The Femme Fatal
True Crime - Femme Fatale Style
The Femme Fatal tells the stories of women who commit crimes, blending true crime, pop culture, and astrology to explore power, obsession, and the darker side of femininity.
The Femme Fatal
Fatal Forger: Kouri Richins
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What happens when the woman writing a children’s book about grief becomes the center of a murder investigation?
This week on The Femme Fatal, we unravel the chilling story of Kouri Richins. A Utah mom, real estate investor, and aspiring author whose polished image began to crack after her husband, Eric, died suddenly in 2022. What started as a story of loss quickly spiraled into allegations of secret affairs, mounting debt, forged documents, and a fatal cocktail that prosecutors say was anything but accidental.
From suburban ambition to courtroom spectacle, this is a story about image, money, and what happens when the mask slips.
Welcome to the Femme Fatal, a true crime podcast with an astrology twist. I'm your host, Stacey Dotson. Each week I'll be joined by a guest host because this femme fatal prefers not to work alone. Hey guys, welcome back to the femme fatal. I'm being joined again with my friend Kay, who is pretty much gonna be a co-host on this podcast. I'll start putting her name in the credits. Today we're gonna talk about Corey Richens. Yep. What made you want to talk about this?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think this is your most up-to-date or most current podcast. True, true. This case just went to trial March of 26th. So it's in the news. And I think it's kind of fascinating.
SPEAKER_01Just for everyone, uh Kay and I will see something on the news and then text each other, like possible discussion. And so yeah, I did this one too. I was like, let's talk about her.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I looked at it from a prosecutor lens. You know, I was a prosecutor for nine years, low-level stuff, misdemeanor crime. So nothing in the felony world, but I still look at this from that lens. And my initial thought is, oh my gosh, this woman is just so guilty. Let's dive in. Let's dive in. Okay, so as I researched this one, the question kept popping in my head: how did she think she was going to get away with this? That's what I thought. Here's what I'm gonna start with. Just her background, just a little bit. She was born on April 20th, 1990. She was born in Oklahoma to Lisa and Ronald. She had three siblings. According to her own sort of autobiography that she wrote as part of an assignment at an Arizona retreat she went to in 2021. She said, I moved to 17 different states because of my parents' work. And she said her dad was a successful engineer. But when she was six years old, he got really drunk and got behind the wheel and hit a police officer who was making a traffic stop and went to prison. And subsequently, her parents got divorced. She and her mom moved to Utah in the year 2000. And her mom, according to her little autobiography, her mom was a compulsive gambler. And so she remembers as a kid sitting in casino hotel rooms as her mom lost all their money, their house, their car. So she had a kind of tumultuous upbringing. And her dad died in 2010. I'm not sure his cause of death. He was in his 50s.
SPEAKER_01Was he still in prison or just he'd been released?
SPEAKER_00I think he was out of prison. Yeah. Okay. She wrote that she met Eric Richens while she was in college, and she instantly fell for the idea of marriage with kids and a happy, stable family life. She was working at Home Depot. She was a cashier at the time. And he, along with his friend Cody, had organized this business called C E Stonemasons. C and E Masonry. So he spent a lot of time at Home Depot, as one in that kind of business does. And he met Corey Richens there, fell in love, and started a family. And this is Utah. So uh the little town where they're living is called Thomas, K-A-M-A-S, Thomas, Utah. And Eric's family, they were actually a prominent family in the area. They owned a large ranch. They were well known. There were multiple buildings in the town named after the Richmond's family. So again, prominent. But they're Mormons, right? Which a lot of people in Utah are. Very much. I don't know much about the Mormon faith, but what I do know is uh if you're a strict Mormon, you don't drink caffeine, you don't drink alcohol, you don't do drugs. And so what I read is they had their first child, a little boy, in 2012, but they didn't get married until June of 2013. So that struck me as, huh, that doesn't sound very Mormon-y. But put a pin in that because there are a lot of other things that don't really sound very Mormon-ish. Uh okay, so they had two more sons after that. And so they had their little family, and Eric's business hit continued to grow. He was doing well. And in 2019, Corey started her own business. She was buying and selling houses, right? But she was not financially successful. Eric discovered in 2019 that Corey had taken out a $250,000 line of credit on their home, on their residence. Wow. Without his knowledge. Without his knowledge.
SPEAKER_01I don't even know how you do that.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, and I think that is where some of her criminal charges come into play because she was charged with forgery and mortgage fraud and all kinds of stuff. In 2019, Eric discovered that Corey had taken out a $250,000 line of credit on their home, on their own residence. She had wrecked up $30,000 in credit card debt on his credit cards. She had withdrawn over $100,000 from his bank accounts. And she had taken out over $100,000 from the masonry business.
