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Callaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm read Carter, and welcome
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to celebrity trials. You know what takes a special kind
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of evil Killing your husband with fentanyl then writing a
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children's book about grief to profit off his death. That's
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exactly what prosecutors say Corey Richins did, and her trial
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is finally set for February twenty twenty six. Today we're
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diving deep into this twisted tale of poison prophet and
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a mother who allegedly turned murder into a marketing opportunity.
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But first, a quick update on yesterday's Tennessee terror. Austin
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Drummond is finally in custody. Remember Austin Robert Drummond, the
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monster we told you about yesterday who allegedly murdered four
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family members but left baby Westland alive on a stranger's lawn. Well,
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justice moved fast on this one. Jackson, Tennessee police arrested
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Drummond on Tuesday after residents reported seeing him in their
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neighborhood carrying a rifle. Police warned everyone to stay inside,
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and shortly after they had him in custody. No dramatic shootout,
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no suicide by cop, just handcuffs and a jail cell
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where he belongs. This piece of garbage is facing four
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counts of first degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, and weapons charges.
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His two buddies, Tanaka Brown and Giovante Thomas, are already
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locked up for helping him after the murders. Good riddance. Now,
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let's talk about a killer who's been waiting two years
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for her day in court, the Moscow mule murderer. Coury
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Richins had it all figured out, or at least she
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thought she did kill your husband with a fentanyl laced
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moscow mule, Collect the life insurance, pay off your three
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million dollars in debt, and ride off into the sunset
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with your side piece. Oh and right, O children's book
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about grief to make yourself look like the sympathetic widow. Folks,
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I've covered a lot of cases, but the audacity of
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this woman takes my breath away. Let me paint you
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the picture of what prosecutors say really happened in that
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house in commas Utah. Back in March twenty twenty two,
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Eric Richins was a successful stonemason worth about five million dollars.
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Corey was a real estate agent, drowning in debt from
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her house flipping business. She owed over three point one
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million dollars, had exhausted her bank accounts, and was spiraling
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toward total financial collapse, according to prosecutors, but Eric had
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made a fatal mistake. He'd signed a prenup that said
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if he died while they were married, everything would go
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to Coury, and that, prosecutor say, is when Coury decided
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her husband was worth more dead than alive. Here's the
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timeline of premeditated evil. In January twenty twenty two, Coory
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starts asking around for drugs. First, she hits up her housekeeper,
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Carmen Lauber, asking for pain meds for an investor with
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a back injury. She pays nine hundred dollars for some hydrocodone,
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but that's not strong enough, so on February eleventh, she
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goes back to the housekeeper asking for some of the
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Michael Jackson stuff. That's right, she literally asked for the
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drug that killed Michael Jackson. The housekeeper gives her fifteen
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to twenty fentanyl pills for another nine hundred dollars. Three
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days later, on Valentine's Day, Corey makes her first attempt
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She buys her husband his favorite sandwich, spikes it with fentanyl,
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leaves it in his truck with a love note, then
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goes to spend the day with her boyfriend. Eric takes
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one bite and breaks out in hives. Can't Breathe has
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to use his son's EpiPen and downs a bottle of benadrille.
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He tells a friend, I think my wife tried to
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poison me. But here's where Corey shows her true evil genius.
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She learns from her mistake. As Prosecutor Brad Bludworth put it,
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she learns the one bite in the sandwich isn't enough.
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It has to be administered at once, and it has
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to be a lot. So she goes back to the
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housekeeper on February twenty sixth for another nine hundred dollars
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worth of fentanyl. But that's not all. Prosecutors now say
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she was also asking a handyman working on her properties
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for both fentanyl and propofol. This woman was shopping for
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murder weapons like they were on Amazon Prime. On March third,
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twenty twenty two, Courriy and Eric are supposedly celebrating the
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closing of a house deal. She makes him a moscow
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mule in the kitchen and brings it to their bedroom.
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But this wasn't just any moscow mule. Prosecutors say she
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mixed it as a lemon shot so Eric would throw
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it back all at once. By three twenty two am
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on March fourth, Eric Richins was dead five times the
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lethal dose of fentanyl in his system twenty thousand nanograms
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per milli leader still in his stomach. And get this,
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Coury closed on that mansion property the next day. Her
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husband's not even cold, and she's signing real estate deals.
