25: Kouri Richins: Grieving Widow or Criminal Mastermind?!

39-year-old Eric Richens went to bed on March 3, 2022, and he never woke up. In the early morning hours, his wife Corey says that she got up to comfort one of their boys, and when she came back to their bedroom, Eric was completely unresponsive. Just like that, a healthy 39-year-old husband and father of three gone. Now police initially ruled it as an accident, a tragic heartbreaking overdose of fentanyl. Case closed. Except, it wasn't. Because a year later in May 2023, that same grieving wife, the one who had been doing interviews, posting tributes, talking about helping her sons process their loss, she was arrested and charged with her husband, Eric's murder. And here's where it gets even more unsettling. In the months before her arrest, Corey had written and published a children's book about their three boys coping with the sudden loss of their father. A book inspired by her own family. A book that she was promoting publicly. And when that detail came out, people were stunned. Was this a grieving mother trying to help her kids heal? Or was this something much darker? When we first covered this case back in 2023, Corey had just been arrested. And we broke down the marriage that from the outside looked picture-perfect. I mean, beautiful home, successful real estate business, three adorable boys. But behind closed doors, there was financial tension, control issues, allegations that painted a very different story. And since then, this case has spiraled. We are talking hundreds and hundreds of pages of court filings, lawsuits flying in both directions. Corey suing Eric's family, Eric's family suing Corey, bizarre letters about walking the dog, attorneys withdrawing from the case, new attorneys stepping in, I mean, evidence battles so much. And now, finally, it's all coming to a head with Corey on trial as we speak. So it really felt like the right time to reopen this case. So that if you're seeing the trial, you can get the full back story, get fully caught up with the case and know everything, and then see where this trial takes us. And as a reminder, in these reopened episodes, we go back to the beginning and we layer in every major development that has happened since the original deep dive. In some cases, I also will call out when my opinion has changed on certain details. So because of that, you might notice slight differences in audio from the earlier recordings because I had different equipment back then. Now we have better equipment, but the goal is to give you the same thing. Give you the full story. Start to finish with every update that changes how we see this case. Because this case, it's not just about what happened in one bedroom in the middle of the night, but it's about what was happening long before that, and what's still unfolding right now. Hey guys, I'm Annie Elise. This is Ten To Life, and today we are reopening the case of Corey Richens. Let's get into it. Eric Richens had been working as a contractor, and frequently needed to go to Home Depot for supplies. He loved to cut up and joke around with the cashiers while he waited for his orders to be ready. The more he went there, the more he started to notice a beautiful brunette on one of the registers, and one of his main cashiers would tease him and tell him that he should pursue her and ask her out. The cashier's name was Corey Darden, and according to the locals, the young men of this town in Utah, thought that she was one of the prettiest girls in their small town. Eric had been married once before, in his early 20s to a woman named Julie Jorgison, and their divorce was really hard on Eric, emotionally and financially. He had spent a long time being single, but when he met Corey, he felt like he could try his hand at love again. When Corey finally accepted his offer for a date, the two of them were said to become inseparable. Eric was said to have the best laugh he was fun, vivacious, driven, and just extremely generous and kind. Corey was said to be very sweet, smart, and by the looks of it, their love had become a fairytale romance. Even though the two of them came from completely different backgrounds, and couldn't be more opposite to some, Eric was born on May 13, 1982, to parents Jean and Linda Richards. He was the oldest of the family with two younger sisters, named Katie and Amy. The Richens were a very well-known family in a small city of Summit County, Utah, and they had a beautiful sprawling cattle ranch, which later became a permanent conservatory in their town. In this town, there are even buildings named after the Richens family, and they were active and loved members of this community. Over the course of his childhood, Eric excelled in sports, and grew up learning the value of hard work by working on the family ranch. His family were members of the LDS Mormon Church, and like most young Mormon men, Eric did a two-year mission trip to Mexico City, where he learned to speak fluent Spanish and aided this town. After his mission, he attended the University of Utah, where he received a bachelor's degree in international studies and a minor in Spanish. Even though his first marriage to Julie didn't work out, Eric was still able to start his own masonry company from the ground up, with his good friend and business partner, Cody Wright. This company was called C&E Masonry. He loved to hunt, ride anything with wheels, and was said to be someone that you could count on for anything. He valued his family more than anything else. So when he met Corey, he was excited to finally settle down again, with the woman that he would hope to spend the rest of his life with. Corey Darden was a bit younger and was born on April 1, 1990. She was born to parents Alisa and Ronald Darden. Corey is her mother Alisa's maiden name, and her parents thought that it would be a beautiful name for a girl and a way to keep the name Corey in the family. Not too much is known about Corey's childhood, but it seems as though her and her siblings, Ronnie Jr., Renee and Mindy, were raised primarily by their mother. Ronald lived in North Carolina and apparently had had several DUIs over the years and charges relating to public intoxication. So it's evident that he had somewhat of a drinking problem. Unfortunately, Corey's father died in 2010 at the age of 57, and because of that, would be unable to walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding, which was only a few years later. Like Eric, Corey had an extremely strong work ethic and had several jobs over the years, including a housekeeping business, working at a design company, a hospital, and then the Home Depot where she would meet her future husband. While she was working, she also received a bachelor's degree in health care administration from Weber University, and then a master's degree in human resources from Utah State University. Not long after their whirlwind romance began, Eric and Corey got engaged, and they were married in 2013. On the day of their wedding, before the ceremony began, Eric's mother Linda presented Corey with a prenup. And she did this because she said she didn't want her son to go through what he went through during the divorce with his first