SPEAKER_01How though? I don't understand how she can do that.
SPEAKER_00It's gotta be linked to the forgery. I'm guessing.
SPEAKER_01She forged his signature or something like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So she is in debt and he discovers this fraudulent stuff that she's up to. And he must have been pissed because shortly after discovering this, he goes to a divorce attorney and an estate lawyer. So he's looking into divorce, but he's also now redone his will and his estate. His estate is now put into a trust for his son. So if he dies, all of his assets go into that trust for the benefit of his three sons. His sister Katie is in charge of his estate. She's out of it. He is no longer going to give her anything. But keep in mind also that over the past couple of years, Corey has been going out getting life insurance policies on him to the tune of approximately $2 million. And she's the beneficiary. So if he were to die and she got none of his estate, she was still going to get a big chunk of change based upon life insurance policies. So what is being established here is that Corey is a little bit uh greedy, I would say.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Are you gonna talk at all about the real estate part of it? You know a lot about real estate.
SPEAKER_00What else is she doing?
SPEAKER_01So yeah, so she, from what I understand, he started that masonry business and it was super successful. So she ended up getting her real estate license. And instead of really just selling houses and doing the client-facing side, she started flipping houses, right? And she was leveraged so far out. She was having like two or three houses at a time and just borrowing from different sources. She was buying houses and renovating these houses with that money that she was taking at that time. Anyway, that's part of the story I found interesting is the fact that she's like this real estate hustler type person.
SPEAKER_00Do you know what I find fascinating about her is her upbringing. If her mom is a compulsive gambler and she's losing all of this money and their stuff, you know, how do you then get into the risk business? Because I would be so averse to that. I would be, no way, I'm getting a job. I am watching every penny. I am not going to be like that. And she gets into this risky business of flipping houses.
SPEAKER_01If you flip houses and you do it right, you make good money. But I mean, she wasn't making very smart decisions. She was paying interest on these hard money loans, and that's a lot. It's a lot.
SPEAKER_00So Eric discovers that she's in debt up to her eyeballs, which means he's up in debt too. They go to counseling, she promises, okay, I'm going to pay the money back, and I'm going to be honest with you going forward. She does not live up to that end of the bargain. An example, Eric and his partner Cody, right? In their business, C and E, they got life insurance policies on each of them making each other the beneficiary. So if Eric died, Cody was the beneficiary, and he would use the proceeds from that life insurance policy to buy Eric's portion of the business and keep C E going. And vice versa. That's very smart. Well, in January of 2022, Corey logged into the C and E life insurance portal somehow. And I don't know why, but somehow she changed Cody's beneficiary to her. Wow. Okay, I did not know this. She did. And so the life insurance company contacted Cody and Eric and said, Hey, this happened. And they're like, that wasn't supposed to happen. So they correct it back. And I don't know exactly what went on with Eric and Corey after he found that out, but I bet he was really pissed. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'm like thinking maybe that would have been the time to leave her, you know.
SPEAKER_00But right. But again, she's not living up to her end of the bargain, which is being honest, and paying back the money. Her business, as far as I can tell, is going deeper into debt at this point. Yes. Big time. Big time. So weeks later, it's weeks later. I think we're at the end of January now. Corey gets another life insurance policy on Eric. But this time, I mean, compared to all the other stuff, it's kind of piddly. It was a hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy. So weird. But anyway.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I could use a hundred thousand dollars. I don't find that piddly.
