Blame the Dead Dad; Defense Takes Shape on Day 1 of Grief Author Murder Trial
Intimate Knowledge
iHeartPodcasts
3.5 • 697 Ratings
🗓️ 24 February 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Day one of testimony began in the trial of 35 year old Kouri Richins, the mom of three accused of fatally poisoning her husband, Eric Richins nearly 4 years ago. The case made national headlines after Richins was arrested for murder within weeks of publishing and promoting her book on helping kids through the grief of losing a parent. Prosecutors claim Richins was millions of dollars in debt and in love with another man and killed her husband for a fresh start at life. The defense is pointing the finger right back at the victim, already painting a picture of someone who turned to drugs to deal with chronic pain.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed human. |
| 0:13.8 | Hey there, folks. |
| 0:14.7 | It is Tuesday, February 24th, and we were wondering, |
| 0:19.3 | what defense the Utah mom would use as she goes on trial for poisoning and killing her husband. |
| 0:27.8 | Well, we found out what her defense is going to be, blame the dead guy. |
| 0:33.5 | And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and T.J. Road. |
| 0:36.0 | We were curious. We got our answer pretty quickly in this case that is fascinating. A grief author kills her husband on trial for killing her husband. But Rhodes, they did not mince words yesterday. They are going after the victim and they're going after his family. |
| 0:52.3 | Yes. And you know what? This seems to be a theme. |
| 0:55.2 | If you can't take responsibility and you want to point the finger at somebody else, well, |
| 0:59.7 | the one person who can't refute your version is the person who you're accused of killing. And that's |
| 1:04.7 | exactly what's happening here. Look, according to prosecutors, 35-year-old Corey Richens slipped her husband, Eric, five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in a Moscow mule she made for him right before he went to bed. |
| 1:19.4 | But the defense says, hey, Eric Richens actually was addicted to painkillers, loved his THC gummies. Who knows how the fentanyl got in his system, |
| 1:32.4 | but he's the one who was doing drugs. So this is going to be, robes they said, this is a trial |
| 1:37.5 | that's going to take a month. It feels like it could take longer. Yesterday was a lot of starting |
| 1:41.3 | and stopping and objections and sidebars and confusion, quite |
| 1:45.2 | frankly, in this trial. Maybe they just need to get some of this out of the way early, but it |
| 1:49.8 | felt like a clunky, not quite, it's day one, but they haven't found their stride, the judge |
| 1:56.9 | and the two had turned, just figuring each other out. But it was a lot of jerky movement |
| 2:01.2 | yesterday and not real flow to the first day of testimony. You know, that's interesting. You say |
| 2:05.1 | that we've been watching a lot of trials lately, and it does take, there's a dynamic or a rhythm |
| 2:10.2 | that tends to evolve between or at least among the judge, the defense, and the prosecution. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.