In a verdict that has left America stunned and sickened, a glamorous Utah mother-of-three has been found guilty of coldly murdering her millionaire husband by spiking his drink with a massive overdose of deadly fentanyl – then shamelessly publishing a children’s book about coping with grief to profit from the very death she caused.

Kouri Richins, 35, sat stone-faced in a Park City courtroom on Monday as jurors – after less than three hours of deliberation – delivered a unanimous guilty verdict on aggravated murder in the March 2022 death of her husband Eric Richins, 39. The real estate investor and father-of-three died in agony at the family’s luxurious Kamas home after his wife allegedly slipped five times the lethal dose of illicit fentanyl into a Moscow mule cocktail she prepared for him.

But the horror doesn’t end there. Richins was also convicted of attempted aggravated murder for a failed Valentine’s Day poisoning weeks earlier – when she allegedly laced a sandwich with fentanyl, causing Eric to break out in hives, black out and fear his wife was trying to kill him. She faces additional guilty findings on insurance fraud, forgery and falsifying claims – all part of what prosecutors blasted as a greedy scheme to collect nearly $2 million in life insurance payouts while drowning in debt from failed property flips and secret lovers.

The case exploded into national headlines when Richins – just months after the killing – self-published the heart-tugging children’s picture book Are You with Me?, a supposedly tender story about a little boy whose daddy dies and watches over him from heaven with angel wings. She promoted it on local TV and radio, tearfully telling interviewers how the book helped her three young sons process their “unexpected” loss. Prosecutors pounced: the book was no innocent tribute – it was calculated cover-up, proof she planned the murder and was already scripting her grieving-widow persona.

“She wanted to murder Eric Richins, thus took out an insurance policy on his life to get money for murdering Eric Richins,” prosecutor told the court in damning closing arguments. The jury agreed – convicting her on all counts in a swift decision that sealed her fate. Sentencing is set for May 13, where she could face life without parole for the aggravated murder charge alone.

Eric Richins was a successful businessman known for his love of family, outdoor adventures and building a comfortable life in the stunning Wasatch Mountains near Park City. Friends described him as kind, hardworking and devoted to his boys. But behind the facade of their upscale home, cracks were widening. Kouri, once a real estate agent herself, had racked up crushing debts – over $1.8 million owed to lenders, negative bank balances, lawsuits from creditors. She secretly opened multiple life insurance policies on Eric without his knowledge, totaling close to $2 million in benefits.

Prosecutors painted a picture of a woman desperate for cash and freedom. She was allegedly having an affair and dreaming of a new life – one without her husband. To make it happen, she turned to illicit fentanyl, the same killer opioid ravaging communities across America.

The first attempt came on Valentine’s Day 2022. Eric fell violently ill after eating a sandwich his wife prepared – hives erupting, vision blurring, blacking out. He confided in a friend over the phone: “I think my wife tried to poison me.” Terrified but perhaps in denial, he survived. Weeks later, on March 4, Kouri allegedly struck again. She mixed a potent cocktail – a Moscow mule – and watched as Eric drank it down. Within hours, he was dead from fentanyl intoxication: toxicologists found levels five times the lethal dose in his blood, including acetyl fentanyl, a synthetic variant confirming illicit sourcing.

A key witness – the family’s former house cleaner Carmen Lauber – testified she obtained fentanyl pills for Kouri on multiple occasions, including just before the Valentine’s attempt and the fatal March dose. Lauber, granted immunity, said Kouri asked for “stronger” drugs after the first failure. No fentanyl was ever found in the home, but phone records, texts and searches on Kouri’s devices – including queries about deleting messages, insurance payouts and fentanyl poisoning – sealed the case.

The defence fought hard, arguing Eric was secretly addicted to painkillers and begged his wife to procure opioids for him. They pointed to his occasional use of prescription meds. But the claim crumbled when jurors heard Kouri’s own police interview video: she insisted Eric had “no history of illicit drug use.” The contradiction was devastating.

Then came the book – Are You with Me? – released in early 2023, just before her May arrest. Richins hired a ghostwriter to pen the story, then hit the media circuit promoting it as a heartfelt tool for grieving kids. In one TV appearance, she spoke movingly about helping her sons cope with their father’s “sudden” passing. Prosecutors called it chilling evidence of premeditation: she wasn’t mourning – she was monetising murder.

Even after her arrest, the manipulation continued. Jail officials found a bizarre six-page “script” in her cell titled “Walk the Dog!!” – instructions for her family on what to say to investigators, urging them to lie and support her innocence. Her own mother anonymously sent a copy of the book to sheriff’s deputies with a note claiming it showed the “true Kouri, a devoted wife and adoring mother.”

The courtroom drama unfolded over weeks in Summit County, with emotional testimony from Eric’s family, friends who recalled his fear, toxicologists detailing the overdose, and detectives exposing financial desperation and secret searches. Richins declined to testify, her lawyers calling no witnesses in defence.

As the guilty verdict was read, Richins bowed her head – the once-poised real estate mom now facing a lifetime behind bars. Her three sons, now without either parent in the traditional sense, are left to grapple with a horror far worse than any children’s book could soften.

This isn’t just a murder case – it’s a cautionary tale of greed, deception and the opioid epidemic’s deadly reach into affluent homes. Eric Richins trusted his wife with his life. She allegedly repaid that trust with poison, profit and a picture book laced with hypocrisy.

For the people of Park City and Kamas, the betrayal cuts deep. A community that once admired the Richins family now mourns a good man lost to unimaginable treachery. Flowers and tributes pile up outside the home where he died. Questions linger: How could a mother do this? How many signs were missed?

As Kouri Richins awaits sentencing, one thing is clear: justice has been served, but the scars will last forever. Eric’s legacy – a loving dad taken too soon – endures. His killer’s attempt to rewrite the story with angel wings and comforting words has failed spectacularly.

The book Are You with Me? now sits as a grim exhibit in a case that shocked the nation. The answer to its title question? No, Kouri Richins was never truly “with” her husband – not in love, not in loyalty, and certainly not in the end.