wife, Julie, ever again, if anything were ever to happen, just as a precautionary measure. The prenup basically stated that neither Eric or Corey would have any rights to present or future income or assets should they divorce, but they would, if one of them passed away before the other. The assets included Eric's portion of his C&E Masonry business, which at the time was valued at $2.5 million. Eric placed Corey and his business partner, Cody, as beneficiaries of his life insurance policies, so that if he were to pass away, Cody could use his portion of the life insurance, pay out to purchase Eric's portion of their business. Basically, if they divorced, Corey couldn't take his money, and Eric couldn't take her money. But if one of them died, they would be able to acquire the other's money and assets, and Cody would buy all of the business. After the wedding, Eric and Corey seemed to have the perfect life together. Corey took after her brother Ronnie and started her own real estate company and had closed on several luxurious houses in Utah. The couple owned multiple properties, and would flip or cheaply buy and renovate a home to sell it for a higher profit. Eric was said to be just an amazing and attentive father. Even while running his business, he still helped coach all of his son's sports teams and valued family time more than anything. His wife and his children were his life, and no one could have expected that anyone of the Richens family would be unhappy. They had the perfect life it seemed. Their truly was nothing to be unhappy about. They had beautiful, healthy sons, more than one gorgeous home. They had cars, trucks, four wheelers, supportive families, successful careers. They had faith and amazing friends. What more could any family want, truly? Apparently, there was more, though, that Corey wanted. And starting in 2020, Eric felt like his wife began acting strange. In 2020, Eric and Corey took a romantic trip together to Greece. One night while on their vacation, Eric called his sister Amy, and told her that Corey had fixed him a drink, and after he finished the drink, he became violently ill. He told his sister Amy that he thought Corey was trying to poison him. Now, that is a serious allegation. come out of seemingly nowhere and a huge assumption from getting sick after a drink. So other issues must have been going on for him to assume that it was something that Corey had done intentionally. But Corey's brother has a very different explanation for how the incident with Eric's drink actually went down. (dramatic music) - Eric was on medication and that medication you're not allowed to drink gone. He asked the waitress to bring a virgin drink, a drink without alcohol, she didn't do it. It made him very, very sick. Corey called his doctor, figured out what to do and later that night he was back and fine. Everyone that was there will tell you the exact same thing. - Regardless, if it was something Corey did, it didn't work and the two of them returned from vacation and went back to their normal seemingly happy everyday lives. Friends and family have said that even if Corey thought something was off in his marriage, he was so devoted to his wife and kids that he would do anything to try to make it work. However, as a form of personal peace of mind, Eric drew up a new living trust in November of 2020 and he did this without telling his wife. He transferred the family home, all of his personal property and his share of the Masonry business into the trust and he gave his sister Katie full control over it if he were to pass away. The next two years were happy for the family from the outside, at least. That was until 2022. When Eric started to become really worried again that his wife may be out to get him. In early 2022, there was a large mansion for sale in the nearby city of Midway, which had become known as the Grand House. The unfinished 20,000 square foot home sat on nearly nine acres of land and it had locals wondering what was going to happen and who would end up buying the massive estate. Cory desperately wanted to purchase the home and she wanted to purchase it to flip and make a profit. But Eric felt like the $2 million house was too expensive and not worth the investment. This apparently became a huge point of contention between the couple and a source of constant arguments. Cory felt like Eric was being controlling over her career decisions and Eric must have felt like she wasn't being rational about spending so much money. In January of that same year, Eric's business partner Cody got a notification from their insurance company, informing him that Cory had signed into their account and taken Cody off and made herself the only beneficiary on Eric's policy. When Cody told Eric about the change, they were quickly able to switch it back to the original term, except at this time, Eric decided to take Cory off completely, knowing something was up. He and Cody were obviously really alarmed that Cory would do this behind their backs. I think we all know that a spouse secretly tinkering with their partner's life insurance policy is never a good sign and a huge red flag flying. However, Eric, for whatever reason, never confronted Cory about any of this and reportedly had started to consider getting a divorce but wanted to keep things quiet and civil for his boys until he could figure out what to do. After confiding in his sisters about his concerns, he ended up putting his sister Katie on his policy as power of attorney. Between December 2021 and February 2022, court documents state that Cory had conversations with an acquaintance known by law enforcement to have a history of dealing substances. She asked this friend who was referred to as C.L. in the documents if he could get her some paid medication for an investor who was having back problems. She left money at a house that she was flipping and C.L. brought Hydra Codon to leave for Cory in exchange about two weeks later. Cory reportedly contacted this friend again and asked for something stronger. She stated that she wanted some of that Michael Jackson stuff and specified that she was looking for fent. And I have to abbreviate it guys because otherwise YouTube's gonna flag me but you know what I'm talking about. So Michael Jackson though, didn't actually die from fent. But it's clear that by that statement, she was looking for something deadly, in my opinion. Fent is an opioid pain medication 100 times stronger than morphine. Most of us have heard of the epidemic surrounding this drug and how hundreds of people are dying every single day from ODs on the street version of the drug. While Cory spent $900 on about 15 to 30 pills of fent from this person going by C.L. Three days later, on Valentine's Day, February 14th, 2022, Cory made some food for her and Eric to eat together. She gave him a sandwich but Eric later reported that after he ate, he became very ill. He later called and told his partner and friend Cody that Cory had made him a sandwich and that after he ate it, he started breaking out into hives and feeling like he couldn't breathe. Was this a flashback to their grease trip two years earlier and him thinking he was being poisoned? He used one of their son's epipans, which is used