How Did a Civil Case Lead a Defense PI to Kouri Richins' Darkest Secret?
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
True Crime Today
3.3 • 907 Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
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Summary
For 34 years, Todd Gabler sat on the defense side of the courtroom. Over a hundred homicide cases, always working to challenge the prosecution's theory. That was the job. Then an estate planning attorney connected him with Eric Richins' sister Katie — the same attorney Eric had quietly hired before his death to build a trust that cut Kouri out. The assignment was civil. Property disputes. Trust litigation. Nothing that should have led where it led.
But Gabler pulled phone records. And those records told a story the Summit County Sheriff's Office hadn't heard yet. Kouri Richins' third most frequent contact in the months surrounding her husband's death was a housekeeper with a drug-connected criminal history who was testing positive in court-ordered drug screenings. Gabler saw it before anyone with a badge did. He started pulling threads — 50 interviews, GPS surveillance, and an entire family on Kouri's side that refused to say a word.
In Part 1 of this three-part interview, Gabler tells Tony Brueski what it was like to walk into a civil assignment and realize he was standing inside a homicide — and what happens when a career defense investigator can't unsee what the evidence is showing him.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Hidden Killers with Tony Brewski. Here now, Tony Brewski. |
| 0:06.1 | Todd Gabbler has been a PI for 34 years. Over 100 homicide cases, every single one for the defense. |
| 0:12.5 | He never sat on the prosecution side of a courtroom until Cory Richens case. |
| 0:18.3 | A month after Eric Richens died, Gabbler got a call about a civil matter. |
| 0:22.9 | What he found turned into something the sheriff's office hadn't cracked on their own yet at that |
| 0:29.5 | point in time. And it turned out to be the case that you've been following, I've been following |
| 0:34.5 | the Corey Richens trial. And all that is the big ball of wrong, that is Corey |
| 0:42.1 | Richens. Todd is with us today to have a discussion, to break down all of this from the case |
| 0:51.1 | itself to just how it's affected him as a human being, being around that level |
| 0:58.6 | of chaos to the point that he was. Todd, thank you for joining us. I really appreciate you reaching |
| 1:04.1 | out to me the other day. Totally by surprise, I get a text to me. I'm like, oh, he's the witness that was |
| 1:10.5 | great, the PI who we loved in that case. And I a text to me. I'm like, oh, he's the witness that was great, the PI who we loved in |
| 1:12.9 | that case. And I was going to say, how did you get my number? And I'm like, oh, he's a PI. |
| 1:19.8 | Well, yes, that's a blessing and a curse. I've got everybody's number. Not hard. Not hard, |
| 1:25.1 | really, quite honestly. But Todd, I want to just kind of start here before we get into everything. |
| 1:30.2 | You were brought in by the Richens family when they started to realize, you know, there's some things that feel kind of off here. |
| 1:38.4 | Just take us back to that place. |
| 1:40.7 | What were those initial conversations about? |
| 1:43.3 | What were they like? |
| 1:45.4 | What were you brought in to do? |
| 1:50.9 | And then we'll kind of slowly, slowly wade into the pool of wrong that is Corey Richens. |
| 1:58.4 | So as I testified at the trial, I was brought in as an investigator for the estate. Yeah. And Corey had, um, just mere days after Eric's death, had, |
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