Judge Rules Utah Mom Accused of Poisoning Husband Must Face Murder Trial

there is no good reason the defendant is spending Valentine's Day with her Paramore and texting her drug dealer 30 times it's pretty terrifying to think that someone's going to go back and look a text that you wrote about your spouse you know years later and put it all into a cone of literal death threats the Utah mom who allegedly DED her husband with fenol then wrote a children's book about dealing with grief will have to stand trial on murder charges we're diving into the biggest moments of day two of Cory Rich's preliminary hearing what both sides argued and why the judge ultimately decided there was enough evidence to take this case to trial welcome to sidebar presented by law and crime I'm Elizabeth Milner it's been more than two years since Eric richens was found dead in his bedroom by his wife Corey and more than a year since query was arrested for his murder now we know she's officially headed to trial in Utah on Monday and Tuesday of this week richens appeared in court with her new defense team to argue the evidence gathered so far the two-day preliminary hearing had been delayed back in May after Rich's original defense attorneys asked to withdraw due to some sort of conflict and the exact details were never disclosed now that rich and's new lawyers are up to speed Summit County Prosecutors presented the mountains of evidence they say proves Rich and's guilt at her preliminary hearing which brings us to a discussion of of what we are and are not doing today first what we're not doing we are not determining in any degree guilt at all M richens was Presumed Innocent of all charges yesterday she is Presumed Innocent of all charges today and she will remain Presumed Innocent of all charges through trial nothing the court says today affects her presumption of innocence in any way we cover a lot of disturbing and troubling cases here at lawn crime but what keeps us bringing you these stories is our wonderful sponsors and I want to highlight a super cool one right now and that's ODU for people like myself who aspire to have a side hustle and maybe you want to start your own podcast ODU can help with that there are free all-in-one business management software that provides a range of applications that can help with the day-to-day of owning a business here at the lawn crime office we can also utilize the platform in so many different ways our HR manager can use it for payroll and time off our sales team can use it for customer relations I can even use it to manage all of my subscriptions and guess what you can try ODU now for free right now without entering your credit card you can even get lifetime access to one of the apps in ODU Suites if you don't need the rest so click our link odu.com LC sidebar in the description and pinned comments and try Odo now for free here's what we know so far now 34-year-old Corey richens told police that in March of 2022 she made her husband 39-year-old Eric richens a Moscow Mule and gave him a marijuana gummy she says she fell asleep in the room of one of her three sons and when she awoke in the middle of the night to go back to their primary bedroom she found Eric dead an autopsy found five times the lethal dose of fenol in Eric's system prosecutors say richens bought the deadly drug at least three times from her housekeeper who is also a convicted drug dealer during day one of the preliminary hearing the defense maintained that there's no evidence that richens actually put anything in Eric's drink and no fenol was ever found in the home but the state of Legends richens who had a real estate business flipping homes was in dire Financial strains and needed the money from Eric's life insurance policies as well as his masonry business to keep afloat she reportedly wanted to purchase a huge Utah mansion and flip it but Eric's family says he wasn't on board with that idea and just one day after his death richens allegedly closed on that deal this case caught the world's attention when richens was arrested and it was revealed that following Eric's death she had written a children's book about grief called are you with me she even went on a local news station to talk about it Witnesses testified on Monday about some of the evidence in the case including the lead detective a cell phone analyst and a forensic accountant Rich and's faces nearly a dozen charges 11 charges in all including murder attempted murder forgery and and fraud one of the things argued on Tuesday was whether the attempted murder charge should be dropped from the case that charge stems from an incident on Valentine's Day in 2022 Less Than 3 weeks before Eric died richens reportedly bought Eric's favorite sandwich from a local Diner but after just one bite he reportedly broke out in hives and blacked out according to witness statements and deleted text messages richens had purchased venol pills from her housekeeper just 2 days before Valentine's Day while Eric was dealing with seemed to be like a sudden medical episode the state says Corey richens was out with the man she was having an affair with a handyman named Robert Grossman the prosecutor Brad Bloodworth said richens text showed how calculated and cold richens was that day and then at that point the defendant's own words are kind of important here because he texts her right um of his illness of considering going to the hospital and what she says is chilling she says Tak a na and then she doesn't check on him for 2 hours she doesn't come home she doesn't text she doesn't call she doesn't check on them their next communication is 2 hours later when Eric richens checks in with the defendant notably throughout the day Valentine's Day and thereafter the defendants reaction to Valentine's Day events is consisting of the consciousness of guilt she had text it on February 11th and 12th significantly with her drug dealer during a time frame that corresponds with the drug dealer's purchase of thol at the Maverick and the draver right those texts are deleted from her phone she texted with the drug dealer 30 times about 30 times in their coing muscles testimony um on Valentine's Day and those texts are deleted but defense attorney Katherine Nestor says the state hasn't even