UT v. Kouri Richins: Full Closing Arguments

Corey Richens feels aggrieved and is thus an intensely ambitious person. She feels aggrieved because growing up, her father was an alcoholic who traded parenting for prison, and her mother a gambler who traded parenting for a casino. Corey Richens thus worked for her aunt, cleaning the homes of rich people in Park City. She was not beneath those homeowners, but she felt that she was. This fueled in her an intense desire to appear privileged, affluent, and successful.

She met Eric Richards. He was a successful business owner. He had money. They had a son, married, and had two more sons. Corey Richens was on her way. But she was unhappy. She wanted to leave Eric Richens, but did not want to leave his money. Their prenuptial agreement meant that if she left him, she would also leave most of his money. So Corey Richens took a quarter of a million dollars in equity out of Eric Richens' home without him knowing it, so that she could start her own business and earn enough money to leave Eric Richens.

Corey Richens is intensely ambitious. First with Eric's money, and then other people's money, Corey Richens carefully curated the facade of a privileged, affluent, successful business owner. Behind the facade, however, Corey Richens was incompetent. She took tremendous risks. She borrowed money by any means necessary at exorbitant rates. She gambled other people's money and lost. Her business was imploding. All the while, Corey Richens was more interested in spending time with Josh Gman than Eric. She dreamed of living in the Midway mansion with Josh, running it as an event center, farming, and raising kids, Eric's kids, but she did not have the money to leave Eric or the money to salvage her business.

Corey Richens is an intensely ambitious person. She is a risk-taker. There was a way forward. Eric had to die.

As Judge Morazzi just instructed, there are five counts, and each count has a series of elements. The state has to prove each count and each element of each count beyond a reasonable doubt. That is our burden. In this closing, we will go count by count, and then within each count, element by element, to show to you how the state has met its burden of proving aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, two counts of fraud and forgery. That again is the reasonable doubt instruction that Judge Morazzi just read, and you will have back with you in the jury room.

Judge Marzek also read this instruction on what evidence is, and it's usually testimony and exhibits. To reiterate, what the attorneys say is not evidence. And as I asked you in opening, please focus on the evidence. Throughout this presentation, I generally use this format for slides, and so everybody understands where we are. The count and then the element within the count is at the top in the red banner. We then quote some witness testimony and we cite it because it's the evidence that matters. So that you have you you'll have the exhibits back with you when you deliberate, and you can reference them. Usually, it's a transcript, page, line, number of the testimony. We also publish exhibits, and usually we'll have an exhibit number down here. There's an exhibit whatever 2-5, so you can reference it.

Let's begin with the aggravated murder count. The evidence will prove that Corey Richens was the person who committed the aggravated murder. The evidence will prove that she intentionally or knowingly caused the death of Eric Richens here by means of administering to him the illicit street drugs that she purchased from Carmen Lobber. She intended to kill him with the illicit street drugs. It doesn't matter what illicit street drugs. We'll get into it more. It doesn't matter if it was the propall, it was the fentanyl that actually killed him, if it was oxy or some other illicit street drugs. She bought illicit street drugs to kill Eric Richards. That's what matters. That's murder. These two elements are just murder, right? If we hide this, that's a murder charge.

Here we have an aggravated murder charge, and the state will prove two separate and distinct aggravators. The first is for pecuniary gain. This is a "why" aggravator. Why did Corey Richens kill Eric? For money. The second aggregator is a "how" aggravator. How did she do it? Here by the administration of any substance. Here it happens to be fentanyl, but it could be any substance administered in a lethal amount. Either one of those aggravators are what transforms this case from a murder case to an aggravated murder case.

So, first count, first element, was it Corey Richens? Yes, the state has proved that Corey Richens had the means here, the fentanyl, the illicit street drugs, the motive here, money and a fresh start at life, and the opportunity to kill Eric Richens. She was the only other adult in the home at the time. Nobody else killed Eric Richens.

Now, intentionally or knowingly cause the death of Eric Richens by administering the illicit street drugs. The state will prove with all kinds of evidence, testimony, exhibits, patterns of her behavior, and what each of us know about humans that she intended to cause Eric's death. She intended it, probably as early as December the 21st, sorry, December the 7th, 2021, when she booked a trip for her and Josh Gman to the Caribbean for April. People don't book that trip. Corey Richens did not book that trip thinking Eric Richens would be alive in April. She booked it knowing he would not. In December, before Eric died, before Corey Richens murdered Eric, she told her friend Becky Lloyd, "In many ways, it would be better if he were dead." That proves she intended to cause his death.

This was the New York Life policy that covered the CE buy-sell agreement. And on January the 1st, 2022, Corey Richens changed the life insurance beneficiary on Cody's policy from Eric to her. The evidence proves that Cody, sorry, that Corey Richens didn't understand that was Cody's policy. And when she figured it out, she went ahead and changed it back because she planned to murder Eric. She did not plan to murder Cody. But she planned to murder Eric.

Corey Richens asked two people, Hayden Jeffs and Carmen Lober, for the Michael Jackson drug. Corey Richens was a suburban mother, real estate agent. She does not know a lot about the illicit street drug world, but she knows Michael Jackson died from taking drugs. She doesn't know how to order a street drug, but she knows she wants the Michael Jackson stuff. She knows she wants it because it is lethal. It is fatal. It kills. And she wanted lethal, fatal death. Corey Richens is intensely ambitious. She wanted the perfect life, or at least the appearance of the perfect life. And for her, that meant Josh Ger. But first, Eric had to go away.

>> So, with these transactions, when Carmen hit you up, what did she tell you?

>> She told me she had a friend that wanted

>> Did she ask for blue specifically or fol specifically, or did she ask for doxy? What did she ask for?

>> I think she might have asked me for blue again. I can't remember.

>> But you sold her M30s, right?

>> Yeah. I told her what she knew what she was buying.

>> Okay. So, she wasn't like she's asking for oxies or something like that and she got the M.

>> Okay. So, she knew that there was one.

At Corey Richen's request, Carmen Lobber purchased illicit street drugs from Robert Croier. It's those illicit street drugs that killed Eric Richens. It's those illicit street drugs that Corey used to murder Eric Richens. And while there may be some question as to whether she specifically ordered fentanyl or she knew she was getting fentanyl, the evidence proves she at least knew it. She wanted fatal, lethal illicit street drugs. And all the testimony from Carmen Lobber, Robert Crosier, Digital Forensics, we'll get into it, all confirm that Corey Richens ordered and received illicit street drugs, and that those street drugs contain fentanyl. Illicit street drugs is all that matters. But you heard the testimony that despite confusion in what people were ordering, people were getting fentanyl. The fake M30s look like the real. Sorry. Yeah, the fake M30s look like the real M30s. Everything on the street in early 2022 had fentanyl. That's how we know that it was this purchase that ended up killing Eric. It's the fentanyl. We can trace the fentanyl.

Next slide. The digital forensics corroborate Carmen Loberer's testimony that 5 days before Corey Richens murdered Eric Richens, Carmen Lobber purchased for Corey Richens fentanyl from Robert Cro Croier at the Maverick in Draper. The call detail records show an extraordinary amount of overlapping communication between Carmen Lobber, Corey Richens, Carmen Lobber, Robert Crosier during that time. We of course don't have the communications. Carmen Lobber deleted them because they were evidence of a drug deal. Corey Richens deleted them because they were evidence of a drug deal and a murder. Robert Crosier said he had Boston's phone. But that's an extraordinary number of communications.

We know that Corey Richens, the evidence proves that Corey Richens used a Moscow mule and a shot to administer the fentanyl to Eric. She writes it in her orange notebook where she journals what happened the night she murdered Eric. It's a self-serving journal. We'll discuss that down the road. But she wrote Moscow Mule in a lemon drop shot. And that is consistent with all the toxicology. Again, in the notes that investigators recovered from the kitchen cabinet in Corey Richen's home, she wrote Moscow meals, lemon water, vodka, and rum. She left out the main ingredient, which of course is the ginger beer. But there was ginger beer. We know that from the [ __ ] and bull that OMA investigator Cam Sessions found in the trash can in the kitchen. It's interesting that Corey Richens wrote vodka par in parentheses rum. The evidence may show that the Moscow mule she made that night was ginger beer and fentanyl. The lemon shot drop shot maybe lemon and fentanyl. Notice that here she writes drink in bed. We'll come back to that in a minute. The [ __ ] and bull, as I mentioned, corroborates at least the Moscow mule. And that we know the cause of death from the death certificate was fentanyl. The fentanyl and the illicit drugs that Corey Richens got from Carmen Lobber, who got from Robert Crosier. We know that he that Eric ingested the fentanyl from the Moscow meal, the lemon drop shop, or both. Medical examiner Dr. Pamela Mer, toxicologist Briana Peterson, chief medical examiner Dr. Eric Christensen, all testified that the 20,000 nanogs per milliliter of fentanyl, an extraordinary amount in his stomach, indicates oral ingestion. Indeed, Dr. Christensen not only testified to it, he told Corey Richens that in their phone call that she recorded. Miss Peterson's testimony as well as Dr. Christensen also proves that the fentanyl was illicit. Again, illicit coming from the street, illegal street drug, illicit fentanyl. And that it was the their testimony, right, was that there was not only fentanyl in the toxicology, but there was norfentanyl, which was a marker of an illicit fentanyl. There's also acetyl fentanyl as well, but it's the norfentanyl that is a marker of illicit fentanyl, which completely tracks with how Corey Richens got the illicit street drugs.

We also know that Corey Richens intended to kill Eric Richens because the toxicology contained quetiapine.

>> Let's reset. My apologies.

>> is an antipsychotic medic.

>> Last one. What is quetiapine?

>> Quetiapine is an antipsychotic medication. It's called Seroquel.

>> Okay.

>> It's a prescription medic, you know, mental health medication that's prescribed for different things.

>> I got you.

>> The quetiapine in the toxicology for Eric Richens shows that Corey Richens was involved because she was prescribed quetiapine. Now, this conversation that she recorded with Dr. Christensen is also very insightful. She pretends to not know what quetiapine is. It's her prescription. Of course, she knows what it is. She pretends to not know what it is to cover up her involvement in putting the pain inside Eric's body. She feigns the ignorance. She covers up her conduct in murdering Eric Richens in several ways throughout, beginning the night she murdered him all the way through the walk the dog letter.

In the orange notebook, she writes, "She jumped out of bed, ran, turned on the lights, grabbed her phone, and called 911." The evidence proves that is not true. The evidence proves that when she returned to their bedroom, Corey Richens says she was in Ashton's room. There's no evidence of that. But she returned from somewhere to their bedroom, unlocked her phone, put it on speaker. There's no call detail records showing a call at that time, but she may have called on Wi-Fi somebody. That would not appear in the call detail records. It would appear on her phone if her phone had not been deleted.

