Utah Mom Sentenced to Life Tells Kids: Be Like Your Dad (The One She Poisoned)

In a Utah courtroom on May 14, 2026, Kouri Richins—a children’s book author convicted of murdering her husband—delivered a parting message to their three sons before being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. She told them to be like their dad. Yes, the father she’s been convicted of killing.

The irony cuts deep, but it pales next to the actual crimes. Richins was found guilty of aggravated murder for lacing her husband’s drink with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in March 2022. That wasn’t her only attempt either: a jury also convicted her of attempted aggravated murder after she tried to poison him with a fentanyl-laced sandwich on Valentine’s Day 2022. On top of those charges, she was found guilty of insurance fraud and forgery related to his life insurance policy—charges that point toward a calculated motive. Prosecutors argued she was planning to leave him for another man.

The paternal grandfather didn’t mince words during the sentencing hearing. He told the judge his grandsons needed to know their mother could never walk free, so they could stop fearing the woman responsible for their father’s death might harm them again. That statement alone underscores what’s at stake for three kids who’ve already lost one parent to calculated violence.

What makes this case particularly chilling is the disconnect between Richins’public persona—she’s a published children’s book author—and her actual behavior. The contrast between crafting stories for young audiences and orchestrating a spouse’s death speaks to a kind of compartmentalization that’s hard to process. The“be like your dad”comment, delivered at sentencing, reads less like a tearful mother’s final words and more like another act of performance in a life built on deception.

Those three boys will grow up without their father, raised by a system rather than by either parent. They’ve already endured the public spectacle of their mother’s trial and conviction. Whatever she intended with that statement—whether it was meant as some twisted show of remorse or another manipulation—it won’t change the outcome. Life without parole means the courtroom was the last place they’ll hear from her directly.