for allergic reactions and then took some benedral but then passed out. Eric told Cody that he felt like Cory was trying to kill him for his money. He reportedly talked to his sisters and told them that if anything ever happened to him, Cory was to blame. But according to Cory's lawyer, this whole sandwich thing, it has been massively overblown by Eric's family. She says it was actually pretty minor. He went and took a nap and then went and coached one of his child's games. Aside from an assertion by the family, there doesn't seem to be anything else out there that supports that. About two weeks later, on February 26th, Cory asked for another $900 worth of this drug and CL left it in a bonfire pit at one of their properties in midway. Eric had decided to let Cory have her way or at least think that she was getting her way by putting in an offer for that grand estate mansion. They were under contract with the seller, which means that their offer was accepted but it was not finalized until details and agreements could be sorted out. However, Eric reportedly told his family that he was going to break it to Cory that they were not buying the house. In the early hours of March 4th, just days after Cory's secondary drug purchase, Eric would be pronounced dead. According to Cory, she and Eric had been celebrating together on the night of March 3rd for closing on this big estate. At around 9 p.m., she went to the kitchen to make him a Moscow mule, which is a cocktail with vodka, ginger beer, and lime. She then brought it to him to drink in bed along with a THC gummy. Soon after, Cory said one of their sons had woken up from a night tear and she went to lay in his bed to help him fall back asleep. She said that she ended up falling asleep with her son and at around 3 a.m., she woke back up and went to get into bed with Eric. When she got into their bed, she realized the Eric's body was cold and that he wasn't breathing. She called 911 and reportedly told the operator that she had been attempting CPR. When paramedics arrived, some reports say that Eric was either at the foot of the bed or on the floor near the foot of the bed, a little bit of a mixed report. Regardless, not where you would find somebody sleeping to cuddle up and realize that their body is cold. Even though Cory told them that she attempted CPR, the paramedics noted in their report that this didn't appear to be likely because Eric had blood coming from his mouth. After several failed lifesaving measures were attempted, Eric was pronounced as officially gone. Due to his age, Eric's death had to be investigated. He was found to have five times the fatal amount of street fent in his system. When Cory was asked if he had an issue with drugs, she said that he did have a pain pill addiction in high school but that she wasn't aware of any current drug use. His family has denied that to be true and they were all obviously more than suspicious that Cory had caused the death of Eric somehow. The very next day after his death, Cory had a gathering at their home and reportedly was drinking and celebrating that they had finally closed on that house and finalized the deal on that estate. It wasn't even one day after her husband had passed and she was still concerned with that mansion and celebrating that they had closed on it. Cory's friends and one of Eric's sisters were in attendance and the next day Cory asked his sister Katie to leave so that she could be alone to grieve. At that point, Katie lost it and refused to leave, yelling at Cory that she would make sure that she got kicked out of the family's home. It was during this altercation that Cory became aware of Eric switching his sister to be his beneficiary. Cory was obviously not going to take this new revelation lying down and she filed a claim against her husband and his sister claiming that Eric defrauded her and that he had no right to transfer her shares of his assets as outlined in the prenup without her knowledge. So she's suing for the claims to his estate since that prenup state that it belongs to her in the event that Eric were to pass away before her and she's also suing his sister for an additional $300,000 in legal fees. In the midst of the civil case, police were investigating a case of their own, a criminal case against Cory. It turns out that they weren't so sure that Eric had really died of an accidental overdose after all. And at one point, they asked to download the contents of Cory's phone. On the night of his death, she told investigators that she had left her phone plugged in at their bedside when she went to go help their son go back to sleep. However, phone records show that there was activity, including a conversation. with someone, and a deleted text message and movement of her phone during the time that she claimed to have fallen asleep next to her son. They also took into account that she told them that she attempted CPR, and that where Eric was found on the bed wasn't consistent with the story of her laying down next to him. Most importantly, they also uncovered deleted messages between her and C.L., the dealer, and these messages were in regards to all of the drugs that she had purchased, which happened to be the drugs that also killed her husband. The police were able to bring C.L. in for an interview, and they admitted to selling the substances to Cory. While all of this was going on, Cory kept up with her grieving widow persona, and she of course now had three grieving sons, who were deeply sad, confused, and lost without their father, who had been a huge part of their lives. Most equally as disturbing, Cory would exploit her son's grief to make money by using it as an inspiration to write a book that capitalizes on children's sadness and confusion after the loss of a parent, and she went on news outlets to promote it and talk about her family's story. Except, for she left out the part, that she is the one who allegedly killed her husband, Eric. Cory, I want to start with your story. What happened in your personal life? So my husband passed away unexpectedly last year, so it's March 4th, was a one year anniversary for us, and he was 39. It completely took us all by shock, and we have three little boys, 10, 9, and 6, and you know, we kind of, my kids and I kind of wrote this book on the different emotions and grieving processes that we've experienced last year, and, you know, hoping that it can kind of help other kids, you know, deal with this and kind of, you know, find happiness somewhere or another. Her book is called, Are You With Me? And Cory said that she and her sons wrote the book together to help understand their feelings surrounding their father's death, and to help them remember that even though Eric isn't physically here anymore in physically form, he is always with them in spirit every day. If Cory really believes that, truly, truly believes that, I wonder if she's afraid of Eric's spirit haunting her for what she allegedly did. She said that Eric's death came as a complete shock, and she dedicated the book to her loving husband. In her book, she emphasized the three Cs to help children cope with the loss of a parent. Those three Cs being connection, continuity, and care. I think the three Cs, in