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- [00:00]
Matt Gutman
Why have I asked my electrician I found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster Nibbles in our yard for me? Because I was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical wires, I knew I could trust him to bury
- [00:11]
Natalie Morales
my sweet Nibbles after his untimely end.
- [00:13]
Matt Gutman
Huh, Nibbles gone too soon.
- [00:16]
Natalie Morales
May he scurry in peace.
- [00:17]
Matt Gutman
Hey, sorry about your pet, but I just wire stuff.
- [00:20]
Natalie Morales
Nibbles would have loved you like a brother.
- [00:22]
Matt Gutman
Connecting homeowners with skilled Pros for over 30 years, Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find pros for all your home projects@angie.com well, the holidays have come and gone once again. But if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift. Well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now, you call it an early present for next year. What do you have to lose? Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch limited time,
- [00:50]
Natalie Morales
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- [01:03]
Brad Bledworth
The evidence will prove that Corey Richards murdered Eric for his money and to get a fresh start at life.
- [01:15]
Natalie Morales
They're going to spend weeks in this trial trying to convince you that Corey had reasons to kill her husband because they can't show you that she did kill her husband. Welcome to this special episode of the 48 Hours podcast, Inside the Cory Richards Trial. I'm 48 Hours correspondent Natalie Morales and you just heard from both the prosecution and the defense in this case. Well, today we are talking about Corey Richen. She's a Utah mother who wrote a book on grief to help her children cope with the death of their father Eric after an apparent fentanyl overdose back in March of 2022. So what happened today? He was just fine. We were fine. When you said we were fine. What time did you see him? When he was alert. We had a drink together at nine to celebrate something at work tomorrow. Okay. We went to bed. I went to bed. Oh my God, kids, you defend our bed. And that was Corey captured on the sheriff's deputy body camera footage. We'll talk about that in just a moment. But things did take a turn a year later when Corey was arrested and charged with poisoning Eric to death with that celebratory drink, along with a multitude of other charges. She has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. Now, I covered this case for 48 hours. And now, years after delays, the Richens trial is finally underway in Summit county in Utah. And here to talk about it all is CBS News chief correspondent Matt Gutman, who has been closely watching all of the developments in court. Hello, Matt. Good to have you with us.
- [03:07]
Matt Gutman
Hey, Natalie, it's good to be with you. So, you know, obviously this has been years in the making, and at this point, Corey is facing over 30 total counts. But really at this trial, first degree murder, attempted murder, there's insurance fraud related to the murder and a forgery charge as well. If she is convict, would face the rest of her life behind bars. So obviously, the stakes are extremely high here.
- [03:32]
Natalie Morales
Extremely high. And I know there is so much media interest in this trial. You've been keeping track of what's been going on in court. What was the mood like as it got underway?
- [03:42]
Matt Gutman
First, I mean, there is so much interest that there is an overflow room for journalists and for others who have to watch it on a feed. Not everybody who is interested in watching, including accredited press, can fit in the courtroom itself. So you can see everybody densely packed in this courtroom. There's a theatrical production element here. And obviously at the center of this production is Corey Richens. And so far, she's looked very composed. There were a couple of moments when you saw an arched eyebrow here and there, but generally she sort of kept it very, very even keeled along with her attorneys.
- [04:19]
Natalie Morales
And I'm sure her attorneys are instructing her to keep that, you know, keep that very serious face in the courtroom. You did talk about all of the scrutiny. You know, the defense, in fact, even had tried to have this trial moved from Summit county given that scrutiny. Now, that didn't happen. But what is it about this case that has captured the nation's attention?
- [04:41]
Matt Gutman
So on the one hand, there was a book that Corey Richards wrote, a children's book after Eric's death, and that really catapulted this into the national spotlight. But, you know, the basic story is here you have this attractive couple. Corey Richards is 31. Her husband Eric is 39. They have these really three cute boys, an idyllic lifestyle. He's big into hunting, and he's got a successful business. She, in her own rights, is a successful businesswoman. Looks like they've got it made. But obviously, looks can be deceiving, and that's the way it is everywhere.
