Feb. 24, 2026
Blame the Dead Dad; Defense Takes Shape on Day 1 of Grief Author Murder Trial
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RSS Feed Day one of testimony began in the trial of 35 year old Kouri Richins, the mom of three accused of fatally poisoning her husband, Eric Richins nearly 4 years ago. The case made national headlines after Richins was arrested for murder within weeks of publishing and promoting her book on helping kids through the grief of losing a parent. Prosecutors claim Richins was millions of dollars in debt and in love with another man and killed her husband for a fresh start at life. The defense is pointing the finger right back at the victim, already painting a picture of someone who turned to drugs to deal with chronic pain.
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00:00:09
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks. It is Tuesday, February twenty fourth, and we were wondering what defense the UTAHM mom would use as she goes on trial for poisoning and killing her husband. Well, we found out what her defense is going to be, blame the dead guy. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.
00:00:31
Speaker 2: Rohad.
00:00:31
Speaker 1: We were curious, we got our answer pretty quickly in this case that is fascinating. A grief author kills her husband on trial for killing her husband. But Rhodes, they did not mince words yesterday. They are going after the victim and they're going after his family.
00:00:47
Speaker 2: Yes. And you know what, this seems to be a theme. If you can't take responsibility and you want to point the finger at somebody else, well, the one person who can't refute your version is the person who you're accused of killing. And that's exactly what's happening here. Look, according to prosecutors, thirty five year old Corey Richins slipped her husband Eric five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in a moscow mule she made for him right before he went to bed. But the defense says, hey, Eric Richards actually was addicted to painkillers, loved his THHC gummies. Who knows how the fentanyl got in a system, but he's the one who was doing drugs.
00:01:30
Speaker 1: So this is going to be robes. They said, this is a trial that's going to take a month. It feels like it could take longer. Yesterday was a lot of starting and stopping and objections and sidebars and confusion. Quite frankly, in this trial. Maybe they just need to get some of this out of the way early. But it felt like a clunky not quite. It's day one, but they haven't found their stride. The judge and the two adturn just figuring each other out. But it was a lot of jerky movement yesterday and not real flow to the first day of testimony.
00:01:59
Speaker 2: You know, that's interesting you say that we've been watching a lot of trials lately, and it does take there's a dynamic or a rhythm that tends to evolve between or at least among the judge, the defense of the prosecution. And it was messy yesterday. That's a good way to put it. Lots of I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stop and starts. Even the witnesses were apologizing. It was it was definitely clunky. It's a very compard to you.
00:02:24
Speaker 1: We will figure that out later, I suppose. But yes, folks, this is going to be a trial that a lot of folks are going to keep an eye on, because it's the case folks have kept their eye on. This happened in twenty twenty two the death of Eric Richins. Died at least according to the medical disameter, but fetanyl poisoning. According to prosecutors, his wife, Corey Kitchens, is the one Richins. Excuse me, Corey Richins is the one who slipped this fentanyl into his drink, killing him. She's also on trial robes for attempting to kill him what a month prior, by poisoning a sandwich that he had eaten. All this was about financial gain. She had a house of cards, as we hear oftentimes with financial situations. But they're talking about she is millions in debt, needed him dead because he was worth more to her with money. The other part of this Robes, of course, that's making the big headlines is the fact that she wrote a book after he died.
00:03:18
Speaker 2: That's correct. So yes, there is high interest in this case. Just to give you an idea, apparently several dozen people actually camped outside the courtroom in lawn chairs for nearly five hours waiting to get a seat inside this court. Because this has made of course local headlines, but now national headlines because about one year after Eric's death, Corey Richins published a book and it was titled Are You with Me? It was a children's book about a father with angel wings who was watching over his young son after he died. So Richards was out there in Utah Park City is where this trial is taking place, promoting this children's book about dealing with a loss of a parent. She was on local television, she was on radio stations, and about a month later she was arrested for killing her son's father. She has three sons with Eric Richins, and that is one of the main reasons why so much attention is on this case.
00:04:17
Speaker 1: And the boys were all under the age of ten at least during the yeah, when this all happened. So you see now why you throw that element. And there's a salacious element, a holy sh had element if you will, to this story. Given that now she finally gets to trial. Here we are Robes and you and I and then a lot of people wondered, we didn't have a full idea of what the strategy would be. So the opening ceremonies, opening ceremonies the.