my opinion, are cunning, coercive, and crazy, and that those would be better to describe her situation, but that's just my opinion, allegedly, of course. After the release of her book, it started to quickly make its way to the top of the charts on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and seemed like Cory was finally getting what she wanted, attention and money. But justice things were finally falling into place for Cory. Her world was about to be turned completely upside down. On Monday, May 8, 2023, Cory Richens was arrested and charged with felony first degree murder of her husband, Eric Richens. Three counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, and possession of GHB. After Cory's arrest was made public, everyone was trying to make sense of how this seemingly perfect family had fallen apart. And that included the hosts of the talk show that Cory had actually appeared on to promote her book. Now, I have so many questions. We know you're going back, now he's rethinking what you thought. And we're thinking weeks ago, come on, and was she pretending, and was that a great action? She did contact us. Right. She did reach out to her. She actually did. To be on the show. The station saying, "Can I promote my butt?" Now eerie to see this couch and that video being aired across the country on stations everywhere and national television, because that is the video that they're all asking for, and they're using because it is so shocking that she came on local television just three weeks before her arrest. Even the Home Depot cashier who had introduced Cory and Eric was in complete disbelief. When you found out about her allegedly killing her husband, what were your thoughts? They were numb. It was numb. Like, she couldn't do that, she wouldn't do that, she had too much to live for, or you know, too much their family was so beautiful, everything was picture perfect, but I guess it wasn't if this is true. But some people didn't really seem surprised at all, namely, Eric's family. Remember, they say that Eric told them that if anything ever happened to him to look straight at Cory. To Eric's family, Cory needed to be locked up for good. So at a June 2023 hearing to determine if she should be released on bail, they had a lot to say, especially Eric's sister Amy. We have watched as Cory has created around portraying herself as a grieving window, widow and victim, while trying to profit from the death of my brother. Amy was also worried that given Cory's history, she could even hurt her sons if it meant getting more money. Since Eric's death, it has come to our attention that Cory took out multiple life insurance policies on Eric without his knowledge. It appears that she forged his signature on various documents, assigned herself as Eric's durable power of attorney, and appropriately diverted money from his business to herself, and assigned herself as beneficiary of Eric's portion of our mother's retirement account. I should also not forget to mention the multiple life insurances she has taken out on the boys. As if that were not enough, I have been told that Cory started telling their three little boys that none of Eric's family or friends loved them. She apparently told them none of us cared for them or wanted to be around them, even though that is the exact opposite of what was happening. Her behavior gives me great concern, as she has exploited the boys for money and will likely do so again. But on bail, I will be afraid not only for my own life, and those of all of my family, but most of the lives of Eric's three sons. Amy then told the judge about an incident that had happened just three days after Eric's death, something that she believes shows that Cory belongs behind bars. According to Amy, Cory hired a locksmith to break into Eric's safe. And when Amy asked her why she hadn't just asked her father-in-law for the code, Cory got a little bit pissed off. So Amy then told her that the safe belonged to Eric's family under his trust, not to Cory, which is when she claims Cory punched her in the face. Cory assaulted me. I will never forget the look in her eyes when she attacked me that Sunday morning. It was early and had been snowing most of the night. I was just getting ready to leave and heading out to the car. When I saw a locksmith in Eric's detached garage starting to drill out his gun safe, I asked Cory multiple times why we could not just call my dad for the code. I could not understand why she was breaking into and ruining Eric's safe. To this, she screamed at me at the top of her lungs, called me some inappropriate things I cannot share with you here. And then told me to get out of her house. It was then that I told her that she could not kick me out of my brother's house. My sister Katie was now the executor of Eric's trust in a state. And just like Eric, she would not want the defendant breaking into his gun safe. Cory looked at me with pure hatred and rage. I was messing up her plan. I was getting in her way. Because of that, she attacked me. It took four people to pull her off of me that day. But Cory's family has a very different take on the physical altercation between her and Amy. If Eric had any sort of documents, he'd have them in the safe so she went in to go see what was in there. Amy came after Cory and Cory defended herself. The two of them started pushing and I was standing in the middle of them. All they did was push. Both of them were trying to swing over the top of me. So the narrative that's been pushed that it was pouring, you got assaulted, was nonsense. And the defense said it wasn't just the fight that the prosecution got wrong. According to them, there was basically no evidence proving that Cory killed Eric. Now a lot of the debate at the hearing had to do with Cory's housekeeper, Carmen, who, as I said, goes by C.L. and most of the court documents. But so that's how I'll refer to her them as. But the prosecution says that C.L. gave the police a ton of information about selling Cory fentanyl shortly before Eric died. But the defense really pushed back on this when they questioned the lead detective in the case, Jeff O'Dresschol. The defense believes that the only way that C.L. was able to give them the information they needed is because they fed her the information that they wanted her to say. But the prosecution said that they have much, much more evidence than just C.L.'s statements. They also said that C.L. came to pick up a check from Cory. But the defense argued that the check could have just been for Cory paying her for her cleaning services, and that there were never any witnesses or specific text messages found that explicitly show her receiving fentanyl from C.L. Cory's legal team then took it a step further, and they came forward in interviews with media to say that there is no way to even prove how fentanyl got into Eric's system. I can't confirm what the murder weapon is because the prosecution has never told us their theory. They have never said that it was given in a Moscal Mule, that fentanyl was distributed or in a Moscal Mule. During the preliminary hearing, their lead detective was on the stand, and I asked him the question, sitting here today, "Do you know how Cory Richens