Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes Present
Children’s Grief Author Murder Trial: Week One Ends With Star Witness Testimony
28 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What are the details of the Corey Richens murder trial?
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Chapter 2: How did Kouri Richens allegedly poison her husband?
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Chapter 3: What evidence is presented against Kouri Richens in the trial?
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I'm Stephanie Young. Listen to Love Trapped on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, folks. Week one of the so-called grief, author, murder trial is in the books. Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Presents Robes, a week in the books. We always go back and forth. After one week, let me ask you now. Who do you think has made a better case so far?
Just one week, but just curious. Yes, and obviously the prosecution is in the middle of presenting its evidence and its testimony, and it's pretty damning. I think the defense has done what it can so far, but this is, as our friend Allison Tresel calls some of these cases, a stinker of a case for the defense.
Yes.
So this case, that's such a stinker. Have you heard about this one?
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Chapter 4: Who is the key witness in this trial and what did they testify?
Corey Richens is her name. She's 35 years old. Her husband died in March of 2022 of fentanyl poisoning. Prosecutors say she is the one who poisoned her husband by giving him a drink that had fentanyl in it. The month before, she tried to kill him as well, according to prosecutors, by putting poison in his sandwich, trying to poison him with a sandwich.
So she is on trial, and the reason they call it Robes, the Grief Author Murder Trial. I'm not sure who dubbed it that, but they always give them some kind of clever little names. This one's pretty apt. Yes, I think it might have been Court TV. They went with the grief author murder trial.
I liked children's author murder trial because, yes, the reason why this story has catapulted to the headline making trial that it is. This isn't just your run-of-the-mill murder. No, this woman is accused not only of attempting to murder her husband, as TJ just outlined, then successfully murdering him, but then she went on to capitalize on said murder and wrote a children's book.
on how to deal with the grief of losing a parent. Now, she says she wrote this for her sons. In this book, it's about a dad who goes to heaven. He gets angel wings and he looks down on his son. Are you with me is the name of the book. And she was literally on a book tour when she was arrested for the murder of her children's father. Innocent until proven guilty. So this is why we have a trial.
But she has certainly pled not guilty to dozens, I think literally dozens of charges.
Dozens.
Certainly the murder, but also attempt is weird to be on trial for murder and attempted murder of the same person. But yes, attempted murder and murder, but all kinds of fraud charges. Yes, insurance fraud, mortgage fraud, financial crimes. There is a laundry list of items, and that is also part of the motive, according to prosecutors, behind the murder.
Not only do they say Corey Richen wanted the life of luxury that her husband provided, and she was, I think they said, $4.5 million in debt. I don't even know how you do that. Real estate.
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Chapter 5: What are the motives behind Kouri Richens' actions?
She was heavy in real estate losses, I believe. She was trying to flip homes. That was what she did for a living. She wasn't doing it very well and hiding that from her husband. And now she needed money. So that was number one. But number two, she had a lover. She had a boyfriend who prosecutors say she wanted to marry. And basically, she just wanted to swap out men.
And keep her lifestyle where it was. This is as classic a tale as it gets, right? We watch a lot of true crime. We see a lot of stories. And you all do as well. And this is as classic as it gets. People get murdered over two things, usually for love and usually for money. And you combine them in this case is what you have. You throw in the element robes, of course. Talk about a mother of three.
Remind me. I'm sorry to put you on the spot if you don't remember as well the age of the children. Well, I know that they were all under the age of 10 at the time of his death. So these are young kids. And look, from some of the testimony, and we'll get into this, but just hearing initially some of the first folks called up by the prosecution were family members of Eric Richens.
And they talked about his love of the outdoors, his love of his sons, his love of his life and his family. He was so tight with his sister. It was impressive. So this was a man who... They were the first up, yeah. Yeah, who was just beloved by his family, loved his children, was successful, like wildly successful in his job. I think he had a, was it a cement business?
But he, everything was going right except for his marriage. And he had even talked to divorce lawyers. So had she, apparently. So, look, they had this presentation, as we often see, of a perfect marriage. But pull back the curtains and it looked like both folks were looking for potential ways out.
But divorce, I guess, was not going to work out so well for Corey Richens because Eric Richens had put a lot of his... Property in a trust to protect him from a divorce and actually by doing so he was trying to financially protect himself and financially protect his sons. That may have been what ended up getting him killed.
Because, according to prosecutors, they're saying she knew after divorce she was not going to be getting anything. So she needed to hurry up this process and needed him to be dead before they divorced.
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Chapter 6: How does the defense challenge the prosecution's case?
That is what prosecutors say, and that is a tale and a motive as old as time it feels these days. Rose, I'm blown away at so many of these stories we see in which somebody ends up dead, and it takes them five minutes to call the insurance company and say a new policy was put in place two months ago.
yeah this one i believe she had at least one i think several life insurance policies that she created without eric's knowledge this always when they go back this is a really big huge red flag not quite a smoking gun but as close to a smoking gun as you can get when you see when you're looking for motive and she did this a couple years prior to the alleged attempt and ultimate successful uh
murder of him but she was planning i mean this would imply that she was planning this for years and again she according to prosecutors did make an attempt the month before he died in robes this was one where he yes he got terribly sick but he also at that time began to at least according to his friends suspect his wife yes according to his friends he actually told them
And maybe it was half joking. I think my wife just tried to poison me because she gave him this sandwich on Valentine's Day of all days. Wow. That really is just, what is that, rubbing salt in the wound? But if this is true, prosecutors say she laced a sandwich with fentanyl. He eats it. He immediately feels pretty sick and angry.