>> Objection, your honor. These are facts that are not.

>> Please have a seat.

>> She then locked unlocked her phone again at 3:08, 3:10, 3:15, 3:19, 3:19. And then 15 minutes later, she called 911. That is not immediately called 911. Perhaps she was staging the scene during these 15 minutes. We're going to discuss the 911 call in a minute. This is a receiver activation. At 3:22:12, when we're in the 911 call, she's on receiver on her phone. The 911 call operator asks her, "Are you on speaker phone?" She says, "Yes." No, she's on receiver.

Before we play the emergency, before we play this, sorry, we're going to listen to the first part, actually most of the 911 call again. I ask that as you listen to it, you'll hear the first minute. The first minute is not the sound of a wife becoming a widow. To echo her friend Chelsea Barney, the first minute is the sound of a wife becoming a black widow. Listen to how Corey Richens on the 911 call immediately presents, very soon after the call begins, presents her alibi narrative. Listen to how she tells the 911 dispatcher where she was when Eric died. She is distancing herself rather than, "He's not breathing. He has no pulse. I have to figure out what to do. I need help." She's saying, "Hey, look, I was not there. I was in my son's room." That's her alibi. She's distancing herself from the time and the place that she murdered Eric. The 911 call operator asks her to perform CPR. Notice how she distances herself from that. "No, I don't know how. No, he's too heavy. No, I can't move him." She is not immediately trying to revive him. We're going to run a clock from the time that the dispatcher asks her if she can start CPR to the time she purportedly starts it. It's six minutes.

Listen please to the portion of the 911 call where the operator instructs Corey Richens how to remove Eric from the bed. Listen how the dispatcher says, "Move to the side of the bed." Corey Richens says she does remove the pillows. "Pull the arm. Pull the leg. Lift up the sheet. Pull him off." If Corey Richens is following the instructions of the 911 dispatcher, Eric Richens' body is on the floor on the side of the bed, not the foot of the bed where it was found. Listen also to her choice of language. She has dehumanized Eric Richens when she is talking about removing Eric from the bed, and she is protesting and she is saying she cannot. She is not saying "I can't move him." She is saying "I can't move it." Eric is no longer a "him" to her. She murdered Eric. Eric is an "it." Finally, listen to when she says she is performing CPR and the phone is on speaker. The phone's not on speaker.

Determine whether she's performing CPR.

Okay, Scott. I'm not breathing. Okay. What's the address?

>> 282. Willow Court.

>> 282.

>> Willow Court.

>> Okay. What's a good phone number in case we get disconnected?

>> 435 671 4987.

>> Okay. It's going to be in Francis.

>> Okay. Tell me exactly what happened.

>> I don't I don't know. I was sleeping with my kids.

>> Okay. I can't tell you. I need you to take a deep breath. What's going on?

>> I don't I don't know. I just I was sleeping in with my kids. I just came in the bed in our bed and I turned over and he's just cold. He's just cold.

>> Who's cold? I want to spend time with the doctor.

>> He's not breathing.

>> He's not breathing.

>> I need you to confirm it for me. Is he not breathing?

>> No.

>> Okay, we're going to Can you do CPR?

>> No. I don't know.

>> You don't know? I'm going to tell you how to. Are you willing to do CPR?

>> Yeah. Okay.

>> If there's a defibrillator available, send someone to get it now and tell me when you have it.

>> No, not available.

>> Okay. I'm sending the paramedics to help you now. Stay on the line and I'll tell you exactly what to do next. Okay.

>> Okay. Are you right by your Are you right by your husband right now?

>> Yes. He's so pale. His mouth is so

>> Okay. Listen carefully. Are you able to lay him on the floor? The ground? On the floor? On the ground?

>> I I think shaking. I can't I can't touch him. I can't.

>> You can do it. You can do it. You need to calm down. Okay.

>> We need to help them.

>> I I can guide you through CPR. Take a deep breath for me. I'm I'm here with you. He doesn't have a pole. He He doesn't have a pole. No.

>> No pull.

>> Okay. I'm here with you.

>> I don't hear anything. I

>> I'm here with you. I we need to get him help.

>> If I If you need to put me on speaker, put me on speaker. I'm going to guide you through CPR. Okay.

>> Okay. I'm ready.

>> You're ready? Okay. He's on the floor.

>> He's on the He's on the bed.

>> Okay. Are you able by any chance to move him on the to move him on the floor? on it. I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's happening.

>> I'm here with you. Are you not able You're not able to move him to the floor?

>> Go out. Go out. Go out. Go out. Go out. Don't come in here. Don't come in here.

>> Oh my god. You're not able to move him to the floor.

>> Just listen carefully. We just need to get him on the floor. Don't worry about hurting them.

>> Is he still on the bed?

>> Okay. If there's a sheet or a blanket under them, can you loosen it from the mattress?

>> Yes.

>> Okay. Stand at the side of the bed closest to them and remove anything under the head. Okay.

>> Okay. I need you to pull the sheets towards you and slide them off the bed.

>> Don't Don't worry about him falling. We just need to help him now. Okay.

>> Tell me when he's on the floor. I can't move it. This is dead weight. My goodness.

>> You're not If he has sheets under, pull them to the floor. Don't worry about hurting him.

>> Can you please somebody?

>> Okay. I I have the ambulance that's on the way. Okay. There's another way to do this. Okay. Grab their feet. Grab his feet. Slide them toward you until they're just off the bed.

>> How old is your husband?

>> 39.

>> 39.

>> Okay.

>> Okay. Were you able to pull his feet off the bed

>> and pulling? Okay. Now grab the arm closest to you and pull the rest of of the way off the bed. Again, don't worry about the fall. We just need to help them now. I have the ambulance on the way. I just need you to do this, okay? So, we can get the help for him.

>> Okay.

>> When they arrive, they'll take over. We just need to start CPR now. You are doing great. Okay. I just need you to get on the floor.

>> Okay. From the floor.

>> You got him on the floor.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. Listen carefully. Okay. Make sure that there's nothing under under his under his head. Is he laying flat on his back?

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. Okay. Just listen carefully and I'll tell you how to do chest compressions. Okay.

>> Place the heel of your hand on the breast bone. This is in the center of the chest right between the nipples.

>> Put your other hand on top of the of that hand.

>> Okay.

>> Okay. Pump start pumping the chest hard and fast at least twice per second and two inches deep.

>> Okay.

>> Okay. Start start counting out loud so I can count with you. Okay.

>> We're going to count one, two, three, four. Okay. Let me know when you're ready. One.

>> One, two, three, four.

>> One, two, three, four. Count out loud so I can hear you. I'm counting with you. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One.

>> If it's easier for you, am I on speaker?

>> Yes.

>> Okay. One, two, three, four. Do you know the front door is open?

>> No, it's it's locked.

>> It's Are you I need you to go. Are Is there anybody else within the home or is it just you?

>> It's all my kids.

>> Okay. Are you Are one of them old enough to go unlock the door? Yeah, it's unlocked.

>> It's unlocked now.

>> Yeah, he's there.

That protesting was part of the six-minute delay in Corey Richens performing CPR. "I can't move it. It is just dead weight." Contrast that 911 call with her self-serving text message to her best friend, Chelsea Barney. "I tried so hard to save him, his lifeless body on my bedroom floor. I pumped so damn hard. So hard. Screaming at him to come back to life that I needed him." None of that happened. She's covering up her involvement in murdering Eric Richards.

Recall the alibi narrative at the beginning of the 911 call. Her letting the 911 operator and everyone know that she was not with Eric when he died. "I was somewhere else. I was distant in place and time." When she calls her father-in-law, Eric's dad, Jean Richens, what does she say right at the outset? "I was sleeping with Ashton and I came into the room. Jean, I wasn't there. Wasn't me." When Eric's sister Katie arrives, "He wasn't breathing. I went to bed. I was in Ashton's room. He was having nightmares. I wasn't there. It was not me." Her alibi, her cover-up.

This is the written form that sheriff's deputies gave Corey Richen's early morning of March 4th to write out what happened. And it says, "Describe in detail what you saw, know, or heard of the incident." Where did she start? "Eric and I put the kids to bed around 9:00 p.m. We had a drink." In Corey Richen's mind, that's when the incident started. It was the drink, and she knew it because she put the fentanyl in the drink. She didn't start with, "I walked into the bedroom at 3:00 a.m. My husband was not breathing and cold." Describe the incident. The incident for her begins around 9:15 when she has the drink because she knows that is in fact when the incident began. And then more of her self-serving alibi narrative. "It wasn't me. I wasn't there."

Before she gets into really what matters, intentionally or knowingly caused the death of Eric Richens. We know it was intentional because she planned the immediate reaction when she spoke with Eric's sister Katie. Very shortly after medical examiners rolled Eric Richen's body out of his home for the last time, she told Katie that she was going to plan the Midway. Sorry. She was going to follow through with the purchase of the Midway mansion. She was going to sell the home that she was living in. And she had a plan for running Eric's business, CNA, the morning of Eric's death. She had those plans in place because she knew she was going to murder Eric. She had already thought about not only murdering him, but what I'm doing immediately after murdering him. Her plan with the Midway mansion is consistent with her dream of living there with Josh Gman, running it as event center, farming, and raising Eric's kids. Her plan to sell the home she lived in proves that she had no idea that home was in a trust and she couldn't sell it. Her plan on running Eric Richen's half of Cene shows that she did not understand the buy-sell agreement. The life insurance coverage on the buy-sell agreement, or that that life insurance coverage went to the trust, not her. The morning Eric died, she had a plan on how she was spending Eric's money and didn't realize it was trust money.

We know that Corey Richens intended to kill Eric. The evidence proves that she intended to kill Eric in part based on her conversation with Josh Grossman shortly after killing Eric. Corey Richens asked Josh if he had ever killed anybody. "Killed" was her word. Not "Have you ever lost a loved one?" How do you react? Not, "Have you ever walked in and found a dead body unexpectedly?" Not, "How do you respond to a tragic and horrible accident?" It is, "How have you killed?" And then she asked how it made him feel. She asked that because she was working through her own feelings on killing and wanted Josh to help her work through those feelings. And never mind that that's a highly selfish question. She's worried about working through her feelings on killing. Never mind Josh Gman's feelings on having had to have killed in service of his country. It was her feelings that mattered.