SPEAKER_00Well, sure, but given her debt, yes. Okay, so now let's fast forward a few weeks later. It's Valentine's Day. So it's February 14, 2022. And Corey goes to this deli or diner in town and gets Eric his favorite sandwich, leaves it on the seat of his truck with a love note. It's Valentine's Day, that makes sense. So yeah, happy Valentine's Day, love you, blah, blah, blah. So he unwraps the sandwich, takes one bite of the sandwich, and breaks out in hives, and then starts having trouble breathing. He's got access to his son's epipen and he does that. He also takes some Benadryl and then he gets really tired and goes to sleep. A few hours later, he wakes up and he's able to go coach his son's basketball game. But nonetheless, he tells a friend, hey, this was really weird. This happened, and I think Corey may be trying to poison me. Wow. Yeah. So don't forget about that. He didn't die, but he was definitely suspicious of Corey. And he's making people known. So now you've got friends knowing he's suspicious of Corey. You've also got his family knowing he's suspicious of Corey to the point where she's not even in the will. Katie is now in charge of his estate. Okay, so a few weeks later, Corey discovers this beautiful, unfinished, massive mansion in Heber City, Utah.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00This mansion, it's 20,000 square feet. It's got all the bells and whistles, butler's pantry, two kitchens, guest house. I mean, it's got it all, but it's unfinished. And so Corey's like, this is amazing. Eric, we need to purchase this property and flip it. They go to an accountant. The accountant says, Okay, if you can acquire the property and put it into good condition and sell it, you could clear 12 million dollars of profit. She's seeing dollar signs, whereas Eric is over here going, Okay, we are in so much debt already, he's very hesitant. So Corey submitted her offer and it was accepted. And it was put under contract. If the property is put under contract, it doesn't necessarily mean a contract was signed. It's just we've got an offer pending, it was accepted, and we're gonna cross all the T's and dot all the I's at some point, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you're intending to purchase the property. I mean, it's strict. If they got down to the wire and she backed out at the last minute, the seller could sue her for specific performance. So it's risky. You're pretty much locked into a legal deal at that point, yes.
SPEAKER_00Okay. According to Eric's family, he was not gonna go through with it. He was not gonna sign the document. According to Corey's mom, her name's Lisa Darden. Eric was celebrating Corey, and Corey was celebrating, and Lisa was celebrating. In fact, they were at their house, Corey's in Eric's house on March the 3rd, 2022, celebrating this endeavor. Eric said, let's make a toast to Corey. And Lisa said she left and all was good. And Corey said, so after mom left, they ended up putting the boys to bed, but she and Eric continued to celebrate having cocktails, so lemon drops and Moscow mules, which again gets me back to the Mormon faith. I don't think they were strict Mormons, I think there's a thing called Jack Mormons, which are Mormon in name only. These must have been Jack Mormons. Yes. Anyway, they ended up drinking, and at 9:30, she says he went to sleep. I want to say he took a THC gummy. She did say he did do that sometimes before going to bed that helped him sleep. So she mentioned to the police, yeah, THC gummies may have been involved. Anyway, during the evening, so goes to bed at 9 30. Somehow she ends up in one of the son's bedrooms because he'd had a bad dream. She falls asleep with the son. She wakes up at 3 a.m., goes back to their bedroom and finds Eric laying there. And she said he was really cold and he was heavy. And she turned on the light and she said he wasn't breathing. And she calls 911 and they're like, okay, you need to do compressions, chest compressions, and resuscitate him. We're sending EMTs. They tell her to drag him to the floor with a sheet because he's a lot heavier than she is. So she pulls him down to the ground, and the ground is you need that solid surface to do chest compressions. And 911, you could hear her counting because you know you're doing compressions, but they can't see her. EMTs show up. One source says when they arrived, they couldn't tell that she'd been doing chest compressions because his mouth was filled with foam and blood. I want to say, when you're doing resuscitation, they tell you clear the airway. So if she was doing compressions, wouldn't that foam and blood have already come out of his mouth? I don't know. That's one thing I read that they didn't think she'd even done CPR at all because there was foam and blood in his mouth. I did watch the officer's body cam footage. Officer Wynne walks into the bedroom and there's like three or four EMTs on the ground doing resuscitation efforts. And Corey is standing in the doorway to their bathroom, like their ensuite bathroom. Officer Wynne says, Come with me, and they go into the living room, and she's sitting on the couch with her head in her hands, and she pretty much has her head in her hands the whole time that they're talking. Which to me, I thought, you know what? She's trying to hide the fact that she can't produce tears right now. I don't know. She may have been producing tears, but I thought it looked a little suspicious. Anyway, she's going through her explanation of things. Like she says he doesn't take any drugs, but she did offer to the cops that they eat gummies. Sometimes he would eat a gummy before bed, but it didn't seem like he did, though. He does have Lyme disease. Huh, he had Lyme disease. That's weird. He had Lyme disease. He got bitten by a tick. She said he had allergy shots the day before for like seasonal allergy type stuff. I think that's what it was. She did say he said his chest hurt and he went to bed around 9:30 or 9:45. She calls her mom while she's sitting there talking to him. She's like, Can I call my mom? She calls mom. Mom shows up, and the mom's like, he was fine when I left last night. I know he had an allergy shot yesterday. Uh, she explains they all had COVID like two weeks prior, but everybody had recovered. So it was non-eventful, other than mom comes, but then sister Katie comes in. She's just a mess. She's like, What happened? Oh my god, of course she's frantic. And she immediately says, I'm in charge of his estate. That's kind of weird.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm sure to the officers who are know nothing, right? They're just showing up to a call. That's probably a very weird thing to say.