- [05:22]
Natalie Morales
And this was a couple that even, you know, Corey's defense attorney said that they were a flawed couple that they had even contemplated divorce at one point. But you know, the families have said, you know, they were trying to patch things up. So there's going to be two sides to this very intriguing story. But I want to talk about a little about that children's book. I actually have a copy of it in front of me. Are youe With Me? And Corrie actually dedicates this book to Eric, to his memory. And you see in this picture, he's sort of the angel at the center right here. And she dedicates it to my amazing husband and a wonderful father. So she was arrested a month after this book was published.
- [06:07]
Matt Gutman
This book really, I think served to sort of turn things into a boiling point in this case. Right. There was already no love lost between Corey Rich inside of the family, specifically Corey and her siblings and her mother and the actual family of Eric Richards, his sisters and his father especially.
- [06:34]
Natalie Morales
There are also allegations of, you know, money being the motive here. Corey was in a house flipping real estate business which as you said on the surface she appeared to be successful. In fact, that celebratory drink that, you know, the reason they were having that was she had just closed on a huge property that she bought not far from Park City. And Eric knew about this, this and signed off on this according to. To Corey's family. And. But that added to her debt. She was in over her head by over $4 million. Which also coincidentally was about the amount that Eric's estate is worth. Right.
- [07:12]
Matt Gutman
So that's what the prosecution says. Now the defense will say, hey listen, Corey knew from the get go that Eric's money was tied up in a trust. She did not have access to that trust. Why would she kill the father of her children knowing that she couldn't access that money? That is what they. One of the things that their case is going to hinge on that Eric Richards was worth much more to Corey Richards alive rather than dead.
- [07:39]
Natalie Morales
But she took out an insurance policy in Eric's name without him knowing about it. According to the prosecution, they say that she forged his signature on that insurance policy. There is going to be a lot in this case that we're going to get involved with here. But day one, the jury heard opening statements. Here is prosecutor Brad Bledworth.
- [08:03]
Brad Bledworth
It is the evening of March 3, 2022. The defendant, Corey Richards, her husband Eric Richards and their three children, 9 year old Carter, 7 year old Ashton and 5 year old Weston are at their home in Camas. Eric Richins live for his three boys at 7:22pm Corey Richens boyfriend, Robert Josh Grossman texts Cory Richens an image of two people romantically kissing. The image is captioned love you. At 8:36, Corey Richards replies love you. The boys go to bed. Corey Richards makes Eric drink and takes it to him in their bedroom. He drinks on the bed. She departs the bedroom. Corey Richards returns to the bedroom at about 3:00 clock a.m. she feels that Eric is cold. She nudges him. He does not respond. She sees that he is stiff, pale, his mouth is wide open. At 3:06am Cory Richins unlocks her cell phone. She takes. She travels 243ft beginning at 3:08am she unlocks her cell phone again at 3:10, 3:15 and twice at 3:19. At 3:21, Corey Richards unlocks her cell phone and calls 91 1. Paramedics respond, but they are unable to revive Eric. He has no pulse. He is cold. They pronounce him dead at 3:58am on March 4. But they think he has been dead a while.
- [10:33]
Matt Gutman
Natalie we saw this really dramatic body camera video and like we haven't seen any of that yet. And you can see Corey coming out in pajamas talking to the deputies.
- [10:46]
Natalie Morales
I just woke up. I always, when I slept with my kids, I wake up and I go back to my own bed. I just cried over on his side and he was laying in bed. He was on his back on the bed and I. Okay. And he was on. You said he was on his back. Okay. Where are your children now? Sleep in that room. Two are awake with their heir to the door. So this is the first time that Matt, that I'm hearing or seeing an emotional Corey Richens, you know, from that body cam footage. However, the prosecution isn't buying it, you know, Corey's behavior that night. They make the case as well as her digital footprint and the timing to when she made the 911 call. They're saying all of that doesn't really add up. And what's interesting, Matt, is according to the prosecution, that was not even, you know, the first time. They allege that Corey possibly tried to poison Eric with fentanyl on an occasion before on around Valentine's day, right. Of 2022.