Walk the dog letter. There's a lot to unpack in this, but right now, let's unpack the fact that Corey Richen says Eric gets pain pills and fentanyl from Mexico. She goes on to talk and says, "Eric finally told me and asked if Carmen could get him some some pain pills and fentanyl from Mexico." "Some" refers back to pain pills in Mexico from fentanyl. Sorry, pain pills and fentanyl from Mexico. Corey Richens knows four months after she's been arrested for Eric Richen's murder, a year and a half after she murdered him, she knows that she bought fentanyl and she has to explain it. And how does she explain it? A year and a half after murdering Eric Richens, she blames it on Eric. "Oh, I bought it for Eric." That's the sum of the evidence. Her self-serving statement asking her brother to testify falsely that she brought it from Eric. For Eric, a year and a half after she murdered him.

Corey Richens did not tell the 911 desk dispatcher, "Hey, I just bought some fentanyl for Eric." She didn't tell the paramedics, "He might be dying from the fentanyl I just bought for him." She didn't tell the deputies that responded. She didn't tell Detective Woody. She didn't tell Dr. Almer. Didn't tell Christensen. Didn't tell her friends. Didn't tell her family. All the off-ramps she had to the opportunity to take to say, "Hey, I bought the fentanyl for Eric." She doesn't because it did not happen. She did not concoct this story until a year and a half after she killed him. And it is a story. It's a fake story that she wants her brother to testify to.

There are, of course, other inaccuracies. Corey Richens in the Orange Notebook writes self-servingly, "When the EMT walked up to me and said he didn't make it, we did all we could. I lost it. I immediately ran to the bathroom." This is the video of when the EMT walked up to her. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Family members going to be coming. His dad coming soon. Kids are in that door. There's two demons that are awake in that door. She to the left. Yeah, I think master bedroom. She sat and went to bed at 9, 9:30. She slept with the kids because then she goes to bed when she was in bed around 3:00. Moved into her bed.

>> We'll stop it there.

>> We could play it for several more minutes. She doesn't immediately or otherwise run to the bathroom and throw up. When people make up stories, they are inconsistent in the retelling. Here in the orange notebook, Corey Richen's says they make the Moscow mule and the lemon drop shot in the kitchen. Then they go to bed and brush their teeth. Here they drink it in the bedroom, not the kitchen. Corey Richens tells her attorney. It's on the right. She tells her attorney that Eric was on the phone when she went into Ashton's bedroom. But Eric Richens' phone activity tells a different story. Corey Richens repeatedly said that she went into Ashton's bedroom 9:30, 9:45. Eric was off the phone before 9. In the orange notebook, Corey Richen says that Eric was awake when she went into Ashton's room. That rambling phone call with Bryce Canudson that Chelsea Barney recorded, she suggests that he was asleep because she says when she returned to the bedroom about 3:00 a.m., Eric was in the exact same position as he was when he fell asleep. That means she was there when he fell asleep, not in Ashton's room. Her story is inconsistent in the details. That proves that much of it is fake.

We've read text messages throughout this presentation. We'll continue to publish some more for you to read. None of those text messages were recovered from Corey Richen's phone. They were recovered from Eric's phone, Chelsea Barney's phone, Josh Gman's phone, but not Corey Richen's phone. Because they were deleted. That is part of her cover-up. When comparing the contents of the phone with few to no text messages with the contents of the call detail records with thousands of text messages, that's how we know they were deleted.

When Detective Woody executed the first of the search warrants on April the 13th, 2022, and she informed Corey Richens that toxicology showed that Eric died of fentanyl poisoning, Detective Woody seized her phone. On the phone that she got to replace the seized phone, these are the searches. What was Corey Richens worried about? She was worried about the police recovering all her deleted text messages. Why? They're inculpatory. They would further prove that Corey Richens bought drugs from Carmen Lawberg to then murder Eric Richens. Her phone searches reveal what she was thinking. She's worried about being investigated. She's worried about having to take a lie detector test. She's worried about my office. She's worried about her seized electronics. Prison is on her mind. So is money. She's interested in the life insurance. We don't know precisely when these searches were conducted. It's just not in the digital data. We have the data we have. But we do know that she hasn't been paid out yet on life insurance. And she started getting paid out in June of 2022. And this phone she got in April of 2022. So the inference is that these searches occur between April and June of 2022. This one's the most insightful. "If someone is poisoned, what does it go down on the death certificate as?" She didn't search if someone accidentally ODs. She doesn't search if somebody is dead for unknown reasons. She searches if somebody is poisoned because that is what happened.

Now, we have to prove that Corey Richens intended to murder Eric Richens, which means we have to prove that Eric Richens did not commit suicide. Corey herself says he didn't. No mental health concerns. But the other evidence proves it as well. Eric had every reason to live. The first three of which are Carter, Ashton, and Weston. He was a phenomenal father. He protected his boys. He put his money in trust mostly for the benefit of them to protect them. He was a protector. He's not leaving his boys. He was also planning for the future. He was a successful business person. And he and Cody had future business plans. He had future plans with his sister. They were planning family vacation to Disneyland. He was planning on buying a cabin in the Uintas with his father for the family. Every shred of evidence in this case proves that Eric did not commit suicide. This wasn't an accidental overdose. Eric Richens did not use drugs. He did not use illicit drugs. Set aside THC gummies. Corey Richens said no. Never. The deputy and paramedic offer it. These are people that it would have made sense to tell he used illicit drugs to in the moment as a paramedic offered trying to save Eric's life. But no, she was honest. Nope. Never. Same thing with Dr. Almer as they're reviewing the toxicology and trying to explain the fentanyl, right? Dr. Almer's like, "Well, there's this fentanyl. Really can't explain it. Did he do illicit drug?" No, never. Grossman. She's honest with anybody. She's honest with Grossman. No, Eric did not use drugs. Her best friend. Another person she's honest with. Nope. Life insurance company? No. Chief medical examiner? No. And every bit of evidence that came into this case, everyone who testified and knew Eric well, his friends, his family, no, Eric didn't use illicit drugs, not even prescription drugs.

Recall at the outset of closing when we were looking at the aggravated murder charge. I mentioned the first two elements of murder, and then we get into the two aggravators. So the closing up until now has been the murder charge. That is straight murder, but the state of course has charged aggravated murder. So now we'll talk about the two aggravators. The "why" aggravator, money motive, and the "how" aggravator, administering any substance, any substance in a lethal amount. You'll recall Brooke Carrington's testimony and when she began her forensic accounting analysis, this drew her attention. The number of overdraft and non-sufficient funds transactions beginning in April that jumped from one in September to 37 in October, beginning in October that jumped from one in September to 37 in October to 77 in December. Brooke Carrington's analysis was the beginning of the downward financial death spiral. Then Miss Carrington analyzed the overall debt and it showed a growing debt picture nearing $8 million in debt when Corey Richens closed on the Midway mansion. And all the while, she's not paying it off. She's barely sending her creditors any money, and it's never an increasing amount of money. It's flat. The payday loans particularly showed distress to Miss Carrington. This isn't a traditional mortgage. This isn't even hard money lending. This is, "Give me money today. I'll give you money when you get paid," at an extraordinary, exorbitant interest rate. And when Brooke Carrington saw this, she sees the line here go flat. Payday lenders would no longer lend to Corey Richards. She was barely paying them off or barely paying towards them. Corey Richens lost money flipping homes. You heard Brooke Harrington testify about the extraordinary growth and unsustainable level of growth for even sophisticated business people. Corey Richens is not a sophisticated business person. She didn't even understand fundamental accounting, fundamental tax reporting. Brooke Harrington plotted out the profitability analysis of each of Corey Richen's home flips. Corey Richen's, when she bought a home, when you total up the home she bought and the loans she took out, she started she started her projects $2 million in the hole. When she was finished her projects of money that Brooke could trace to expenses, she could only trace about half of it to expenses because Corey Richens did not conduct normal accounting. Corey Richens lost $469,000 on her home flips. But recall that Brooke Harrington testifies there's this other pot out there of $400,000 that I know she lost. I just can't trace it to a particular project. When you add those up, it's nearly $900,000 loss in flipping homes alone. Recall that Brooke Carrington said that does not count the foreclosures. While deliberating, you'll have this. And on the second page, you'll see all the foreclosures. She lost millions more in foreclosures. To include foreclosures on Chelsea Barney's home and the Midway mansion.

Corey Richens would borrow money by any means necessary. Six times she submitted inaccurate bank statements to lenders to get money. Those bank statements reflected her business account and balances in CE's business account. This evidence proves the level of financial desperation that Corey Richens was in in late 2021 and early 2022. The next level of financial desperation is taking $45,000 of your best friend's hard-earned cash tips from waitressing, telling her that you are going to apply that as a down payment to a mortgage on her house where she lives with her partner and her children, and then diverting it to pay off diverting part of it to pay off Funfi Merchant, a payday lender, and spending the remainder of it, as Brooke Harrington testified, on expenses to rehabilitate homes and servicing existing debt. Then telling your friend, your best friend since middle school, that you applied the money to the loan, here's the deed, signed the deed, and then not filing it. And you will see if you review the Brooke Harrington's schedule that had all the property transactions, you'll see that not only did Corey Richens not file the deed, she took out another loan on the house. That's the loan that was foreclosed on that resulted in Chelsea Barney, her partner, and their children getting evicted and losing their life savings. That is the next level of financial desperation that Corey Richens was in in January 2022.

There's the tax liabilities. In the grand scheme of the amount of debt, $150 grand in tax liabilities is diminutive, but they were on her mind. There's an interesting little nugget here. She underreported her expenses in flipping homes to her tax accountant, which resulted in her paying more taxes than she would have. One would think a sophisticated business person would think to limit their tax liability. That's not what interested Corey Richards. What interested her was the appearance of success in business, the appearance of affluence. And by underreporting her expenses, it looks like she made more money than she did. And she appeared more successful than she was because she cared not about being successful. She cared about her facade. She cared about appearing successful. You'll recall that CN distributed $36,000 to pay some of this $150,000 tax liability, which Corey Richens then diverted to close on a home. And her tax liability was on her mind. Two days before murdering Eric Richens, she spent over an hour and a half on the phone with the IRS. It was on her mind because if the IRS moved on her tax liabilities, Eric would find out. She had to fix it with the IRS before Eric found out.

You're familiar. Corey Richens needed cash immediately when she murdered Eric. Eric's long-term earning potential immaterial. She wanted to close on the Midway mansion. She had no money to refurbish it, to flip it right away, to run it as an event center, but she was going to close on it. She needed money now. Doesn't matter if Eric's going to earn a ton of money down the road. That does not help her now with the Midway mansion. It does not help her now with servicing her existing debt. She needs money now because she's closing on the Midway Mansion on March the 4th. And when she closes on the Midway Mansion, it's worth $2.9 million. She's borrowing $3.2 million. None of it's her money. She's reaching into other people's pockets to get that money. Not only does she want money to purchase Midway Mansion, she wants $87,000 for herself. She takes out $87,000 at closing. And how does she spend it? Servicing existing debt and expenses for rehabs. She ultimately closed on the Midway mansion the day after she murdered Eric. There's an interesting thought here. Did she close on the Midway mansion in spite of murdering Eric, or did she close on it because she murdered Eric? She hedged. She was supposed to close on the fourth. She didn't want to close until she knew Eric Richens was dead. Because she knew she would have his money. She knew she could do something with the mansion. And that's why when everybody else signed on the fourth or in advance of the fourth, she signed on the fifth. It's unconscionable that she closed in spite of his death. It's unconscionable that she closed because of his death.