SPEAKER_00It's a very weird thing to say. And I think Katie saying that was indicative, oh, she's really suspicious. Anyway, he's deceased. An EMT comes into the room and you hear her sobbing. The body camera footage is facing the other way, but you hear Corey kind of sobbing, and I think it was the EMT coming in to say, hey, we tried, and we could not resuscitate him. So an autopsy was conducted. Guess what they found in his system? A lethal dose of fentanyl. It was five times the lethal dosage. They also found a drug in his blood called quetiopin or ketiopin. It's a medication used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depressive disorder. It's also used as a sleep aid because it makes you tired. Corey was prescribed ketapien, not Eric. So I kind of fast-forwarded, but that's what the autopsy revealed. So Corey was adamant with the investigators that he did not have a drug problem. So investigators, okay, he's got fentanyl and this ketapien in his system. She says he doesn't do drugs. Well, we gotta do some more investigating. That made them a little suspicious, in addition to the fact that his family was like This girl did it. This girl did it. Our brother told us before if anything happens, my wife is responsible. So they're urging police to look at Corey because they are very suspicious. They told police that back in 2019, Corey and Eric had taken a trip with some friends to Greece. They'd gone on a vacation, and during the vacation, Eric was given a drink. Corey had given him a drink and he got really, really sick.
SPEAKER_01So wow.
SPEAKER_00So maybe in 2019 she tried maybe so, but third times the charm. Exactly. But she explained it. She said he was taking medication for Lyme disease. The medication, the bottle said, do not drink while you're taking this medication. And so they had ordered in Greece, they'd ordered from the bartender a virgin, whatever drink he was having. And the bartender accidentally put liquor in it. And so that was her explanation for it. But that was something that his family told police. This happened in 2019. Then the day after, so the very next day, he died on March 4th in the wee hours of the morning. On March 5th, she closed on that mansion. She went to the signing. She went to the signing. She closed on the mansion and she threw a party to celebrate. And I'm not clear, but I think it was in the house where her husband had died the day before that she threw a little party to celebrate her closing. I know. I'm like, who did she invite? Who went? I don't know. Mom, brother.
SPEAKER_01She's like, let's just do it both. Like, we'll do a wake celebration alive. And at the same time, we'll celebrate. My building.
SPEAKER_00So on March 6th, and now we're two days. Husband died March 4th. Now it's March 6th. Corey hired a locksmith to come to the house and drill into a safe that Eric had, and she didn't have the combo to. So it just so happens Amy, one of Eric's sisters, is driving through the neighborhood, sees this locksmith, decides, huh? I'm gonna follow him.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it is a small town-ish area that they live in. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00But she goes up to Corey, she's like, You have no authorization to be drilling into my brother's safe. They got into an argument and Corey punched Amy in the face. Cops were called, the estate attorney gets on the phone because Corey's like, This is my house. You need to leave. And the estate attorney tells her, Hey, by the way, you are not in charge of his estate. That would be his sister. He changed that back in whatever year.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00So all of this is happening within two days of the death of her husband. She's the grieving widow, you know. And so investigation is continuing. It's now April of 2022. So one month after her husband has died, investigators have a search warrant. They execute a search warrant and they go into their home, Eric and Corey's home, to retrieve their data, um, cell phones and computers. This is where they get a lot of information. Text messages on Corey's phone as they're going through it, that her text messages from March 1st, 2022, so three days before he died, through March 15, 2022, have all been deleted. She has no text messages for that two-week time period.
SPEAKER_01That's suspicious.
SPEAKER_00Just a little. And then in text between Corey and a woman named Carmen. Carmen is a, she's a cleaning lady, a housekeeper that Corey would hire a lot to come in and clean houses that she was flipping. There were multiple texts between her and Carmen. Carmen had multiple convictions involving the possession of controlled substances in addition to other crimes. But she had a little bit of a rapsheet. Carmen, when cops contacted her, she admitted to detectives that she had supplied Corey with fentanyl pills on two separate occasions around Valentine's Day and then just before air jide. After Valentine's Day, later in February, Corey texted Carmen saying the fentanyl pills that you provided to me previously were not strong enough. So she puts this in writing. I mean, crime 101, don't put anything in writing, okay? That is going to come back to bite you, especially digitally. Nothing really goes away. Did you get that from the court transcript? No, just reading various articles online. Why?
