21. Weekly Roundup | March 16, 2026 | Kouri Richins · Salisha Ali · Dee Warner · Sandra Birchmore · Melodee Buzzard

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Five cases this week. Closing arguments in the Kouri Richins murder trial are happening today in Park City, Utah — the jury that spent three weeks hearing how a Utah mother allegedly poisoned her husband with fentanyl, wrote a grief book for their kids, and tried to coach a witness from jail is now deciding her fate. In Queens, New York, a 75-year-old man was arrested this week for the murder and dismemberment of his 34-year-old wife Salisha Ali, who had already left him — but was talked into one last visit. In Michigan, Dale Warner was convicted of murdering his wife Dee, whose body was found sealed inside a welded fertilizer tank on their farm three years after she disappeared. In Massachusetts, the federal murder case against former Stoughton police detective Matthew Farwell — accused of grooming Sandra Birchmore from age twelve and killing her at twenty-three — survived a motion to dismiss. And in California, Ashlee Buzzard has a court date in 48 hours to face charges in the death of her nine-year-old daughter Melodee. If she doesn't show up, a judge has warned he will have her extracted from her cell.

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

SOURCES

Kouri Richins https://kutv.com/news/local/kouri-richins-murder-trial-moves-to-closing-arguments-after-three-weeks-of-testimony https://www.kpcw.org/summit-county/2026-03-12/kouri-richins-rests-in-murder-trial-without-presenting-defense-case https://www.courttv.com/news/ut-v-kouri-richins-grief-author-murder-trial/https://www.sltrib.com/news/2026/03/14/kouri-richins-trial-what-know/ https://www.abc4.com/richins/kouri-richins-trial-week-three/

Salisha Ali https://queensda.org/husband-charged-with-murder-and-dismemberment-of-wife-whose-remains-were-found-in-separate-locations-along-brookville-blvd-and-cross-bay-blvd/ https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/husband-allegedly-murdered-dismembered-young-wife-dumped-remains-queens-woods/6475807/https://www.amny.com/new-york/queens-murder-senior-husband-young-wife-03112026/https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/03/16/queens-woman-had-separated-from-husband-now-accused-of-dismembering-her-mom-says/

Dee Warner https://eu.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2026/03/10/dale-dee-warner-murder-trial-verdict-fertilizer-tank/89029126007/ https://www.13abc.com/2026/03/10/jurors-reach-verdict-dale-warner-murder-trial/https://www.clickonde

