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Kalaroga Shark Media. Good morning. I'm Garrett Fisher and this
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is Daily Crime in Justice for Tuesday, May nineteenth, twenty
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twenty six. We're back. Two weeks ago production packed up
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and went on vacation. And if you stayed with us
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through the Fighting Back Series, The Central Park Five, The
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Radium Girls, Stella le Bec, Aaron Brokovich, Karen Silkwood, then
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thank you. Genuinely. Those ten episodes were about ordinary people
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who took on something enormous and refused to let go.
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And I hope they landed for you the way they
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landed for me. But the Daily Docket doesn't take a vacation.
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While we were gone, the courts kept running and one
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case in particular reached the end of its road, a
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case we have followed on this show since February, a
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case we covered Gavel to Gavel in March, and a
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case that last week finally arrived. At the moment, every
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trial is building toward the sentencing. You know the name
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Houri Richins, the Utah mother of three who wrote a
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children's book about grief, a book about a father with
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angel wings watching over his sons from heaven, and then
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turned out to be the reason those sons needed it.
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In March, a jury convicted her of murdering her husband,
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Eric Richins, poisoning him with a lethal dose of fentanyl
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so she could collect his life insurance and walk away
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from millions of dollars in debt. Five counts. Guilty on
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every one of them. We brought you that verdict the
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day it came down. What we have not brought you
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until today is what happened next. And what happened next
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is the whole show. Because last Wednesday, Coury Richins walked
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into a Park City courtroom to learn how she would
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spend the rest of her life. And the date of
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that hearing was not an accident. It was May thirteenth.
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It would have been Eric Richards's forty fourth birthday. We
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are going to talk about why that date matters and
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why her own lawyers fought so hard to move it.
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We are going to talk about the three boys, Eric
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and Corey's sons, all of them under fourteen years old,
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who had statements read aloud in that courtroom by the
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counselors who have been helping them survive this. I want
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you to hear what those children said about their mother,
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because it is the most important testimony in this entire case,
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and it did not come from a forensic accountant. And
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we are going to talk about how Coury Richins behaved
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while she listened to all of it, because she did
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not sit still. She rolled her eyes, she made faces,
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she mouthed the word what at her attorneys, and then
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when it was her turn to speak, she talked for
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more than half an hour and called none of it
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an apology. Look, I'm going to be honest with you.
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This is not a who done it anymore. The jury
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answered that question in three hours back in March. What
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is left is something harder and in some ways uglier,
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the question of whether a person convicted of murdering the
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father of her children is capable of understanding what she
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did last Wednesday in front of those children's words. She
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gave us her answer. Let's start where this show always starts,
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with the person who is not here to tell you
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his side of it. Eric Richins was thirty nine years
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old when he died. He lived in commas Utah, a
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small town east of Park City, the kind of place
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where people know each other. He ran a stonemasonry business
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with a partner, Cody Wright, and by every account, he
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was good at it, successful, hard working, the type of
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man who his partner testified would power through a sickness
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or an injury rather than slow down. He had survived COVID,
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he had survived lime disease. He kept going. He loved
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to hunt, and he loved his three sons more than
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anything in the world. Here is the detail about Eric
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that I cannot stop thinking about, and it did not
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come out fully until the sentencing hearing, so hold on
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to it. Eric Richards, in the period before his death,
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had consulted a divorce attorney. His marriage was over and
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he knew it, but he did not file. And according
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to his own sister, the reason he did not file
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was that he was afraid, genuinely, specifically afraid that a
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divorce court might give his wife equal custody of their boys.
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He could not accept that risk, so he made a decision.
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His sister described in that courtroom last week, and I
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want to quote her because it is devastating. He chose to,
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in her words, live his life through hell every single
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day until his youngest son turned eighteen, rather than risk
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his children being alone with coury. He was right to
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be afraid. He just did not understand how little time
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he had. On March fourth, twenty twenty two, Eric Richins
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was found dead in his bed. His wife called nine
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one one and said she had come back to their
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room in the early morning hours and found him cold.
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She told the dispatcher they had been celebrating, she had
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just closed a real estate deal, a mansion she had flipped,
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and that she had made him a cocktail a moscow mule.
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The autopsy found fentanyl in his blood at five times
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the minimum lethal dose, and then for fourteen months, Corey
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Richins performed. She put her name on a children's book
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about grief called Are You With Me? A book featuring
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a father with angel wings watching over his young son.
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She went on a local morning show to promote it.
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She presented herself to her community and to a television
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audience as a widow helping her babies cope with the
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unimaginable loss of their dad. Prosecutors later showed the jury
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text messages establishing that a ghostwriter actually wrote the book.
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Corey Richins was not processing grief, she was managing a brand.
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In May twenty twenty three, she was a rested. Here
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is what the trial laid bare and I'll keep it
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tight because we covered it in full. In March, Coury
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Richins was drowning. Her real estate company was, in the
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words of the prosecution's forensic accountant, imploding millions of dollars
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in debt, hundreds of bounced checks, short term loans from
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hard money lenders with balloon payments she could not make.
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She was having an affair under the couple's prenup. A
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divorce left her with very little, but Eric's death she
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believed would hander his estate and more than a million
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dollars in life insurance money. What she did not know
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was that Eric had quietly seen all of this coming.
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He had moved his assets into a trust for his
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sons and named his sister as trustee. The money Coury
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Richards killed for was money that was never going to
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reach her. The prosecution's case was that she tried twice.
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The first attempt was on Valentine's Day twenty twenty two,
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a sandwich allegedly laced with benten al left in Eric's
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truck with a love note. He got violently ill and
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he survived. And then, according to the family's former housekeeper,
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who testified that she had sold drugs to Kury on
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multiple occasions, Kury came back looking for something stronger. The
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way the housekeeper described that request is one of the
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chilling moments of this trial. And I'll flag for you
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that there's a wrinkle in the exact wording, which is
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why I'm not going to put a specific phrase in
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your ear here. What matters is the meaning of it.
