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- [00:00]
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- [00:22]
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- [00:37]
Mike Ferguson
Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is.
- [01:15]
Mike Morford
Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 412 of the Criminology podcast.
- [01:19]
Mike Ferguson
I'm Mike Ferguson and this is Mike Morford.
- [01:22]
Mike Morford
Morph, what's going on, buddy?
- [01:24]
Mike Ferguson
I'm getting ready for Vegas. This episode is coming out when we're in Vegas. So I am, you know, planning that and packing and all that last minute stuff. Pretty excited about it. How you doing?
- [01:36]
Mike Morford
Yeah, I'm, I'm actually in the same boat, man. I got Vegas and then I think I've said it on the podcast before, but I have a week at home and then we're heading to Jamaica for my, my daughter's wedding. So we got a lot going on over here at the Ferguson household.
- [01:51]
Mike Ferguson
Get those frequent flyer miles and yeah,
- [01:54]
Mike Morford
no doubt for a guy who doesn't travel much, it's a lot of travel. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Erica Barnett and Colleen Fessman. So great new support. We really appreciate it.
- [02:06]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, thank you so much. That really helps the show out. And for anyone else that would like to help us out, head over to patreon.com criminology to get started.
- [02:14]
Mike Morford
All right, buddy, let's go ahead and jump into this week's case. And we're discussing a case that has been in the news a bit, the March 2022 murder of Eric Richards. It has sort of been developing right, going through the legal system. And now that a sentence has been handed out in this case, we can finally discuss it and include an outcome. Thanks to a complicated investigation and multiple delays, the case took a few years to make it to trial. The headlines made it seem like the trial would be a total circus, but thankfully, that factored in very little and the jury was able to focus in on the facts of the case.
- [02:55]
Mike Ferguson
On March 4, 2022, Corey Richards called. 911 to report that her husband Eric was dead. She said she found him in bed and that he was cold to the touch. Officers responded to the home in Camas, Utah at 3:31am Shortly after he was officially pronounced dead. It was clear to first responders that Errik had been dead for some time. Everyone that knew him was shocked by his death. He was only 39 and he was in great shape due to the physical nature of his job. Errik had his own business. He was the co owner of C and E Stone Masonry. Everything had been fine with him the night before. Errik had been in good spirits and didn't seem to be sick at all. In fact, Errik and others had been celebrating together. There were zero signs that when Eric went to bed, he would never wake up.
- [03:43]
Mike Morford
Corey and Eric married in June of 2013. At the time, they had one young son and they would go on to have two more. In 2019, Corey started a real estate company called K. Richens Realty, llc. She started flipping homes here and there. They seemed like a successful, happy couple. But just under a decade after their marriage, Eric was dead. Their three sons had no father. Corey was left to explain the situation to them. But an autopsy would reveal that Eric had not suffered some sudden, tragic medical emergency or died from an illness. He had died from an overdose of fentanyl, approximately five times the lethal dose. As far as anyone knew, Eric didn't use opiates. He did drink, and he did use marijuana gummies for sleep and pain after a long day. But an accidental overdose of fentanyl was just out of the question.
- [04:42]
Mike Ferguson
Investigators didn't recover any paraphernalia regarding fentanyl, heroin or pain pills from Eric's home other than an empty and expired pain pill prescription bottle from 2016. Corey believes that the pills were hidden in a bottle of allergy medication that Eric kept in his work truck. But his business partner picked the truck up before it was ever searched. No hidden fentanyl pills were ever found. There was a baggie in the mudroom that contained 11 hydrocodone pills. These could have been the remaining pills from the expired bottle or something from one of the other drug deals we'll talk about later. But it wasn't hydrocodone that killed Eric, and none was found in the system.
- [05:21]
Mike Morford
And morph, you know, one of the things that jumps out at me here is that they find this pain pill prescription bottle, but it's like from six years earlier. So unless you know, he's got a bunch of hidden stuff or, you know, stuff they didn't find. I mean, that's pretty. That's a pretty long time ago to still have some pills laying around that, you know, you took for some kind of accident or whatever it was for some type of pain, but didn't even take them all. And six years later they're still lying around in a pill bottle.
- [05:57]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, I think usually most people will get rid of that medication, although I'm sort of guilty of keeping prescriptions and never finishing them and just keeping them up in the cabinet and every once in a while we'll go through and get rid of them. But to have one that old, it doesn't seem like it's fresh and being used. But I think what was important was that everyone that knew Eric said there's no way this is what killed him because he wasn't a drug user, he didn't use Fentanyl. So, you know, I think everyone was taken aback by this.