administered fentanyl to our Christians?" And he said, "No. I still sitting here today don't really know how they're going to claim that" Eric Richens ingested fentanyl. Another big point of contention at the detention hearing was whether the way Eric's body was found matched Cory's story. Previously, there had been a discrepancy on whether or not Cory found Eric on the floor or in the bed, because she said that she felt like he was cold when she laid next to him. This was all spelled out for everyone when detectable Driscoll said that the 911 dispatcher told her to use the blanket to move him from the bed to the floor so that she could conduct CPR. He said that the EMS noted that since foam came up from Eric's mouth when they did CPR, it appeared that Cory hadn't tried. However, the defense asked if it was possible that someone who had never done CPR before could do it wrong, and he said yes. But even if that's true, there was still the question of Cory's phone activity, which raised a ton of red flags. The prosecution called an expert who had analyzed Cory's phone, and he said that there was a lot of missing text message and phone call data. He said that when reviewing the logs from the phone company, there was a record of calls and text being made that had been deleted from her phone. He said that there was evidence from phone data tracking that a device like an Apple watch or a phone made significant movements and text messages that were deleted before the 911 call was placed. This would mean that Cory was actually not sleeping like she claimed, and that she did not immediately call 911 when she found Eric dead. She estimated that Cory waited up to 15 minutes to call 911. So what was she doing during that time frame? There were also several Google searches that have raised a lot of red flags as well. She searched, "What is the lethal dose of fentanyl, luxury prisons for the rich in America? Beth Certificates as pending? Will life insurance still pay? Can cops force you to do a lie detector test? How to permanently delete information from an iPhone remotely? All? Pretty damning searches, if you ask me." Now to be fair, these were made after Eric was found dead. And I could see someone wanting more information about the lethal dose of fentanyl after learning that their spouse had just died of an overdose. Plus, I mean, luxury prisons for the rich. I mean, yeah, that is giving a little bit entitled. The lawyers also argued about Cory's potential financial motive for wanting Eric dead. Based on the prosecution's last witness who was a financial expert, Cory was far from rich. The expert found that all of Cory's accounts were overdrawn, and her credit lines were maxed out. And that in total, she owed about $4 million to hard money lenders who had given her short-term loans for houses that she had planned to flip and sell. The expert said that Cory knew that Eric was worth a lot more "dead" than alive. Because if they divorced, Cory wouldn't get anything from him, not a single penny. However, she believed that if he died, she would get all of the assets from his estate. The only problem was, she wasn't aware that Eric had switched everything over to his sister. She also revealed that Eric had a total of six life insurance policies taken out for him, and even for their children. It's thought that Cory forged Eric's signature for some of these policies, and he wasn't even aware of them. Her defense argued that it wouldn't have made any sense for Cory to kill Eric for financial reasons, because even the amount of the life insurance policy wouldn't have been enough to cover her debts. And him being alive and helping her with the money problems would have been more beneficial for her. And more than that, lawyers from Cory's team have since come out and said that everyone has it wrong when it comes to both her finances and her motive. According to them, when you consider that mansion that Cory closed on a couple of days after Eric died, she has plenty of money. And they said that she only took out one small life insurance policy on Eric. There has been quite a bit of reporting about my client's financial situation. And the concern that we have is that the reports that have come out about her business, the solvency of her business, utterly fell to take into consideration a huge piece of property that she obtained three days after or two days after her husband passed away. And that's removed from all of the state's calculations. So the equity in that house alone. The value of that one piece of property was enough to cover any debt that she had in her business. Well, another one that's out there is false is that she took out hundreds of thousands of dollars of life insurance on him shortly before he died. That's not true. She took out one policy that came in the mail and it was one of those mailers we all get from our credit unions saying sign here for a hundred thousand dollars free life insurance. Sign here for yourself. Sign here for your spouse. You can get a hundred thousand dollars free life insurance. That was sent in. She sent that in about a month before he died for five weeks before he died. All the rest of his life insurance and he had a lot of life insurance was all taken out by him long before that. And he knew of all the life insurance policies that were out on him. And finally, the defense even said that there were other explanations for Eric's death. Because that had nothing to do with Corey. Corey's family had also been pushing the theory that Eric's death wasn't a murder at all. It was simply an overdose just like the investigators originally thought. So if Corey did not do this together, how do you think Derek died with that sentence? My thoughts on it is accidental overdose. That's just my opinion, could have been a number of things, but that seems to be the simplest answer to me. According to Corey's mom and brother, the overdose theory made the most sense given Eric's long history of buying illegal drugs. Just about every trip that I had been on with him, he'd buy just from someone off the street. Hey, do you have any pain pills? Hey, can you come get a hook me up? But Eric's family lawyer completely denies that entire idea. Did he have any history that it would have suggested he used any drugs? 