00:04:41
Speaker 2: Olympics, Yes, it's fresh on your mind. That makes a lot of sense.
00:04:44
Speaker 1: I get that opening arguments were made, opening statements.
00:04:48
Speaker 2: Opening statements, closing arguments. I always get that confused as well.
00:04:51
Speaker 1: Even the lawyer yesterday stopped herself and corrected she.
00:04:54
Speaker 2: Did she did. That was one of the apologies.
00:04:57
Speaker 1: The opening statements yesterday we heard from the prosecution. It's what we would expect. They laid out the case. They laid out some of the facts that were already in evidence that we were aware of, and it all sounds awful, but we were very interested to hear robes what the defense was going to say. It wasn't a long opening, but man, she made the points pretty quickly that this guy is possibly responsible for his own death and his family is responsible for his now widow being on trial.
00:05:31
Speaker 2: That's correct. So the defense started out with a nine one one call very dramatically. It was the nine to one one call that Corey Richins made when she found her husband. She says, cold to the touch, and so there's a lot of high pitch Sobbing can barely understand her, and so the defense attorney opens with those were the sounds of a wife becoming a widow, so trying to create this air of sympathy for her among the jurors.
00:05:56
Speaker 1: At that point there was a collective rolling of the eyes from the two of us. I could fill in the court room. It'satic. I get what she was trying to go for, but yes.
00:06:05
Speaker 2: So, yes, So. Then the first thing she does is she asks jurors to suspend judgment. Obviously, most people, especially who live in that area, have heard of this trial, know about this trial, so she had to kind of start with that, like, please don't believe everything you've heard and seen and read so far. No.
00:06:21
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, and I appreciate court TV. I know people do watch, but I like looking and that we all get a view inside a courtroom in these trials. And a reminder, Robes is important. She is an innocent woman and we have to assume that that's what the jury has to do. I know people talk online and all this stuff, but Robes truth of the matter is we should all view folks through that land. She is innocent until we determine.
00:06:45
Speaker 2: Otherwise, And in the cynical world we live in, that's a pretty tall order for a lot of folks. So yes, you and you hear the defense attorney and the judge remind the jurors of this constantly throughout the trial. But I thought this was interesting, did you? And we heard this several times throughout the trial. Yesterday in testimony that Eric Richins had lime disease. I don't know why that's important, but it seems like it's going to be important for the defense because they've continued to bring it up. We actually even saw it in the bodycam footage that Corey Richins is telling detectives immediately, my husband had lime disease. I don't know if that's going to play a role, but it certainly popped up more than once.
00:07:19
Speaker 1: They're trying to go into all of his any physical medical issues he might have had that would have caused him to seek out FENTONYL THAC gummies. That was hydro codone prescription bottle that was on the thing. So she's trying to make it Remember they were talking about allergic reactions. Yes, like he had this thing, So if he would have had possibly ingested this other thing that could have caused the hot So they're trying to establish something medically with him, which they put his family up yesterday. We haven't gotten into testimony, but his family shot down a lot of that.
00:07:56
Speaker 2: Yes, So the idea is that he was in chronic pain, he had back pain, and his sister did admit that he had chronic back pain, so yes, he according to the defense, they're trying to set this up there suggesting that, yes, Eric may have been addicted to painkillers, may have been addicted to THHC gummies. And then I thought this was effective. The defense attorney ended with this, or came to her conclusion with this, Yes, you're gonna hear that Eric Richards died with a lethal dose a fentanyl in a system. But I'm going to quote her here. What you will never hear after four years of investigation is how that ventanyl got inside of him, because there is zero evidence a vent And they pointed out that when the police were there on the scene initially investigating and setting up a crime scene, they never looked at those Moscow mule cups. And she says that they were there in the kitchen and that the next day the housekeeper ended up cleaning them, but they were never tested, so they could never actually prove there is no smoking gun, that there was fentanyl residue inside that Moscow mule.
00:09:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, been there, done that in terms of not having a smoking gun, Been there, done that recently without having a smoking.
00:09:12
Speaker 2: They don't need one.
