A mother of three from Utah who wrote a children’s book on how to cope with sadness and grief shortly after her husband passed away on 4 March 2022, is now being accused of injecting him with a deadly amount of fentanyl, court documents show.

Kouri Richins was living every parent’s worst nightmare—coping with the loss of a loved one while trying to shield her own children from the same heartache. So, in an effort to help alleviate some of the pain, Richins wrote Are You With Me, a short book that she could read to her grieving children each night.

Her husband, Eric, was found dead at their home in Kamas. At the time, Richins claimed she had found him dead and “cold to the touch” after making him a Moscow mule to celebrate him selling a house and leaving for a moment to check on one of their children.

However, in a shocking turn of events that no one could’ve expected, Richins was arrested at her home on Monday 8 May 2023 and charged with aggravated murder as well as three counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. Eric had five times the lethal dosage of fentanyl in his body when he died, investigators have revealed.

What’s worse is that two months before the arrest, Richins had been featured on a local TV segment Good Things Utah to promote her book and speak in detail about how harrowing the loss of her husband had been on the family. The mother stated: “It’s, you know, explaining to my kid just because he’s not present here with us physically, doesn’t mean his presence isn’t here with us.”

Richins had also been promoting her new book on her social media channels, urging her followers to purchase it. Are You With Me had received very favourable reviews on Amazon, with comments applauding the heartwarming tale and the kid-friendly graphics that were included.

“It completely took us all by shock,” she added during her appearance on Good Things Utah. “We have three little boys, ten, nine and six, and my kids and I kind of wrote this book on the different emotions and grieving processes that we’ve experienced in the last year. I went on Amazon and Barnes and Noble to try to find something to help us cope at night—nights are the hardest. I couldn’t find anything that suited them, so I was like ‘let’s just write one’.”

Richins’ web of lies began to unravel following the investigation’s toxicological findings, which led detectives to secure a search order for her home, including the accused’s mobile phone. According to the charging document, Richins’ phone check also turned up “several communications” with an acquaintance who had prior drug charges.

Here’s where the story becomes even eerier than the psychological thriller Gone Girl. This incident hadn’t been the first time Eric had experienced a less-than-pleasant reaction to something his wife had made for him to eat or drink. A few years ago, while vacationing in Greece, Eric privately told his sister that Richins fixed him a drink which made him incredibly ill.

And then, on Valentine’s Day in 2022, less than a month before he died, Eric experienced a very severe allergic reaction to a meal his wife had made him. According to reports, Eric broke into hives, unable to breathe, and had to use an EpiPen to alleviate his symptoms. Six days later, the father of three was found dead of a fentanyl overdose.

In Richins’ book, the boy wonders if his father, who has passed away recently, notices his goals at a football game, his worries on the first day of school or the presents he found under a Christmas tree. “Yes, I am with you,” an angelic wing-clad father figure wearing a trucker hat responds to the little boy. “I am with you when you scored that goal. […] I am with you when you walk the halls. […] I’m here and we’re together.”

As for her motives, warrants obtained by investigators on the case allege that the couple had argued over purchasing a $2 million home that Richins wanted to remodel but Eric thought was too expensive. In January 2022, she tried to change a life insurance policy that her husband had with his business partner, Cody Wright, who helped him run a stone masonry business.

All in all, this case has all the elements needed for a spine-chilling thriller movie adaption, complete with a grieving mother, an insane amount of deadly substance, and a tangled web of deceit…

Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was convicted of the brutal murder of 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. Having admitted to eating the flesh of his victims, the ‘Milwaukee Monster’ was sentenced to 16 terms of life imprisonment in both Wisconsin and Ohio. However, in November 1994—less than three years into his sentence—Dahmer was beaten to death by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver.

During a 2014 interview with CNN which has recently resurfaced online following the success of the new Netflix series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Chris Scarver—the son of the man who ended up killing Dahmer—spoke about the troubling reality of knowing his parent had put an end to the serial killer’s life.

Describing the time he found out, Scarver said, “I was about 10 and I saw it on TV. That’s how I found out. […] A big picture of him [Scarver’s father] popped up, and I was just shocked at that point.”

As for the first time he heard Dahmer’s name, Scarver—who was aged 19 at the time of the interview—added: “When I was young, I didn’t know what it meant, obviously. But that name has been around me for my whole life.”

Scarver was born just after his dad committed a murder that landed him in prison with Dahmer. Though he once shared that he initially believed his dad would eventually come home, any hope of this quickly disappeared once Scarver discovered that his father bludgeoned Dahmer, as well as another inmate, Jesse Anderson, to death in the showers of the prison gym.

Scarver Senior used a 20-inch (51 centimetres) metal bar, which he had removed from a piece of exercise equipment in the prison weight room, to beat and mortally wound Anderson. Dahmer was beaten and raped with a broken broom handle.

After being found competent enough to stand trial, the inmate received two more life sentences for Dahmer and Anderson’s killings. It is believed that Scarver Senior murdered the two men, who were both white, because of Dahmer’s predominant targeting of black males and because Anderson, having stabbed his wife to death, attempted to frame two black males as the perpetrators of the attack. He was once quoted as having said “Nothing white people do to blacks is just,” as found in The New York Times’ news archive.

