MAKE IT MAKE SENSE

Kids’ Author Says Bombshell ‘Walk the Dog’ Letter Was Part of Book

Prosecutors said Kouri Richins’ missive to her mom was a brazen plan to tamper with a witness in her murder case.

A Utah author accused of killing her husband with a lethal dose of fentanyl and then writing a children’s book about grief said a letter discovered in her jail cell was not witness tampering but a part of a book she is writing. In the six-page letter, which began with the words “Walk The Dog,” Kouri Richins told her mother to get Richins’ brother to lie in court and claim that Richins’ dead husband, Eric, got the drugs and pain pills that killed him from Mexico. Richins’ attorney said prosecutors breached a gag order by releasing the note, which was found last week by Summit County police. Court filings obtained by KUTV on Tuesday say Richins claimed that her letters were part of a “fictional mystery book” about being imprisoned in Mexico. But Summit County prosecutors said Richins’ explanations don’t make sense and contain “factual errors and legal misunderstandings.” Richins published a children’s book called Are You With Me? in March about grief following the 2022 death of her husband, whom she is now charged with killing.