SPEAKER_01Because the word fentanyl is not used in any of those messages. It's the pills that you got me didn't work. And it's funny because this is how of a novice I am with this stuff. They're like, she got you oxies and roxies. I'm like, what's a roxy? I know what an oxy is. What is a roxy? I don't know. I don't know what a Roxy. I don't know. I have to look that up. The word fentanyl wasn't mentioned until the police were interviewing Carmen and they said flat out, you know, we'll drop all these charges if you get her convicted. So her story changed. She did testify that it was fentanyl, but there's no proof. Like they pulled the text messages and stuff, and it did not ever, it said, the pills you got me.
SPEAKER_00The pills you got me were not strong enough. Okay. That was interesting. And yeah, that was something that the defense raised was that Carmen was saving her own skin. Of course, that's what you're gonna do. You're gonna, yeah. Carmen said that Corey paid her $900 for each supply of drugs that she gave her. Not that that's relevant at all, but anyway, she also said she gave the police details about where these transactions took place. And that was later corroborated by using digital forensic evidence showing the timeline matched up. Yeah. One thing of note, Corey provided false information to officers about the night Eric died. She probably provided a lot of false information, but she said she had left the phone, her cell phone on the charger in their bedroom while she went into her son's room. So she was in her son's room like four or five hours, according to her. But digital evidence showed her phone being unlocked and locked multiple times between 9:30 on March 3rd and 3 a.m. on March 4th, with all of the texts during that time frame being deleted. So interesting. It was also discovered, dun dun, dun, that she was having an affair with this man, handyman Robert Grossman. So she hired him a lot to work on these houses she was flipping. There were multiple text messages between Corey and Robert regarding her getting a divorce. In December of 21, she made plans for them to go on a trip to St. Martin in April of 2022, which is the month after her husband died. She'd said things like, I feel trapped, and that it would be better if Eric were dead. There were multiple texts to Robert saying she loved him. They discussed again divorce. She said it could be a while and she didn't want him to have to wait around for. She texted him on January 9th, asking if he'd ever done any drugs besides marijuana.
SPEAKER_01That's weird.
SPEAKER_00I know. And he said, yes, we've already had this talk. So I wonder if she was setting the stage or something. Or maybe wanting to talk to him about, hey, could I get some drugs, some fentanyl or something?
SPEAKER_01Procurement. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Maybe procurement, maybe setting the stage. I don't know. Uh later in February, after Valentine's Day, after the sandwich incident, she texted Robert saying, I just want to lay on the couch and snuggle with you and watch a murder documentary. And I just thought, oh girl, you needed to watch a lot more because you did not do this right. You just left the biggest trail of evidence. Multiple texts about being with Robert and if Eric could just go away. So that was discovered. One text she sent was urging him to hang in there. Give me until Friday. And this was the week of March 4th. March 4th, 2022. Give me until Friday. Eric died on March Friday, March 4th. So while the investigation was ongoing, Corey filed a civil lawsuit against Eric's estate, saying she was entitled to some of it. The civil case was put on hold when Eric's sister filed a petition asking the court to stay the civil proceedings pending the homicide investigation, the investigation into Corey. And it sounds like that was when Corey figured out, oh shit, I'm being investigated for homicide. After that, digital data indicated that Corey had made multiple Google searches on just some very suspicious things, uh, such as can cops uncover deleted text messages? Can you be forced to take a lie detector test? If someone's poisoned, what is the cause of death on the death certificate? What is a lethal dose of fentanyl? Just stuff like that. So she's not helping herself at all. The digital data against her is just mounting. In March of 23, she appeared on the Good Things Utah Talk Show to promote this book she says she wrote with her sons called Are You With Me? It's a book about grieving the loss of a parent or a significant other. And it's just kind of disgusting. On May 8th, 2023, she's arrested and charged with felony, first degree murder, three counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. On that evening, in a recorded telephone conversation from jail, she admits to her mom and brother that she did contact Carmen about getting pain pills, but it was for Eric. So she contradicts what she told the police. He doesn't have a drug problem, but then she's telling people, hey, um, yeah, I'm getting him drugs. In June of 23, she asks to be released on bond, and bond is denied. The judge is like, no, we're not letting you out. You're gonna sit in prison until this trial, which is so long. It's so long because it kept getting postponed for various reasons. One being her attorney withdrew, and then the new attorneys had to get up to snuff because there's a ton. I know I'm gonna talk about that attorney, Sky Lazaro. Right? If I ever get into trouble, God I will never. But if I were, I'd want to seek out Sky Lazaro. Oh, me too. Rock star. So at this bond hearing, Amy, his sister, Eric's sister, spoke on behalf of the Richens family. And I thought she summed it up really great. She explained that after Eric's death, they asked Corey to help get things ready for the funeral, but Corey said she was too distraught with grief. They found out she closed on the $2 million home, hired a real estate agent, hired an architect to do CAD drawings on the home, hired a lawyer to file a lawsuit regarding Eric's trust, hired a locksmith to get into the safe and attempted to get Eric cremated. She mustered up strength and resolve to do most of this within 48 hours of Eric's death. And wow, that's a good point, Amy. She did an awful lot for a grieving widow. She also said that Corey was telling the sisters, you cannot see these boys unless you give me part of the estate. So that summer, the summer of 23, they decided to take death penalty off the table. And that was after consulting with Eric's parents and siblings. So they took it off the table. And so her sentencing range, if convicted of the charges, including aggravated murder, she faces 25 years to life in prison or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
SPEAKER_01That's the maximum sentence, right?