This is probably Corey Richen's true plan for the Midway mansion. And if Eric had not put most of his assets into trust, could have happened. Recall Brooke Harrington's testimony that after closing on the Midway mansion, Corey Richen's liabilities were right about $8 million, and she was in the hole $1.6 million. Her net worth was negative $1.6 million when she murdered Eric. That her business was in financial distress. Her financial enterprise was collapsing, had been collapsing, and but for a significant infusion of cash and capital would continue to collapse. That significant infusion of cash and capital was supposed to be Eric Richen's money.

You have a fortunate perspective during this case, and that you get to observe the defendant. You get to observe Corey Richens and you observe her affect with some when some witnesses testify, and you observe her affect change when other witnesses testify. You observe that when we played the 911 call during trial, her affect was flat. No emotion. You also observe that when Brooke Carrington testified about the financial distress of her business, she was exercised because that testimony pierced her facade. It pierced her facade of being a successful, privileged, and affluent person. It was a narcissistic injury. She was bothered because the world saw that she is indeed not a success and not affluent.

The bulk of Eric Richmond's estate was in insurance coverage. Some of it got paid out to the trust. Some of it got paid out to Corey Richens. Corey Richens knew this. Knew that much of his estate was insurance coverage. And different than taking money from Eric's home equity, different than taking money from Eric's bank account, to take Eric's insurance money.

Eric has to die. Now for the aggravator of administration of any substance, any substance in a lethal amount. The substance here happened to have been fentanyl. Could have been any part of the illicit street drug that she bought. Happened to be fentanyl that she administered in a Moscow mule and a shot or a shot. But we know that's how she administered it because it was in his belly. We know it was a lethal amount. The death certificate, fentanyl killed him. That's the substance. Lethal amount can be as small as three nanograms per milliliter, and in this case, he had 15, five times what can be a lethal amount. That, by the way, is not an accident. That amount of fentanyl shows that Corey Richens wanted Eric not only dead, but good and dead.

Now, count two, the aggravated murder. The elements are the same as count one. The only difference is attempt. Attempt requires, as the court instructed, a substantial step. There's plenty of substantial steps from ordering the drugs to making the Moscow mule. Here, the aggravated murder count proves the attempted aggravated murder count and vice versa. The commonalities between Corey Richen's conduct are not coincidental. In each instance, she purchased drugs from Carmen Lober a few days out. In each instance, she spoke with the IRS a few days out. Taxes were on her mind. Eric would find out if the IRS was after them. In each case, she had an immediate financial stressor. We just discussed closing on the Midway Mansion. If you look at Brooke Harrington's materials, she had a note due on Chelsea Barney's house shortly before February the 14th. She had an immediate financial stressor in each instance. In each instance, she administered the substance in a way that Eric would ingest it. On Valentine's Day, it was a sandwich. When she murdered him, it was a drink. Notice that she learned from her mistake. One can season a sandwich with fentanyl. Eric can eat it. Tell something's wrong. Set the fentanyl-laced sandwich aside. You throw a lemon drop shot back. By the time Eric would notice the shot was in, it was in his body. Most just to be good and sure. In each case, she leaves Eric alone. She distances herself from the dirty deed. She leaves the bedroom when she murders him. She leaves the county when she attempts to murder him as part of her alibi. Not only can she not be present, she has to be distant so that when she calls 911, she says, "I wasn't even there. I was in Utah County." And in each case, she has a delayed response, right? It's the delayed response in calling 911 when she murders him. And it's her delayed response in returning home when she failed to murder him.

The element of again is it Corey Richens? Yes. She is the person with the means, the motive, and the opportunity. Nobody else. The means, illicit street drugs in the sandwich. The motive, money, fresh start at life. The opportunity, she left the sandwich in Ericson. Intentionally or knowingly caused the death of Eric Richens. Right? It's attempt, so attempted to cause the death of Eric Richens. The same reasons. She told Becky Lloyd, "It would be better if he were dead." She wanted the Michael Jackson stuff, the lethal stuff, the fatal stuff, the stuff that kills. She wanted Eric Richen's life insurance. You only get life insurance when Eric's dead.

The commonalities persist. Corey Richens ordered fentanyl from Carmen Lober, or ordered something from Carmen Lobber, the Michael Jackson stuff, the fatal stuff. Carmen says, "I told her I could get her fentanyl." She said, "Okay, get the fentanyl." But she ordered illicit street drugs from Carmen Lober, who got them from Robert Crosier at the Maverick in Draper. Again, the volume of calls during the drug purchase between both Corey Richens and Carmen Lobber, and Robert Crosier and Carmen Lobber. And recall, we don't have the content of the texts because they were deleted from Corey Richens' phone, deleted from Carmen Lobber's phone, and Crosier lost his phone. The IRS was on her mind. She called him twice, three days before attempting to murder Eric Richens. We know she placed the call to the Mirror Lake Diner to order potentially fatal sandwich. We know that. Corey ordered it. Corey picked it up in person. It was swiped. Don't know if you can tell that's Corey Richen's signature, but notice it's

one stroke. There's no pen lift. We'll talk more about that in a minute.

Corey Richens then distanced herself. She left the sandwich for Eric and she drove an hour away to meet up with Josh Gman on Valentine's Day. There's another commonality between the attempted murder and the murder. Of course, they're big days. Losing your husband on Valentine's Day that garers extra sympathy, extra attention. Losing your husband the same day you're supposed to close on the biggest purchase of your life, that garers extra attention. The type of attention that Corey Richens relishes.

You heard Cody Richens testify how Eric was a cowboy when it came to injury or illness. He worked through it all. He cowboyed up. Cowboys don't go to the hospital unless they're near death. They don't even think about going to the hospital unless they're near death. And at 11:33, Eric's thinking about going to the hospital. And then all the activity, the physical activity on his phone ceases for 87 minutes in the middle of a busy workday.

Shortly after activity resumes in Eric's phone, he calls his best friend and business partner partner Cody. Wright. Recall. Cody said he could hear the fear in Eric's voice. A fear he'd only heard twice before. Both times associated with death. A fear he heard when Eric told him his mother had passed away. and a fear he heard when someone who struck Eric's truck in an automobile accident and Eric thought that person might have passed away.

He then spoke with his hunting buddy and close friend Josh Kay. You know and learn a lot about somebody when you hunt together and travel together. And Josh Cave said, Eric sounded somber and serious. Josh asked Eric perhaps the two most pertinent questions. If he was going to the hospital and what was he going to do about it?

Let's turn to Ali staking singular not plural clearly close with Cy friends since middle school. You observe the banter when mistaking was testifying the banter between her and Corey Richens. It was friendly. She's still friendly with her. And Alli Sting testified about how a week or two after Valentine's Day when Corey Richens attempted to murder Eric when I questioned her she said well Eric jokingly kind of jokingly maybe jokingly said that Corey Richens tried to poison me perhaps joking but Corey Richens reaction action is what was important here. Corey said no, she got defenses. Defensive. That is not what happened. It was like an allergic reaction or something. It wasn't at all dramatic. She is covering up for poisoning him.

Then when defense council questioned mistaking mistaken kind of backed off the jokiness of Eric's comment and attributed the jokiness to everyone else said defense council question. What did he tell you that he believed Cy had tried to poison him? Maybe it was one of those joking things like, "I'm sending a message to Cory Richens. I know what you tried to did. I'm jo t tried to do. I'm joking about it, but I'm going to let you know." Maybe he was serious. Either way, comes back to Corey Richens trying to poison him on Valentine's Day.

Corey Richens repeatedly tries to cover up that she tried to murder Eric on Valentine's Day. She says she was home with him. She tells her best friend, Chelsea Barney, I was home with him. She was not. She was with Josh Gman. She did not come home until after 6:30 p.m. She was saying he never broke out in hives or used an EpiPen. That means he broke out in hives and used an EpiPen when she spoke with her mother on August the 22nd. When she says she didn't put a love note and the sandwich in the front seat of his truck, she put a love note and the sandwich in the front seat of his truck. She is trying to distance herself. She is trying to cover up. She is trying to deflect.

When Eric said he was going thinking about heading to the hospital, what did she say? Take a nap. Call me when you're up. She's saying that thinking he will take a nap and not wake up.

When he does, Eric texts Corey. He's asking if she's home because he had just said, "I'm going to hospital." Then he had stopped communicate or he said, "I'm thinking about going to the hospital." And then stopped communicating for nearly two hours. He's figuring she was coming home to assist him, but she wasn't. She's in Provo waiting for a cabinet installer guy. Maybe she says then she's going to head home in 20 minutes. Nearly two hours later, question mark. Where are you? You were heading home 20 minutes ago. She responds, what? Thanks for answering. Did you call? You didn't call. She thinks he's heading home. She's not. She's trying to figure out what to do. She's trying to figure out what to do because Eric survived. She had not planned on that. She's delaying to make her plan.

And then at 6:34, Eric texts We're headed in there. Food is on the front seat of his truck. The same place she left the poison sandwich with the love note. Eric Richens is telling her, "I know what you did." That is the attempted aggravated murder. That's the attempted murder.

Now, of course, we have the two aggravators. They're the same. Same as with the aggravated murder. The money motive, same. Similar financial distress, same. There's also the first start of life motive, right? That hasn't changed a bit. Josh Gman, he's Josh Gman on Valentine's Day and he's Josh Gman on March the 4th. Money motive the same. Fresh start at life motive the same.

Now the second aggravator administration of any substance any substance in a lethal amount. Recall Dr. Eric Christensen's testimony that hives epien all consistent with an opiate like or an opiate allergic like response a pseudo allergic response. Hives EpiPen along with zero activity shows that Corey Richens attempted to administer the elicit street drugs that she bought three days earlier from Carmen Lobber in a lethal amount. She just failed. That's got it. Okay.

The insurance fraud. There are two insurance frauds. Let me distinguish them please for you. The first one is a scheme charge, a fraud scheme. The second one is a fraud claim charge. Count three, the scheme charge relates to the $100,000 true stage policy. We're going to put it up in a minute. The fraud claim charge relates to the $250,000 true stage policy. The forgery, which we will get to, is a forgery related to the scheme charge. Let me unpack them now. Okay.