- [06:31]
Mike Morford
Marijuana gummies were found during a second search of the home, either missed in the first search or placed thereafter. Eric was also prescribed naltrexone, which is medication that helps manage the usage of alcohol and opiates. The medication basically blocks the euphoric feeling from getting intoxicated or can even make you incredibly sick when you take it when you're already hot. While it's normally prescribed to people with substance use issues, it's also prescribed off label for pain due to Lyme disease, which Eric had hardly any of it was missing though, which indicated that he didn't take it often. If you're an addict, once you start taking naltrexone, you really can't stop immediately or you will get sick. It's kind of something you either regularly use or you don't use at all unless you're using it as needed for pain. Also found in Eric's system was about half of a 25 milligram pills of Seroquel, an antipsychotic sedative medication. Corey had a prescription for it, supposedly for sleep. The question was, why was Corey's prescription in Eric's system?
- [07:50]
Mike Ferguson
And one thing jumped out to me was that these marijuana gummies were found during the second search of the home. They were either missed the first time around or placed her after that. I think either of those is pretty concerning because if you're looking for a cause of death and looking for drugs specifically, how do you miss them if you're the police? And if you're not the police that missed them and somebody put them there after, then who and why would they do that?
- [08:19]
Mike Morford
Yeah, I think that's a mystery. The. The seroquel being in, you know, Eric's system when it's Corey's prescription, that's a mystery.
- [08:30]
Mike Ferguson
Suspicions turned toward Corey. Her behavior both before and after Eric's death certainly didn't help her position. A year after Eric's death, Corey published a children's book about grief and loss called are you with me? She also emailed the local TV show good things, Utah and applied to be featured in a segment. According to court tv.com, her letter read in part. I have just written what appears to be the first children's book about losing a parent. She claimed she wanted to promote it on the show to help parents comfort their children with such a tragic life event. She also claimed that she and her children wrote it together, but she actually used a ghostwriting service, paying someone else to write it for her. Maybe if things were as perfect for the couple as Corey tried to make everyone think, the book wouldn't have seemed so out of place. But it seemed to be a way for Corey to make money off of Eric's death. Investigators were sure that Eric had not accidentally overdosed, and they believed that money was the main motivation for Eric's murder, and his wife was to blame and that she had been planning it for years.
- [09:33]
Mike Morford
So, obviously, morph, Corey's not looking real good right now, right at this point. The police are very suspicious of her. You've got this children's book, which, you know, I guess on its face could seem benign, but then when you dig in, some of the. The things around it don't seem to, you know, make her look good. Obviously, you and I have done so many episodes, and a lot of them do center around, you know, the death of one partner by another. And there are a lot of motivations that come into play, but the big ones, you know, are usually money or wanting to be with someone else while not giving up money. A lot of it centers around money.
- [10:23]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah. A lot of times when spouses are suspected of murder, murdering their partner. Many times, at the root of it, it has to do with money. So financial gain, life insurance, those kinds of things. It's one of the oldest motives for murdering a spouse.
- [10:45]
Mike Morford
Well, let's face it, money is a big motivator for most people. Right. And not always to do with murder. It just motivates people in general. So it would make sense, though, that it would also be a motive for murder. Authorities believe Corey's plan to kill Eric started years before he died. Between 2015 and 2017, Corey purchased four different life insurance policies on Eric with herself as the beneficiary, totaling nearly $2 million. Eric was completely unaware of the policies, and investigators believe she forged his signature. She kept a lot from Eric financially. She took out a home equity line of credit on their home in excess of $200,000. Without telling him. She took $134,000 that C& E Masonry owed in taxes. More than $100,000 had been withdrawn from his various accounts, and his credit cards had $30,000. She also used banking statements from Eric's company to fraudulently secure funds for her own business. She was in dire need of money because she was not as successful as she made herself out to be. To say that Corey had put the couple in serious financial troubles would be an understatement.
- [12:09]
Mike Ferguson
By late 2020, Eric apparently realized that something was wrong with Corey's bookkeeping. And it seems he was looking into what had happened. In October, he met with an estate lawyer and created a living trust for his three boys. The beneficiary wasn't his wife, Corey, the mother of his children. Instead, he named his sister, Katie Richins Benson, as beneficiary to the trust. That lawyer, Crystal Bowman Carter, told 48 Hours that Eric's goal was to protect the three young sons he and Corey had together in the long term by ensuring that Corey would never be in a position to manage his property. After his death in November, Eric removed Corey as the beneficiary of his $500,000 life insurance policy. Everything he had a stake in was moved over to his sister, Katie. If anything happened to Eric, it would be Katie's job to step in and decide what to do with his assets and his business.
