(NewsNation) — There is “damaging” evidence that has been newly unsealed in the case of a Utah mother of three charged with killing her husband by poisoning him, an attorney told NewsNation host Dan Abrams.
Search warrants made public last week say medical examiners discovered traces of Kouri Richins’ medication in her husband Eric’s system during an autopsy.
“Eric also had a small amount of Quetiapine in his stomach contents,” a Summit County detective reportedly wrote in the warrants. “Eric did not have a prescription for Quetiapine but his wife had a prescription as well as the pills at her home.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, Quetiapine is an antipsychotic medicine used to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Richins allegedly told authorities the pills were for sleeping.
Greg Skordas, attorney and spokesperson for the family of Eric Richins, said he thinks the unsealed information is more damaging than most people consider it.
“There was a lot of fentanyl found in his stomach. A lot of it hadn’t even metabolized into his blood yet. There was so much poison that he was administered that it hadn’t even gotten into his bloodstream. Had the amount of drugs that were found in his stomach gotten into anybody’s bloodstream, it would have killed an army of people,” Skordas said.
Kouri, 33, is accused of killing her husband by giving him a lethal dose of fentanyl in their Kamas, Utah, home in March 2022. She later wrote a children’s book about grief.
Skordas thinks the search warrant is “important evidence” for prosecutors, who he says have only revealed “the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to the case.
“It’s the kind of stuff you can’t even make up,” Skordas told Abrams. “This wasn’t a bright murder. It wasn’t a brilliant execution, and a lot of times homicides aren’t.”
Kouri Richins faces a number of charges, including first-degree aggravated murder and second-degree drug possession with intent to distribute.