00:09:13
Speaker 1: It don't need one. And circumstantial enough it got into his body some way. Did he consume five times a lethal dose of fentanyl? Possibly unwittingly. They're not saying he had suicidal ideations at all, So they're actually saying, and which was not effective to me. Robes in the opening is when the attorney said he had rigidly gone to Mexico. Where does fentanyl usually come from in the United States? Huh h. I hated that because it's this come on now, it's that that tactic. It means we got nothing. So fine, Robes, if that's going to be the centerpiece, we don't know how it got into his system, and that's what it's going to come down to for the jurors. Yeah, fine, what about that other incident and all these financial things and all this other stuff.
00:10:02
Speaker 2: There's a lot of motive here that this prosecution is setting up which is going to be a very difficult mountain for the defense to climb, for sure. But when we come back, we're going to talk about the first witnesses that the prosecution put on the stand and that body cam footage that we couldn't take our eyes off of.
00:10:29
Speaker 1: All right, folks, we'll continue here on Amy and TJ. Today will be day two of testimony in the Corey Richins trial. What is the They always it was the old pair affair. They always find little clever names. What are they going with on this?
00:10:42
Speaker 2: I think they're calling this grief author murder trial. Yes, grief author. I wanted to add, like children's author murder trial. I feel like that might even be more effective, because that is what is so outrageous, not only if you believe the prosecution and that this woman Corey Richins, plotted, planned for years by the way, to kill her husband, and when she does, she tries to profit off of it by writing a book as a grieving widow helping her grieving children. I mean, it really is as disgusting as it gets. All to run away with her lover, which we haven't even really gotten into. But the prosecution set up the text messages that they will be reading in great detail between Corey Richins and her lover, which what was.
00:11:28
Speaker 1: The other trial when the oh it was the searches by was it Canaro?
00:11:32
Speaker 2: Yes?
00:11:32
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
00:11:33
Speaker 2: So we've got Google searches on this one. Now in the opening statements, we forgot to mention this. I want to point this out because this is important. The prosecution started to reveal some text messages between Corey Richards and her boyfriend, Robert Josh Grossman, where she talks about how she wants to marry him, she wants to raise her kids with him. In fact, I believe the last thing that she texted before they claim she slipped that fentanyl into her husband's drink was I love you to her boyfriend. So the Google searches, how about this luxury prisons for the rich America? Can cops force you to do a lie detector test?
00:12:07
Speaker 1: All?
00:12:08
Speaker 2: And of course the famous ones?
00:12:10
Speaker 1: You know?
00:12:10
Speaker 2: Can police find deleted messages on your phone? All of this stuff they've recovered, that's all going to come out in great details. So again a lot of evidence. The prosecution might not have that Moscow mule cup, but they have a lot of stuff in the first witness they put on, Katie Richards Benson, that was Eric's sister. What did you make of her testimony? Her demeanor, She was emotional.
00:12:32
Speaker 1: I think she took it too personally. I think she's hurt and obviously, and she's pissed at the woman sitting at the defense table, and she's pissed at her lawyers, and she was and some of that combativeness kind of came out. That animosity came out, and it wasn't helpful for either side quite frankly, But I can understand where she's coming from. And also she's on the spot. She's in the he's in front of cameras, she's in front of a courtroom. She doesn't do this all the time, and she was uncomfortable and awkward and tried to give the right answers, it seemed like at times. But the authenticity in terms of the love for our brother was pure.
00:13:03
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that that just stabbed it in my heart to hear her emotion when talking about her brother. She fiercely loved him. Here's what I actually took away because she's she talked about Corey having a business like reaction to Eric's death, and then she also said when she came into the home that night when she found out that her brother had died, and so there's a bunch of police activity, Corey's there, They're trying to figure out what to do with the kids. She said that Corey had her hair all done up and was just like camera ready. Interestingly enough, then a detective comes up with that body cam footage, which we watched from start to finish, and we see Corey reacting with police, and she's in her pajamas crying to shovel. So it didn't necessarily match. I mean, she was putting on a show, but it didn't match what Eric's sister Katie tells he.
00:13:48
Speaker 1: Was allegedly putting on the show. We got to make sure correct how people view this differently.
00:13:53
Speaker 2: I guess you're right, that's fair. I wanted to say, in contrast to the way Katie described her as business like, put together, hair done the what we saw in the video was a very different version of her. She was perhaps like genuinely upset, but she seemed upset and distraught and slightly disheveled and in her pajamas.