Different than the aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder. I'll address all elements of the insurance fraud scheme kind of at once because they all jump out of this single page. And the scheme is the scheme is quite simple. Eric Cory Richens wanted to murder Eric Richens. Thus took out an insurance policy on his life to get money for murdering Eric Richens. Then she murdered Eric Richens. And then she submitted a claim to get the money. That is the scheme.

And we know it was Corey Richens because everything on this application for this $100,000 true stage insurance policy returns to Corey Richens. Corey Richens received the application because she was a member of Ped Fed. The application was addressed to her at her work address. So, she would have been the one to received it. If there was any questions about it, any further follow-up mailings about it, they would go to her and not to Eric. This number, this applicant information is all her, but the partner information is all her as well. Her work address, no email address where they could contact Eric, we'll get to the social security number in a minute. The primary phone, that's not Eric's phone. You'll see that Eric's phone is 801792 9317. And when you look at this closely during deliberations, you'll see that was originally a seven that she later marked up to read like an eight. She initially wrote his correct phone number, then did not want anyone from true states to call him. So she changed the seven to an eight so that Eric would never know that this policy existed.

After Corey Richens took a quarter million dollar out of his Eric's home equity, he put all of his insurance that he knew about into the trust. If Eric had filled this out, the beneficiary would have been the trust, not Corey Richens. Then we'll get to the signature. That's the frog count five as well. It plays into this. We'll talk to it during count three, but it's also the freestanding charge in count five. Let's go to the next page.

The social security number. It was blacked out for privacy reasons on the application we just reviewed, but you'll recall and coat testifying that the last six digits were transposed. We all know our own social security numbers. We often get a little bit confused on our spouses. Eric did not sign the application. Matt Throck Morton, the handwriting expert, Eric did not sign it. It was probably a simulated forgery. Recall his testimony that Eric Richens has pen lifts in his signature. The forge one didn't have any pen lifts. You'll see Cory Richson's signature throughout this case. No pen lifts.

Then Corey Richens Bob a claim for this $100,000 true stage policy. It's actually the same claim for both policies. And she said she really does not know where her husband Eric got the fentinel from. Of course she knows. She ordered it from Carmen Lobber. That is the fraud scheme. Plan to kill Eric. Fill out life insurance so I can get money for killing Eric. Kill out care. Kill Eric and then claim the money.

Now for the insurance fraud claim count count for this is the true stage $250,000 policy. This is the claimants statement filled out. Corey Richens beneficiary. Cory Richton's email, Corey Richens address, everything about this claim says Corey Richens is submitting this claim. And then like before the fraud here, the falseness of it is she says she doesn't know where the fentinel came from when in fact she ordered elicit street drugs from Carmen Lobber. And indeed later in the walk the logs dog letter admits to admitting asking Carmen for fentinel.

Finally, count five, the forgery charge. We've discussed most of the forgery when we discussed count three, but there's this without the authority to do so element. It's not a forgery. If Eric gave Corey Richens permission, the state has to prove that Corey Richens did not sign Eric's name with permission, with authority. All of the evidence in this case proves that Corey Richens does not ask for permission. She takes she took with the home equity loan. She took other people's money. She's a taker, not an asker. Finally, like I mentioned earlier, Eric Richens, the evidence proves, would have put the trust as the beneficiary, not Corey Richens. If he had given permission, it would have been permission to make the trust the beneficiary. That's the forgery charge.

Let's please now turn to Corey's motive for a fresh start at life. You heard the instructions. The state does not have to prove any motive except for the pecunary gain motive because it's an aggravator. But motive explains why Corey murdered Eric Richens, why she attempted to murder him. Motive explains a lot here.

These texts at this point are familiar. The day after Corey Richen speaks with Becky Lloyd and tells Becky Lloyd, "Eric would be better if Eric were dead," she texts Josh Grossman that she's in love with him, a man, not her husband. If I was divorced right now and asked you to marry me, would you? That's the day after the attempted murder. If he could just go away and you could just be here, life would be so perfect. We're familiar with this text. We've read it already today. I ask you to read it again. This time replace the word divorce with the word murder.

This graphic shows a juxosition between Josh and Eric that is insightful to what Corey thinks about each of them. In each instance, she is texting. Well, she is kind of simultaneously texting. These are laid out chronologically. She is simultaneously texting with both Josh and Eric about closing on the Midway Mansion and she's so excited with She is so excited texting with Josh. I can't believe it. I want to celebrate with you. Love you. Love you. Love you. Thank you for always being my support shoulder and rock. I need you all the time. Some things I could never do without your encouragement. You have no idea how much I appreciate you. Eric tries to reach out. You want a shot? Mm- can't. Sorry. Busy. Then right back to Josh Gman. To me, you're worth millions a year. I'm honored to be your best friend, your lover, your go-to. Life is going to be different. I promise. You're one hell of a patient person. I hate your hard days. I wish I could be there to turn them around for you. Can I try Friday? Give me a few days. Hang in there until then, please. By Friday, of course, Eric Richens was dead. Corey had murdered him. She's right. Life's going to be different. She promised him it was.

Then 16 days after Corey Richens murdered Eric. Are we there yet? And then one month later, Cory's ready for Eric. Sorry. is ready for Josh to be her husband. Josh Gman loved Cory Richens. He believed that she loved him. Not sure that's true. You saw him testify. He was gutted. It's a grown ass man gutted. You also observe Corey Richens affect when he testified flat.

The evidence proves that Corey Richens murdered attempted to murder Eric Richens and that she committed two counts of insurance fraud and forgery. The evidence does not support any other rational explanation. The state since its opening statement has stressed the requirement to consider the evidence that has been admitted and not what the attorneys say. What the attorneys say, insinuate, speculate is not evidence. Please let me show you why the state has stressed this.

In the defense's opening statement, council said that the evidence will show that Corey Bridens had a 1/2 interest in the Willow Court home. There is no evidence of that and indeed contrary evidence. Defense council said that the evidence would show that Eric was always checking Cory's phone. There's no evidence of that. Defense council said that the evidence will show Eric and Corey Richens went to marriage counseling. There's no evidence of that. Defense council said that the evidence will show in the few weeks before Eric died, his closest friend thought that he and Corey Richens were the happiest together that the friend had ever seen. There's no evidence of that. Defense council said that the night Eric died, he and Corey Richens had their drinks and set their cups in the sink. There's no evidence of that. Defense council said that the evidence will show that the cups were sitting in the sink and the nanny put them in the dishwasher the next morning and they still had fluid in them. There's no evidence of that. Defense Council said that Eric talked to a friend named Scott Wagner at 10 p.m. the night he died. There's no evidence of that and indeed contrary evidence. Defense council said that the evidence would show Eric unlocked Corey Richen's phone at 10:30 p.m. the night he died and this is the last thing that he did. There's no evidence of that. Defense council said that the evidence would show investigators interviewed Corey over and over and over again about what happened the night that Eric died. There's no evidence of that. Defense council said that the evidence would show that law enforcement secretly recorded Corey Richen's phone conversations for over a year after Eric died. There's no evidence of that. and indeed contrary evidence. Defense council said that you will hear Corey Richens telling her family that she purchased pain pills for Eric at his request. You did not hear that, although she did write it in the Walk the Dog letter four months after she was arrested.

In listening to Defense Council's closing argument, please only consider the evidence that has been admitted. In the early, excuse me, in the early morning hours of March 4th, 2022, the house was quiet. Corey Richens fell asleep in her young son's room. like many parents do. At some point in the night, she gets up and walks back down the hallway to her bedroom. She slips back into bed beside her husband. She settles in next to him. She reaches over and he feels cold. Eric Richens, the father of her children, the man that she has built a life with. Something feels wrong. She pulls the blanket up around him, but something still isn't right. He feels heavy. She turns on the light. And when she looks at her husband, really looks at him, she realizes something is terribly wrong. And in that instant, in that bedroom, in the quiet early of the morning, Corey Richen's world collapsed.

Reasonable doubt. It's not just a slogan. It's not just a suggestion. It's a constitutional shield that protects the innocent and prevents the state from punishing without truth. And it is the state that has that high burden, the highest burden under the law to prove each and every single element of each and every charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt. The state stood up on day one and they told you they were going to prove that Cory Richens had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to kill Eric Richens. And we're going to talk about each of these. But first, I want to talk a little more about reasonable doubt. I've told juries for a long time that one way to understand reasonable doubt is, are there other reasonable explanations as to what happened? As you look at the evidence, if there are other reasonable explanations, this is reasonable doubt, and you have to find Corey not guilty. I put to you that every fact that the state has put forth to say that Miss Richens is guilty has another reasonable explanation.

Let's go back to March 3rd, 2022. From everything we've heard during this trial, Corey and Eric were happy that night. They were celebrating. Corey had was just about to close on the Midway mansion. Rightly or wrongly, she believed that this was going to be the deal that put her over the top. The deal that had made every thing she'd done with her business, the good, the bad, and the ugly all worth it. The night of March 3rd, they have a celebratory drink. They go to bed. And then Corey hears one of her sons cry out. And like parents all over the world do, she goes in to lie down on the floor of her son's room. An alibi or the truth? She wasn't inconsistent when she told this story. She told everyone, "I was lying in Ash's room. I was lying down with him." What does reason tell you? What does experience tell you? When she wakes up, she goes back to her room. Eric appears to be asleep. We don't know for sure what happens over the next 15 minutes or so. The state asks you to leap to conclusions about what she was doing during that time. Yet, they have not shown you any evidence of this. They just tell you to believe it. But what does Reason tell you? She gets up. She goes to the bathroom. She picks up her phone. We all pick up our phone all the time. Been away from it for an hour or two. She goes to the bathroom. Maybe she walks to the kitchen. Maybe she gets a drink of water. Maybe she lets out the dog. And then she goes back to her bedroom, phone probably in hand, gets into the bed next to her husband again, realizes he's cold, pulls up the blanket, realizes something's wrong, and turns on the light. It probably takes a moment or two for her brain to register what she's seen. And then she makes that call that nobody ever wants to make. She calls 911.

A big part of this state's case is that Ms. Richens is not grieving properly. You heard this from a couple of different witnesses, two or three. What does that mean? I was unexpectedly widowed when I was not much older than Corey and I had two little ones. How do you judge someone in that moment? If I've learned one thing during this trial, I've learned I didn't grieve, right? I didn't know that, but it's clear now that I didn't. They want you to look at a woman in the worst moment of her life and to judge her grief. There is no wrong way to grieve. They're asking you to judge how she is acting at that moment and then use that moment of evidence of guilt. In the opening, we pointed out um and go ahead and put on the that the state looks at facts one way and sees a witch. But if you look at those facts another way, you see a widow. Here's an example. Hands over her face, curled up. A witch hiding. Hiding because she's done something wrong. Or a widow hiding at blocking out what has just happened to her, what has just happened to her children, which has just happened to her family and to her life. Look familiar? Portrayals of women grieving in art. Portrayals of women in grief.

