20. Weekly Roundup | March 12, 2026 | Kouri Richins · Sandra Birchmore · Melodee Buzzard

Three active cases: the Kouri Richins murder trial in Park City, Utah enters day thirteen — and two bombshells drop in court, including a six-page letter prosecutors say is Kouri coaching a witness, and the revelation that her grief children's book was written by a ghost writer. In Massachusetts, a federal judge denies a motion to dismiss the Matthew Farwell case — the former detective accused of grooming Sandra Birchmore from age twelve and killing her at twenty-three. And in California, Ashlee Buzzard refuses to appear in court for the second time this week to face charges in the death of her nine-year-old daughter, Melodee. Every Monday, this is where we check in on what's moving.

Before we talk about how they died, we talk about how they lived.

Transcript

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to I Fear You Babe. My name is Dino Malvone. I'm your host, and we've got an episode for you today. We've basically how we're going to be doing this is every Monday we're going to do a recap episode that's going to give you all of the things that are happening this week in True Crime. Okay. Then on Thursdays, we're going to start giving you ready for this. We're going to start giving you full-on deep dive episodes that are just going to, I think, give you a little bit of a different perspective from what we typically see in these cases. So, you know, my perspective as a true crime lover of these stories, but I think this time around, we're going to focus these stories a little bit more, you know, victim-centered. And I think they're going to be great episodes. If you've already heard about these cases, there'll be a little bit of a different perspective. So I encourage you to come back and subscribe and so you don't miss any of these episodes. But in any case, today is Thursday, and we're going to cover three cases that are happening right now that are active as I am. Recording this, sorry, the hiccups. First is the Corey Richens murder trial in Park City, Utah. Today actually is day 13. This case is a woman charged with poisoning her husband with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl. And then she wrote a children's book about grief about losing a parent for her kids. And two things came out in court yesterday that I want to walk you through. One of them is a six-page letter, allegedly in Corey's handwriting, that prosecutors say is her coaching her brother on how to lie on the stand. Her defense says it's a chapter from a mystery novel she's been writing, okay, about drugs and a Mexican prison. And I'm not making that shit up. Okay. Second, Sandra Birchmore, she's from Massachusetts, a federal murder case that's built on top of a death that was already officially and currently ruled as a suicide. The defendant is a former police detective who allegedly began grooming Sandra when she was 12 years old through a youth program he ran for the department. A major legal challenge to the case was decided this week. More to come on that. And the third is Melody Buzzard, nine years old, Lompoc, California. Her mother, charged with her murder, refused to come to court twice this week. Both times she said she was sick, both times the courtroom waited. Now, before we talk about how they died, we talk about how they live. Again, I'm Dino, and this is I Fear You Babe. First story Eric Richens. So here we go. Eric Richens was 33 years old. He had three young sons, and his business partner testified in week three that on Valentine's Day of 2022, the day prosecutors say Corey made her first poisoning attempt, Eric called him with what he described as quote unquote fear and urgency, end quote, in his voice. He said he had only heard Eric sound that way twice before, once when his mother died, and once when he witnessed a serious car accident. That was who Eric was in the room, someone who kept fear in reserve. And he was dead 18 days later after that phone call. So what week three added was that the lead detective on the case, Jeff O'Driscoll of the Summit County Sheriff's Office, has been on the stand since day 12. He became the lead investigator in March of 2023, almost a full year after Eric died. And he testified that he came into this case with three possibilities: either accidental overdose, suicide, or homicide. He followed the evidence, he said, and concluded there was probable cause for murder. And that's when Corey was arrested May 8th, 2023. Jeff O'Driscoll walked the jury through how investigators found Carbon Luber, the housekeeper who prosecutors say uh obtained the fentanyl. They got there through phone billing records, which of course they did. They surveilled her, they executed a search warrant at her home in April 2023. And inside they found drug paraphernalia, a firearm she wasn't legally allowed to have as a convicted felon. And imagine this: in her home, they found a copy of Eric Richin's obituary. And that was found in her house, like his obituary. The defense pushed hard on one specific point. Law enforcement searched the Richens home nearly a dozen times between Eric's death and two months ago, and never once found any fentanyl. Never found a cup, a glass, a straw with traces of it. Prosecutors alleged Eric ingested it through a Moscow mule that Corey made him. The physical drug itself has never been recovered in that house. The defense is making sure that the jury knows that for sure. So yesterday, which was day 12, prosecutors put into evidence a six-page letter. They call it the walk the dog letter. I think it's the biggest development this week. And in it, Corey Richards wrote to her mother, Lisa Darden, while she was in custody. And in the letter, prosecutors say Corey instructs her mother to tell her brother what to say to defense attorneys. Specifically, the letter references her attorney's plan to suggest that Eric got the drugs from Mexico. And Corey's letter reportedly coaches her brother on how to support that narrative. Now, the prosecution has described this as direct evidence of witness tampering and consciousness of guilt. The state filed a motion to restrict Corey's contact with her mother and brother after this letter surfaced. I should hope so. But this is crazy. Corey's defense has offered a different explanation. Okay. They say the letter is not a coaching