- [13:02]
Mike Morford
And to me, Morph, this is such a. A big move to make. And I think it. It speaks directly to what Eric had uncovered or. Or what he was thinking. Right. To move everything that you know of. Because there are a lot of things that Eric doesn't know of at this point, but to move everything that you know of into your sister's name, make her the beneficiary and not your wife. I think that speaks volumes to what he had already uncovered or, you know, the suspicions that he had about Corey.
- [13:41]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah. And to me, it makes me wonder what the atmosphere was inside the home between Corey and Eric. You know, if he's suspecting that she's up to something and he's switching all this stuff behind her back because he doesn't trust her, I wonder if he felt safe. I wonder if he thought there was some risk to him. Because if that's the case, I wonder why he wouldn't, like, move out or something to try and make himself a little bit safer.
- [14:11]
Mike Morford
Yeah. I mean, when you talk about being safe in your marriage. I said it earlier, Right. We cover a lot of cases where one spouse ultimately murders or, you know, hire someone to. To murder them. But I don't think most people ever have that thought that their spouse is going to kill them or have them killed. I. I just don't think it happens. Even when, like, things are going badly. I still think that's a hard place to. To get to in your mind. In January of 2022, Corey tried to log on and changed the beneficiary of Eric's work insurance policy to herself. Eric and his business partner, Cody Wright, were named as each other's beneficiaries so they could continue the business in the event of some tragedy. But Corey wanted that money, and she apparently knew something was going to happen to Eric. That was the same month that Corey started trying to find opiates. Corey tried to cover her tracks by deleting incriminating text messages, but investigators still found a link to Carmen Lauber, who had a recent history of drug related arrests. She had been charged with multiple counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute and possession of drug paraphernalia. Those charges meant she fully cooperated with the investigation into Corey. If she hadn't, she would have been buried in fines and jail time for giving investigators her side of the story, which was backed up by GPS and phone records. She received treatment and probation.
- [15:55]
Mike Ferguson
According to Carmen Lauber, who performed house cleaning duties for Corey's flip properties. Corey started texting her and asking her to sell her some pills. This timing lined up with a sudden illness Eric experienced on Valentine's Day. Corey purchased a sandwich for Eric that day, but they didn't eat together. After he started eating the sandwich, he became extremely sick. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, he apparently suffered a rash and said he felt like he was going to die. He got so sick that he actually used an EpiPen belonging to one of his sons and took some liquid Benadryl. Afterwards, he slept it off alone, Even though he had texted Corey that he was thinking about going to the hospital. She texted him that she would be on her way soon. But hours later, she was still gone. Investigators believe that this was the first attempt on Eric's life, At least the
- [16:44]
Mike Morford
first one that they could prove in man morph. I think about it a lot but you think about being vulnerable. You might think about, you know, being in the hospital. Okay. Sometimes when you're in the hospital, you're very vulnerable. But I think what a lot of people may not think of immediately is the food that we eat every day. You know, who's cooking that food for you, and how easy would it be for them to do something to it? It's kind of a scary thought when you. When you think about it like that.
- [17:17]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, it definitely is. You're trusting sometimes strangers or, you know, the person you're living with in this case that we're talking about. So, you know, you have to wonder, is there ever any situation when you can't trust that person that's making your food? But one thing that I was thinking about was the EpiPen. You know, a lot of people have them, you know, for one medical reason or another, because they have allergies, food allergies, that they could, you know, be a risk to their lives. And he was fortunate enough to have one. I feel bad for people that have to carry them around or have kids that have to have them just in case. That's got to be frightening to always have one of those and know you might have to use it at any time.
- [18:06]
Mike Morford
There was also a scary situation. On a vacation In Greece in 2019, Eric got violently ill after drinking a cocktail he ordered. Eric's family claims he thought this was Corey trying to poison him. But Corey insists that there wasn't even time for her to tamper with the drink, which was brought to the table by a waiter, and that it was a reaction with a medication you're not supposed to drink with. Eric also told family and friends that he thought Corey was trying to poison him. On Valentine's Day, Corey's friends and family claimed that it was a joke, like Corey was so bad at cooking, that her food was poison. But Eric's family and friends disagree. He had never been more serious about anything. In fact, after the sandwich incident on Valentine's Day, Eric even ate from the same restaurant shortly after this, casting doubt on any notion that he thought what happened was the restaurant's fault. Food poisoning or some kind of food allergy. Fentanyl and other opiates can cause something called pseudo allergic reactions that include hives, itching, and other allergy symptoms.