The state tells you during evidence that oh, she didn't immediately talk to Jean Richens when he came to the house because she felt so guilty she couldn't talk to him. Or was it because she didn't want to tell a father his son had died? Oh, she didn't tell the boys when she should have. It was weird. She didn't She didn't go talk to them. They were in the playroom again because she felt guilty or because she was dreading the most difficult conversation, the conversation nobody, no mother ever wants to have with her young sons. Their father is dead. The father that everyone agrees was a wonderful father is gone. And she has to tell those little boys, "You're never going to see him again." Believe me, that conversation may be the worst moments in a m moment in a mother's life. How can a woman be judged on how she handles that moment?

You heard her friend Ally staking. When Ally arrived at the home that day, she said Corey was clearly upset. She said she was distraught. This is someone who's known her since junior high, not an officer who met her five minutes ago. She said Corey was acting as you would expect. That night, friends came over to talk about Eric, to drink to Eric. Awake is what the Irish call it. The state wants you to leap to the conclusion that that night Corey was celebrating Eric's death. You heard Ally talking. They were celebrating Eric's life. They kept it light for the boys. They were dancing. They were smiling. All of them were. Even Eric's sister. Can we not smile in our grief? They want to tell you no. But reason and experience tells you differently.

Let's talk about the investigation. The investigation in this matter was nothing but sloppy. It was driven by bias. Did you notice during the state's closing, they didn't really even talk about the investigation. Instead, they speculated. What was in people's heads? What were they thinking? Speculation, conjecture, not proof. Instead of looking at the evidence to determine what happened, the state has they determined what happened and then they found the evidence to support it. This is confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is when you favor evidence that supports a belief and ignore evidence that contradicts it. This is how that is how this entire case was investigated. working backwards from a conclusion.

It started on March 4th. Detective Woody, before she's even entered the home, Amy Richen tells her they think Corey is somehow involved. Then both Katie and Amy Richens tell Detective Woody they think this is because she recently found out about a trust Eric created. Immediately, this influenced this investigation. But what happened that first day? They found nothing to support foul play. Cory tells them he was a user of THC gummies, that maybe he used one that night. They never ask where the gummies are. They do a cursory search of the bedroom and bathroom. They admit that they don't look in places where the gummies were found a month later. High up in the bathroom, high above the refrigerator, high up in the laundry room, somewhere in a a pocket of either Cory or Eric's jacket in a closet. All places where they would have been put out of reach of children, but they didn't find any of them that day. You know what else they didn't do? They didn't secure the scene. They moved things around. They told you they didn't have probable cause to search the whole house. We couldn't search the whole ass. All we could do is look in the bedroom and the bathroom, but they could have asked for consent. Corey gave them consent when they asked to search one place outside of the bedroom. The entire house could have been searched that day, but they didn't do it. They didn't even ask.

What else happens that morning? Officer Nin, he does his little his well, not little, but his death checklist. He says, "Did he have any history of prescription abuse? Did he have any history of elicit elicit drug use?" And what does Corgi tell him? No. How easy would it have been to just say yes? If she had just killed him with elicit drugs, why in the name of God did she just not say yes? Had she said yes, we probably wouldn't all be sitting here today. She didn't say yes because she did not know how he had died.

Over the last four years, they've gone back to that house 10 more times and they still can't tell you what happened the early morning of March 4th, 2022. 10 warrants. That's a lot. That's not typical. They were still searching for evidence on February 9th of this year, two weeks before trial, four years of investigation, and they are still trying to find evidence to make their case because they know they don't have enough. They're still trying to prove Corey Rich's guilty.

So, let's talk about Todd Gabler. In comes Todd Gabler, the private investigator. Jeff O'Driscoll told you, well, he was an investigator for the estate. Just the civil case. Seriously, he's putting trackers on the car of Cory, her mother, her brother. He's trying to track Carmen Loberers's car. He's providing evidence to the police. Detective Woody testified that this information from the private investigator is what helped advance their investigation. He testified he was in the house alone numerous times, finding things the police didn't, not using gloves, calling law enforcement when he found things. He said he didn't need a babysitter while he did all these things, which is different than what Clint Benson told you. He said nobody was ever in that house without me being there. That wasn't true. What he told you wasn't true. Todd Gabler was in and out of that house numerous times by himself. He also told you that he was completely fair and unbiased testing two hypotheses. His hypothesis suicide and homicide. He ignored any others including accident. And how did he handle this unbiased testing of hypothesis? You heard Josh Gman. He said the first time he talked to Todd Gabler, Todd Gabler said right out of the gate, "Corey killed Eric. Josh told you that tainted what he thought of next." How does it not taint an interview when your opening line is, "Oh, Cory killed Eric. So now let's tell me what you have, what you know." Josh told you he started looking back at things differently than he had before because of that. Like I said, he tracked Cory's car. He tracked her family's car. He tracked Carmen's lover car. He didn't track Cody Wright's car. He had more to gain from Eric's death than anyone. He didn't track anyone involved in the civil case regarding the trust. He only tracked people that he thought might lead to information for law enforcement. Did he follow up on Eric's trip to Mexico shortly before the death? No. Did he go to Mexico? Did he try and figure out where Eric had been in Sonora, Mexico? No. Nothing about that investigation was unbiased. Nothing. He passed it all on to law enforcement. And then then what he did is he said to law enforcement, "You should talk to Carmen Lober. She's on the ropes in drug court. this would be a really good time to interview her because she would be very likely to be compliant at this time. Everything about this investigation was led by the Richens family. They started on day one and they continued until trial. They are the ones who initially hired and paid for experts. Their private investigator gave the information to the police. You know, and by the way, Gabler testified that he followed all the rules of being a private investigator, and that that may very well be true, but he doesn't have to operate under the Constitution. There's a reason that we have rights under the Constitution. There is a reason that law enforcement has to get warrants to enter your home, to take electronics, to search your house. It is to protect the citizens of our country. It is to protect the innocent. Sidstepping these important constitutional rights by hiring a private investigator who then let law enforcement know what to do taints this entire investigation. And you know what? That is terrifying. It's terrifying. If someone has enough money to hire a PI, they can circumvent our constitutional rights, dig into every aspect of our rights, of our lives, and turn it over to police. We have a constitution for a reason. Is to protect us all.

I want to talk about the lead investigator, Jeff O'Driscoll. Here's what he testified that his investigation consisted of. He got assigned to the case sometimes in sometime in March of 2023. He got a search warrant for some medical records. He thinks he got a search warrant for a couple of cell phones. He interviewed Chelsea Barney where they discovered that they were wrong about some text messages. Law enforcement was wrong with what they thought they were looking for. He interviewed someone named Jake Jake Sasonson who must not have had anything important to say because we never heard from him. Then he interviews Carmen Lober because he was told to by the private investigator. That's it. That was the investigation. He didn't investigate any other leads. He didn't attempt to corroborate information, particularly in the letter that we saw that Corey wrote to her mother, the walk the dog letter. Now, he told you he didn't need to cooperate that because he didn't get that letter till after Cory was arrested. So, you know, I guess the state was done. You wouldn't want to start looking for things that might show her innocent. You've arrested her. Interestingly, they were still still executing search warrants. They were still trying to find evidence for guilt, but they weren't looking at any evidence that might show innocence. It is absolutely possible that everything she said in that letter was true. In fact, at least three things in that letter were corroborated by the state's own witnesses, but they didn't investigate it. Again, ignore what might contradict your theory. Confirmation bias, reasonable doubt. Also remember that never that letter never went to anyone. So was nothing more than thoughts on paper. That's all that letter was.

What else didn't he do? He didn't interview the person Eric was talking to in Mexico the night of his death. And we'll come back to that, but he didn't follow up on that. He said that I didn't follow up on one where Eric went in Mexico or who he was communicating with in Mexico when he was there. He didn't investigate what Eric did or where he went on February 14th, 2022. He didn't follow up to see if did Eric go to the hospital that day. In fact, he did nothing regarding that day. Nothing. What else? He didn't find fentanyl anywhere. Allegedly, there were 90 to 120 pills of something. At least Oxycodone. Where were they? I guess somebody took them, but they didn't have them. So, whatever pills Carmen may or may not have provided to Corey were gone. They no longer existed. They couldn't find or test those pills. And we do know that she bought oxycodin, but you know what? There was no oxy oxycodin in Eric's stomach that night. So instead, Detective O'Driscoll says, "Well, we wanted to corroborate Carmen's story. I mean, we were going to corroborate it. We weren't just going to go by it." The story that they fed her, they want to corroborate the truth. They wanted to corroborate a story. Again, let's find what confirms our theory. Let's ignore what doesn't. Confirmation bias, reasonable doubt.

Sitting here in this courtroom after four years of investigation, there was an awful lot that O'Driscoll just could not tell you. Things he couldn't remember. He couldn't remember what people had told him in interviews. For example, he was asked, "Did you interview Eric's allergy doctor?" Well, yes, but I can't remember what he said. Well, that might have been important because he testified the EpiPens in the house belong to the children. Well, maybe because Eric had recently used his a couple of weeks earlier when he had an allergic reaction. He said, "Well, if I could have a few minutes, I I could find out what was said. I could give you more information." We were in trial. He was on the stand four years after Eric had died, three years after he'd been appointed as lead investigator. And either he wasn't prepared to testify or he just didn't know. He is the lead investigator. Now, the state elicited testimony from him that how could he possibly know the entire case? It's just too much. I couldn't know all of that information. But he's the one they put on. He's the one they relied on to testify about this investigation. You didn't hear from anyone else about the last three years of that investigation. They chose him.

You know what else he couldn't testify to? He couldn't testify how the fentanyl got into Eric's system. He said, "Well, he ingested it. There was no evidence, none, that fentanyl was put in a drink. That was argument. Argument is not evidence. And they waited until closing to tell you, "Oh, she put it in a drink without any evidence to back that up." Okay, she made him a drink that night, but that's it. She made him a drink. There's no evidence that fentanyl was in that drink. And the lead detective who couldn't tell you anything, he sat through this entire trial. He heard every witness testify. He had an opportunity to form his answers or reform his answers based on what he knew other people had said. And yet, he still didn't know the evidence.