Eventually, he has to take Benadryl and actually give himself an EpiPen. He has allergies. He has allergic reactions to certain things. So he had an EpiPen lying around. He actually had to, and that's no small deal. That's a big deal. Shooting epinephrine into your body. That's a last resort. Yes. That is life or death. Yes. Last resort.
So he, he didn't have Narcon, but he didn't know he was given fentanyl, but he didn't. And that's actually really smart that he injected himself with an EpiPen, took Benadryl and woke up and eventually felt better. So survived that one, but prosecutors say she got him the next month.
Now, this case started out, we were very curious, Robes, to see, and we heard in opening statements, what is the defense going to be? And it makes clear, Robes is going to be uncomfortable in that room because his family is there. But this is a blame the victim situation as far as where the drugs came from. This is going to be key.
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Chapter 7: What role do drug purchases play in the prosecution's argument?
We can see this fight in week one. How did those drugs get in his system? Yes, and we've seen blame the victim defenses quite often, and so far they haven't worked. But it just seems so terrible for family members who are already grieving the loss of someone to now make it seem as though their loved one is to blame for their own death.
But yes, the insinuation so far, and the defense has not put on its case yet, but through cross-examination and their opening statement, it does appear that they are saying that Eric Richen's had a pain problem. He had back pain and he had a drug problem. He was addicted. That's what they are insinuating to painkillers and was very into THC gummies.
And so they are showing pill bottles and THC gummies and saying, hey, who knows? Any of those could have been laced with fentanyl. And that has happened in this country. We've certainly seen it. Mostly people Pills gotten on the black market. But that is where they are going in this defense, that basically he did it to himself, whether accidentally or deliberately.
And it's a case also, Rose, we should note, that is starting maybe to find a flow and a rhythm and the personalities in the courtroom are starting to figure each other out. because it's been a little disjointed. It's been a little uncomfortable. It's been a little, at times, we felt disrespectful to the judge, who has been masterful, we should give him credit.
But the dynamics in the courtroom have been interesting. And I wonder if the jurors are even frustrated. It's been a lot of stopping and starting, and you all have to go out so we can discuss this. It's been a lot of that. There has, and there was even a moment which wasn't ever explained by the judge on Thursday, or was it Wednesday? I believe it was Wednesday. They start for one hour.
They just start to get into testimony. He calls a recess, comes back an hour later, and says, there is an unforeseen emergency unrelated to the case. Court is dismissed for the rest of the day.
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Chapter 8: What implications does this case have on public perception of grief authors?
So, yes, there's been a lot of stops and starts just throughout the trial on an hourly basis, and then that was extremely disruptive on Wednesday. But it does feel like getting into a flow now. and understanding each other's rhythms from attorneys to the judge. Loving this judge. I like him too. He has been very kind. He has given them a lot of leeway, and some of their bickering and whatnot.
And that was the first couple of days. I'm like, wow, this guy is good. And we both said, he's going to eventually just let loose on these folks. He hasn't completely yet, but he has started to now in the past day, starting to shut this down and saying, come on, guys.
Yeah, we saw that the defense attorney actually say some things that seemed quite disrespectful to the judge, basically saying, I have never had a judge make decisions like this before. Obviously, you're allowed to, but I have never experienced. Basically, yeah, it was...
I was like, I'm just curious about that approach because this person is literally going to be determining or at least having a huge impact, whether he overrules or sustains objections. He has a huge impact on what jurors think and feel about a case. Just like sports. Why would you piss off the referee in the first quarter?
He's going to remember that in the fourth when you really need him to make a call on your behalf. So it's been fascinating. It's been interesting to watch. However, Robes, already, already here at the end of week one, certainly the most important... witness we've seen so far, how important will she end up being ultimately?
Because Corey Richens is accused, yes, of giving fentanyl to her husband to kill him, but where did she get it? And the woman who's on the stand right now wrapping up the end of this week is the woman who allegedly gave her those drugs. This has been interesting, and this is where I think the defense is making scoring some points.
They are, because the defense in opening statement said, yes, we know this for a fact, that Eric Richens died with five times the lethal amount of fentanyl in his system. And that's provable. But she said, what the prosecution will never be able to tell you or prove to you is how that fentanyl got into Eric Richens' system. And this is basically the key point of the prosecution's
argument that we actually can tell you because we have the woman who gave her, sold her the fentanyl. And the timing of those moments when she actually got the fentanyl and gave it to Corey match up precisely with the attempted murder and then the ultimate murder. So that's 2022, right? He dies in March. The attempt on his life was February. All the drugs were bought January and February.
Correct. So the exact times where she would need it. And look, we've got this testimony from this, at least when the prosecution was doing direct questioning was pretty powerful. I mean, you're talking about not only going once for the drugs and, According to the prosecution, they didn't work. It was an attempt of murder that didn't actually result in a murder.
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