39 years old, not any history of substance abuse, alcohol, drugs, never been charged with a crime, never had a family history of addiction, never had even a, even as a minor possession of alcohol, nothing like that. He was very healthy, he took very good care of himself. He was active in his children's soccer coaching, basketball coaching, baseball coaching. He was an avid hunter who's involved in the search and rescue here up in the mountains. This is a man who took very, very good care of himself, and there is no history from any source at all that he'd ever even touched in illegal drug. Now the defense had an answer for that though. They said that even if it wasn't an overdose and it was actually a homicide after all, that that doesn't mean that Corey was the murderer. At the detention hearing, they even hinted at another suspect altogether. Eric was very into sport hunting, and apparently when you go on these hunting tourism trips, a guide or an outfitter in Mexico secures the permits for the hunters to be able to kill a certain amount and take back a certain amount of animals, while reportedly Eric had paid their outfitter very, very well, but he didn't apply for enough permits. The hunting group wasn't aware of that until after the fact, so they ended up killing and taking home many more animals than they had permits for. Which can apparently get you in a lot of legal trouble. Eric reportedly had a couple of very heated conversations with this outfitter from Mexico, and on the night that he passed away, he even searched how long it would take for him to drive from their home to where this outfitter lived in Mexico, so that they could meet face-to-face. According to Eric's friends, this outfitter had ties to the Mexican cartel, and they thought that there could have been some correlation between that and Eric's death. In the end though, the judge didn't seem to buy any of the defences explanations, and they agreed with the prosecution. He said that there was way too much at stake to let Cory out on bond, and ruled that she would be held without bail until the trial. Now if you thought that the detention hearing was chaotic, buckle up. Because the next two years somehow managed to kind of like crank the dial even higher. After the hearing, the lawsuits started flying. First, Cory sued Eric's family over the sale of their former home. Cory argued that she was entitled to half of the value of the property, which was worth about $2 million, even though the legal title was an Eric's name alone. Then, Eric's family fired back, denying Cory's claims, and suing her right back. They said that Cory had profited off of Eric's identity and image in her book, so she should be forced to share the book sales with Eric's family. They also claimed that she siphoned money from Eric's masonry business, and stole money that he had set aside for taxes. Then, fraudulently opened a loan for a quarter of a million dollars in his name without his knowledge. and racked up 10. tens of thousands of dollars in charges on his credit cards. And in total, they are suing her for a whopping 13 million dollars. Then, a third lawsuit was thrown into the mix just a month later, this time from somebody completely unrelated to Eric. These were buyers who had purchased a home from Cory shortly before her arrest, and they claimed that this property was basically unlivable, that it had hazardous levels of fungus in the basement, water leaks, flooding, mold, and a roof that was literally rotting. So all of these civil cases are basically on pause while the criminal trial against Cory moves forward. But in the meantime, things took another bizarre turn in September of that same year, because while conducting a search of Cory's jail cell, staff found a long handwritten letter that was titled "Any Huge Letters, Walk the Dog." And then, in smaller writing next to it, it said, "But take vague notes so you remember." Which honestly, is a super weird way to start a note. It feels a little bit cryptic. And according to prosecutors, the letter was addressed to Cory's mother, Lisa. And it contained instructions for Cory's brother about how he should testify in court. She starts the letter by saying, quote, "My lawyer wants to link Eric getting drugs and pills from Mexico. So we need some kind of connection, clearly trying to taint the testimony." Then, Cory switches into the third person in this letter, and basically drafts an entire script for her brother to read in court. She tells him to say, quote, "Eric never wanted anyone to know that he had an issue, especially get caught. He always wanted Cory to go down for him. Eric would get mad because Cory always said that he just gets high every night and that he won't help take care of the kids." Again, not only tainting testimony, but being very descriptive and almost trying to paint her as the martyr of her always complaining that all he does is get high every night, he never takes care of the kids and to really elicit sympathy from the jury, in my opinion. So Cory then says that they need to find a witness to testify that Eric's sisters have, quote, "Always been jealous of me." According to the letter, quote, "Anything they could do, Cory could do better. Being a mom, college, stay at home wife until she built a million dollar company, a nice house, a car, everything she had, they wanted." End quote. And as if that wasn't enough, finally, Cory ended the letter with this beautiful little gem of a quote, it said, quote, "I asked my lawyer to sneak me in some white strips because my teeth are getting yellow because all we do is drink coffee in this Mexican prison." So I mean, that's a lot. I mean, one, if you're on trial for murder, should whitening your teeth really be your highest priority, but this is also the same woman who thought that she was going to a luxury prison for the rich. So I mean, I don't know, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But two, and most importantly, telling someone what to say in court is a huge no-no. It's a crime. It's a witness tampering. And writing about it in jail is like the dumbest of the dumbs. And the prosecution saw it the exact same way. They even filed a motion for a no-contact order between Cory and her family. It's just wild because to me, she feels so entitled. She's telling her brother what to say and the mom what to say, certain quotes to make her look like, oh, everybody's just jealous of me. I was just this battered wife. He always got high every night. He never took care of the kids, even his family's jealous of me because of this multi-million-dollar business that I built because I have a car, a beautiful car, a beautiful house, like get a grip on reality, right? So they basically are like, we need to file a no-contact order. This is wild. But Cory said, no, no, no, no, no, no. There is absolutely an innocent explanation for all of this. This isn't witness tampering. This isn't even real life. That's what she said. She actually said that it was just part of a jailhouse mystery thriller that she was writing. That was her excuse. According to Cory, this was all just a piece of harmless fiction. Fiction. But with main characters named Cory and Eric, I mean, yeah, right. It's almost like she tried to pull an O.J. Simpson, but forgot that you're supposed to actually write the book after you were found innocent not before. But honestly, like, what an idiot. She's just such a moron and like, the fact that she thinks she's smarter than everybody and can get away with everything, it just is infuriating. So the next big update came in January of 2024 when it was announced that Eric's autopsy found not only fentanyl, but also quentiapine, better known by the brand name as Sarah Quell. Now this is typically prescribed to treat serious mental health disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar, but Eric didn't have a prescription for it. However, Cory did, which kind of makes you scratch your head a little bit. Like, was Cory's family right about Eric having a drug problem? So much that he was possibly stealing his wife's medication? Or does this actually point back to Cory and her giving him this medication? Now