document. They say it's a chapter from a mystery novel that Corey has been writing about drugs set in a Mexican prison. That is the defense's position on the record in a court of law. Imagine that. The judge has the letter, the jury will evaluate it, but the evidence of a document allegedly in Corey's handwriting that maps into the exact defense strategy being argued in that courtroom, it's not something that blends quietly into the background of a trial. You know what I mean? And one more thing from yesterday that deserves its own moment was that Corey Richens authored a children's book called Are You With Me After Eric Died? The cover shows a father with angel wings watching over his young son. She appeared on a local morning show called Good Things Utah to promote this book. And she described it as something she created to help her children process grief. Now, investigators found evidence on her phone that a ghost writer wrote the book. She didn't even write it. That came out in open court on day 12. That detail is not a crime itself. Okay. Ghostwriting is legal, but in the context of a trial about whether Corey Richens manufactured a version of grieve to conceal a murder, it sits in that courtroom with some specific weight. You know what I mean? So the trial is expected to run through March 27th. The prosecution is close to resting. The defense has not yet begun presenting their case, though. Whether Corey Richens takes the stand herself is the question that will define what this trial looks like in its final stretch. And I'll be back with updates every Monday, including this coming Monday. Eric Richens was 33. He had three sons who are growing up without him now. And that's where we started, and that's where we're going to come back to. The next case is Sandra Birchmore and Matthew Farwell from Canton, Massachusetts. And Sandra Birchmore was 23 years old when she was found dead in her Canton, Massachusetts apartment on February 4th, 2021. She was three months pregnant. Her death was ruled a suicide by the medical examiner, a ruling that has not actually been changed, despite the fact that there is a federal murder prosecution that's now being built on that same death. Sandra joined the Stoughton Police Department Explorers Academy at 12 years old, okay, which is a youth program run by the department. And it's supposed to be a safe place for local kids. But federal prosecutors allege that by the time Sandra was 15, Matthew Farwell, then 26, an instructor in that program, had initiated a sexual relationship with her. That is actually statutory rape under Massachusetts law. And prosecutors allege it continued in various forms for nearly a decade. That it sometimes occurred while Farwell was on duty. And Sandra was not the only young woman in the program who experienced something like this. Ugh, creep. Sandra did not know danger. She knew the people wearing badges and she trusted them because that's what grooming does. It doesn't feel like it's a threat. It feels like belonging for years. This week, the news this week on the birth Birchmore case is that the it survived a major legal challenge. Uh Farwell's legal team filed a motion to dismiss the federal indictment, arguing that it was legally defective. They said that it didn't sufficiently establish the required elements of the federal witness killing charge. So this week, okay, on March 9th, the chief U.S. District Judge Denise Casper denied that motion. She she ruled that the incident adequately outlines the allegations and provides Farwell enough detail to prepare his defense. The case is going to trial on October 5th, expected to last four weeks. And the Sandra Birchmore case is the one that I will return to in depth on a Thursday episode, sometime before October. I want to do, she deserves more than like a weekly update. Her story from like the Explorer's Academy at 12, like through a decade of exploitation to some Friday night in Canton. It's the kind of case the show exists to tell properly. And I will, we will get there, I promise. If you want to support Sandra's family and stay connected to this case, the justice for Sandra Birchmore group is active online. And again, that trial begins October 5th. Lastly, we've got Ashley Buzzard. She refused. Oh gosh. So Mad Melody Buzzard was actually nine years old. And that's where this case begins. That is the sentence that keeps returning to because everything else, the court delays, the non-appearances, the procedural maneuvering, whatever is noise around the fact that a nine-year-old girl is gone. And her name was Melody, and she 100% deserved to grow into that. This week, her mother, Ashley Buzzard, refused to appear in Lompat court for the second time this week. The stated reason both times was that she was sick. She stayed in her cell both times, the court waited. Both times the proceedings were disrupted. Now, this is a tactic. It may be a legitimate medical situation. That's fine. I'm not inside that cell, so I can't say. But what I can say is that refusing to appear is a recognized method of creating delay, generating procedural complexity. I know that. And exhausting the attention of everyone who's trying to move this case forward. Whether that is what's happening here or not, or whether Ashley Buzzard is genuinely ill, that's something that the court is going to have to determine on their own. But what's not in dispute is Melody's body was found after months of her mother not cooperating with investigators who are trying to find her. What is not in dispute is that Ashley Buzzard has been charged with her daughter's murder. So what is not in dispute is a courtroom in Lumpac has waited for her twice this week. Melody was nine. Her case is still moving, and I promise we will stay on it. Three of these cases all moving this week. Come back on Monday for another follow-up on some of these cases and some other things that are happening in true crime right now. And then come back Thursday. We're going to run the full expanded deep dive on Mora Murray. And this version goes to places that other episodes haven't. So if you haven't followed that case anywhere, or if you have, I still want you to hear this one. I'm going to take my time with it for sure. And that's it. This is Dino Malvone. I'm so happy to have you here. Can't wait to talk to you all again on Monday. Talk to you soon. Bye.