- [19:19]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, one thing that jumps out to me here is this is two times, according to Eric's family, that he suspected his wife had poisoned him. And that has me thinking, and I don't want to blame Eric in any way here but if I got to the point in my marriage where I thought my wife was actually trying to poison me not once, but twice, I wouldn't be living in the same house, and I certainly wouldn't be eating or drinking anything she gave me, so that I have to wonder what he was thinking and what his reasons were for not leaving the home and getting out of that situation.
- [19:55]
Mike Morford
Yeah, that's a good observation. I think what it does, though, definitely is it gives us a little more insight right, into what Eric was thinking in regards to, like, changing the beneficiary to a sister and all of that. Because I think at a certain point, he thought Corey was trying to poison him.
- [20:15]
Mike Ferguson
And then also, I would be concerned, too, about the children. You know, if. If you're living with a partner that you think might be trying to poison you, can you trust them around your children? So I wonder if that crossed his mind at all. Soon after Valentine's Day, Corey started asking Carmen to find her something stronger. According to 48 Hours, she actually asked for, quote, some of the Michael Jackson stuff. Carmen purchased pills for Corey on three different occasions before Eric's death. She first asked for pain pills, claiming one of her investors had a back injury. Corey paid Carmen $900 for this round of pills just three days before Valentine's Day, when Eric believes Corey tried to poison him with a sandwich. But then two weeks later, she claimed they weren't strong enough, and she asked Carmen for some of the Michael Jackson stuff. She paid another $900. Six days after this purchase, Eric was dead.
- [21:07]
Mike Morford
Some people don't see Carmen as very credible because, as Corey's then lawyer, Sky Lazaro, pointed out to 48 hours, Carmen was on probation at the time that she became the state star witness. And some people will note that the drug that famously killed Michael Jackson was called Propofol. As if Corey was trying to find a vial of Propofol and. And not stronger pills. Others note that because everyone knows what happened to Michael Jackson, just the fact that Corey mentioned his name is damning and proves there was only one outcome she was looking for.
- [21:43]
Mike Ferguson
Because Corey deleted all communication between herself and Carmen, she couldn't prove that anything Carmen claimed was false. It was Corey's word versus Carmen's. Investigators obviously felt that it was Carmen who was telling the truth. They used her information to secure an arrest warrant. But it wasn't just Carmen's word that led investigators to their conclusion. Because as it turns out, Carmen wasn't the only one. Corey tried to buy drugs from a contractor named William Hayden Jeffs was also supposedly asked to find Corey Fentanyl in January, the month before she contacted Carmen, but he refused. Sadly, he died before trial. His wife, who did testify, couldn't say much due to rules about hearsay.
- [22:25]
Mike Morford
As the investigation moved on, it became more and more clear to investigators that greed and financial gain was the reason Corey wanted her husband dead. We talked about some of the financial issues earlier, but investigators found that Corey had $7 million of debt. Most of her home flips weren't profitable. Corey was taking out loans that required daily repayment. One of her close friends lost everything due to a deal with her. She bought a house from Corey, paid her, moved in, and then was evicted for not paying. The home did not belong to her. Corey was under a huge amount of financial pressure, and she felt that Eric was worth more to her dad than he was alive. But the money troubles kept piling up even after Eric died.
- [23:16]
Mike Ferguson
The day after her husband's tragic and very sudden death, Corey closed on the purchase of a home in Heber city, Utah. The 20,000 square foot mansion cost nearly $4 million. She planned to fix up the massive property, live in part of it, and use the rest as a gorgeous event venue with expansive views of the sprawling hills nearby. According to Corey's mother, Lisa Darden, Corey was told by an accountant that she could make $12 million if she did flip the property correctly. But fix up would imply that the home had even been fully built. This wasn't just slapping on a new coat of paint and updating some fixtures. The mansion was just the bare bones of a structure. Inside, nothing was finished. The four million dollar investment in the property was already a huge amount of money, but the building costs would have been astounding. There was also a huge amount of red tape involved, which is why it wasn't finished by the original builders.
