Kouri Richins' Jailhouse Letter: The Full Breakdown on Hidden Killers

0:00Bettering your business takes working with the best. With the James Hardy Alliance, you gain access to leads, training, networking, and support from the number one brand of Siding in North America. Achieve new levels of success by joining the James Hardy Alliance today. Shop the Sherwin-Williams Spring Sale and get 35% off paints and stains marks 13 through the 23rd. Whether you're refreshing your interior or exterior, we've got the colors to bring your vision to life, and with delivery, getting everything to your door is easier than ever. Shop online to have it delivered or visit your neighborhood Sherwin-Williams store. Click the banner to learn more. Retail sales only, some exclusions apply, see store for details, delivery available on qualifying orders. This is Hidden Killers with Tony Brusky. Here now, Tony Brusky. The Corey Richens walk the dog letter. We're going to go through it, break it down for you, explain to you what it all means. This is a six-page letter that was found in her jail cell

1:02that they're trying to write off as a novel and not explicit instructions for how to lie and manipulate people to make sure Corey's story adds up. Let's start with the defense's official position because you need to hear it before you hear anything else. As we go through this, give me your thoughts in the comments section on Substacking, on YouTube. The links are in the description. The six-page letter at the center of this conversation is the one with state evidence numbers stamped across every page. The one prosecutor say is one of the most damning documents in this entire case. It is a letter, according to the prosecution. According to Corey Richens, it's not a letter. It's fiction. It's part of a 65-page mystery manuscript. She was writing while in jail. The six pages everyone has been talking about are

2:06per the defense, a creative exercise, a character study, a chapter in a book. Guys, it's all it is. It doesn't, even though it kind of looks very suspicious, like you're trying to tell us how to answer questions and testify. It's a manuscript. That's all it is. Guys, you're crazy. Well, hold that thought because here is where the letter was found. Not in a writing folder, not in a stack of manuscript pages, it was found hidden inside a book during a search of her jail cell. And here's how it opens. The very first slide before any story, before any chapter, before any plot, walk the dog, but take vague notes so you remember. That's the title. That's the instruction. Memorize what's in here, then walk the dog. Meaning, get up, go outside, make the letter disappear before anyone finds it. She built the cover up into the first sentence. So ask yourself, does that sound like a novelist setting a scene? Or does it sound like someone

3:10telling another person to destroy the evidence? Because here's the thing about fiction. It doesn't need a destruction instruction. This letter came with its own cover story baked in. And that tells you everything you need to know before we read a single word of the actual content. Corey Richards, of course, has pledged not guilty to all charges and is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. But we're going to go through this letter. All six pages and decode exactly what she was trying to communicate, who she was communicating it to, and why prosecutors believe every word of it points in the same direction. So first, who are these people? Corey Richards is a Utah real estate agent and a mother of three currently on trial for the alleged murder of her husband Eric Richards. Eric was 39 years old. He died in March of 2022 in their home in Kamas, Utah medical examiner determined he died of lethal fentanyl overdose. Prosecutors say Corey put it there. She says she didn't. She's pledged not guilty to aggravated murder, attempted murder insurance fraud and forgery. After Eric died, she wrote a children's

4:15book about coping with grief. That detail matters for context. It tells you something about how she processes or performs loss. The letter is written to her mother, Lisa Darden. That's the recipient. That's who she's talking to across these six pages. The woman she closes a letter by calling the best mom in the whole world. Also referenced her brother, who she calls Ronnie throughout. Her defense attorney, Skye Lazara, referred to simply as Skye. A man she calls Lotto. Eric sister Katie Richards Benson, who filed a wrongful death civil suit against Corey after the criminal charges were filed in several women. She assigned specific speaking roles to for national television appearances. Every single one of these people is real. Every single one of them is being handed a task. Keep that in mind as we go through this. Page one.

5:16She opens by telling her mother that Skye and defense attorney is worried about a specific prosecution argument. The theory is that even if fentanyl was found in gummies in the home, prosecutors will argue that Corey put it there. So the defense needs a counter narrative. They need a way to show that Eric had his own independent source of fentanyl, something that has nothing to do with Corey. Something that explains how fentanyl ended up in his body without her involvement. They need something that Moscow mule that he took that night that she gave him. Couldn't have been lazily fentanyl. He had to get into the system somewhere else. Corey sitting in her jail cell has already solved that problem. The solution or brother is what she tells her mother to do. Meet Ronnie in person, not by phone, not by text because she fears the house and phones are being monitored.