- [12:01]
Matt Gutman
He tried to that she tried to poison him, possibly with fentanyl in a sandwich he got sick from the sandwich survived apparently. The defense said it was an allergic reaction. It could have just been a bad sandwich or it could have been something else. But again, there's no direct evidence showing what that might have been at this point. That's just an allegation.
- [12:22]
Natalie Morales
But at that time, Eric was apparently already telling friends that he believed that Corey had poisoned him. So, you know, that's a pretty strong allegation to make, and he had to have reason to think that his life was at risk. So on the other side of this, how is the defense now explaining Eric's death?
- [12:43]
Matt Gutman
So the defense maintains that Eric likely overdosed from taking at least one or more marijuana gummies that he did not know were laced with fentanyl. And actually, we heard Corey on that body camera footage when first responders arrived saying that, yeah, sometimes Eric would take marijuana gummies to deal with pain. He was also diagnosed with Lyme's disease and worked as a stonemason and was pretty well known to have suffered from very serious knee pain and back pain as well.
- [13:17]
Natalie Morales
Well, let's play a little bit of defense attorney Kathy Nestor making that case. He ingested a fatal dose of Fentanyl. What you will never hear after four years of investigation, where as recently as two weeks ago, they were back searching that house after four years of investigation and five weeks of this trial, you know what you're never going to hear is how that fentanyl got inside of him, because there is zero evidence of that. But, you know, the prosecution does have a witness who has come forward. She said she sold Corey Fentanyl. Her name is Carmen Lauber. What do we know about her connection to Corey?
- [14:03]
Matt Gutman
Carmen Lauber is probably the most important witness. She had been employed by Corey as a house cleaner in her real estate business. And she has a history. She has a history of drug charges, criminal history, and she eventually, in a subsequent iteration of her testimony, two investigators told them that she sold Corey Fentanyl on a couple of separate occasions. But what we heard today, what we heard the other day actually in court, is Kathy Nestor saying, well, Carmen Lauber actually changed her testimony.
- [14:41]
Natalie Morales
You're going to hear Carmen testify now that Corey asked her for fentanyl. But what you're going to hear is that that was not Carmen's original story. That when Carmen was originally interviewed, she said, no mention of Fentanyl. It was all about oxy. There was no fentanyl. Carmen talks like she doesn't even know what fentanyl is. Right. Guess when she changes her testimony, she changes her testimony. When the police say, hey, you know what? We caught you. We caught you with drugs. We caught you with guns. And if you don't say what we want you to say, you're going to jail for a really, really long Time, federal and state. But we're going to give you a ticket. We're going to give you a free ticket to get out of all the trouble you're in. But you got to say Corey said fentanyl and she changes her story. You're going to get to evaluate her credibility and what you think of her. Yeah. So Carmen Lauber's credibility is clearly going to come into question, but also that whole timeline of what happened. So there's going to be questions as to what was done by the responding officers and, and did they really secure the scene enough or get what they needed? For example, where's the glassware, perhaps from the Moscow mule that Corey said she made? Did they even test it? Apparently not, according to the defense.
- [16:02]
Matt Gutman
And we saw some of that Tuesday in court. One of the investigators on the scene right away was asked by the defense, well, you know, Corey told you that, that Eric had taken these pot gummies to. Did you ask to see the bags of the gummies? Did you ask to secure any of that? And he said no. But the defense is going to say, hey, listen, this is basic police work. A young man who is 39 tragically dies in his bed. There's a bottle from 2016 of Oxycontin right by his bedside. His wife tells you that he's been taking THC gummies. You can connect the dots there and start to do even a slightly more thorough investigation. And so this is one of the reasons that the defense and Corey Richards and her people all along and family have said that law enforcement failed her.