one of the medications most common side effects is extreme drowsiness. So it is possible that Cory used it to sedate Eric before giving him fentanyl, right? I mean, or it's more likely that the fentanyl just happened to contain some of this medication as well, because it's not uncommon for street fentanyl to be laced with this particular drug. So I don't know this one really stumped me, I don't know how they both got in his system, so it will be interesting to see what comes out about it at trial. And in March, even more shocking details came out, but not about Eric and not even about Cory. This time, it was all about Cory's mom, Lisa. An unsealed warrant revealed that Lisa had been in a very serious relationship with a woman who died unexpectedly from what appeared to be a drug overdose. Birds of a feather, right? This one was oxycodon. Now in this case, Lisa was the beneficiary of a huge life insurance policy in her girlfriend's name. Those three things together, I mean, son and death, opioid overdose, a big life insurance payout, and a lot of people started raising their eyebrows because it sounds so similar to the circumstances behind Eric's death. So much so that people were saying, you know, the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree when it comes to Lisa and Cory. Then, just a few months later, Cory ended up hit being hit with a double whammy of new legal trouble. First, prosecutors added a charge of attempted murder to her case, a grand jury determined that the Valentine's Day sandwich incident was actually enough to charge Cory with trying to kill Eric. And in addition to that, she was also found guilty in the assault case against Amy, and she was given the maximum sentence, six months in jail, and a little shy of a $2,000 fine, which honestly is pretty insignificant compared to the amount of jail time that she's facing for murder and for the amount of debt that she's already in. But it is good to see her facing some level of accountability, I must say. And all of that seemed to cause things to go from bad to worse for Cory's defense team. Her lead attorney, Skye Lazaro, withdrew from her case altogether. And what's weird though, is that Skye has given a whole bunch of different reasons for the split, all the way from an ethical issue to a reconcilable situation to Cory not having enough money to pay her. But I mean, whatever the reason was, Cory was eventually given a new team of public defenders. Katherine Nester, Wendy Lewis, and Alexander Ramos. But right after being assigned the new team, Cory then went on the record and gave yet another reason for why Skye quit. She claimed that Skye was actually forced to withdraw from her case by the judge. Now I don't know what's true here, but it is kind of fitting that Cory and her lawyer can't even keep straight on like what their story is about why she quit. It's just, it seems like it tracks. So now with her fancy lawyer dropping out, the lawsuits stacking up and losing the assault case, Cory I think must have realized that things were just not looking good for her. And unsurprisingly, she thought that the best way to address it would be to talk to the media. So she released a statement from Jail. You know, let's get out with the first time and see if you can see as much as you can. So we're all going to see here who I really, what I really don't, what I really didn't do. She added to her statement, quote, "I've been silent for a year, living with the media telling the world who they think I am. It's time to start speaking up. You took an innocent mom away from her babies. And this means war." Then she accused the prosecutors in her case of, quote, "doing anything they can to prolong this process and hide their corruption." End quote. Cory took her claims of corruption, a step further, and even filed a motion for the county prosecutor and the Summit County Attorney's Office to be removed from the case. Which is very bold. I mean, imagine trying to win by just having the whole county removed from your case. Basically, Cory's claim was that the prosecution had been distributing that "walk the dog letter" and listening in on her calls with her lawyers, which would, in turn, violate attorney-client privilege. Judged, though, disagreed, he allowed most of the "walk the dog letter" to be admitted as evidence and also refused to kick anybody off of the case. "If you're reporting for this defendant's lawsuit and so off the prosecution," next question in order to either disqualify the Summit County Attorney's Office in whole or disqualifying Mr. Bloodworth as a prosecutor, the factual allegations among which defendants the motion is based on twofold. First, that Mr. Bloodworth listened to certain attorney client privilege communications between defendant and one of her attorneys, her prior attorneys. Mr. Ramsey-Homsey, there's no credible evidence that Mr. Bloodworth or any other agent of the state has listened to any attorney client privilege communication between defendant and your counsel. All there they are. And a few occasions on which Mr. Bloodworth listened to the minimal amount of time necessary to identify Mr. Hamsey as a participant on the call, and after which Mr. Bloodworth promptly stopped listening and moved out. Based upon an independent review of the record, the court finds that neither Mr. Bloodworth nor any other agents of the Summit County Attorney's Office has intentionally or purposefully intruded upon the attorney client relationship between defendant and her counsel. And the Summit County Attorney's Office has not directed the Summit County jail staff regarding the conditions of defendant's pretrial detention. Based on those findings, the court concludes that no per se violation of a defendant's six amendment rights has occurred based on the conduct of the Summit County Attorney's Office. But that didn't stop Cory and her team from pulling out every trick in the book. They filed a motion to get her case moved to a different county. It was denied. They filed a motion to get her released on bail. Again, denied. They also went after a ton of the prosecution's key evidence. First, they argued that Cory's initial interrogation should be tossed out because it happened during a traffic stop and she wasn't read her Miranda rights during that. They also claimed that her second interrogation, which took place at her house, was unconstitutional because she didn't have a lawyer. And this time, the judge did actually agree with Cory. So now, the prosecution will have to try the case without any of the interrogation footage. So it's a reminder that when investigators don't play by the book completely, really critical evidence can be unusable, which is I'm sure frustrating for them and very frustrating for Eric's family. And the interrogation at Cory's house seemed especially important because it made police worried enough that they got a warrant to search the house and they ended up finding an orange notebook containing, quote, certain details regarding timeline, the defendant's movements, and what Eric Richens consumed among other relevant details. These details tend to make it more probable that the defendant poisoned Eric Richens with fentanyl, end quote. Now, the