SUMMIT COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) — The Kamas mother who is accused of killing her husband and writing a children’s book about grief is facing new charges involving the fraud that investigators believe led to the alleged homicide.
Kouri Darden Richins, 35, is facing 26 new felony charges, including five counts of mortgage fraud, five counts of forgery, seven counts of issuing a bad check, seven counts of money laundering, one count of communications fraud, and one count of a pattern of unlawful activity.
She had already been facing two counts of mortgage fraud, two counts of insurance fraud, and three counts of forgery as part of her murder case.
Alleged financial fraud
According to the document filed today in Summit County, the timeline of events that resulted in Kouri Richins’ fraud is as follows.
Eric and Kouri Richins met in 2009, while she was employed as a cashier at Home Depot. The two would have a child in 2012 and marry in 2013. Eric Richins and a business partner owned C&E Stone Masonry, LLC. A premarital agreement between Eric and Kouri Richins stated that she would only have a claim to his business in the event he died before her while they were married.
Documents say that in 2019, Kouri Richins used a power of attorney to obtain a home equity line of credit worth $250,000 on Eric Richins’s home without his knowledge. Kouri Richins used this funding to form a new real estate business: K. Richins Realty.
In October 2020, Eric Richins allegedly discovered the line of credit taken out on his home. Documents say that “the secret origination and continued existence of the [line of credit] was a source of tension” between the couple. Kouri Richins allegedly promised her husband that she would repay it, and later “led Eric Richins to believe that she had repaid it.”
On October 13, 2020, Eric Richins allegedly consulted with a real estate planning lawyer, saying that he wanted to protect himself from “recently discovered and ongoing abuse and misuse of finances” by his wife. He also wanted to “protect his three children in the long term” by ensuring that Kouri Richins would not manage his property after his death.
The following month, on Nov. 3, 2020, Eric Richins “executed several estate-planning instruments,” according to investigators. He appointed his sister, Katie Richins-Benson, as “his agent, fiduciary, or trustee, to the intentional and purposeful exclusion of” Kouri Richins. Eric Richins organized “The Eric Richins Trust” and removed Kouri Richins as a beneficiary of his life insurance.
K. Richins Realty was struggling financially, according to documents. It realized “$170,000 in revenue while its monthly debt service exceeded $250,000.” Kouri Richins continued to buy property despite debt and “insufficient revenue,” documents say. By Nov. 30, 2021, she had added $1.1 million to her “already staggering and unserviceable” debt.
“By the end of 2021, [Kouri Richins] stood on the precipice of total financial collapse,” the charging document reads.
On December 23, 2021, Kouri Richins began contracting to purchase a $2.9 million unfinished mansion in Midway, Utah. She did not have the funds to purchase this mansion, and was already at least $1.8 million in debt. The deal was supposed to close on March 4, 2022.
That same day, March 4, 2022, Kouri Richins contacted 911 to report that her husband had died.
Kouri Richins had taken out at least three life insurance policies on Eric Richins, with roughly $1.35 million going to her as the beneficiary. She also believed that she would be the beneficiary of the life insurance policy he had transferred to his trust in 2020, worth $500,000. Documents estimate that Eric Richins’ estate was worth roughly $5 million at the time of his death.
While battling the mounting debt, Kouri Richins submitted falsified bank statements to obtain loans from these financial institutions: Iron Bridge Financial, Boomerang Finance, and Excell Financial Services. She also wrote seven bad checks that were ultimately returned by her financial institution for insufficient funds.
Using a property in Heber City, Kouri Richins also allegedly “extracted” money from her “best friend.” Kouri Richins owed several loans worth $456,000 on the property, and she told her friend to move in with her family and pay rent to her. She allegedly used these rent payments totaling $45,000 to pay her own debts. One of the lenders eventually foreclosed on the property, evicting the friend and her family.
The documents allege that Kouri Richins “murdered Eric Richins for pecuniary gain,” that his murder was premeditated in order to gain the financial means to pay off her debt and continue her realty business.
For more information on the events leading up to Kouri Richins being accused of Eric Richins’ murder, ABC4 has compiled a timeline of the criminal case. Richins is currently in the Summit County Jail, awaiting a trial set to begin in February 2026.