SPEAKER_00That's the maximum sentence. I just thought this was interesting, researching a little bit about the death penalty. In Utah, they have the death penalty, and most people are executed via lethal injection. But in Utah, you can be executed via a firing squad. What? That's crazy. I know. The firing squad in Utah was used most recently in 2010 to execute Ronnie Gardner. He chose that. He chose that. He chose that. And here's how they do it: the inmate is secured in a chair, and five shooters, one with a blank, fire at a target placed over the inmate's heart.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god. So four out of five hit him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Isn't that crazy? That is weird. So in September 23, there was a letter discovered in Corey's cell. And I'm not sure why, but she ended up in the hospital sometime during that period in jail. And her brother said it had something to do with the reaction to medication. But when she went back to jail after being like out of the hospital, she was under observation. And during observation, they discovered this letter she had written. And at the top of the letter, it said, Walk the dog.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they call it the walk the dog letter. Yeah. So yeah, I saw a picture of the letter. And walk the dog is like caps at the top with exclamation points.
SPEAKER_00It's so weird. But so she had shown this letter to her mom when her mom was visiting her in jail. Corey says I was showing it to her because I have an elderly dog that my mom now takes care of because I'm in prison and I want to make sure she walks the dog. That's actually a plausible explanation. It is. But the contents of the letter are pretty suspicious. She says in the letter, okay, she says Ronnie, her brother, would testify that Eric told him he'd get pain meds and gummies from a Mexican cartel down in Mexico when he'd go hunting down there on some Mexican ranch. And then he would hide the pills in an allergy bottle in his work truck, and Cody emptied out the work truck within a week of Eric's death. So they were never found. And so she's written this down, presumably, according to the prosecution, as the defense.
SPEAKER_01She's trying to tell them what to say when they're being interviewed or when they're on the stand, I guess.
SPEAKER_00And she's claiming, no, I was giving my mom a note to walk the dog, and it was on this book that I was writing. She said I was writing a book based upon my experiences, a fictional book. Really silly. Okay. So anyway, March of 24, Corey was charged with more crimes, attempted murder for the Valentine's Day sandwich incident, along with financial crimes, mortgage and insurance fraud. Also in March of 24, an investigator wrote, This is purely speculation, but it's fascinating. This investigator wrote that mom Lisa Darden might have been involved in Eric's death and had they discovered that in 2006 the mom had been in a relationship with another woman. Another woman. And mom was the beneficiary of this woman's estate. There were also text messages recovered showing that mom had disdain for Eric. And the officer or the investigator was pondering, hey, I don't know, linking the two. Mom seems like she could have been involved in this one. And uh Sky Lazaro, the attorney, was like, look, this happened in 2006. We uh live in a country with a giant drug epidemic, people are dying all over the place due to overdoses. Back off. You're speculating, it's a baseless conspiracy theory. Not long thereafter, though, Skye withdrew from representing Corey. And we can't get details on this.
SPEAKER_01I know, I want to know why. Going back to the letter, so I'm just gonna jump into this, but I watched uh 48 hours with Natalie Morales, and then that was leading up to the trial, and she had Sky on there. She had a bunch of different people interviewed the brother, the mother, Amy, and stuff like that. So Sky was just saying all the right things, like where it was like, huh. I already knew she'd been convicted because I just watched this when we're preparing for this, but then they have the post-mortem, and I don't know why she didn't represent her. I was trying to figure that out because everything she was saying the first time, like the letter, she's like, You can't prove that. That's after he died. And then apparently she wrote a check. Gory wrote a check for some of the drugs. One of the things was to the house cleaner, to Carmen? Yeah. But it's just like, couldn't she have just been paying her to clean her houses? Couldn't that have been what the check would have been for? Just other little things that she said that just put doubt. I think she's guilty, but if you have to look at it on paper, that does say reasonable doubt. Yeah, she could spin it. I think if she had been the main defense attorney, it would be different. I still think she would have been convicted, but definitely for the fraud. But who knows? They didn't take very long.