When CNN reporter Jean Casarez asked Scarver Junior if there was still a question as to whether or not his dad had been ‘set up’ by guards after it was revealed that he should not have been left alone with the two men in prison, he replied: “I think about that all the time. It makes me wonder if he even did it.”

Having said that, Scarver is aware that his dad pleaded no contest to the murders, and is currently serving three life sentences in Colorado. Despite the fact that the young boy had to grow up without Scarver Senior all his life, he also added that he believes his convicted murderer father was the one who helped him when he was most vulnerable.

“I was actually starting to go down the wrong road, and that’s why I wrote [to] him,” Scarver remembered. “I didn’t know what to do, I needed some guidance. And I just told him everything I was going through, and how I felt about me and his relationship—all these built-up years, all that pain that I had, I finally just let it go and just talked to him.”

His dad wrote back, allegedly telling him: “Tough times don’t last. Tough people do. And you are the toughest kid I know.” To this day, Scarver still credits his father with keeping him on the right track, having printed out a prison photo of him and stuck it to his dorm room door while at college.

Ever since Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story hit our screens, many have praised the series for accurately exposing the systemic racism that enabled Dahmer to go unnoticed for so long. Some netizens even highlighted how, even though the ‘Milwaukee Cannibal’ remains one of America’s most culturally ‘popular’ serial killers—his story having been told through countless movies, documentaries and other mediums—for some reason, previous ones always left out very important details about systematic racism and police prejudice.

Dahmer targeted mostly gay black men—11 of his 17 victims were black. But even though neighbours filed multiple complaints to police about the killer’s behaviour, they were ignored. Glenda Cleveland, a black woman who, on multiple occasions, tried to warn the police about her murderous neighbour but whose pleas were disregarded until it was too late, makes an appearance in the Netflix series.

According to the Associated Press, several families sued the police department, citing that racism among the officers contributed to their relatives’ deaths. On 27 May 1991, Cleveland called the police after her daughter and niece saw a naked and bleeding boy run from their apartment building. The officers questioned Dahmer, but eventually accepted his explanation that the boy was an adult and his lover who just had too much to drink. They even went as far as to return the boy to Dahmer who later admitted to killing him after his arrest.

Systematic racism also played a key role in the serial killer’s trial. Dahmer killed mostly gay black men, yet his jury was made up of only one black member and 13 whites. In his opening statement during Dahmer’s insanity trial, defence lawyer Gerald Boyle insisted his client was motivated by sexual attraction, not racism, when selecting victims. “This was not racial,” he said. “Mr. Dahmer’s obsession was body form, not colour.”

But many, including some of the relatives of Dahmer’s victims such as Jeannetta Robinson, didn’t believe that. At the time of the trial, Robinson said, “The law says you should be tried by a jury of your peers. A jury of your peers. Who did this man go to bed with and eat up? There should be at least half blacks and gays on that jury.”

It’s impossible to cover the killings of Dahmer without acknowledging the pain and trauma he caused so many black families in Milwaukee. And the same should apply to Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. However, some of the victims’ relatives have begun to speak out online regarding the production team failing to ask for their consent.

Eric Thulhu—a relative of Errol Lindsey, who was drugged and killed by Dahmer aged 19—tweeted, “I’m not telling anyone what to watch, I know true crime media is huge r[ight] n[ow], but if you’re actually curious about the victims, my family (the Isbell’s) are pissed about this show. It’s retraumatizing over and over again, and for what? How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need?”

He added, “Like recreating my cousin having an emotional breakdown in court in the face of the man who tortured and murdered her brother is WILD. WIIIIIILD.” Following the vast amount of responses his initial tweet received, Thulhu confirmed that his family’s consent had never been asked for prior to the series being made. They weren’t even notified of it.

In a twisted turn of events, some fans of the Netflix show have taken to TikTok to share video edits romanticising Evan Peters’ portrayal of the serial killer. The American Horror Story star has been described as “creepy as hell” and “bone-chilling” as Dahmer, which is understandable considering the phenomenal performance Peters delivered.

But others urged viewers not to ‘thirst over’ the evil character just because he’s played by Peters. “Dahmer is out, let’s not romanticise Jeffrey Dahmer just because he is played by Evan Peters. Remember the victims,” wrote one individual.

https://twitter.com/jaxajueny/status/1573895596875841536

Sadly, however—in a similar manner to when Zac Efron portrayed serial killer Ted Bundy in 2019—other netizens completely disregarded such pleas, with one writing, “Need Evan Peters to play a character that isn’t a serial killer so bad so I can find him hot in peace.”

need Evan Peters to play a character that isn't a serial killer so bad so I can find him hot in peace pic.twitter.com/2cxBwnUtdT

— Aidan (@aidanthereup) September 21, 2022

Speaking about playing the Milwaukee Monster, Peters himself told Netflix: “I was very scared about all of the things that Dahmer did, and diving into that and trying to commit to [playing this character] was absolutely going to be one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life because I wanted it to be very authentic.”

ryan murphy will not rest until evan peters has played every terrible white person in america's history https://t.co/XiNQwzcgXX

— The Smoking Musket (@smokingmusket) September 16, 2022