\u201cAnd then, having failed in her first effort, of spending the next 17 days not changing course, but doubling down, preparing to try again and ultimately completing the act through the administration of poison. And for what? Money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the sentence, Richins addressed the court for 30 minutes, mainly speaking at her boys who are now being cared for by Eric\u2019s sister, Katie Richins-Benson.<\/p>\n
Richins sobbed as she continued to maintain her innocence, stating she would never have killed her sons\u2019 dad, the New York Post reports.<\/p>\n
Kouri Richins poisoned her husband Eric with a fentanyl-laced drink after racking up debt and taking out life insurance. Photo \/ Facebook<\/p>\n
\u201cMurder? No, absolutely not. I will not accept that and I will not be blamed for something I did not do,\u201d Richins said.<\/p>\n
She also aired frustrations about the fact she hadn\u2019t spoken to her children since 2024, when custody was taken away from her after her arrest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been desperately trying to get into contact with you,\u201d she said through tears.<\/p>\n
During her address, she also said there were moments in her past she was \u201cnot proud of\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody is all good or all bad,\u201d she said, NBC News reports.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not defined by our best or our worst moments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Richins, who was wearing a neon green jail T-shirt and a long-sleeve grey shirt, was said to have pulled faces while Eric\u2019s family begged a judge to never let her out of jail.<\/p>\n
Mrazik agreed and said Richins was \u201csimply too dangerous to ever be free\u201d.<\/p>\n
Kouri Richins (centre) was also found guilty of fraudulently claiming her late husband’s life insurance. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
The disgraced author\u2019s expressions reportedly ranged from outrage to astonishment as Richins-Benson claimed Eric didn\u2019t divorce her because he didn\u2019t want to risk her sons being alone with her.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe believed Kouri was the most evil person he had ever met,\u201d Richins-Benson told the judge.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe knew her sons did not like her and preferred to be far away from her. He said he could never allow his children to spend half of their time alone with her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Richins was also found guilty of fraudulently claiming insurance benefits after her husband\u2019s death at their family home.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said during the trial that she falsely believed she would inherit his estate worth more than US$4 million ($6.8m) after he died, the BBC reports.<\/p>\n
They also said she was planning to run away with a handyman she\u2019d had an affair with.<\/p>\n
She was also found guilty of attempted murder after she first tried to kill Eric two weeks earlier by dosing his sandwich with fentanyl.<\/p>\n
Richins’ sons, now cared for by Eric’s sister, pleaded for her to remain in prison. Photo \/ Facebook<\/p>\n
Richins succeeded after she laced Eric\u2019s Moscow Mule with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl, killing him in their Kamas home while their sons slept.<\/p>\n
She wasn\u2019t arrested until a year later, and after she wrote a children\u2019s grief book entitled Are You With Me?, and began promoting it on local TV and radio stations.<\/p>\n
The couple\u2019s sons, now aged 9, 12 and 13, pleaded for their mum to spend the rest of her life behind bars.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m afraid if she gets out, she will come after me and my brothers, my whole family,\u201d her eldest son allegedly said. \u201cI think she would come and take us and not do good things to us, like hurt us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAnd then, having failed in her first effort, of spending the next 17 days not changing course, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1443,74,5195,1558,682,2108,4749,5767,8452,4975,4532,42,10109,424,11556,6178,2721,4275,43,47839,218902,5161,23333,61,6173,40,38,41,39,1299,1339,30812],"class_list":["post-426786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-about","tag-after","tag-be","tag-been","tag-being","tag-book","tag-childrens","tag-convicted","tag-dangerous","tag-free","tag-grief","tag-headlines","tag-husband","tag-life","tag-losing","tag-mother","tag-mum","tag-murder","tag-news","tag-parole","tag-poisoned","tag-sentenced","tag-suddenly","tag-to","tag-too","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-who","tag-without","tag-wrote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}