00:14:17
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And it went on for a while. We have had the bodycam video, so you see what happens immediately after police arrive and they're working on her husband, and it's a long bodycam video from this police officer, but you do get insight and you can come up with whatever conclusion you want to about her behavior. And I'm sure the jurors are doing that and they have their opinion. But yes, I mean, when I after dis I mean, she's her husband just died. How are you supposed to react? People react different ways, who are innocent and who are guilty.
00:14:47
Speaker 2: It was interesting we got to see how Corey reacted on camera, and then we also got to see how Katie, his sister, reacted when she came in the door. So you see Corey crying, whimpering, trying to make sense of how her husband could have died. One of the quotes she had to the body camp to the detective, my husband is active. He didn't just die in his sleep. This is insane. So's she's kind of talking through her confusion to the police, and then you see Katie come in and she just falls to her knees like wailing, just just can't even reach the starts hyperventilating. It was quite something to take in and to watch this all from the bodycam footage was I was it was like you were watching a movie and yet you were watching someone's actual pain. It was it was chilling. It was very chilling. I think one of the big witnesses that a lot of folks we don't know when this witness is going to come up. But a big centerpiece to the prosecution's case is the family housekeeper, Carmen Lauber. She's expected to testify that she sold the fentanyl to Corey Richins on multiple occasions. Now the problem with that is that she was granted immunity for her testimony. She does have prior convictions, and her drug dealer is now saying I didn't sell her the fentanyl. I only sold her oxy cotton. So it's going to be interesting to see how effective her testimony will be.
00:16:08
Speaker 1: Ah, well, yeah, we're getting started back. I can't remember actually right now, who was the last person we had on the stand was being I could see the lawyer who was doing the questioning who was.
00:16:18
Speaker 2: The last person in Katie's husband, Yes, yes.
00:16:22
Speaker 1: He was on the stand. And this was the guy who's helped the husband find a divorce attorney. So he is up there giving his testimony, and he is being cross examined right now.
00:16:34
Speaker 2: So we will continue, of course to watch this trial. It will take back up again eight thirty am Local time, that's ten thirty am Eastern time. The trial is scheduled to run for five weeks through March twenty six. Then again, Corey Richins is facing I think they put it this way, nearly three dozen charges including aggravated murder, attempted murder, forgery, mortgage fraud, insurance fraud, lots of financial crimes there. But we will of course keep I on this trial for you in the meantime, though, thank you so much for listening to us. I made me Robock alongside TJ. Holmes. We'll talk to you soon
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks. It is Tuesday, February twenty fourth, and we were wondering what defense the UTAHM mom would use as she goes on trial for poisoning and killing her husband. Well, we found out what her defense is going to be, blame the dead guy. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.
00:00:31
Speaker 2: Rohad.
00:00:31
Speaker 1: We were curious, we got our answer pretty quickly in this case that is fascinating. A grief author kills her husband on trial for killing her husband. But Rhodes, they did not mince words yesterday. They are going after the victim and they're going after his family.
00:00:47
Speaker 2: Yes. And you know what, this seems to be a theme. If you can't take responsibility and you want to point the finger at somebody else, well, the one person who can't refute your version is the person who you're accused of killing. And that's exactly what's happening here. Look, according to prosecutors, thirty five year old Corey Richins slipped her husband Eric five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in a moscow mule she made for him right before he went to bed. But the defense says, hey, Eric Richards actually was addicted to painkillers, loved his THHC gummies. Who knows how the fentanyl got in a system, but he's the one who was doing drugs.
00:01:30
Speaker 1: So this is going to be robes. They said, this is a trial that's going to take a month. It feels like it could take longer. Yesterday was a lot of starting and stopping and objections and sidebars and confusion. Quite frankly, in this trial. Maybe they just need to get some of this out of the way early. But it felt like a clunky not quite. It's day one, but they haven't found their stride. The judge and the two adturn just figuring each other out. But it was a lot of jerky movement yesterday and not real flow to the first day of testimony.
00:01:59
Speaker 2: You know, that's interesting you say that we've been watching a lot of trials lately, and it does take there's a dynamic or a rhythm that tends to evolve between or at least among the judge, the defense of the prosecution. And it was messy yesterday. That's a good way to put it. Lots of I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stop and starts. Even the witnesses were apologizing. It was it was definitely clunky. It's a very compard to you.