Transcript

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to I Fear You Babe. My name is Dino Malvone. I'm your host. This is your weekly roundup for Monday, March 16th, 2026. And we've got five cases this week, and I want to tell you about each and each of them before we get into a little bit of a deeper dive. First is the Corey Richens murder trial in Utah. It's reaching its end this week. Closing arguments are actually happening today, right now, actually, as I'm recording this, in a Park City courtroom that the public has been shut out of. Only family is inside. The jury has spent that has spent three weeks hearing the prosecution's case is going to begin deliberating later today. And I'm going to tell you a little about who Eric Richard was before we get into what happened to him. Next was a woman named Selisha Ali, grew up in Trinidad. She moved to Queens, New York to build a life and was last seen alive on January 13th of last year. Sanitation workers found her torso in a garbage bag near JFK Airport in September. This week, police found her head in a wildlife refuge and arrested her husband. He is 41 years older than she was. When investigators called her mother to identify the body, her husband described his wife as it has no hands and no head and no legs. Her mother said she stopped speaking to him after that. And I need you to know who Selisha was before we get into any of that. Next, in Michigan, a farmer named Dale Warner was convicted last week of murdering his wife, Dee, who disappeared back in 2021. Her body was found three years later, sealed inside a welded shut fertilizer tank on their own property. Her brother spent five years fighting for this moment, and he finally got it. We've also got the story of Sandra Birchmore in Massachusetts. The federal murder case against the man who allegedly groomed her from age 12, survived a motion to dismiss. The trial is October 5th. She deserves more than a sentence, and we're going to give her more than that. And Melody Buzzard, this is the fifth story. She was nine years old. Her mother has a court date in 48 hours. A judge has already said if she doesn't show up, I will have her extracted from her cell. This is the story from last week where she didn't show up twice because she wasn't feeling well. So we'll be back here next Monday with whatever happens. But again, before we talk about how they died, we get to talk about how they lived. Again, I'm Dino Malvone, and this is I Fear You Babe. Let's go. So, okay, Park City, Utah, closing arguments. What's happening right now? So the victim is Eric Richens, who's 33. The defendant is Corey Richens, 35, his wife of nine years. The charges are aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, insurance fraud, and forgery. And the current status of this case is that closing arguments are underway. Jury deliberations begin today or tomorrow. And if convicted, she's facing up to life in prison. So let's talk about who Eric was. Eric Richs was 33 years old. He had three sons. He had a business partner. It was a man named Cody Wright, who described him as someone who powered through everything. He powered through illnesses, injury, difficulty, just kept going. On Valentine's Day of 2022, Eric called Cody and his voice was different. Cody testified at trial he'd only heard Eric sound afraid twice before in his entire life. So Valentine's Day 2022 was the third time that he'd ever seen him cry. And prosecutors alleged Corey had just attempted to poison him. Eric was sick. He called his business partner because that's that is who he had. 18 days later, from that, Eric Richens was dead in his own bed with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in his system. He was 33 years old. He had three sons, and his business partner is still alive to tell the jury what his voice sounded like when he was so afraid. So what these past three weeks have built. So nearly there, nearly 40 witnesses have testified. A forensic accountant who testified that Corey was financially drowning, 236 bounced checks. That's a lot. After Eric died, she received$1.3 million in life insurance, and she spent roughly half of it in a few months paying off what she owed. Her boyfriend, Robert Grossman, testified the night before Eric died, Grossman sent Corey a gift of two people kissing and captioned, I love you. Hours later, Eric was dead. A month before his death, Corey texted Grossman, I think I want you to be my husband one day. They stayed together for several months before it ended, but he put his head down on the stand when their messages were read out loud. You know, that's like a point where I feel like their love now has become his shame. Yikes. Carmen Lauber, the housekeeper, prosecutors say obtained the fentanyl. Her phone pinged the same drug supplier at the same gas station in Draper, Utah on three dates: February 11th, February 26th, and March 9th, 2022. And March 9th was three days after Eric died. When police searched Lauber's home the following year, they found a firearm she wasn't legally allowed to own because she was a felon, drug paraphernalia, and a copy of Eric Richon's obituary. And again, they found that in her house. There was also the walk of the dog letter. There was a six-page allegedly letter written in alleged allegedly in Corey's handwriting, sent from jail to Corey's mom, basically coaching her brother on what to tell defense attorneys. Her team says it was a chapter from a mystery novel that she's been writing. She is the consummate writer, right? She just always knows but here's the funny thing. She supposedly wrote this chapter from a mystery novel about drugs set in a Mexican prison. Right now the jury has it, they're sussing it out. Then, so she wrote a gre a children's grief book after Eric died. The on the cover, I remember last week we talked about it was the one with the father with the angel wings. Well, investigators found evidence on her phone that a ghost writer wrote that book. So she didn't even write that. So I'm not really sure about her writing these chapters about this mystery novel set set in a Mexican prison. The defense rested Thursday without calling a single witness. Corey Richens did not testify. 