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The grief grifter. But wait, it gets worse, because killing
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your husband is apparently just step one in Corey's master plan.
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Step two become a sympathetic public figure. One year later,
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in March twenty twenty three, Coory self publishes a children's
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book called Are You with Me? It's about a father
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with angel wings watching over his son after death. She
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goes on local TV promoting it, talking about helping children
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process grief. The woman who allegedly murdered her husband with
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fentanyl is on morning television teaching people about coping with loss.
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The absolute narcissism is staggering, and her google searches. Oh,
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they tell a story. Prosecutors found searches for if someone
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is poisoned, what does it go down on the death certificate?
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As how long does life insurance companies take to pay?
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What is a lethal dose of fentanyl? Luxury prisons for
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the rich in America? Can cops force you to do
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a lie detector test? She even searched death certificate says
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pending will life insurance still pay? This isn't a grieving widow.
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This is a killer checking to make sure her payday
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is coming. Let's talk about the money, because that's what
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this is really about. Coory wasn't just in debt. She
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was in a financial death spiral of her own making.
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In twenty nineteen, she discovered an abandoned twenty thousand square
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foot mansion in Haber City, near Park City prime real estate.
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She and some investors made an offer for three point
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nine million dollars. Her mother says if they could flip
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it successfully, they stood to make twelve million dollars, but
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Eric didn't want her to buy it. His family says
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they were arguing about it constantly. Corey didn't care. She
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was determined to make this deal happen, and she needed money,
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lots of it, So what does she do? She starts
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stealing from her husband, opens a two hundred and fifty
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thousand dollars line of credit on his house without his knowledge,
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forging his signature, takes one hundred thousand dollars from his
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bank accounts, borrows thirty thousand dollars on his credit cards
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using fraudulent power of attorney. When Eric discovers this in
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twenty twenty, he's had enough. He consults divorce lawyers and
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estate planning attorneys. He changes his will, creates the Eric
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Richms Living Trust, and puts his sister in charge of
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his estate for the benefit of his kids. He changes
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his life insurance beneficiary from Coury to his business partner.
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Corey's golden goose is about to fly away, and she
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knows it. In January twenty twenty two, she tries to
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change the beneficiary on Eric's two million dollar life insurance
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policy to herself without authorization. The insurance company catches it
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and reverses the change. She even tries to change Eric's
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business partner's policy to make herself the beneficial. The woman
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has no limits. By March twenty twenty two, she's desperate
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her house flipping business is hemorrhaging money two hundred and
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fifty thousand dollars in monthly debt against one hundred and
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seventy thousand dollars in revenue. She's trying to close on
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this mansion with two point nine million dollars in debt
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due in six months, and she has no way to
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pay it. That's when Eric's Moscow mule became his death warrant.
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Back in a moment, Welcome back to celebrity trials. I'm
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read Carter, and we're exposing how Corey Richins allegedly turned
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her husband into a fentanyl casualty and herself into a
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grief influencer. So what's Corey's defense to all this overwhelming evidence?
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Get ready for this? She claims Eric must have taken
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a fentanyl laced gummy by accident. Right, the successful business
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man with no history of drug use just happened to
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eat a gummy with five times the lethal dose of
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fentanyl on the same night his wife needed him dead
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to close a real estate deal. Sure, Corey, but it
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gets even more ridiculous. Remember that Walk the Dog letter
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prosecutors found, where Corey was allegedly telling family members how
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to testify her lawyers claim it's part of a fictional novel.
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She's writing about a stay in a Mexican prison, a
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fictional novel while you're in jail for murder about Mexican prison.
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You can't make this stuff up. Oh and about her paramour,
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the guy she was texting, life is going to be different.
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I promise hang in there until Friday, right before Eric died.
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Her lawyers say she was talking about divorce, not murder, really,
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because she texted him the day after the Valentine's Day
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poisoning attempt saying if he could just go away, life
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would be so perfect. That doesn't sound like divorce. Talk
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to me, that sounds like someone who wants their husband
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gone permanently. Vents has also tried to get the case
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thrown out, claiming all the media coverage means she can't
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get a fair trial. They even wanted to move it
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to Salt Lake City. The judge said no. Nearly eighty
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percent of Summit County residents know about this case, but
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that's what happens when you allegedly murder your husband and
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then go on TV to promote your grief book. Justice delayed.