6:20Once you're with him, pass along this story. Approximately one year before Eric's death, Ronnie was at their house watching football on a Sunday. Eric and Ronnie started talking and Eric told him that he gets pills and fentanyl from workers at a ranch in Mexico and asked Ronnie to keep it secret from Corey because she get mad. Eric told him he kept the drugs hidden in an allergy pill bottle inside his work truck. So she wouldn't find him. Now stop. Think of that again, knowing she's writing this from jail. She writes the setting, football Sunday. She writes the duration, specifically tells her mother to tell Ronnie it was a quick two-minute conversation. It's got to have that control. Don't overanalyze it. She writes the dialogue. She writes the emotional motivation. Eric wanted secrecy because of what Corey would think.

7:24She writes the physical hiding spot for the drugs and then she tells her mother to get this story to Ronnie before he meets with Skye so that when her own brother sits down with her own defense attorney, the story is already locked in. She even reaches for legal framing to package it. She writes upon information and belief, before he's used in legal fighting to introduce testimony that isn't firsthand knowledge. And then immediately after writing it, she adds, LOL. The LOL is not a throwaway. The LOL tells you she knows exactly what she's doing. She's using legal language deliberately as a rapper to make a fabricated story sound like legitimate testimony. And so, and she's so comfortable with that, with what she's constructing that she's laughing at herself while she does it. She closes a section with a line that removes any remaining ambiguity.

8:25Reward this however he needs to to make the point just include it all. It's not a memory. This is a script with editorial notes attached and understand why the script needs to exist if her brother testifies that Eric told him a year before his death that he was getting fentanyl from a Mexico ranch. That creates an alternative pathway. It means fentanyl was already an Eric's life independently before Corey allegedly introduced it. It means reasonable doubts. That's what she's building, page by page. Come and jail cell using your own brother as the instrument. But wait, there's more. Well, when throughout the same page, this is a second narrative she wants distributed across multiple witnesses. The claim that Eric used to hide drugs in her luggage and airports right before boarding so that if security found anything, Corey would take the fall, not him. Once they landed, she'd pull the drugs back

9:28out of her bag and they'd fight about it. He'd laugh. She was furious. That's the story she once told. Here's the decode. She's not sharing this as a memory. She's preloading it into the record through multiple mouths. If drug evidence surfaces at trial that implicates her, she wants witnesses already on record saying Eric used to set her up for exactly this. She's building a rebuttal before the prosecution finishes making their argument. That's not grief. That's architecture. Page three. She tells her mother to contact the band she refers throughout as Lotto. This message is simple. Do not text anything that puts the two of them together. Not church, not skiing, not trips. Nothing. Her exact words. It doesn't look good.

10:32During this trial testimony has emerged about Corey's alleged boyfriend. A relationship, the prosecution has argued as part of the financial motive case. Lotto is likely a reference to that person or someone in a similar role. What she's doing here is trying to erase a relationship from the documentary trail while sitting in jail. No text, no record, no connection because it doesn't look good. We all know Corey doesn't like things that don't look good on her, although she only seems to find herself in places that make her not look good. She's managing evidence actively from custody. Page four's work gets darker in a specific way. She tells her mother to go through her phone and find photos of Katie's daughters. Print them. Mail them anonymously to media companies. The goal, make Katie live it. She adds almost cheerfully, if not, no worries. Why? What are you doing

11:39mailing pictures of someone's children to media outlets? And by the way, you dumb bitch, the media outlets, if we get pictures of children, we're not publishing them. They don't do that. We don't do that. Raputable outlets don't do that sort of thing. Oh, look, we got these pictures in the mail from the inlaw of Corey Richens. Let's publish them. They must be juicy. Like, this is, this is how this woman thinks. She's not bright. Katie is Katie Richens, Benson, Eric Sister, the woman who filed a wrongful death civil lawsuit against Corey after the criminal charges were filed. She's not just a grieving family member. She's a legal adversary. And what Corey is describing is targeted retaliation against that adversary, routed through her children's images, executed anonymously to

12:40avoid being traced back. Her nieces, she's wanting, she's basically saying expose their pictures. For what? Why? Like, what do you, what do you insinuating is going to happen here? It's been going to publish pictures of your nieces that have nothing to do with this. Sorry, Corey, your deflection of attention elsewhere ain't working out too well. If not, no worries is what you need to sit with. She's not struggling or suggesting this is a panic. She's not desperate. She's offering it as a casual option, something to get to when there's a free moment between coordinating good morning America appearances and scripting brother testimony. The off hand in this is the tell. She thought through the method, the routing and the deniability. This isn't impulsive. It's not even impressive. It's calculated enough, though,