40 witnesses on one side and silence on the other side. Right now, in a closed courtroom, like right this minute in a closed courtroom in Park City, Utah, the attorneys are making their final arguments. The verdict could come this week, and we will be here when it does. Maybe you'll get a little bonus episode whenever this comes out. Salisha Ali. So this was in Queens, New York, and there was arrest happened this week. The victim, Salisha Ali, was 34, originally from Trinidad. The defendant, Rupchand Simbo, 75, her husband, 41 years her senior. And guys, I practiced this name, Rupchand Simbo, like 30 times before the episode. And if I got it wrong, please forgive me. So the charges are second-degree murder. Two counts concealment of a human corpse and tampering with evidence. And how he was caught. Well, GPS coordinates from the Life 360 app on his own phone placed him at both of the dump sites. The current status is that he was arraigned in Queen's Criminal Court. He's been held without bail and he pleaded not guilty. So who Celicia was? Well, she grew up in Trinidad. She was the kind of person who called her mother every day. When those calls stopped, her family in Trinidad assumed she needed some space. So people who knew her in the U.S. were saying they were seeing her around. Things seemed normal. Her family didn't think much of the silence at first. The silence was because she was already gone. So Selicia met Rubchan Simbo at a Christmas party in Trinidad a few years ago. He was in his 70s. She was in her early 30s. And her mom, Paula, was against the relationship from the start. Paula told reporters this week he wanted to control her. And she's not going to let anybody control her. Selicia moved to the United States in 2024 and married him. She got a job in Brooklyn and she was like building something here, you know? By the time she disappeared, she had already separated from Simbo. She was done with him already. But according to her family, she was talked into visiting him one more time. And on July 13th, 2025, the last day anybody saw her alive, she went to his house in South Ozone Park. She never showed up for work the next morning. So how she was found on September 22nd, 2025, New York City sanitation workers, now think about this. She disappeared on July 13th. On September 22nd, New York City sanitation workers were doing roadside cleanup near 149th Avenue and Brookfield Boulevard in Queens. It's at the edge of Idawau Park, not far from the JFK airport. They smelled something and they found a garbage bag in the brush. It was wrapped in a blue moving blanket and some yellow rope. Inside was a woman's torso. She had been beheaded. No arms, no legs, and the body, of course, was decomposing. The medical examiner noted three tattoos still visible on the body, three names and a flower. And investigators used those tattoos to identify her. They called her mother in Trinidad. And when they asked Simbu if Simbo if he had to help confirm if it was Silicia, here is how he described his wife to the authorities. It has no hands, no head, and no legs. Paula, her mother, told reporters this week I didn't speak to him after that, the way he described my daughter, like she was nothing. Investigators obtained a warrant for Simbo's phone. They found the Life 360 app. It's location sharing app, the kind people use to track, you know, family members or pets or whatever. The GPS data showed that he was at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge on July 14th, the day after Selisha was seen alive for the last time. And it showed him at Idlewild Park on July 15th, the day after that, the two different dump sites, two consecutive days, and his phone logged every single step. On March 5th and 6th, detectives searched the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge based on those coordinates, and they found Selisha's head, legs, and one arm in the wooded area near the North Channel Bridge. A blue moving blanket and yellow rope matching the ones found with the torso were discovered inside his apartment and his garage. He was arrested on March 11th, which is five, just five days ago. He's 75 years old and he's being held without bail. Selesha Ali was 34. She called her mother every day. She had tattoos of three names and a flower on her body, and those tattoos are what brought her home. Her mother said, My daughter was my life. My heart aches for her, and I'm so broken. So that is who we are talking about whenever we say her name. So let's move on to Dee Warner from Michigan. The verdict was announced March 10th, 2026. The victim, Dee Ann Warner, was 52 years old. She was a wife, a mother, and a businesswoman. The defendant, Dale Warner, who was 58, was her husband for 15 years. The verdict was guilty, second-degree murder, and tampering with evidence. This was all happened. This all happened on March 10th, 2026. And how long it took? Well, Dee disappeared April 21st. Her body was found August 2024. The verdict was March 2026. So it's nearly five years. And there's a sentencing taking place May 7th, 2026. So who was Dee? Dee Ann Warner was 52 years old. She had kids. She had businesses. She and Dale ran farming and trucking operations together out of Tecumseh, Michigan, a small town in Lennewee County. The kind of place where everyone knows which truck belongs to which family. She was the kind of woman who, when her marriage started to fall apart, she made a decision that she was done. She was going to sell the businesses, file for divorce, and just, you know, start over. Her daughter Raquel testified at trial that the relationship had become really toxic. In fact, she said, quote unquote, extremely toxic. Dale had been tracking D for years. He had a GPS device installed on her Hummer in 2020. He used an app to check the location of her Cadillac Escalade over 2,100 times between January 2020 and April 2021. And he asked a worker to clone her phone. He knew where she was at every hour. On April 21st, I'm sorry, 24th of 2021, Dee had made a decision. She told someone close to her that she was going to sit down with Dale that night and tell him that she wanted a divorce and wanted to just sell everything. Their nine-year-old daughter was staying at a friend's house. It was just the two of them at the house. Dee Warner was reported missing the following morning. She was never seen again. So there's this tank, okay? So for three years, Dee was a missing person. Her brother, Greg Hardy, never accepted that she had just left. He launched a public campaign. He called justice for Dee. He pushed investigators, you know, he pushed the media. He kept her name in front of anyone that would listen, even when it felt like no one was moving fast enough. In August of 2024, investigators found her body. Her remains were inside a sealed fertilizer tank on the Warner family property. Not their main farm, but it was a storage building on a separate parcel in Tipton a couple miles away. The tank had been repainted. The welds were not factory original. So drone footage shown at trial captured Dale after learning police were planning to use cadaver dogs on the property, operating a backhoe loader to move the tank from a burn pile. The medical examiner testified that Dee died of strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head and face. Her body had been bound with duct tape and wrapped into tarps. Dale's internet search history during the investigation included searches related to body disposal methods.