00:02:24
Speaker 1: We will figure that out later, I suppose. But yes, folks, this is going to be a trial that a lot of folks are going to keep an eye on, because it's the case folks have kept their eye on. This happened in twenty twenty two the death of Eric Richins. Died at least according to the medical disameter, but fetanyl poisoning. According to prosecutors, his wife, Corey Kitchens, is the one Richins. Excuse me, Corey Richins is the one who slipped this fentanyl into his drink, killing him. She's also on trial robes for attempting to kill him what a month prior, by poisoning a sandwich that he had eaten. All this was about financial gain. She had a house of cards, as we hear oftentimes with financial situations. But they're talking about she is millions in debt, needed him dead because he was worth more to her with money. The other part of this Robes, of course, that's making the big headlines is the fact that she wrote a book after he died.
00:03:18
Speaker 2: That's correct. So yes, there is high interest in this case. Just to give you an idea, apparently several dozen people actually camped outside the courtroom in lawn chairs for nearly five hours waiting to get a seat inside this court. Because this has made of course local headlines, but now national headlines because about one year after Eric's death, Corey Richins published a book and it was titled Are You with Me? It was a children's book about a father with angel wings who was watching over his young son after he died. So Richards was out there in Utah Park City is where this trial is taking place, promoting this children's book about dealing with a loss of a parent. She was on local television, she was on radio stations, and about a month later she was arrested for killing her son's father. She has three sons with Eric Richins, and that is one of the main reasons why so much attention is on this case.
00:04:17
Speaker 1: And the boys were all under the age of ten at least during the yeah, when this all happened. So you see now why you throw that element. And there's a salacious element, a holy sh had element if you will, to this story. Given that now she finally gets to trial. Here we are Robes and you and I and then a lot of people wondered, we didn't have a full idea of what the strategy would be. So the opening ceremonies, opening ceremonies the.
00:04:41
Speaker 2: Olympics, Yes, it's fresh on your mind. That makes a lot of sense.
00:04:44
Speaker 1: I get that opening arguments were made, opening statements.
00:04:48
Speaker 2: Opening statements, closing arguments. I always get that confused as well.
00:04:51
Speaker 1: Even the lawyer yesterday stopped herself and corrected she.
00:04:54
Speaker 2: Did she did. That was one of the apologies.
00:04:57
Speaker 1: The opening statements yesterday we heard from the prosecution. It's what we would expect. They laid out the case. They laid out some of the facts that were already in evidence that we were aware of, and it all sounds awful, but we were very interested to hear robes what the defense was going to say. It wasn't a long opening, but man, she made the points pretty quickly that this guy is possibly responsible for his own death and his family is responsible for his now widow being on trial.
00:05:31
Speaker 2: That's correct. So the defense started out with a nine one one call very dramatically. It was the nine to one one call that Corey Richins made when she found her husband. She says, cold to the touch, and so there's a lot of high pitch Sobbing can barely understand her, and so the defense attorney opens with those were the sounds of a wife becoming a widow, so trying to create this air of sympathy for her among the jurors.
00:05:56
Speaker 1: At that point there was a collective rolling of the eyes from the two of us. I could fill in the court room. It'satic. I get what she was trying to go for, but yes.
00:06:05
Speaker 2: So, yes, So. Then the first thing she does is she asks jurors to suspend judgment. Obviously, most people, especially who live in that area, have heard of this trial, know about this trial, so she had to kind of start with that, like, please don't believe everything you've heard and seen and read so far. No.
00:06:21
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, and I appreciate court TV. I know people do watch, but I like looking and that we all get a view inside a courtroom in these trials. And a reminder, Robes is important. She is an innocent woman and we have to assume that that's what the jury has to do. I know people talk online and all this stuff, but Robes truth of the matter is we should all view folks through that land. She is innocent until we determine.
00:06:45
Speaker 2: Otherwise, And in the cynical world we live in, that's a pretty tall order for a lot of folks. So yes, you and you hear the defense attorney and the judge remind the jurors of this constantly throughout the trial. But I thought this was interesting, did you? And we heard this several times throughout the trial. Yesterday in testimony that Eric Richins had lime disease. I don't know why that's important, but it seems like it's going to be important for the defense because they've continued to bring it up. We actually even saw it in the bodycam footage that Corey Richins is telling detectives immediately, my husband had lime disease. I don't know if that's going to play a role, but it certainly popped up more than once.
