Chapter 1: What led to the investigation of Kouri Richens' husband's death?
It's the middle of the night in a small town on the Jersey Shore. Someone reports an abandoned car on a bridge. A search gets underway for the missing driver, 19-year-old Sarah Stern.
Is it a missing person? Is it a suicide? At this point, nobody knows.
Old friendships, buried cash, and a sinister plot that was once pitched as a movie plays out in real life. I'm Juju Chang from 2020 and ABC Audio. Listen now to Bridge of Lies wherever you get your podcasts.
No matter if it's a parent, a sibling, or a friend, talking about loss with kids can be a tricky subject. Joining us now is author of Are You With Me, Corey Richens. And Corey, I want to start with your story. What happened in your personal life?
So my husband passed away unexpectedly last year. He was 39. It completely...
Took us all by shock. We have three little boys, 10, 9, and 6. And it's only been a year. How did you go from processing death to, I need to write a book and help others? You know, I just watched the struggle that my kids were going through and trying to find something that we could use to cope at nights. Nights are the hardest, it seems like, for everybody when, you know, dealing with anything.
But I just wanted some story to read to my kids at night.
I was reading it, and I remember I just was in tears, and I thought, like, this is perfect for your family. It just seemed perfect. And so I was just baffled at how she even had the time to do that.
And it's, you know, explaining to my kid, just because he's not present here with us, that doesn't mean his presence isn't here with us, and he's doing these things with us. Viewers at home, what they saw in that interview was this bereaved young woman who tragically lost her husband. Like, dad is still here. It's just in a different way. But this would be just the beginning of the story.
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Chapter 2: How did Kouri Richens cope with her husband's sudden passing?
In those first few moments of the police body-worn camera, you are watching this life-or-death moment unfold. Law enforcement is trying to make sense of it all. Inside the bedroom, you can see law enforcement trying to help Eric Richards. He is on his back on the ground. He has no pulse. He's not breathing. And they're using a CPR machine, so you can hear this sort of rhythmic sound.
What's your first name? Let them do their work in there. So what happened today? When you say we were fine, what time did you see him when he was alert?
We had a drink together at nine to celebrate. Hours earlier, they were celebrating a big financial win for her real estate business. She mentions they've had a cocktail before bed. She mentions that her son has night terrors and that she'd been asleep with him. When I sleep with my kids, I'll just wake up and I go back to my own bed.
Where are your children now?
They're asleep in that room, too. They're awake with their ear to the door. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't think something's going to come out. At one point, the officer asked if she would like to call anybody, and she mentioned she wants to call her mom.
Here, you can use my phone.
Uh-huh.
I got a call. It was Corey. Said, mom, you need to come up here.
Something's wrong with Eric.
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Chapter 3: What were the circumstances surrounding Eric Richens' death?
OK.
All right. I don't know. The amount of blood was sort of surprising to the paramedic, and this leads to the initial hypothesis of an aneurysm. My husband's active. He didn't just die in his sleep. This is insane. Eric was very athletic. You would never expect an aneurysm, but that's what they're telling us. They don't know. They're saying an aneurysm, and you just can't believe he's gone.
In the body cam footage, you actually hear Eric's sister Katie before you see her. She's moaning and she's screaming out and it's the raw guttural pain that you hear when you've just learned that someone you love has died. In the video, you see Katie take Corey and Eric's young boys upstairs and away from the turmoil. But at one point, Katie even can hardly breathe.
Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath.
Okay, okay. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. Oh my God, I can't breathe.
I just talked to him like a couple hours ago.
At 3.58 a.m., Eric Richens is officially declared dead, but it's also noted that he appears to have been dead for quite some time before they arrived at the residence. The next thing is our detective and our medical examiner is going to respond to the location.
They're going to do their investigation and document everything. And then most likely, because of his age and his health and everything else, most likely.
The County Coroner's Office has an obligation, a legal requirement really, to investigate forensically any unexpected death. Whenever you have a young man like this who dies mysteriously, you can bet they're going to do an autopsy. This is the night of a tragic end, but the beginning of a mystery that will take years to unravel. The night that Eric died, Corey says that they were celebrating.