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Eek.

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The trial ran five weeks with 35 witnesses. Dale Warner himself did not testify. And on March 10th, the jury convicted him of second-degree murder and tampering with evidence after roughly nine hours of deliberations over two days. They had the option to convict on first degree premeditated murder. They chose second degree. Greg Hardy, who's D's brother, stood outside the courtroom after the verdict. He had fought for five years. Long, long years, I'm sure. He became emotional and he said, quote, I fought every day for five years. It was very difficult to get validation. It took nearly to the very end, end quote. He now he said it now feels like victory for D. Dale Warner will be sentenced on May 7th. D Warner was 52 years old. She had decided she was done and she was leaving. Her brother spent five years making sure the world knew her name, and she deserved that. And she deserved him. Last, nope, second to last case. We've got the case of Sandra Birchmore, Canton, Massachusetts. The trial date is set for October 5th, 2026. And you can expect a deep dive on this case from us sometime before the trial begins. The victim was Sandra Birchmore, 23, and her unborn son, unfortunately. The defendant, his name is Matthew Farwell. He's 40 years old, former Stoughton police detective. Charges are killing a witness slash victim, which is a federal charge, and causing the death of a child in utero. Motion to dismiss was denied on March 9th, 2026. The trial date of October 5th, 2026, expected to last four weeks, is going to be presented by Judge Denise Casper. The status of the case right now is that Farwell is being held in Rhode Island and he pleaded not guilty. So before any of this, Sandra Birchmore joined the Stoughton Police Department's Police Explorers Academy in March of 2010. She was 12 years old. It was a youth program run by the department in Stoughton, and it was, of course, meant to be safe. Matthew Farwell was a volunteer instructor. Instructor. Okay, let's add that to the list of words that I made up. Matthew Farwell was a volunteer instructor in that program before he joined the force and then became a full officer and continued as an instructor. Federal prosecutors allege that before Sandra turned 16, Farwell began a sexual relationship with her. He was 26 and she was 15. And that is statutory rape under Massachusetts law. Prosecutors say it continued in various forums for nearly a decade, sometimes while Farwell was on duty as a police officer. Sandra Birchmore grew up inside that. He was something else entirely. In December of 2020, Sandra was 23 and three months pregnant. She told Farwell she believed that he was the father. He was a married man with three kids. And on January 20th, 2021, a friend of Sandra's called the Stoughton Police Department to report the relationship. A department employee received the call. That employee told Farwell 11 days later, Matthew Farwell was the last known person to see Sandra Birchmore alive. Security cameras captured him entering her apartment building and leaving. Sandra was found dead on March 4th, 2021. The state medical examiner ruled it a suicide. And that ruling hasn't changed. Built on top of a death that is officially on paper still suicide. That specific cruelty has never been adequately named in most coverage of this case, I think. And Sandra's death says suicide. Every piece of federal evidence says something else. The case actually survived a motion to dismiss on March 9th. The trial, again, is set for October 5th, and we will be here every step of the more of the way. Sandra Birchmore was 23 years old. So sad. She was three months pregnant, which is also incredibly sad. She was spending her final days planning for her child's future. Her cousin, Barbara Wright, said after the trial date was set, quote, it's time to get justice for Sandra and her baby, end quote. That is the sentence this case has been waiting for someone to carry out. So let's see how this goes. Like I said, we are going to follow this case really closely, and we're going to do a really deep dive on Sandra before before the case begins in October. So stay tuned for that. The last one we're going to cover today is Melody Buzzard from Lompoc, California. The hearing is Wednesday, March 18th. Lompok. Lompok. Lompok. Lompok, California. I don't