Trial date set for Kouri Richins, who is accused of her husband's death

PARK CITY, Utah (Court TV) – A funeral writer accused of murdering her husband will face a jury next year.

After a two-day preliminary hearing, Judge Richard E. Mrazik set a trial date for Kouri Richins for April 28, 2025. The trial is expected to last four weeks.

Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three who wrote a children's book about dealing with grief after her husband's death and was later accused of fatally poisoning him, looks on during a sentencing hearing Monday, Aug. 26, 2024, in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool)

Kouri faces a number of charges, including murder, stemming from the death of her husband, Eric Richins, who prosecutors say was poisoned by a cocktail containing a lethal dose of fentanyl in March 2022. Kouri, who wrote a children's book about her husband's death, was charged with murder a year later.

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In May, prosecutors filed an amended complaint against Kouri, adding financial crimes to the list of charges. The updated complaint and the evidence it contained led to a delay in the trial, followed by another delay after Kouri's lawyers requested that the prosecution be disqualified from the case before abruptly withdrawing.

On Monday, prosecutors called a Summit County Sheriff's Office detective to the stand, who described his conversations with a housekeeper who allegedly sold the fentanyl that Kouri used to kill Eric in March 2022, according to the indictment.

Tuesday's hearing was about another attempted murder charge filed in March. Kouri was accused of slipping fentanyl into her husband's favorite sandwich on Valentine's Day, causing a severe but non-fatal reaction.

Summit County Prosecutor Brad Bloodworth defended the attempted murder charge, noting that he believed Kouri had learned lessons from the first failed assassination attempt on her husband that helped her commit the murder 17 days later.

Prosecutors also forwarded text messages between Kouri and her husband, as well as her boyfriend and a person with whom she may have been having an affair.

After the preliminary hearing, the judge ordered that Kouri be arraigned on all counts, including murder, attempted murder, forgery and fraud. Kouri pleaded not guilty to 11 counts.

Kouri will return to court for a pretrial hearing on September 23.

Scripps News Salt Lake City, an EW Scripps company, contributed to this report.