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Courriy Richens has been sitting in jail since May twenty
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twenty three, no bail, and she won't see a jury
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until February twenty twenty six. That's almost three years behind
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bars before her trial even starts. Her lawyers keep filing
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motions she wants bail so she can live with her
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brother in Salt Lake County. She claims she's taking college courses, history, art, parenting,
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even botany. She's enrolled in paralegal studies and an MBA program.
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She says her relationship with her three kids is being
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damaged because she can't talk to them. Crimea River. Those
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kids don't have a father because you allegedly poisoned him
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for money, and the charges keep piling up. Last month,
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prosecutors hit her with twenty six new financial crime charges
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mortgage fraud, money laundering, forgery, bad checks. Turns out she
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wasn't just poisoning her husband, she was also allegedly running
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a one woman financial crime spree. The trial is set
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for five weeks starting February twenty third, twenty twenty six.
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Prosecutors plan to show how she bought fentanyel from multiple sources,
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attempted murder on Valentine's Day, learned from her failure and
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then succeeded two weeks later. They'll show her Google searches,
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her text messages to her boyfriend, her desperate financial situation,
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and Corey, she'll sit there and claim it's all a misunderstanding,
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that Eric took drugs by accident, that she's being persecuted,
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that her grief book proves she's innocent. But here's what
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really gets me. This woman thought she was clever enough
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to get away with murder. She thought she could poison
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her husband, play the grieving widow, write a children's book,
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and walk away with millions. She thought she was smarter
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than everyone else. Well, Corey, you're about to learn what
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happens when you underestimate prosecutors, forensic science, and the basic
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decency of people who don't think murder is a financial
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planning strategy. Now let's head to Montana, where another murder
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trial is underway, and this one's got the jury so
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scared they want secure parking. Jordan Palmer is on trial
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for shooting his neighbor, Stephen Campbell seven times in April
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twenty twenty four. Palmer says it was self defense, the
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prosecution says it was murder, and the jury they're apparently
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terrified of the victim's family. Here's what happened. Palmer found
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some mail on the road and decided to be a
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good neighbor and liver to the right address. But when
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Stephen Campbell saw him approaching, Campbell accused Palmer of breaking
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into cars. Campbell was drunk, and I mean drunk. His
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blood alcohol was point three to zero one three times
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the legal limit. He also had ketamine and other drugs
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in his system. Palmer says Campbell threatened him and started swinging,
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so he shot him seven times in one point four
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to six seven seconds. Campbell died with a closed knife
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in his pocket that police didn't even bother to collect
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his evidence. But here's where this trial goes off the rails.
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Campbell's family has been showing up to court wearing Justice
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for Stephen t shirts, and the jury is freaking out.
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They told the judge they feel intimidated and wants secure
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parking because they're uncomfortable being around the family. Think about that,
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the jury is so scared of the victim's family that
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they might not be able to be fair. The judge
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is now questioning each juror individually to see if they
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can still be in part Marshall, if not mistrial. The
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judge has implemented security measures separate parking for jurors, deputies
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escorting them. Family members with car decals have to park
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with prosecutors. But the damage might already be done, and
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the investigation it was a mess. The lead detective admitted
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he'd never worked a homicide before. They didn't preserve the
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knife as evidence because it was closed. They lost photos
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of bullet holes in a software migration. The detective didn't
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even review the nine to one one call or Campbell's
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clothing before charging Palmer with deliberate homicide. Oh and that
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video everyone keeps talking about, the one that supposedly shows
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Palmer shooting Campbell without provocation. A defense expert says it's
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so compressed and corrupted you can't tell anything from it.
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Can't see if Campbell swung, can't see movement, can't see
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anything decisive. This case is a perfect storm of bad investigation,
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intimidated jurors, and questionable evidence. And somewhere in the middle
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is joy Ordan Palmer, who either murdered his neighbor over
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returned mail or defended himself against a drunk, aggressive man
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who attacked him. The jury still out literally, but if
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they can't get past their fear of Campbell's family, this
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whole trial might be over before it really begins. You
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know what connects today's cases People who thought they had