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Chapter 4: What evidence pointed to potential foul play in Eric's death?
Went to high school at Woods Cross. The Richens owned a cattle ranch in Summit County. And he grew up working on this ranch. His sisters rode horses. They had animals. They were outdoorsmen. Eric was one of three children with two sisters, Amy and Katie, and he was very close to his mother who had died in 2018.
Eric grew up a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church. His dad shares that it was one of the most important things that they wanted to instill in their children was faith and religion. So much so that Eric went on a two-year mission for the church to Mexico City, and then came back and started his stonemasonry business.
Eric was a very dynamic individual. He worked hard, but he also played hard. He had ATVs, he camped, he explored. Eric was a big-time hunter, go to Africa, big trophy hunting stuff. They began dating. Corey became pregnant with their first child and they married soon after. The marriage is a backyard ceremony. Family and friends gather.
Corey is about to walk down the aisle and Eric's mother presents her with a Supreme. And the prenup says that his stone masonry business belongs to him, and that the only way that she would benefit from that business would be if he were to die while they were married. Corey was pretty distraught over it, but ultimately she signed it.
She loved Eric, she wanted to marry Eric, so she went along to get along, I guess. I don't think it's a secret that Eric's family, or at least parts of Eric's family, didn't approve of Corey. It was a rough start at the beginning, and once that got passed, I mean, they had a good wedding. Corey and Eric ended up having three boys in four years. She planned that.
She was a planner, and that was her plan. Corey was everything you'd probably want as a mom.
She loved her boys. Her boys are her world. And when she wasn't working, she was with her kids. From Boy Scout leader to soccer to you name it, she's involved in everything.
Eric really, he was a dedicated dad.
He was a soccer coach for the boys.
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Chapter 5: What role did financial issues play in the case against Kouri Richens?
Nobody ever thought Eric was gonna die. Of course, Eric Richen's dedicated father has provided for his children. But this grieving widow is about to discover her future won't be quite what she thought. Eric's sister, Amy, says this home isn't yours. They're screaming back and forth. I stepped in between the two of them. 2020 is partnering with Vibes Open Ear Wireless Headphones. That's V-Y-B-Z.
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I learned the news about Eric passing on March 4th through a phone call. Why? What happened? What could have caused it?
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Chapter 6: How did Kouri's relationship with her lover impact the investigation?
And Amy had seen a sign on a truck that said locksmith or something. She flipped out and told Corey, you know, you're not supposed to be getting into the safe.
And then Amy drops a bomb. She tells Corey that Eric had secretly set up his trust and will, and Corey was largely cut out. They're screaming back and forth. I stepped in between the two of them. Eventually, the police showed up. In the midst of all of this, Corey wants to fact check what's going on and they call the estate planner.
So the estate planner ends up confirming to Corey that right around 2020, Eric had created an estate and that his sister, Katie, was in charge of that and the executor. He makes his sons the beneficiary of the trust. He puts the house in the trust.
And that's when those words of, it's not your home, came out. And Corey's like, it is my house.
I've lived here for 10 years. You know, what are you talking about? Amy told authorities that Corey punched her in the face and the neck. Corey is then arrested and charged with assault. She ends up pleading no contest, but she is found guilty of assault. To think this is happening two days after Eric's death, and then these two families have to see each other again at Eric's funeral?
The funeral itself, I think, went off very well, but you could already see the animosity between the two families. It's contentious.
Oh, the funeral was incredibly uncomfortable. Corey stood in one, and then his family stood in another area. Yeah, it was a very obvious divide immediately, and they wouldn't talk to each other.
There really wasn't... much reference to Corey.
There wasn't a lot of love going on. It was over the top, lavish casket. It was like a horse and buggy. It was grand. It was very country. It was just the most uncomfortable funeral I've ever been at. His 40th birthday was just a couple weeks after the funeral. His clothes had already been taken down. And she wasn't wearing her wedding ring. And I thought that was a little odd.