- [24:12]
Mike Morford
Going through with such a large purchase when she was already in debt and had just lost her husband was just more proof to investigators that Corey had planned this and that she believed she would be coming into a large amount of money. At the time of Eric's death, she had no idea he had named his sister Katie as executor of his estate and moved all of his assets into the trust that Corey couldn't touch. The day after closing on the home, just two days after Eric's death, Corey called a locksmith to get into Eric's safe. As the executor of Eric's will, his sister Katie obviously disagreed with this decision. Eric's family showed up to try to Explain the situation to the locksmith. This is the same day that Corey learned she was not the beneficiary listed on Eric's will. According to 48 Hours, this made Corey so angry that she punched Eric's sister Amy in the face and neck. At the end of March, Corey sued Katie Richins Benson, Attempting to become executor of Eric's estate. Corey claimed that the terms of their prenuptial agreement meant she had a right to his assets, their home, and his accounts and more. If I just keep thinking that Corrie just continues to look worse and worse as time goes on, I mean, investigators are suspicious of what she did prior to Eric's death. And then you learn about some of the things that happen afterwards. But I want to go back to $7 million of debt. I mean, that is such a massive amount. Most people can't even fathom being $7 million in debt. I know I can.
- [25:58]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, that takes a lot of spending and probably poor decisions to get to that state. And I don't know how you get yourself out of that. Not easily, it seems like. And maybe Corey was at the point where she didn't see any way out other than doing something really terrible to get her hands on some money. And I think, you know, what she's doing is sort of confirming suspicions by police. You know, if she was really a grieving wife upset by her husband's sudden and tragic death, would she really close on this property the day after he dies? Couldn't she postpone it? You know, just. That, to me, just screams that she's all about this money and property and not even putting that off. While Corey was figuring out how to get her hands on any money that she could, police were dotting their I's and crossing their T's to make sure that they had a strong case against her. In May of 2023, just one month after she appeared on the TV promoter book, Corey was arrested and charged with criminal homicide and aggravated murder. In the state of Utah, aggravated murder carries a possible death penalty, though in this case, the prosecution declined to ask for it. Corey was also charged with three counts of possessing a controlled substance and with intent to distribute. Bail was denied, so Corey would sit behind bars. As the case made its way through the courts, Corey entered a plea of not guilty to all the charges.
- [27:27]
Mike Morford
In late 2023, a letter was found in Corey cell that prosecutors believe was proof she was trying to tamper with witnesses. According to 48 Hours, the letter is generally referred to as the walk the dog letter because at the top, she wrote walk the dog with two exclamation points. And then immediately after it, it says, but take vague notes so you remember. In the letter, Corey writes about how it's vital to link Eric getting drugs in Mexico. She then goes on to basically direct what her brother should say on the stand. In the letter, she tries to set up a scenario where Eric was a longtime drug user who used Corey to hide his addiction and help smuggle drugs into the country, and he also used her as a middleman to get drugs from Carmen. She writes that any information is usable as long as it's upon information and belief, hinting that those are the magic words to get in evidence that might end up being proven false.
- [28:33]
Mike Ferguson
In June 2020, five, additional charges were added against Corey. Five counts of mortgage fraud and forgery, seven counts of money laundering and writing a bad check, and one count each of communications fraud and of having a pattern of unlawful activity. Two months later, the charges were adjusted. Prosecutors were only looking to take five charges to aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, forgery, and two counts of insurance fraud. The trial finally began in February 2026.
- [29:05]
Mike Morford
And it's always interesting to me, morph, how, you know, charges are adjusted right in the time leading up to the actual trial. My thought here is that, yeah, these are serious charges, but not really compared to aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder. And I feel as though prosecutors have to really lock in and figure out not only what are the most important charges, but which ones they have the most evidence to support. I mean, yeah, it's great to just tack on a bunch of charges, but it can also muddy the waters.
- [29:49]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah. And I wonder if part of that is it's taking some of those charges out. If something went wrong and she was found not guilty on this, I wonder if they could come back with these other charges and bring her to trial for that, because that wouldn't really be double jeopardy if it's something else altogether. Although it sounds like the more serious charges are the ones they they tried to go with in this trial.
- [30:13]
Mike Morford
But that's a good point, too. Maybe they're they're holding some stuff back in reserve just in the off chance that something goes wrong. The courtroom would be the place that interesting Google searches Corey made were revealed searches like, if someone is poisoned, what does it go down on the death certificate as? And can cops uncover deleted messages on iPhone? Also, luxury prisons for the rich in America. She was also looking up how you could completely wipe an iPhone if you didn't have physical access to it. This search was made after her devices were seized. Now, a lot of these searches look pretty frantic. There were typos and periods instead of spaces. It seemed that Corey was worried about two things, money and freedom. She also looked up signs of being under federal investigation and how long do life insurance companies take to pay. She also clicked on an article with the title cause of death usually does not impact life insurance payment. All the old Google searches, they always come back to bite people in the ass. But my thought is more for my question is how do people not think that this is going to happen because
- [31:35]
Mike Ferguson
they're not listening to criminology on a weekly basis?
