In March of 2022, Eric Richens died in his bedroom in Camus, Utah, with five times the legal dose of fentanyl and his system.

His wife told the police that he had some drinks and had gone to bed.

Within a year, she was on a local television station promoting a children's grief book that she'd written for the kids. Let's start the story off in March of 2023, about a year after Eric Richens died in his home in Camas, Utah.

His wife Corey was appearing on local television stations,

talking about a children's book that she just published called Are You With Me? It was illustrated

and it was moving. The premise was exactly what you'd expect from a grieving parent. A boy

searches for signs of his late father in the everyday moments around him.

Corey came across as exactly what she wanted people to see,

a devoted, heartbroken mother channeling her family's loss into something meaningful for other kids who'd lost a parent.

The interviews were warm. She was composed and sympathetic.

She was also, at that point, the primary suspect in her husband's murder.

To understand how someone does this with a straight face, you have to go back to where

Corey Darden started.

She was born in Oklahoma in 1990, and by the time she finished growing up, she had lived in 17 different states.

17. Her father, an engineer by trade, was incarcerated when she was six years old

after a drunk driving incident involving a police officer. The family came apart. Her mother, Lisa,

relocated them to Utah around 2000.

And according to Corey's own written account during a 2021 wellness retreat,

her mother was also a compulsive gambler who regularly lost the family's housing and vehicles on casino floors.

Corey described spending weekends and hotel rooms attached to casinos while her mother

lost their stability downstairs. If you grew up watching the concept of home evaporate over

and over because of someone else's choices, you either make peace with the impermanence or become

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