13:40to include an escape hatch. Page five and six, the coordinates, a good morning America interview being arranged by her defense team. And she doesn't just encourage the woman involved to share their perspectives. She assigns them lines. Oh, again, this is the control. This is the control that she feels she needs to have about everything in her life. One is told to bring up that Eric hadn't been to church in the 13 year she'd known him. Oh, he wasn't going to church. Oh, no. This is like, I don't know, maybe in Utah, that's like a mortal sin or something. I don't know who knows. One is instructed to deliver the airport drug narrative, specifically verbatim, including the detail that Eric would laugh about it and say, well, I can't get in trouble. One is told to describe an incident in Spain where

14:44Erica allegedly couldn't drink and spent the trip looking for drugs instead. One is assigned the angle that Eric's sisters were always jealous of Cory, her career, her home, her success. And that this whole case comes down to jealousy, money, and an accidental overdose. Cory just thinks so goddamn much of herself. That last line is worth repeating. She writes, this comes down to jealousy, money, and Eric's partying that they don't want to acknowledge and sadly an accidental overdose. That is the conclusion she wants delivered on national television assigned to a specific person before a jury is seated. She's not asking these women to tell the truth. She's distributing a narrative with assigned roles, specific talking points and a premeditated or predetermined conclusion. That's not a support network. That's a production. And then at the end of page six after all of it,

15:50the brother scripted testimony, the airport drug container narrative, the erased relationship, the retaliation against Eric's sister through her children, the coordinated television strategy. She asked her mother to smuggle crest white strips into her jail cell through her attorneys envelope. Her teeth have gotten yellow, too much coffee and tea. She's managing her smile. The cameras, she's already booked. She's thinking at the end of six pages of what prosecutors call a witness tampering scheme about what she's going to look like on the other side of this, not whether she'll get there, what she'll look like when she does. The letter closes, I love you. I love you. I love you. Hang in there. We're getting there slowly. You're the best mom in the whole world. We're getting there. Now, back to the defense's position. This is fiction.

16:51A 65 page manuscript, a creative exercise. Here's why prosecutors say that argument falls apart under its own weight. It was hidden inside a book in her jail cell, not organized in manuscript pages. The title is a destruction instruction. Novelists don't tell their readers to burn chapter one. It's addressed to her real mother by implication and references her real attorney by name. It contains accurate specific details about her actual legal strategy and her real case. And it ends with I love you. I love you. I love you, which is to anyone paying attention. I have a way to close a chapter of fiction. A 12 person jury is now looking at this letter. They are looking at it in a courtroom where because of legal constraints around Cory's detention, they're not even supposed to know it came from a jail cell. Prosecutors are actively working through how to present it without revealing that detail. The letter they were supposed to disappear on a dog walk is now the subject of courtroom arguments about how best to show it to the people

17:58who decide her fate. Eric Richards was 39 years old. He died in his home. His children are growing up without him. And if prosecutors are right, the person who allegedly put fentanyl in his system spent the years had followed using her mother as a courier, her brother as a witness, her friend as a media team, and a stranger's children as leverage or her sister-in-law's children as leverage all from a jail cell all while worrying about her teeth. She called it walk the dog. She thought it would vanish. 12 people are reading it right now. Good job, Cory. You're a smart one. Some monsters, right? I wouldn't say people because this doesn't even feel... It's like there's just certain folks, certain folks that have this

19:01operational modality to them that is just... It doesn't even feel human. It feels like something else. Maybe that's the scariest part about these people is they are human. And this is the modality of some humans, whether the rest of us want to believe it or not. That's it makes us so hard to accept, so hard to believe. That's why she's on trial. That's why it's not just... Yeah, you did this. Because there's a world where there's plenty of people that relate enough to her way of thinking that may go, hmm. And then run it through their mind of like they might do the same thing at some point in time. And if they might do it, well then... Better not put that one away because what if it came down to me? Your thoughts in the comments section on YouTube and sub-stack. The links are in the description.

20:01Love to see you there. We'll continue our conversation in the comments. Until then, my name is Tony Bursky. We will talk again real soon. Subscribe now and don't miss a moment of true crime coverage from Tony Bursky and the Hidden Killers podcast.