- [31:37]
Mike Morford
Well, that is true. Well, we don't want them. We don't want these killers listening to us. But you, you know, it's. I laughed at one point as I was listing some of that stuff, but some of it is laughable. The story is not as a whole because, you know, someone lost their life, but when you're looking up something like luxury prisons for the rich in America, to me that, that is just, it's worthy of a chuckle because it seems like, you know, she thought there was a chance, right, that she would be going to prison and, and she wanted to find the most luxurious one.
- [32:14]
Mike Ferguson
I guess she wanted to go to a country club of prisons as opposed to a one that was not up to her liking.
- [32:23]
Mike Morford
But you add that in with all the other searches and man, it does not make her look good. Not one bit.
- [32:30]
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- [32:59]
Mike Ferguson
Quarry's version of the night Eric died goes like this. At around 9:00pm Cory. She and Eric were celebrating because she closed on the purchase of the Midway Mansion. Corey whipped up some Moscow Mules and took them into the bedroom. They drank them in bed, talking and winding down. One of their sons woke up after having a nightmare. So Corey went into his room and tried to get him to settle down. The two eventually fell asleep and around 3am Corey woke up and went back to her room to get into bed next to Eric. But immediately she knew something was wrong. His body was stiff and cold, and she called 91 1.
- [33:34]
Mike Morford
The jury heard that Corey most likely didn't even try to do anything to save Eric's life. When paramedics started to perform cpr, blood came out of his mouth, signaling that Corey had not been doing the CPR that she claimed to have done. If she had pressed on his chest, this would have happened sooner. Investigators also described how she lied about where her phone was that night. She claimed it was plugged in, charging on the nightstand until she got back into the room and called 911. But this turned out to be completely false. Not only was the phone being unlocked and locked, it registered multiple steps. And before Corey called 911, she sent messages that she later deleted and made a phone call, Maybe even a FaceTime call, to an unknown person. The phone logs registered that her speaker had been used before the 911 call.
- [34:31]
Mike Ferguson
It wasn't just shady financial details and drug related secrets that came out at trial. One bombshell piece of information that came to light was that Corey had been having an affair. Robert Josh Grossman, who was dating Corey at the time of Eric's murder, testified for the prosecution. Their intimate relationship went back to early 2020. Text messages showed Corey talking about leaving Eric, marrying Grossman, and the two raising children on a large piece of property. We now know that Corey was with Grossman on Valentine's Day, potentially while she was waiting for Eric to die from that poisoned sandwich. The day after Valentine's Day, when investigators believe she failed an attempt to poison Eric, Corey asked Grossman whether or not he would marry her if she was a divorcee. He confirmed that he would. But per that prenuptial agreement, which was signed the day of their wedding, if she wanted to walk away from Eric, she would have to walk away with Nothing. According to 48 Hours, the agreement stated that Corey would get nothing, none of Eric's present or future income, property, or assets, unless he passed away, and only if they were still legally married when it happened.
- [35:39]
Mike Morford
Man, morph, the picture here of Corey is. Is one of a real femme fatale. I mean, there's a lot of devious stuff coming to light. It seems as if the lifestyle Grossman lived with Corey was lavish. He stayed rent free in the home she purchased to flip, helping her fix them up as a payment. And Cory gave him the money to buy not one, but two pickup trucks, along with regularly providing him funds for his own use. Despite the spoils of his relationship with Corey, He, Grossman was obviously distraught over this whole situation. He cried on the stand. He described Derek as a good person and a good father. And he talked about the suspicions he had in hindsight. Two weeks after Eric died, Corey asked Grossman, who is a veteran who served in Iraq, if he had ever killed someone and how it made him feel. Some people wonder if she was looking for an outlet for her own guilt. Others suspect that maybe she was taking his temperature to see if he might offer to kill Eric. Most doubt that she felt any guilt for her actions.
- [36:50]
Mike Ferguson
In court, prosecutors brought up what Corey did and didn't do on the day her husband died, and her actions raised a lot of questions. Maybe one of the most damning facts is that if Corey felt that this was some kind of overdose or tainted gummy, why didn't she mention drugs to the first responders who could have saved her husband's life? Why did she pretend to have no knowledge of any drug use or anything that could have contributed to his death? Why was there zero proof of drugs in the home? Was protecting his image more important than saving his life? Or was the drug story cooked up when they performed an autopsy and learned that this was not a natural death and investigators started looking harder at Corey? Either way, Corey was guilty of something. At best, she withheld information that may have saved Eric. At worst, once authorities found out what really happened, he ingested five times the normal amount of fentanyl that would kill a person. Her only choice was to try to make people think he was the one responsible for his death.