- [16:58]
Natalie Morales
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- [19:10]
Matt Gutman
You know it's very emotional. This is the worst day in this family's lives and I think that the prosecution very capably presented that and it brought back the fact that Eric is a victim here. Eric died somehow in a way that he should not have died. Right. A 39 year old man shouldn't drop dead like that for no reason. So something went wrong. Eric's father on the stand. You know, this is quite obviously something that will mar him forever. Eric's sister Katie, also on the stand, still tearing up frequently on the morning
- [19:48]
Brad Bledworth
that Eric died, did Corey Richards say anything about the house that they were living in?
- [19:54]
Natalie Morales
Yes, she told me so that house, the 282 Willow Court that they were living in with their kids. She told me she was going to sell it.
- [20:06]
Brad Bledworth
Did anything about that strike you as odd?
- [20:10]
Natalie Morales
Yes. I honestly could not function. I couldn't even figure out like what was for dinner that night. I had just lost one of the most important people in my whole entire life and she was planning on selling the house that he had just been wheeled out of, closing on a multi million dollar mansion. I could not wrap my head around it.
- [20:42]
Matt Gutman
So in her testimony, Natalie Katie described seeing Corey come out of the room. She seemed to indicate that she was emotionless, almost wooden, incredibly businesslike. But that was pretty quickly shot out of the air by the defense team which then played that body camera video of Corey and seemed to really catch Eric's sister Katie, in a pretty big mischaracterization. It's unclear at this point if Corey knew whether she had access to the trust, because she didn't. And the surviving trustee was Katie, Eric's sister. So only she could be able to sell the house.
- [21:24]
Natalie Morales
You know, beyond all of that was going on financially. As far as a motive, there is the allegation as well from both sides, both families saying they had both had affairs. According to Corey's family, Eric had had an affair in the past. But now we're learning, and I'm hearing this, you know, for the first time during this trial, that Corey was also having an affair at the time. She was even exchanging text messages just shortly before Eric's death with her lover, who was named Robert Josh Grossman. And we're seeing that in court. We're seeing those exchanges.
- [22:02]
Brad Bledworth
Three weeks before Eric's death, 15 days before Eric's death, one day before the charge, attempted murder, Corey Richards text messaged Josh Grossman. If I was divorced right now and asked you to marry me tomorrow, you would. I just want to lay on the couch and cuddle you. Watch a murder documentary and snuggle. Five days after the charged attempted murder, and 11 days before the charged murder, Corey Richards text messaged Josh Grossman. Babe, I miss you. I want you today, every day. Not just sexually, but physically, mentally. Every day. When I wake up, I do want a future together. I do want you figure life out together. If he could just go away. And you could just be here, life would be so perfect. I love you. I don't know what my deal is today. I'm sorry.
- [23:22]
Matt Gutman
But wait, there's actually more here. The prosecution presented evidence that three months before Eric's death, Corey had booked a Caribbean vacation for herself and Grossman.
- [23:34]
Brad Bledworth
Just over two weeks after Eric Richards death, Cory Richards text messaged her boyfriend a link to the secret St. Martin's Resort and Spa in the Caribbean and asked, are we there yet? One month and five days after Eric Richen's death, Cory Richards texted, I think I want you to be my husband one day.
- [24:05]
Natalie Morales
So I mentioned this is the first time that I'm hearing about Corey having an affair. Because when I talked with her family two years ago, her mother, Lisa Darden, said that Eric was the one who had been having an affair, that he had even, you know, they had talked about getting a divorce. They had gone through couples counseling and actually friends and some of the other family members say this was the best, best they'd ever seen Corey and Eric at the time. So, you know, clearly there are two sides. We don't really know what was going on in this couple's life, but what is clear is that they had an imperfect marriage, as even the defense attorney Nestor admitted that they had an imperfect marriage. But does that make the case for murder?