come close to proving that Valentine's Day incident was anything more than a fluke so we believe very very very strongly that the charge of attempted murder has not met the lowest standard even of probable cause um and that as rare as it is for a judge to say there's not even enough to charge here it's it is anticipated that that will happen on occas which is why you do thousands of these right because every once in a while they don't get up to that level so in order for them to establish an attempt attempted murder right they have to show that Miss richens took some act that caused someone to be in danger of death right she had to have she had to have caused something that put them at risk right whether they actually Di obviously it's aent right it's pretty terrifying to think that someone's going to go back and look at text that you wrote about your spouse you know years later and put it all into a cone of literal death threats when you say I wish he'd leave he's getting on my nerves I want to leave the house I'm going to leave him I want to divorce him Eric they put in Eric's divorce meeting with his divorce lawyer I mean this was not a perfect couple they didn't have perfect relationship but to take a context one single text and to say that that gives you a reasonable belief that she tried to kill him the day before I don't see the connection at all okay I don't I don't think that is a connection so I hear you saying you can consider a chge but it doesn't have any does and his response the prosecutor talks about the standards for probable cause Schmid in discussing probable cause references that you know probable cause in a prelimin Min AR hearing is the same as probable cause for an arrest war and if the state were to set forth all the evidence it has put um you know referenced in its brief argued here today in charge an attempted murder and ask for an arrest warrant on the information or a search warant or a search warant right and if the state submitted it to 100 judges in Utah 100 of them would issue that check a speculation it's an argument over I understand stat point after a recess the judge denounced his decision and explained his reasoning here having reviewed the evidence admitted including the 1102 statements the do doumentary exhibits that were pre- admitted having considered the admissible sworn testimony of witnesses that testified live the court reaches the following determinations first for the reasons described at the detention hearing which remain valid today the court had sorry the uh prosecution has shown probable cause the count one after aggravated murder and count three dist distribution of a controlled substance both of which uh relate to events that are alleged to have occurred onor about March 3rd and 4th 2022 are supported by probable cause m richens is bound over for trial on counts one and three but what about the attempted murder count that the defense was trying to get thrown out with respect to count two attempted aggravated alleged to have occurred on February 14 of 2022 the prosecution has admitted evidence sufficient to support a reasonable belief of the following facts and events that in January of 2022 Corey richens secured a life insurance policy on her husband's death or her husband's life through fraudulent means that she had a significant financial incentive to to secure his death because she would do better under the prematal agreement if he were dead and her businesses were highly leveraged then on February 14 she purchased food for them both including him she describ it as lunch in her text message to her friend in June she was not honest about where she was going that day or what she was doing after she left the family home Eric had a significant reaction to something that day sufficient to make him consider going to the hospital the state has admitted evidence that fenel can cause a serious reaction there's significant evidence at least to support a probable cause finding that M richin had secured fentanyl by February 11th and that on her about February 26th she contacted her Source again and said she needed something stronger these facts taken together would support issuance of a search warrant to investigate whether Miss richens had attempted to cause the death of her husband they would support issuance of an arrest warrant for her arrest unattempted murder and they are sufficient to support bind over under the probable cause standard uh for attempted aggravated murder on February 14 20122 the judge said the insurance fraud charges richens faces would be bound over for trial as well I imagine Miss richens would like to enter police of not guilty to all charges correct does she wave reading of the third amended information we wa reading all right the court Miss richens is entering please of not guilty to counts 1 through 11 in the third amended information where you like to go from here we'd like to S proud that you're have you had a reasonably detailed conversation with the state about numbers of witnesses length of time because I'm going to have some questions we have discussed it and what we have what what we have uh agreed to I don't know if it works with Court calendars we would like to set aside four weeks basically month May to try the case so we think that would include jury selection so we figure the jury selection is going to be at least a week and pration trial once all the attorneys gave their input about scheduling the trial was set for May of 2025 with jury selection starting on April 28th after the hearing was over Rich's attorney released a statement saying in part we are aware that the preliminary hearing stage favors the prosecution to an extraordinary degree and respect the Court's decision we firmly believe the charges against Corey do not withstand thorough scrutiny and are confident that the jury will find the same we will of course continue to follow this very high-profile trial for you right here on lawn crime Network and right here on sidebar but for now that does it for this episode episode of sidebar you can check out more episodes and subscribe to us anywhere you listen to your podcast whether it's Spotify YouTube or apple podcast I'm Elizabeth Milner and this has been sidebar presented by law and crime [Music]