Murder Suspect Had Suspicious Google Searches Before Husband’s Death

(NewsReady.com) – When Kouri Richins’ husband, Eric Richins, died in March 2022, she decided to use her family’s loss to help others. She wrote a children’s book on how to deal with grief. A year later, she was arrested for her husband’s murder and court documents have revealed more information.

On Monday, June 12, Richins attended a detention hearing. Summit County, Utah, prosecutors filed paperwork on Friday arguing Judge Richard Mrazik should deny a bail request because the mother of three is an “extreme danger” to the community.

During the hearing, private investigator Chris Kotrodimos testified that the Summit County District Attorney’s Office hired him to evaluate digital evidence in the case. He allegedly found internet searches on her iPhone that included information on luxury prisons in America for rich people and how police recover data from phones. The court documents also revealed she had internet searches about lethal doses of fentanyl, though Kotrodimos did not find those searches on Richins’ phone.

At the hearing, Amy Richins, Eric Richins’ sister, gave a victim’s impact statement. She detailed her sister-in-law’s behavior in the days and weeks after Eric’s death, saying Richins’ flew into a rage upon learning her husband had cut her out of his will. She allegedly attacked Amy, and it took four people to pull them apart.

Mrazik denied the motion for bail, saying Richins presented a “substantial danger.”

Prosecutors have accused Richins of fatally poisoning her husband with fentanyl on the night he died. She’d told authorities she made him a mixed vodka drink that night as a celebration because he sold a home. The medical examiner discovered five times the lethal dosage of fentanyl in his body.

Authorities claim they found text messages in her phone that indicate Richins tried to get fentanyl from someone identified only as “C.L.” in the days leading up to her husband’s death.

Richins’ defense attorneys claim she is innocent and accused the police of believing Eric’s family’s allegations that she poisoned him.