- [24:52]
Matt Gutman
I mean, I think that's the precise question that this entire trial hinges on. Natalie, there's a lot of smoke, right? There is infidelity, there's debt, obviously no love lost between both sides of the family. Some really troubled and, and, and, and choppy waters between this couple. And it's very much he said, she said at this point. And I think because the prosecution doesn't have that smoking gun, there is no piece of evidence that directly links Corey to delivering fentanyl to Eric that killed him. They are building this circumstantial case. All of this other stuff around her life that pointed to her wanting to get rid of her husband. And so how fully can they flesh that picture out? That is what we're going to see in this five week long trial. They're going to go at it again and, and again. And what the defense is saying is that, hey, they're going to say that she was flawed. And you know what, we admit it. They hired this private investigator who found out all these terrible things and then delivered them to police investigators. And you know what, it's true, she is imperfect, she is flawed. But the defense is saying she is not a murderer. The prosecution will come back with, well, jury, you believe what you see. All of the stuff we believe points to one thing, and that is Corey Rich and Rich and willfully tried to murder her husband. Somehow we don't exactly know how, but with fentanyl, at some point that night,
- [26:29]
Natalie Morales
I think, Matt, what's really gonna be interesting in this case is to see whether or not the defense is willing to put Corey Richens on the stand. And you know, that would be very compelling testimony. I imagine the jury would want to hear that. But that would be a huge risk for the defense to take. Right?
- [26:47]
Matt Gutman
Yeah, it's a Hail Mary. And typically the defense team will do it when a, they believe that their client is so good and so smooth and so reliable that they are not going to trip up on direct or on cross examination. Because you can imagine what that prosecution team is going to do if they get Corey Richards on the stand. They're going to go after her. We don't know if it's going to happen. Maybe she is so compelling that they think, yes, she can be a very strong asset for us, but in these trials, you never know. And five weeks is a long time. So, you know, we could see. You can also tell Natalie that they are already trying to build the case for appeal. Even if they don't, even if Corey is found guilty, they are trying to build the case for appeal, that she can't get a fair trial in Summit county because Eric Richen's family is so powerful, is so successful, is so connected to people in that county that she deserves another shot at this. So, you know, all of these are possibilities.
- [28:01]
Natalie Morales
We're definitely going to be watching this one. It is a fascinating trial. You know, five weeks, as you said. But it will go quickly because every day there are fascinating new details coming forward. And, Matt, you are the guy who's gonna be watching it for us, so we appreciate that. Thank you so much.
- [28:15]
Matt Gutman
Yeah, it's been riveting so far.
- [28:17]
Natalie Morales
And a reminder to all of you who are listening or watching that you can find our show, cast classics and special episodes of the 48 Hours podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm back. I'm really back. School Spirits returned.
- [28:35]
Matt Gutman
Why am I here?
- [28:36]
Natalie Morales
Not dead, right? Disruption, omniscient campus will not be tolerated. I look crazy. It's because that's how I feel. I don't know how to live in two worlds. Secrets lurk.
- [28:49]
Matt Gutman
There are others beneath the surface.
- [28:52]
Natalie Morales
They're not like us.
- [28:53]
Matt Gutman
We need to get out of here now.
- [28:56]
Natalie Morales
School Spirits new season now streaming only on Paramount plus.
- [29:01]
Matt Gutman
Me and my brother, we grew up off the grid.
- [29:04]
Natalie Morales
A new Paramount plus original documentary explores
- [29:07]
Matt Gutman
the wild true story of two brothers.
- [29:10]
Natalie Morales
They were dubbed the Wild Boys.
- [29:12]
Matt Gutman
There's no driving records, nothing tangible.
- [29:14]
Natalie Morales
What's their story? Who shook a small town after they emerged mysteriously from the Canadian wilderness? Are they criminals? Maybe they're in a cult.
- [29:22]
Matt Gutman
Who are these guys?
- [29:22]
Natalie Morales
Why are they here?
- [29:24]
Matt Gutman
It's not my job to tell you the truth.
- [29:26]
Natalie Morales
Wild Boys Strangers in Town. Now streaming on Paramount plus.