- [37:47]
Mike Morford
In a move that shocked pretty much everyone, the defense rested without calling any witnesses. They had until the very last moment, seemed to be ready to call witnesses, and Corey even seemed ready to take the stand and tell her story. After just three hours of deliberation, Corey was found guilty on all charges. The sentencing date was set for May 13, what would have been Eric's 44th birthday. For the aggravated murder of Eric Richins, Corey Darden Richards was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Additional sentences were handed down on the lesser charges, one to 15 years each on two counts of second degree felony insurance fraud, up to five years for third degree felony forgery, and five years to life for attempted aggravated murder. These will be served consecutively, meaning that for Corey, this is a true life sentence. Judge Richard Mrazek told the courtroom, a person convicted of those things is simply too dangerous to ever be free. And you know, exactly what this judge said is what I think of most of the People that we talk about, when you look at what they did, how callous it was, and specifically in this case with Cory, how devious it was. I just don't think that these types of individuals should ever be out of prison. I don't think they should ever walk the streets again.
- [39:30]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, she's clearly someone that can't be around others. You know, she seems like there's nothing she won't try to do to get ahead financially, you know, get what she wants, thinks she's entitled to, you know, including murdering the father of her children. You know, who else might she harm if she was free.
- [39:53]
Mike Morford
Yeah, I feel like if you're capable of that, you're pretty much capable of anything.
- [39:59]
Mike Ferguson
Despite all the juicy details that came out, there was a lot of information that didn't even make it to the trial. And what we learned from the sentencing documents was chilling. First of all, despite having been found guilty of murdering their father, the life insurance policies Quarry held on all three of the Richens children were still active and they were still in her name, even from behind bars. She would benefit monetarily if something were to happen to any of them. We also learned that the children were very aware that something was wrong the night their father was killed. Quora's story was always that she had been sleeping in one of her son's beds after he suffered a night terror instead of going to sleep with Errik. This was her reasoning as to why she found him far too late to help him. But two of the children tried to get into their parents bedroom that night, only to find that the door was locked. One of them even used a broom to knock a key off of the door jam so that he could unlock the door and get into the room. But he accidentally bumped the wall with the broom and it made a noise, alerting Corey to his presence. She yelled at him and told him to go back to bed. The children were not sleeping peacefully during the murder.
- [41:03]
Mike Morford
They were scared and confused after Eric's death. But before the children were taken from Corey and placed with family, their life seemed horrific. It was not the healing, comforting, compassionate life Corey described while promoting her book. In a victim impact statement to the court, one of the boys wrote, corey is always drunk. He described Corey locking him in his room if he pointed out that she was intoxicated with a lock on the outside of the door and his brother having to sneak him food. Another child wrote, you only cared about yourself and your stupid boyfriend. They talked about how multiple pets died in Corey's care, including a kitten and rabbits. They also lost everything they knew and couldn't understand why it was happening.
- [41:56]
Mike Ferguson
You would think that while these victim impact statements by her children being read in court would maybe be a moment for her to reflect and show remorse, she clearly had no remorse. During the victim impact statements. She made faces, shook her head and laughed with her attorney. When she spoke at the hearing. She chose to use the time to read a letter she wrote to her children, who by the way, want nothing to do with her. Have made that very clear. The letter was all about how people aren't perfect and we all make mistakes. Corey was apparently planning to write follow up books which had some people worried that she was planning to harm one of the boys. The proposed title of her next book was How Far Away is Heaven. You can interpret this as being about a child wondering how far away their loved ones are, but if you put a sinister spin on it, it's like a child asking how far they're going.
- [42:46]
Mike Morford
And man, you really have to feel bad for these kids. Not only did they lose their father, but they find out just how evil their mother was. I mean, that has got to be a set of circumstances that no child should ever have to deal with.
- [43:09]
Mike Ferguson
And they still seem relatively young, but it also seems like they understand and have made their decision that they don't want anything to do with her. And that's pretty telling at that age for someone to know that their mother is a bad person that they don't want to be around, that's. That's pretty telling.