00:07:19
Speaker 1: They're trying to go into all of his any physical medical issues he might have had that would have caused him to seek out FENTONYL THAC gummies. That was hydro codone prescription bottle that was on the thing. So she's trying to make it Remember they were talking about allergic reactions. Yes, like he had this thing, So if he would have had possibly ingested this other thing that could have caused the hot So they're trying to establish something medically with him, which they put his family up yesterday. We haven't gotten into testimony, but his family shot down a lot of that.
00:07:56
Speaker 2: Yes, So the idea is that he was in chronic pain, he had back pain, and his sister did admit that he had chronic back pain, so yes, he according to the defense, they're trying to set this up there suggesting that, yes, Eric may have been addicted to painkillers, may have been addicted to THHC gummies. And then I thought this was effective. The defense attorney ended with this, or came to her conclusion with this, Yes, you're gonna hear that Eric Richards died with a lethal dose a fentanyl in a system. But I'm going to quote her here. What you will never hear after four years of investigation is how that ventanyl got inside of him, because there is zero evidence a vent And they pointed out that when the police were there on the scene initially investigating and setting up a crime scene, they never looked at those Moscow mule cups. And she says that they were there in the kitchen and that the next day the housekeeper ended up cleaning them, but they were never tested, so they could never actually prove there is no smoking gun, that there was fentanyl residue inside that Moscow mule.
00:09:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, been there, done that in terms of not having a smoking gun, Been there, done that recently without having a smoking.
00:09:12
Speaker 2: They don't need one.
00:09:13
Speaker 1: It don't need one. And circumstantial enough it got into his body some way. Did he consume five times a lethal dose of fentanyl? Possibly unwittingly. They're not saying he had suicidal ideations at all, So they're actually saying, and which was not effective to me. Robes in the opening is when the attorney said he had rigidly gone to Mexico. Where does fentanyl usually come from in the United States? Huh h. I hated that because it's this come on now, it's that that tactic. It means we got nothing. So fine, Robes, if that's going to be the centerpiece, we don't know how it got into his system, and that's what it's going to come down to for the jurors. Yeah, fine, what about that other incident and all these financial things and all this other stuff.
00:10:02
Speaker 2: There's a lot of motive here that this prosecution is setting up which is going to be a very difficult mountain for the defense to climb, for sure. But when we come back, we're going to talk about the first witnesses that the prosecution put on the stand and that body cam footage that we couldn't take our eyes off of.
00:10:29
Speaker 1: All right, folks, we'll continue here on Amy and TJ. Today will be day two of testimony in the Corey Richins trial. What is the They always it was the old pair affair. They always find little clever names. What are they going with on this?
00:10:42
Speaker 2: I think they're calling this grief author murder trial. Yes, grief author. I wanted to add, like children's author murder trial. I feel like that might even be more effective, because that is what is so outrageous, not only if you believe the prosecution and that this woman Corey Richins, plotted, planned for years by the way, to kill her husband, and when she does, she tries to profit off of it by writing a book as a grieving widow helping her grieving children. I mean, it really is as disgusting as it gets. All to run away with her lover, which we haven't even really gotten into. But the prosecution set up the text messages that they will be reading in great detail between Corey Richins and her lover, which what was.
00:11:28
Speaker 1: The other trial when the oh it was the searches by was it Canaro?
00:11:32
Speaker 2: Yes?
00:11:32
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
00:11:33
Speaker 2: So we've got Google searches on this one. Now in the opening statements, we forgot to mention this. I want to point this out because this is important. The prosecution started to reveal some text messages between Corey Richards and her boyfriend, Robert Josh Grossman, where she talks about how she wants to marry him, she wants to raise her kids with him. In fact, I believe the last thing that she texted before they claim she slipped that fentanyl into her husband's drink was I love you to her boyfriend. So the Google searches, how about this luxury prisons for the rich America? Can cops force you to do a lie detector test?
00:12:07
Speaker 1: All?
00:12:08
Speaker 2: And of course the famous ones?
00:12:10
Speaker 1: You know?