I want to talk a minute about deleted text and the phone searches just quickly. Deleted text. They said there were deleted texts off Corey's phone and that it looks like that probably was true. Why would you delete texts off your phone? Maybe because you were having an affair over the last two years. You might want to delete that off your phone before your whole husband's family finds out about it. Maybe because she was buying Oxycodone. I mean, she asked Carmen for pain pills. Doesn't mean she killed her husband, but you probably want that off of your phone. the phone searches. So, the evidence showed that Corey found out on April 13th that Eric died of a fentanyl overdose. And that's the day they took her phone and she gets a new phone. These searches are all done on that new phone. Searches of how much fentanyl does it take to kill someone or how much fentanyl is a lethal overdose. I don't remember exactly. Yeah, because she just found out her husband died of a lethal overdose of fentanyl. You might want to know what that means. And she she texted other things. They said, "Oh, she texted about women's prisons." Of course, she's worried. An innocent person would be worried. Anyone would be worried if they just found out that they are a suspect in a homicide investigation. She would have been scared to death. She was looking for information based on what she found out after died.

All right, what do we know about those last few hours before our extent? It's not a lot, but we do know some things from the autopsy and the toxicology reports. We know that he had fentanyl in both his blood and his stomach. We know he had quitene and alcohol only in his stomach and not his blood. So this means the quitapene had to be taken after the fentanyl. Had they been taken together, they would have both been in his blood. We know there was no histamine response, no anaphylaxics. So he had not had an allergic reaction to anything in his body that night, including fentanyl. The state wants you to believe that the allergic reaction he had on February 14th was to fentanyl. If he had an allergic reaction on February 14th, he would have had one again three weeks later. Now I know that the toxicologist testified well you don't have a allergic reaction every time and you can look at her testimony but I I it was a little bit hard to understand but I believe she was talking about you know you might eat peanuts for a lot of times and then have an allergic reaction and then it starts once you have an allergic reaction to something it doesn't typically go away. We know he had no fentanyl in his body and this is because his body had started to metabolize the fentanyl. The state's toxicologist told you that the fentanyl could have been left over from a previous use. That was a possibility. Another reasonable possibility. The fentanyl was there from a previous use. That was the evidence. That is reasonable doubt.

What else do we know from the Emmy and the toxicologist? Well, we know that the fentanyl was not put in a drink. And how do we know this? There was only fentanyl in the blood and not alcohol. The state's toxicologist leaned toward the fact that maybe Eric didn't even drink alcohol. That the alcohol in his stomach was postmortem decomposition. But the other scenario that she said that was possible was that Eric took the fentanyl, then took the quitene, had a small amount of alcohol. She testified that it would take 15 to 60 minutes for fentanyl to make your way its way into the blood. That alcohol takes 15 to 30 minutes to make its way into the blood. So if the alcohol and fentanyl were taken together, they both would have been there at the same time in the blood. But just the fact that one reasonable possibility is that the fentanyl was taken before the quitine and the alcohol gives you reasonable doubt that it was placed in a drink an hour earlier. Now the state saying, "Well, maybe she put it in a non-alcoholic drink." So their celebratory drink maybe didn't have alcohol in it. There's no evidence of that, but they're throwing around a lot of theories. Why is that? Because they don't have one. They don't know what happened.

Dr. Christensen and Dr. Mer testified that the manner of death could not be determined. This is really important. Dr. Christensen testified. The Emy's office didn't know enough about Eric's history to determine if it was an accident. They also didn't have enough information to determine it was a homicide. The ME had at least a reasonable doubt as to the cause of death. And the ME isn't held to as held to the high standard that the state is. And there was no evidence that the autopsy could have been amended at a later date if additional information was received. The Emmy testified. The ME testified. Excuse me. The MI didn't tell you that they couldn't amend the autopsy. He just told you they didn't.

What else didn't they do? Why didn't they do a hair follicle test? Dr. Christensen said, "Well, we don't do that unless we're asked to." Would you be asked to do that by law enforcement? Again, Summit County was only looking for evidence to confirm their theory. Evidence to support that Corey was behind Eric's death. They did not want to look for evidence that contradicted that theory. Had they done that test, we might have our answer. Confirmation bias.

All right, let's start with the means. The state did not and cannot prove that Corey ever purchased fentanyl. Carmen Lober. Interestingly, they all they they barely mention Carmen Lober in their closing. The only witness who can put fentanyl into Corey's hand. Let's talk about her testimony. Admittedly, a lot of it was painful to watch. And in some ways, you know, she's she's sympathetic, but she is looking at multiple long prison sentences. and her only way out, her only way was to testify at this trial. But what she could not do was put fentanyl in Corey Richen's hands. She told you that she had no memory of what actually took place in 2022. During those interviews, she told detectives over and over again, "My brain is fried. I've been using drugs since sixth grade. My memory is gone." So what she testified to you wasn't what she remembered. She admitted on the stand that what she testified to was what she had been shown, what she had been told. Detective O'Driscoll told you that Carmen Lobber could not remember the purchase of drugs after Eric had died. When asked by Miss Nester if at least one of the times that Carmen allegedly purchased drugs from Mr. Croer and brought them to Corey was after Eric's death, his response was, "Her testimony was not that. She didn't remember it that way. We found digital evidence that supported that." You know what? She did testify to that. She testified at length and in detail about something that even Detective O'Driscoll said she didn't remember. Carmen Lobber was not able to tell you that she bought fentanyl. She agreed on the stand that it was the detectives that p first first put the word fentanyl in her mouth in her head. She was told by detectives in this case that she bought fentanyl. Eric died of fentanyl. You bought drugs. You bought fentanyl. She took that story and she ran with it because she had everything to lose. And O'Drriscoll, Detectives O'Drriscoll and Detective Maynard told her, "You are getting a big giant get out of jail free card. And what do you have to do to get that big giant get out of jail free card? Give them the details that will ensure Corey gets convicted of murder. You heard that from O'Driscoll's own mouth. He tried to explain it away, but he went in and he told this woman, "Get out of jail free card. Give us the details to ensure Corey gets convicted of murder." She had to tell them that. She had to tell you that. She had to say she purchased fentanyl. The detectives walked into those interviews not to find out what happened, but to get Ms. Lober to confirm what they already had decided happened. Again, confirmation bias.

She told them at that first interview, "I literally never dealt with fentanyl." And she had reason not to deal with fentanyl. She told you that. She had a daughter who had overdosed from fentanyl. She was afraid of fentanyl. She told them that Corey asked for something for an investor's bad back. Maybe it was for Eric, but she told them that Eric that Corey asked for an investor's bad back. And that later she asked for something stronger. She asked for the Michael Jackson drug. She told them Corey never asked for fentanyl. She admitted that she got the word fentanyl from Octives detectives O'Driscoll and Maynard. She told them she couldn't remember. She asked them to lay it out for her, to put the pieces of the puzzle together, to write it down, and I'll sign it. They argued that was because, well, she didn't want want to write it in herself. That's why they wanted us to write it. Well, she could have written it right there at the table, I suppose. But you know what else? Remember, she also told the assistant United States attorney basically the same thing. Put it together for me. And the US attorney or the assistant US attorney said, "Oh, we don't do it that way. You have to tell us what you remember. They literally offered a big giant get out of a jail free card.

The state's last question to Ottoris. They brought up the house, the TV show, the house of cards. But who held all of the cards in this case? Jeff O'Driscoll told you. Carmen Lober held all of the cards. Their entire house of cards is being held up by her. And now at trial three years later, she comes in here and says she bought oxycodone once and fentanyl three times. Oh, she had her story down. She she told it very nicely on direct, but when pressed, she couldn't remember anything. Not from 2022, not from 2023. She couldn't remember on Friday what she testified to on Thursday. And you know, I didn't ask her about her mental health or her learning disability to be mean. I asked her because it it explains why she was so easily convinced by law enforcement as to what she needed to do and what she needed to say. She described her learning disability as low education. Well, you can decide what that means for yourself. But one possibility is she has an intellectual disability. And if that is the case, she is more vulnerable to suggestability than most people. Easy to manipulate. And they took advantage of this. We all saw it. They did, too. But they had to find someone who would confirm their theory. But you know what? Through all of this, there were a handful of things that Carmen Lober was consistent about. There were a few. Corey asked for some pain medication. Corey said that in in the walk the dog letter. Then she told you, "I brought Oxycodin from Susan Coler on February 11th. Prescription Oxycodone." Now, that's important because if Corey had any pain pills before February 14th, these were likely what she had. She said Corey never asked for fentanyl. She said that in all of her interviews. Carmen never asked Robert Croer for fentanyl. She said that she was consistent with that. That she bought pills from Robert Croer. That the pills she got from him were light green 15 to 20 milligram oxycodone pills. When she bought from him again, she asked for more of the

same. Those are the things she said throughout. Everything she said, every other thing she said has changed multiple times. It changed again while she was on the stand. Now she says the number of purchases were more. That changed the date changed. For the first time she says that Croer was the first one to say the word final. It's first time we've heard that. Wasn't in the interviews. She's not a truthful person.

There were a couple of little things she laid on the stand about. Not super important, but I'm going to point them out because they were just untruths. When I asked her if she was on any medication for her anxiety or any other illnesses, she said no. But then later when Mr. Bworth asked her, she said yes, she was on medications. They were in her car in the per in her purse. She told you Nancy Peterson drove to buy the drugs because she didn't have a driver's license. When we showed her that photo was reversed and that she was driving, did you notice how smoothly that story changed? Oh. Oh, well. Yeah. I drove one way, she drove the other. By the way, where's Nancy Peterson? There was someone who might have been able to confirm Carmen's story, but we didn't hear from her.

What else did Carmen lie about? She sat on that stand and she told you I never violated drug court after I got out my get out of jail free card in May of 2023. But then when confronted, she had to admit, oh yeah, I did. That's right. She told you, "Well, I was holding a can of alcohol, but I didn't drink it." When confronted, though, she had to admit that wasn't true. She sat on the stand and she told you that. Oh, I just held it. Oh, but you told your probation officer you drank it. Oh, yeah. I guess I drank it.

But what's the most important thing she admitted to lying to? She lied to a judge. She lied to a judge by writing a letter saying that she had been 100% compliant with drug court. And why did she lie to that judge? She wanted to go to Vegas. And she told you on the stand, she admitted it. Yeah, I was untruthful with the judge to get something that I wanted. She was untruthful because she wanted to go to Vegas. There is a lot more at stake here than going to Vegas. She is again being untruthful to get what she wants. And what she wants this time is to stay out of prison. and she will say whatever she needs to to make that happen.

