US children's book author sentenced to life after poisoning husband

Pallade Veneta - US children's book author sentenced to life after poisoning husband

US children's book author sentenced to life after poisoning husband / Photo: POOL - GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP

An American woman who made headlines by writing a children's book about grief after poisoning her husband was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Wednesday, US media reported.

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Kouri Richins was found guilty of murder in March, and Judge Richard Mrazik ruled the mother of three is "too dangerous to ever be free," the Salt Lake City Tribune reported.

Prosecutors said Richins killed her husband, Eric Richins, in 2022 by serving him a cocktail laced with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl -- allowing her to inherit $4 million and get another $2 million from life insurance policies she secretly took out on him.

She had tried to lace his sandwich with the same powerful synthetic opioid a few weeks earlier, making him severely ill.

She said her children's book, titled "Are you with me?" was penned after her husband's death, to help her three sons cope.

The case has stirred Utah, a state in the western United States.

Kouri Richins, 36, maintained her innocence throughout the proceedings.

"I'm broken, broken without your dad, broken without you boys," she said in court Wednesday, the Tribune reported.

She also acknowledged infidelity in their marriage.

"Secrets diminish self respect," she said, according to the Tribune. "I fell in love with someone who wasn't your dad. Your dad fell in love with someone who wasn't me."

In statements read by therapists in court, one of her sons said "I will not feel safe if you are out," the newspaper reported, and another child said she was "always drunk" and he did not miss her.

"I miss my dad, but I do not miss how my life used to be," the child's statement said.

S.Urciuoli--PV

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