- [43:29]
Mike Morford
Killing her husband Eric was bad enough, but a lot of people think she wouldn't have stopped with him. There are those who think Eric's family members were going to be targeted next. The same day that Corey learned she wasn't the beneficiary to anything, she wrote another check to Carmen. Thirteen hundred dollars, this time for more pills. Was she angry enough to try to kill Eric's sisters Katie or Amy next? Eric's family was more concerned about the safety of Eric's children and that they seemed to believe that Corey was not only capable of harming them, but actually did try to poison her own child. And knowing that she would still financially benefit from their deaths makes it seem like a real possibility. Eric stayed in the marriage despite contacting a divorce attorney because he was afraid that he wouldn't receive full custody of the children. And if he wasn't there to watch over them at every turn, they could be in danger. This would leave them vulnerable to. And after being left by her husband, Corey certainly Would have had a grudge, which may have made whatever intention she had for her children even worse. He just couldn't risk it. And more, if you kind of asked the question earlier, why did Eric stay in the relationship, even though, you know, he had all of these suspicions and they even growed over time and. And I think we're finding out now the reason why he was so worried about his kids that he just felt he couldn't risk the chance of not getting custody and leaving them alone with Corey.
- [45:14]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah. To put your children ahead of yourself is pretty admirable, because even though he truly thought he was in danger, he just thought it would be worse for him not to be there and the kids to be alone with her. So it's pretty commendable that he risked his life and ultimately paid with his life to try and protect them. The question of how exactly Eric ingested the drugs has still never been answered. Other than that it was only found in his stomach. He had to have swallowed it. If he was so suspicious of Corey, would he have accepted a drink from her? Corey's family believes he received a marijuana gummy that was laced with fentanyl. No marijuana was found in his system or in his gastric contents, Meaning that even if Eric did use the gummies, it had been a while, and it definitely isn't what killed him. At autopsy, Eric tested positive for COVID 19. Corey confirmed that the whole family had recently been sick, but it wasn't the cause of his death.
- [46:11]
Mike Morford
So a lot of questions, you know, were answered in this case, but this is one that still remains a mystery. I mean, it's pretty clear to me that Corey was involved in his death. Right. She was convicted, sentenced, but just how exactly it happened, obviously she hasn't said because that wouldn't be good for her to tell the truth. And people are just left to speculate.
- [46:39]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, I think that's what's frustrating in some of these cases. While sometimes you can find out the whole. You don't always know how they did it, and unless they're willing to answer questions, those are questions that continue to linger for his family, I'm sure.
- [46:53]
Mike Morford
And I think we do have a lot of answers on the why. Right. The financial. I still go back to the $7 million in debt. That is mind blowing. And then, you know, she's having an affair with this guy, Asking him if he'll marry her if she's no longer married. All of that seems pretty cut and dry as to why she thought she needed to kill Eric, but that the How? How did it happen? You would love to know every little detail of that, but sometimes you just don't get it. There is still a civil case pending related to the trust and estate, as well as a trial for the mortgage fraud and other charges. Corey maintains her innocence and plans to appeal and file a motion for a new trial. In her statement to her boys at sentencing, Corey said, one day when this is all over, we can sit down and talk about it. Corey continues to write letters to her children even though the letters are all returned unopened. Now three children have lost both parents. Luckily, Eric's family is trying to raise them the way he would have if he could. They are well cared for, but they can't get their father back. This will always impact them. In the end, Corrie ended her husband's life and essentially hers, and forever altered those of her children. All over money and greedy. And as we wrap this case up more, I mean, I think there are a lot of things about the cases that we cover that people really find hard to imagine. Killing your spouse, I mean, that is so hard to imagine for most people. But then when you look at the reason behind it, to me it seems even more harder to imagine. I mean, this wasn't a case where, you know, she was in danger. She was in fear for her life. Even though people don't condone those, maybe they understand the reasoning behind it a little bit, but with something like this, there's no way to understand it. It's just about greed. You want money, you want to be with someone else, and you're willing to kill your spouse to get it.
- [49:26]
Mike Ferguson
Yeah, this really seems like a case where there was never any doubt as to the motive. And the more and more police looked, the more troubling things they found, the more proof they found that Corey had planned this and it wasn't a short term goal of her. She had been working on this for some time and I think it just shows the extent that she went through and how long she had been thinking about doing this.
- [49:55]
Mike Morford
And I think one of the scariest things to me is the thought that after she killed Eric and found out that she wasn't the beneficiary of everything she thought she was, there's some real evidence that she possibly could have killed her children or members of Eric's family. That's a scary thought as well. But that's it for our episode on Eric Richards. As always, if you love the show but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a review or rating. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the podcast really helps us out.
- [50:36]
Mike Ferguson
If you want to find us on social media or on every major platform, just search for Criminology Podcast on your favorites. And for news, old episodes and more, head over to criminology podcast.com and if you want to join a discussion group about the podcasts and the cases we cover, head over to Facebook and search for Criminology Podcast discussion and fans.
- [50:55]
Mike Morford
So that's it for another episode of Criminology. But Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then for Mike and Morph, we'll talk to you next week.
- [51:06]
Mike Ferguson
Take care everyone.
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