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The first method had failed, and she wanted something that
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would not Seventeen days after the Valentine's Day attempt, Eric
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Richards was dead on March sixteenth of this year. After
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thirteen days of testimony and a defense that rested without
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calling a single witness, the jury deliberated for just under
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three hours and convicted Kury Richins of aggravated murder, attempted
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aggravated murder, forgery, and two counts of insurance fraud. Five counts,
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five convictions. That was March. The sentencing was last week,
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and that is where this gets hard. Welcome back. The
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sentencing hearing for Coury Richins was held last Wednesday, May
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thirteenth in Summit County, Utah. And I need you to
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sit with that date for a second, because Coury Richins's
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own defense team certainly did they filed a motion to
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move it. They argued they needed more time to prepare.
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But here's the thing. Everyone in that courtroom understood May
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thirteenth would have been Eric Richards's forty fourth birthday. Judge
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Richard Morazak denied the motion, the sentencing went forward. On
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the birthday, Eric's sister Amy Richins stood up in that
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courtroom and said something about that date that I have
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not been able to shake. She said, birthdays are supposed
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to be proof of life, a day to celebrate another
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year of growth, and in ste it's dead. She said,
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this birthday had become a cruel reminder of another year
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Eric will never see, and a reminder of the fatherhood
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that was stolen from his three sons. Stolen, that is
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the right word. And the people who can tell you
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exactly what was stolen are the boys themselves. Eric and
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Coury Richins had three sons at the time their father
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was killed. They were small. One of them was nine
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years old. They are all still under fourteen today, and
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since April twenty twenty four they have not been in
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their mother's custody at all. They have been raised by
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Eric's sister, Katie Richins, and her husband the boys did
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not speak in that courtroom themselves. Three counselors, the people
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who have been doing the quiet, unglamorous work of helping
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these children survive, read statements the boys had written. I
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am going to tell you what those children said, because
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nobody else's words in this case carry the weight that
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theirs do. One of the boys wrote that after his
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death died, his mother would put him and his brother's
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in the basement. He wrote that he felt scared because
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he thought something really bad was happening again. He wrote
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that when someone talks about his mother it makes him
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feel hateful and ashamed. He asked the judge to send
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her to prison forever. The middle son, the one who
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was nine when his father was poisoned, who is thirteen now,
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wrote that his mother should get a life sentence because
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what she did was very sick, because it had no
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reason to happen, and because it hurt a lot of people,
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including him. And here is the detail from this hearing
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that I think will stay with me longer than any
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piece of forensic evidence in the entire trial. Prosecutors say
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that boy now wears his late father's clothing to school
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thirteen years old, putting on his dead dad's shirt in
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the morning so he can carry a piece of him
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through the day. The third son did not soften anything.
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He wrote directly to his mother, you took away my
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dad for no reason other than God read, and you
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only cared about yourself and your stupid boyfriends. All three
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boys asked the judge for the same thing. Prison, no parole.
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There's a playbook for how the state frames a case
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like this, it's sentencing, and the lead prosecutor, Brad Bludworth,
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ran it cleanly because he did not need theatrics. He
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had the timeline. He reminded the court that on Valentine's
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Day twenty twenty two, Coury Richins tried to murder her
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husband and failed. And then he said the thing that
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is the entire moral center of this case. He said
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that over the next seventeen days, she did not think
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what have I done? She thought how can I do better?
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And then she murdered Eric in the presence of their children,
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using poison for money. That is not a crime of passion,
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that is a project. She failed. She reviewed her failure,
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she corrected for it, and she tried again until it worked.
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Judge Moreazak said he was looking hard at exactly that
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sequence of events when he handed down his sentence. And
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the sentence is this for the aggravated murder of Eric Richins,
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life in prison without the possibility of parole on top
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of that, consecutively, meaning stacked one after the other, not
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served at the same time. Up to five years for forgery,
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one to fifteen years for each of the two insurance
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fraud counts, and five years to life for the attempted murder.
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Coury Richins is thirty six years old. She is going
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to die in prison. That is what the sentence means.
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You would think that would be the end of it.
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It was not, because we have not yet talked about
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how Coury Richins behaved while all of this was being said,
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and that that is its own story. Welcome back. Most
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defendants at a sentencing hearing do one of two things.
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They sit stonefaced, or they cry. Coury Richins did something else.
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According to Court TV's coverage from inside that courtroom, while
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Eric's sisters delivered their victim impact statements, while they described
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their brother, while they grieved him out loud, Coury Richins
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could be seen rolling her eyes, making faces faces described
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as disgust or surprise, mouthing the word what and turning
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to whisper with her attorneys. When her former sister in law,
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Katie told the court that Eric had believed Coory was
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the most evil person he had ever met, Coory mouthed
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what again, and it kept going while the counselors read
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the children's statements. Three little boys telling a courtroom how
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their mother had frightened them and hurt them, asking a
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judge to keep her away from them forever. And the
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person those words were about was, by multiple accounts, making faces.
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Here is what I want you to notice, though, because
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it is the tell. Her demeanor changed, the eye rolling
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stop the moment the hearing turned to her side when
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a letter from her own mother was read. When her
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own sister and her own brother spoke about her coury,
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richins dissolved. She sobbed at the defense table. So she
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was capable of being moved. She was fully capable of
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emotion in that courtroom. She just did not spend any
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of it on Eric, and she did not spend any
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of it on her sons. She saved all of it
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for herself. And then she got to speak, and she
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spoke for more than half an hour court TV described
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her statement as something that came across less like remorse
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and more like a love letter. To her three boys,