00:12:10
Speaker 2: Can police find deleted messages on your phone? All of this stuff they've recovered, that's all going to come out in great details. So again a lot of evidence. The prosecution might not have that Moscow mule cup, but they have a lot of stuff in the first witness they put on, Katie Richards Benson, that was Eric's sister. What did you make of her testimony? Her demeanor, She was emotional.
00:12:32
Speaker 1: I think she took it too personally. I think she's hurt and obviously, and she's pissed at the woman sitting at the defense table, and she's pissed at her lawyers, and she was and some of that combativeness kind of came out. That animosity came out, and it wasn't helpful for either side quite frankly, But I can understand where she's coming from. And also she's on the spot. She's in the he's in front of cameras, she's in front of a courtroom. She doesn't do this all the time, and she was uncomfortable and awkward and tried to give the right answers, it seemed like at times. But the authenticity in terms of the love for our brother was pure.
00:13:03
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that that just stabbed it in my heart to hear her emotion when talking about her brother. She fiercely loved him. Here's what I actually took away because she's she talked about Corey having a business like reaction to Eric's death, and then she also said when she came into the home that night when she found out that her brother had died, and so there's a bunch of police activity, Corey's there, They're trying to figure out what to do with the kids. She said that Corey had her hair all done up and was just like camera ready. Interestingly enough, then a detective comes up with that body cam footage, which we watched from start to finish, and we see Corey reacting with police, and she's in her pajamas crying to shovel. So it didn't necessarily match. I mean, she was putting on a show, but it didn't match what Eric's sister Katie tells he.
00:13:48
Speaker 1: Was allegedly putting on the show. We got to make sure correct how people view this differently.
00:13:53
Speaker 2: I guess you're right, that's fair. I wanted to say, in contrast to the way Katie described her as business like, put together, hair done the what we saw in the video was a very different version of her. She was perhaps like genuinely upset, but she seemed upset and distraught and slightly disheveled and in her pajamas.
00:14:17
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And it went on for a while. We have had the bodycam video, so you see what happens immediately after police arrive and they're working on her husband, and it's a long bodycam video from this police officer, but you do get insight and you can come up with whatever conclusion you want to about her behavior. And I'm sure the jurors are doing that and they have their opinion. But yes, I mean, when I after dis I mean, she's her husband just died. How are you supposed to react? People react different ways, who are innocent and who are guilty.
00:14:47
Speaker 2: It was interesting we got to see how Corey reacted on camera, and then we also got to see how Katie, his sister, reacted when she came in the door. So you see Corey crying, whimpering, trying to make sense of how her husband could have died. One of the quotes she had to the body camp to the detective, my husband is active. He didn't just die in his sleep. This is insane. So's she's kind of talking through her confusion to the police, and then you see Katie come in and she just falls to her knees like wailing, just just can't even reach the starts hyperventilating. It was quite something to take in and to watch this all from the bodycam footage was I was it was like you were watching a movie and yet you were watching someone's actual pain. It was it was chilling. It was very chilling. I think one of the big witnesses that a lot of folks we don't know when this witness is going to come up. But a big centerpiece to the prosecution's case is the family housekeeper, Carmen Lauber. She's expected to testify that she sold the fentanyl to Corey Richins on multiple occasions. Now the problem with that is that she was granted immunity for her testimony. She does have prior convictions, and her drug dealer is now saying I didn't sell her the fentanyl. I only sold her oxy cotton. So it's going to be interesting to see how effective her testimony will be.
00:16:08
Speaker 1: Ah, well, yeah, we're getting started back. I can't remember actually right now, who was the last person we had on the stand was being I could see the lawyer who was doing the questioning who was.
00:16:18
Speaker 2: The last person in Katie's husband, Yes, yes.
00:16:22
Speaker 1: He was on the stand. And this was the guy who's helped the husband find a divorce attorney. So he is up there giving his testimony, and he is being cross examined right now.
00:16:34
Speaker 2: So we will continue, of course to watch this trial. It will take back up again eight thirty am Local time, that's ten thirty am Eastern time. The trial is scheduled to run for five weeks through March twenty six. Then again, Corey Richins is facing I think they put it this way, nearly three dozen charges including aggravated murder, attempted murder, forgery, mortgage fraud, insurance fraud, lots of financial crimes there. But we will of course keep I on this trial for you in the meantime, though, thank you so much for listening to us. I made me Robock alongside TJ. Holmes. We'll talk to you soon