prior to which that web history had been deleted uh yeah so they're on that phone the web history for that device that primary device was basically ended it it picked back up on March 10th of 2022 but prior to that all of it was gone but we know even if you delete things like the allegations here like if you delete text messages and by the way arguably the deleting can be more incriminating than even the content of the messages themselves these messages can usually be recovered so the state using the cell phone experts testimony to talk about Robert Grossman this is the man that richens was allegedly having an affair with at the time of her husband's death Grossman was a handyman hired to work on the homes that richens wanted to flip as part of her real estate business speaking to uh the defendant's communications with Mr brosman uh do you recall approximately when those began for the 1152 number which is the first one I'm aware of it began have a trail basically a digital Trail on that phone beginning in November of 2021 and what was the um the volume of tax calls anything of that nature uh up until March of 2022 the volume varied um depending on the day but it was pretty much daily communication between the two during that time frame and are these uh phone calls and text messages mostly test texts but yes some phone calls so it's fair to say around the time that uh Mr richens passed away um there were ongoing messages between the defendant and Mr yes and during cross-examination the defense seemed to try to poke holes in the extraction methods that were used to see the data from the cell phones in this case after another recess Brooke Carrington took the stand now she's a forensic accountant who testified during the attention hearing last summer and she has analyzed hundreds of pages of documentation related to the rich and's bank records life insurance policies and a prenuptual agreement this section states that the the business C and masonry would retain its character as separate property belonging to the husband even if uh funds were comingled that's correct personal un professional but was there an exception to that yes if um if the husband should die prior to the wife then uh his interest would transfer to her Carrington was also able to testify about changes that were made to Eric's will in the months before he died this is um an intake um form from a a divorce attorney describing that Eric richens was wanting to consults uh with it with his attorney on a potential divorce and it's dated uh October 8th of 2020 in um the wake of that are you aware of any other instruments that were created um out of that yes there are the notes that the attorney um uh appear to have handwritten during the course of that first meeting did were there Financial arrangements made after that meeting that you're aware of yes uh the the notes indicate that there was um some new information by Mr richens that there was the the heoc had been um taken out on the home that as if this was new and then from this he um set up the Eric Rich's living trust and also a will was there something dramatically different about the trust situation is the um Miss richens was not the beneficiary of his estate it was to be um for his children and the trustee was going to be his sister Katie Carrington also testified about the life insurance policies taken out on Eric and the last policy went into effect apparently February 2nd 2022 Eric died the month later according to the prosecution richens had several Communications with the life insurance company to ask why the payout was taking so long on cross-examination the defense brought up Eric's trust and whether richens was actually aware that one existed so you don't have personal knowledge one way or the other about whether Cory knew this trust was in place before Eric died I cannot testify one way or another about that okay well more witnesses will take the stand on Tuesday and once all the evidence is presented the judge will decide whether or not there is probable cause to finally bring this case to trial that's all we have for you right now here on sidebar everybody thank you so much for joining us and as always please subscribe on Apple podcast Spotify YouTube wherever you get your podcast I'm Jesse Weber speak to you next time [Music] hey Gearheads welcome back to gadget Galaxy review today we're about to get up close and personal with a car that's redefining the meaning of precision and performance the Bugatti Kiren pure sport if you think Bugatti is all about straight line speed think again the Kiren pure sport is here to prove that Bugatti knows how to handle curves and drift like a pro let's dive in the bugat Kiren pure sport isn't just another hyper car it's an engineering Marvel crafted for those who 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