know. I tried all these words before. The victim, her name was Melody Elani Buzzard. She was only nine years old. The defendant, Ashley Lynn Buzzard, is 40 years old. That's Melody's mother. She's been charged with first-degree murder, lying in wait, which is a special circumstance, and discharge of a firearm causing death. The sentence being sought is life without parole. The next hearing is Wednesday, March 18th, which is later this week. Judge Dunkel has warned he will issue extraction order if no, if she no shows again, meaning like if mom doesn't show up again, because last week she was supposed to show up twice. She didn't show up twice because she was ill. If she pulls that again, the judge is going to order her to be extracted from her cell. The preliminary hearing deadline must the must it must begin before April 30th, 2026. Again, let's start with who Melody was. She was nine years old, known to have a really sweet personality, charismatic and happy. Those are words her aunt Elizabeth used. A kid who liked going to school enough that her teacher noticed when she stopped showing up. This is how this entire case began. A school administrator made a phone call on October 14th, 2025 to report an extended absence. And by the time that call was made, Melody had almost certainly been dead for five days. So what happened? Okay, so on October 7th, Ashley Buzzard rented a car. She and Melody went to pick it up wearing wigs. So there's a nine-year-old girl in a wig at a rental car office. They drove east, California to Nevada, to Arizona, to Utah, to Wyoming, to Nebraska, and then back through Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California. And during this, Ashley switched the license plate at some point. She backed into gas stations to avoid cameras, capturing her license. On October 9th, near the Colorado-Utah border, the last surveillance footage of Melody alive was captured. She was with her mother, and then after that, nothing. Ashley drove home to Lompoc in October, which was October 10th, the day after, alone. She returned the car, went home, did not report her daughter missing, and did not call anyone, just went home. Investigators found a spent shell casing inside the family home when they served a search warrant. On December 6th, the Wayne County Sheriff's Office in Utah responded to a report of a body found in a remote area off of State Route 24 near Canonville. These city names are difficult, you guys. On December 22nd, DNA confirmed it was Melody. She had been shot in the head. The cartridge case matched the one from the house in Lombock. So Ashley Buzzard was arrested on December 23rd. She has now refused to appear in court twice, both times claiming illness. And her hearing is Wednesday. Judge Dunkel has put it on the record if she doesn't walk into that courtroom, he's gonna have her brought in. Like enough is enough. Melody Alani Buzzard was only nine years old. Sweet personality, charismatic and happy. She deserves every single day that she never got. And we will be here on Monday with whatever happened on Wednesday. Five women this week, five names. We got Eric Richens, who was 33 years old and had three sons, and called his business partner when he was afraid. A jury is deciding his case today. Salisha Ali, who moved from Queens to Trinidad and called her mother every day, who had three names and a flower tattooed on her body. And every one of those tattoos is what brought her home. Her mother also said she has no joy, nothing. Her daughter was her entire life. Dee Warner, who was 52 years old and decided she was done and was leaving, and whose brother spent five years making sure that the world knew it, he got his verdict last Monday. I know that's right. Sandra Birchmore, who trusted the police from the age of 12, who was 23 years old and pregnant and planning a future, she did not get to have. Her trial is October 5th. And Melody, nine years old, charismatic and happy. Her mother has a court date in 48 hours. Come back on Thursday. We're going to do a deep dive on Mora Murray and her disappearance, the full expanded version. If you've been following that case anywhere, come here for this one. I think we built it a little bit differently. Before we talk about how they died, we talk about how they lived every single time. That is a commitment, not just a slogan. I'm Dino Malvone, and this was I Fear You Babe. Talk to you guys next week.