SPEAKER_00They didn't take very long. Sky, she said that she withdrew because of a conflict of interests. We don't know what that is. It would be great to know. She was appointed new attorneys, and the case was postponed so that they could come up to speed because there was a shaitan of evidence. So during this time, Corey sent a recorded message to Dateline Weekly Podcast. Did you hear about that? I didn't know that one, no. It was just a recorded message where she sounds like she's tearful and she's like, You took an innocent mom away from her babies, and this means war.
SPEAKER_01His family was taking care of the kids, right? While she was in jail. It was his side of the family.
SPEAKER_00It was his side of the family. That's my understanding, not hers. Over the next few months, she's charged with a bunch of other charges, all financial. And in March 16th, 2026, jurors found her guilty. Even though she had all these charges, they only found her guilty of five. Some of them had been dismissed. I mean, for example, she was charged with 26 additional charges in June of 2025. Oh my God. Yeah, financial. She was charged with five charges of second-degree felony mortgage fraud, five charges of forgery, seven second and third degree felonies charges of issuing a bad check. I mean, it goes on and on. So a lot of financial charges, which I think stems back to a lot of the stuff we were talking about earlier, where she took money out of his bank account without him knowing all of the insurance, blah blah blah blah. Anyway, she was found guilty of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, and that would have been the Valentine's Day sandwich incident. Two counts of insurance fraud and one count of forgery. And again, she faces up to 25 years to life in prison or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
SPEAKER_01So the best case is the 25 years in prison. So that's the best case scenario for her. Yeah. I want to put out there though that I mean, if someone had poisoned my sandwich and I was suspicious, I don't know that I would have let them make me a drink. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have let them make me a drink. If I was suspicious, right, I'd be like, I'll be preparing my own food. Thank you. And my own cocktails.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and my own Moscow mule. So, you know, with a jury trial, the jury decides whether or not they're guilty or innocent. And then sentencing is decided by the judge. So she was found guilty in March or March 16th, 26. And at the time of her finding of the verdict, they set sentencing for a date in May, May the 13th. Which May 13th, 2026, would have been Eric Richin's 44th birthday. She knew this. Why would she have agreed to it? Why would her team have agreed to a March 13th date? If that's going to be so emotional for people, I don't know. But now she wants a new date. She's like, okay, this is my dead husband's birthday. Uh in addition, so she's got this three lawyer defense team. One of the lawyers recently experienced a death in the family. One of the lawyers is going to be out of the country. So they're trying to postpone it to a later date. And at the sentencing hearing, they are expected to present evidence and call additional witnesses before the judge decides her sentence. They're going to put forth evidence to, I guess, mitigate things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So that's what I was, I don't understand. I texted you that the other day. I was like, all the evidence comes out, the jury decides guilty. So then the judge gets to hear additional evidence for a sentencing?
SPEAKER_00Only for sentencing. So the judge is not going to be deciding guilt or innocence at this point. The judge is just going to decide, okay, you have a sick child at home going through chemotherapy instead of putting you in prison for this amount of time. We're going to let you live in a halfway house and blah, blah, blah. It's just things that help mitigate that maximum sentence. Here's some examples. She had a minor role in the offense. She may express remorse. She has a lack of prior criminal history. So that's what they're going to be doing. They're going to be considering sentence alternatives. I'm in Colorado. And so it's going to be called something different everywhere. But in Colorado, it's a 35C motion. And following the sentencing hearing, if the conviction stands, post-conviction motions can be filed. Again, 35C in Colorado, raising things like constitutional claims, newly discovered evidence, ineffective assistance of counsel. So they're going to be going through all of this, but we'll see what happens at the sentencing hearing. I guess first we need to see if the judge is going to give them an extension on that and then see where it goes from there. She's probably going to appeal everything from here to the sun. So it's interesting.
SPEAKER_01It is. It's interesting. Uh okay, so I watched 48 hours. I'm just gonna jump into that. And that's what Sky Lazaro said. She's like, expect a repeal right away. But in the 48 hours, the ones before the trial, a couple of things that I found interesting were they talked to Corey's. Brother, and he's wearing the C and E masonry t-shirt in the interview. And I thought that was pretty interesting because I guess they think she's innocent. So they're like, I have no ill will towards this family because they're gonna find her innocent, right? My sister's innocent. But Lisa, Corey's mom, came out and said that it's basically gonna be a fight for the kids because everybody wants the kids because they control the fortune, the trust. So everybody wants the money. Everyone's gonna try to fight for the kids if she gets convicted. That's again prior to the trial. So she has been convicted.