specifics of whatever is in that notebook must really not look great for Cory because her team pushed hard to get it thrown out of the trial. They said that the police's initial warrant specifically prohibited them from taking any documents or papers and that they only got a warrant for documents and papers after finding that notebook. However, on this one, the judge ruled against the defense and he said that the notebook would have been discovered eventually anyway. So it didn't matter if it happened before or after the updated warrant. Now, by July of 2025, Cory was hit with even more charges. This time, all tied to her finances. This included five counts of mortgage fraud, seven counts of money laundering, five counts of forgery, and seven counts of issuing a bad check, which that is quite the list, especially for a woman who supposedly claims not to have any muddy problems whatsoever, right? According to the charging documents, Cory allegedly altered Eric's business records in order to get herself more mortgage loans. Then took that money that was supposed to go toward a mortgage and she used it to pay off other debts, which I just have to say guilty or not of murder, which we will find out in the trial. This isn't looking good. I mean, where there's smoke, there's fire, and from what I can see from an outsider's perspective, there is a lot of motive and desire around financial gain. Not only just with those charges, but in general, it seems like Cory is somebody who is very driven by money so much so that literally right after your husband dies, you write a book about it and go on a whole media tour to promote it. It's like money seems like it is very, very important to Cory. Then just a few months after that in October of 2025, we were hit with another big twist in the case. One of the prosecution's key witnesses, Robert, recounted his entire testimony. Now, Robert had previously admitted in pre-trial hearings and interrogations to supplying Carmen C.L. with fentanyl. And if you remember, C.L. was allegedly Cory's drug dealer, but now Robert was saying that he actually sold C.L. oxycodon, not fentanyl. And according to the defense, this was a big deal, a huge deal even. They said, quote, "His statement doesn't just poke holes in their case. It throws a grenade into the middle of it, leaving them nothing but speculation and conjecture." And what's worse is that the defense alleged that Robert actually recanted all the way back in April, but that the prosecution kept it a secret for months, apparently hoping that nobody would just notice. Now, that apparently inspired the defense to go on like a complete tirade. They filed a flurry of motions and petitions targeting various people connected to the case. First, they said that Katie, Eric's sister and the manager of his estate, was paying off witnesses in exchange for favorable testimony. Then, they went after the whole family in their next filing. They said, quote, "The Richens viewed Cory as a gold digger who married Eric for his money. Because of Eric's accidental overdose, as ruled by official police investigation, the Richens family feared that Cory would inherit Eric's estate. The powerful Richens would never allow such a thing. So the private investigator hired by the Richens family, built a homicide case against Cory after much coaxing by the powerful Richens family." So basically, the defense was arguing that the case against Cory wasn't just weak. It was completely manufactured. In other words, a setup. And I'm not really sure that I buy that, so I am interested to see what comes out during the trial. At the beginning of 2026, the defense doubled down on their claims, filed another motion accusing prosecutors of intimidating and threatening witnesses. They specifically referenced two witnesses who were allegedly told that they could be thrown in jail if they didn't agree to be crept ahead of their testimony. So that's basically the foundation of this entire case heading into the trial. Accusations of witness tampering, witness intimidation coming from both sides, multiple lawsuits still hanging in the background, a huge stack of criminal charges, and all of these crazy books and letters and notebook books just flying around. I mean, which god's saying that makes me realize that someone needs to tell Cory, put down the damn pen. Like clearly, you shouldn't be writing anything down at all at this point. Like put the pen away, girl. But anyway, my point here is, there is a lot going on and a lot that goes into this case. Jury selection took place on February 11th, and it only took a couple of hours, which is really surprising given how high profile this case truly is. And the trial officially kicked off on February 23rd, 2026, with both sides ready to go for a serious fight. And we have to remember that there is a lot at stake here. It's easy to forget that among all the chaos, there's an innocent dead man and three children left without their parents in the middle of all of this. And that's the part that gets me with cases like this one. If Cory really is responsible, and in my opinion, she probably did have at least some part in this, then what she's really done is orphan her children. So now they have lost their father and most likely their mother. And for what? What could possibly have made Cory want to do this? By all accounts, Eric was an amazing husband and father. He was attentive and involved. He was kind, gentle, funny, and sweet. Not to mention, he created a wildly successful business to provide for his family and give them anything that they could possibly want or need. He helped Cory grow her own business as well. So why was his life insurance so important to her? Some people think that because she married Eric so young in her early 20s, that she was feeling trapped in the marriage and wanted out. But she didn't want to lose the lifestyle that she had grown accustomed to. The prenup stated that she wouldn't get any of his assets unless he died before her. So it seems like the document that Eric created to prevent a messy financial dispute actually ended up being the catalyst for his death. It just seems so selfish and just unnecessary for her to risk it all and cause so much hurt for her children and Eric's family. All for some life insurance that she didn't even end up getting. It's all just so senseless and that really is the word here, senseless. All we can do now is hope that the jury gets it right. And justice is served for Eric and his kids. I also will probably be doing trial updates over on my podcast seriously. So even if you haven't been able to tune into the trial, I will do updates over there. So make sure you're following along. If you're not already, I don't know if they'll be posting on YouTube. They may only be posted on the audio version. So that is my other true crime podcast. Seriously. S-E-R-I-A-L-O-U-S-L-Y. And you can listen to all of those. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of 10 to life. Make sure that you subscribe. If you have not subscribed yet on YouTube, follow the show on your podcast app. If you're not following it yet. And I will be back with you next week with an all new episode. I'm Annie Elise and as always, stay safe. Bye.