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Chapter 7: What were the key moments during the trial of Kouri Richens?
emotions and grieving processes that we've experienced last year. And to make sense and process, I'm sure. Yes, exactly, exactly. What a shock this must be for this poor woman. My heart went out to her.
I'm new to all of this, so kind of doing, you know, research and reading books and things to try and understand, you know, not only how to grieve as a widow, as a wife, but also, you know, with my kids, how to help them, how to help them understand what just happened.
But the big shock happened a couple of days later when we get an anonymous email, and there's just one line, and it's in all capital letters with many exclamation marks at the end, and it says, you know she killed her husband. Thank you, Corey. Thank you.
While Corey has moved on with her life and is promoting her children's book about coping with grief, authorities have been digging into the circumstances surrounding Eric's death. Originally, it was one of the EMTs on scene who suggests that maybe Eric had an aneurysm.
And I think that made a lot of sense to the family on scene right then, because what else would it be that would make a healthy 39-year-old man all of a sudden stop breathing in the middle of the night? So law enforcement says that there will be an autopsy. They think it might have been an aneurysm, but they don't know. For the people that knew Eric, the autopsy was absolutely shocking.
The initial autopsy report comes back, and it's drug intoxication fentanyl as the cause of death. Five times the amount of fentanyl that could kill anyone.
Eric did not do drugs, not to my understanding. And Corey was saying the same thing. So it was just baffling.
They also found that it was not medical grade fentanyl. So this is nothing that was prescribed by a doctor. This would have been drugs off the street, the type of drugs that you would procure on a corner and don't necessarily know the origins of. The autopsy report jump starts a criminal investigation because this is not a natural death.
This is either an accidental overdose or someone killed Eric. Now police officers realize they have to find the origin of the drug. Police get a search warrant to search the Richens' home for illegal drugs. Investigators go in. They seize Corey's electronics, Eric's electronics, and they search the house for anything that could possibly have traces of fentanyl. But they don't find any fentanyl.
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Chapter 8: What was the outcome of Kouri Richens' trial and its implications?
But as it turns out, allegations of financial crimes are not the only evidence investigators are uncovering. A year after Eric's death, Corey's finances are not looking good at all. She thought she was going to be getting an inheritance, and now the weight of her debt is bearing down on her. She's in a lot of trouble here. She owes a lot of money, millions and millions of dollars.
It was hard for her that year, financially and emotionally. Her kids, you know, were crying at night because their dad is gone. And she has Eric's family who are blaming her for his death.
Emotionally, she kind of seemed like she's hanging on by a thread. Corey was also trying to run this business that she was doing, and she just seemed really stressed out.
One of Corey's biggest financial burdens was this mansion she had purchased. a luxurious piece of property on the most beautiful land. She buys it for close to $3 million. But at this point, the mansion is far from finished. Corey Richens commissioned this YouTube video of the house construction. It even included a virtual view of the planned luxe amenities.
Corey had talked about turning the Midway Mansion into an event space where people could have weddings. It needed a lot of work, estimated to be a couple million. Corey is allegedly making all of this work through hard money loans. And these are loans that are short term. They cost more. They tend to be riskier.
But Corey didn't have money from Eric's estate to help and eventually lost the mansion to foreclosure. The fallout from Corey's financial strain allegedly ends up harming one of her best friends, a woman named Chelsea Barney. Corey's been helping her best friend buy a home, her first home.
So she says, look, I'll get the loan, you'll sign the deed, the home will be yours, and you can pay the mortgage each month. She was a waitress and a manager at a restaurant, and she had saved all of her tip money for years. She gave Corey $45,000 as a down payment. She was always on time with her payment.
And so when all of a sudden she was getting notices that her home might be in trouble, she called and asked for a copy of the deed. Essentially, Chelsea had found out that the deed was never properly filed with the county. She never was the owner of the home. The house is foreclosed on. Chelsea and her family are evicted.
And to add insult to injury, all this money she saved up to buy this home, it's gone. And there's another family who also say their dealings with Corey did not end well. We just bought a house. Taryn and Alec Wright buy this home for their family. It's been remodeled, there's a view of the mountains, it has a great yard. But once they were in that home, they discovered a major problem.
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