SPEAKER_00That's Corey's mom's opinion. Don't you just kind of get in your brain, how did she think she was gonna get away with this? The book.
SPEAKER_01That's what gets me. The book. You know, it's like, okay, that's in the documentary in the 48 hours. I keep bringing it up. They talk about like she texted or emailed someone that she was gonna make a five-dollar profit off of each individual book and expected to make half a million dollars by a year or something like that. Wow. The book is gonna sell. Like she was so proud of it. But there's also rumors she didn't even write it. It was a ghostwriter. And I'll be honest, I read the book. And like I watched, like they did a little video where they read the book and they just have little animations. So I did that, I looked at that, and I would be ashamed if I was a ghostwriter to say that I wrote that book.
SPEAKER_00It's not very good. Not even good for a child. That's the intended audience, right? A child? I know.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's got the sentiment of sweetness, right? Of like, okay, here's a child that's sad and they're starting new school day, but it's just not written very, very well. But for a child, it is. So, okay, quickly about astrology. Every sign has a word assigned to them. So, like Aries is me, Taurus is mine, and Gemini is ours. And then I'm not gonna go through all of them, but that's like, so it starts with me, mine, and ours, right? And so I'm a Taurus, and I very much identify with mine. When I introduce people, I mean this is my sister, my brother. It's not like this is Lori, she's my sister. You know what I mean? It's like, this is my sister, I'm claiming her, and then I'll tell you her name. So I'm very much mine. Now you're an Aries, right? So do you find that you use the word me a lot? I do, I do. I say me and I. It's all about me and I. Me and I. And the you're the youngest son, right? So, okay. So that's all I'm really gonna talk about is she's an Aries. She's born on um April 20th. She's the cusp. April 20th, right? Yeah, April 21st is Taurus. I'm one of those people I don't really believe in a cusp because you can pinpoint unless it's void, of course. Like, remember her talking about the moon sign, void of course. Is she void, of course? No, she's not void, of course. I think she should be, but yeah, so I just want to talk about the word me because the book is Are You With Me? And on every single page of that book is the word me. So I'm like, that is very Aries, you know what I mean? It's like, so anyway, no, I get if she wasn't guilty, and this weren't the type of situation, and someone wrote this book, and they weren't a very skilled writer, but it is very it's sweet, the sentiment is sweet, but she's guilty, so it's just it's disgusting. Like, you just want to be like, oh my god, how without knowing the story until you explained to me all the debt and stuff she was in, it's like she was all about the money always. So maybe it was her upbringing, you know, maybe her mom's money issues did rub off on her, and you know, like you said, maybe her mom was involved. We don't know for sure, but I don't even really want to do much of the astrology part, just the me part was enough. But anyway, you know what we should Google while we're on here before we get off is what are Roxys? Roxy's and Roxys. That guy she was having an affair with, too, I forgot to mention, he testified against her.
SPEAKER_00He did okay. See, I did not watch any of the trial.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he testified. It's in the you know, the 48 hours just sums it up that post-mortem's only like 27 minutes. And he went in and he cried on the stand. He testified against her, he got all emotional. And this is interesting. Sorry, people, I know it's gonna be weird out of order, but when they figured out who she had the affair with, the family went to him and asked him to meet with their own personal private investigator. So the family had hired a private investigator when all this was going on because I guess they didn't charge her for what over a year, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was over a year.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so they had their own investigation happening on the side. But anyway, so Roxy's playing terms for Roxycodone. So you've got oxycodone and roxycodon. Roxycodone is a brand name formulation of the immediate release opioid medication, oxycodone. So I guess sort of the same, just a brand.
SPEAKER_00Good to know. Roxy's and oxies.
SPEAKER_01Now I'm gonna start using the I know it's like I got you Roxy's and oxies. I'm like, what is that? I'm so dumb. Stacey, that was fun. This was fun. We should do it again. I'm sure we will. May 31st. May 31st. Kay and I are gonna be doing the podcast live at Spindletap Brewery. Woohoo! Woohoo! We don't know for sure who we're gonna talk about yet, but we kind of have an idea. I don't want to give it away. Anyway, okay. Bye, have a good day. Hey, thanks, you too! The Femme Fatal, created and hosted by Stacy Dotson, produced by Mark Williams, music by Marcia Yingling, Chad Chank, and Greg Loicano.