You know what else she got by telling that story? In addition to her get out of jail free card, she also got an advance straight to go and pass drug court on the way card. No more showing up at drug court. And she told you she told you drug court's tough, but she didn't have to go anymore. No regular check-ins. She just had to text hi or lobber to detective Maynard. And most importantly, no more drug tests. She's still on probation, still waiting to go see to go to court to see if her charges will be dismissed. And she's not being drug tested. Is she telling you the truth about being clean? We have absolutely no way to know. She got everything she wanted by testifying to things that she admitted she had no memory of. Can you fill for Carmen Lobber? You can. Can you believe her beyond a reasonable doubt? You cannot. And if you can't believe her beyond a reasonable doubt, you have to find Corey Rich's not guilty.

I don't want to talk about Robert Croer because he's also an addict and he also changed his story. But what makes him different? First, his original story was given in a 13minute interview while he was coming down from drugs. Not in 10 hours of interviews, over multiple days. Detectives came in and they told him he sold fentanyl. He said, "We already know. We know you sold fentanyl. You just need to confirm it. We won't jam you. We won't jam you up? just tell us she sold fentanyl." And he agreed with them. And they asked, "Did Carmen Lober know she got fentanyl?" And he said, "Absolutely."

But what did he explain to you on the stand? Now that he's been through rehab, now that we know he's sober, they gave that he gave people what they asked for when he was selling drugs. He always gave them what they asked for. So when detectives came in and said, "Well, you sold Carmen fentanyl." Carmen asked for fentanyl. He said yes. He said what I meant is if that's what she asked for, that's what I gave her.

What else makes him different though from Carmen Robin? He changed his story from what the prosecution wanted him to say to what they didn't want him to say, not the other way around. Why do this? Why would he risk his immunity? It would have been so much easier for him just to stick with his original story. Let's go back. So he gives that original story in April of 23. He soers up. He meets with the state. He meets with Mr. Bworth in April of 25 before he ever spoke to me or to Mr. Burman. And he tells him at that time that he got it wrong. He says, "No, I sold Carmen Oxycodone, not fentanyl." And how does he know this? He told you because he didn't start selling fentanyl until late 2022. and he sold to Carmen Lobber in early 2022. Also, his source gave him fentanyl that was so dark it was almost purple. It wasn't light green, it wasn't light blue. Okay. So, then he meets with our team in October of 20. He says the same thing. He signed an affidav affidavit swearing it to be true. He testified to the same thing at trial. I was only selling Oxy in 2022. And not only that, he told you it was prescription Oxy from a pharmacy. So, not fake Oxy that was actually fentanyl, but real oxy. And he was a bit of an expert on the topic. I think he knew more than the drug expert did. He told you light green pills, those were 15 to 20 milligram pills. Light blue pills, those were 30 milligram pills. His prescription was 10 milligram pills. He knew his stuff. He was a pretty successful drug dealer and he told you when I sold fentanyl those pills were almost purple.

What did he have to gain by testifying to this? He's never met Corey Richens. He'd never met Eric Richens. He didn't know Carmen. He isn't getting anything from anyone. It's for these reasons that his testimony is more credible than Carmen's. Her freedom is at stake. So she had to say fentanyl. She has to give them Corey. He has nothing to gain. He just told you the truth.

The state told you in closing that they traced the fentanyl. It's absolutely not true. Corman never Carmen never even looked at those pills. She didn't test those pills. She didn't take any of them according to her. And we don't know where any of them are. Where are these some odd 90 to 120 pills? They ain't trace that fenol. We have no idea where that is. They didn't trace any fentanyl.

So, how did Eric end up ingesting fentanyl? What other reasonable explanation might there be? You know, I'm not going to stand here and say to you that Eric Richens was a drug addict. He wasn't a Carmen lover. He wasn't a Robert Kroger. I don't think the evidence shows that. But that doesn't mean he didn't use. That doesn't mean he didn't ask Corey to get him pain pills. He probably did. So, what do we know? We know Eric was in pain. He had Lyme disease, which can be very painful. He had back pain. He had knee pain. We know he'd been in Mexico not long before his death. Look at what he was doing right before his death. So, right before his death, he's texting Pedro Sonora back and forth, back and forth. Did they interview him? Like we said, no. He texts his friend Scott Wagner more Pedro. Pedro Sinero from 8:30 between 8:30 and 8:36 he texts him one, two, three. Well, these are back and forth, but between them there's 1, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 texts. He gets a call from Scott Wagner. What's his last Google search? How far is it from Scott Delta Naggalis? And then he gets a text from Raul. We also don't know anything about Rubble. Maybe he made other calls. The state said maybe Cy was calling on the Wi-Fi. Maybe so was he. We don't know who else he talked to, but this is what we do know.

Oh, which this is a good place to bring up. I think that the state did stand up here and they told you that we said things in opening that didn't come in during trial. And that's true. Strategies change during trial. But remember, we are not the ones under an obligation to put on any evidence. It's not us. We're not under an obligation to prove anything. It's them. Okay.

So, what else do we find on that first day that Eric died? What else do they find? The hydrocodone bottle. Whatever happened to that bottle? Why wasn't it tested? What was kept in that bottle? The bottle sitting right by the bed on Eric's nightstand, right next to his phone and watch that were placed neatly in his charger. An expired prescription bottle with nothing in it but residue. And you can see the residue there. Why would that be sitting out? a six-year-old prescription bottle. What might be the best way to bring illegal pills back from Mexico? Put them in a prescription bottle, put them in your suitcase. What might be the best way to store your elicit oxycodone, stick them in a prescription bottle, put them by your bed, and now that bottle's gone, and nobody knows where it is, and nobody tested it. And you saw that white powder, and you can look back when you go back, but you saw that white powdery residue on the nightstand next to Eric. Nobody tested that either.

So, what's another explanation? What could have happened? Eric was about to take his last pain pill out of that bottle that he kept by the side of his bed. He's on the phone with people in Mexico. He's checking how long it takes to drive from Scottsdale to Ngalas. Maybe he knew he was getting fun in Mexico. Maybe he thought it was else and he accidentally got fentanyl. Maybe had they tested that bottle, we would know, but they didn't. You know what else we know though? We know he had a prescription for Nraxone and it appears he wasn't taking it. A drug used to help people control craving for drugs and alcohol. It's not a drug used to treat Lyme disease. There's a reasonable alternative, reasonable doubt.

All right, I'm going to move to motive. The state absolutely did not prove that Cory's relationship with Josh Gman was a motive to kill her husband. Josh and Corey had been seeing each other on and off for about two years. You heard from Josh. He testified that their future together was a fantasy. At that no time did Corey ever lead him to believe that she was going to leave Eric for him. It was clear that Josh loved Corey more than she loved him. You could see it in his face. You could see it in his demeanor. You can look at the text shortly before I died where Cy was trying to break up with him.

The state wants you to find that the conversation Corey had with Josh about his time in Iraq is somehow evidence or proof of murder. But Josh told you she was grieving. that that conversation was about life and death and Eric and bow hunting and the supernatural that it really didn't even seem that unusual at the time. He only thought it seemed unusual when the private investigator told him Cory killed Eric. It's not evidence of a homicide. It isn't proof of anything. Yes, they were having an affair. Eric was also having an affair, possibly more than one. You heard there was a text about an open relationship, and they can laugh about that, but that's what the text said. And you know what? We do not bring this up to make Eric out to be a bad person. It doesn't matter what he was doing in his personal life. That's not the point. The point is that there were parts of Eric's life that he didn't share with people. Just like he didn't share with Cody that he used marijuana or even that he took prescriptions. The point is we all have secrets and Eric had secrets.

But back to Josh. The best evidence that Josh was not a motive for Corey to kill her husband is that after Eric died, she never did get together with Josh. She didn't show up at the brunch that they'd planned to celebrate the closing on the Midway mansion. She didn't go on a vacation with him in April. She never even finished paying for that vacation. Josh told you that Cory changed after Eric's death. She was grieving. That he saw less and less of her and ultimately she broke things off. And by the way, if Cory was as motivated by money as they would have you think, would she really have killed her wealthy husband to run off with the handyman who lived for free in one of her houses? That doesn't fail with the state's theory.

The state says, "Look at texts. Replace the words in them with different words. They stood here and made up what was inside people's heads." What they were thinking. The state has to rely on evidence. They have to prove their case. And they can't do that. The state did not prove that Cory killed in order to be with Josh.

All right. Money. Money is a motive for a lot of things for a lot of people. Was Corey a brilliant businesswoman? No. Was her business struggling? Yes, it was. Was there fake it till you make it? There seemed to be a lot of that going on. Brooke Harrington testified that money was not a priority to Corey Richards. She could have used an accountant. She said she didn't even use QuickBooks. And this is all true. A young mother trying to run a business like most young mothers, young working mothers. Did her accounting take a backseat to her family? Probably.

The state also wants you to believe that Corey was cheating her best friend. But that's not what the evidence showed. The evidence showed that the $45,000 that Chelsea gave to Cy was not earmarked for closing. Cy could do whatever she wanted with that money. All that mattered was that when she went to that closing on that house that she showed up with $45,000. It didn't have to be that $45,000. It could have been $45,000 she expected to come in from another flip. But then Corey was arrested and never got the opportunity to do that. That's why that house foreclosed. But you know what? The evidence has shown that Cy rightly or wrongly truly believed that that Midway mansion was going to turn everything around. They were celebrating that night. If Corey was going to kill Eric for money, she certainly would not have done it on the night that she believed she had just secured a multi-million dollar property. And if you look at the states exhibit 624D, you will see that Corey actually made a profit on every single home that she flipped. She had reason to believe that she was going to make a profit on this one, too. All the foreclosures, those were all after her arrest. and something else. They say it would have cost way more money than she had to rehab the M mansion to live in it with Josh, which again, Josh said it was fantasy. That wasn't going to happen. But if you don't believe him, look at text. Look at says exhibit 2-17D on page 33. This is where she and Eric are going back and forth on how much it would cost to rehab the mansion. And he says, "We can't afford that. We don't even have time for that." What does she tell him? And I'm You can look at it. I don't have it word for word. She tells them, "No, we're not doing that. I just need money. I just need to give the numbers. I mean, to the investors." She didn't intend to rehab that. She tend to flip it after a little cleanup.

All right, I want to talk about the gifts that the state talked about in their opening and throughout trial. They made such a fuss about these. They were accessed on Cory's phone on March 4th, the morning of March 4th. They were tied to the celebration. That's what those were about. If you look at that exhibit, I think it's 3-40, you can see that the orphan gifts were accessed at the same time down to the second as a picture of the Midway Mansion. So, what do we know about these gifts? We know that some photos were stored in a cache on the phone, not connected to any particular text. We know that they were accessed accessed the morning of the 4th. We know that at least one of the pictures, the one of the mansion, was sent by Eric the evening before, which likely means all of these photos were sent prior to the morning of the 4th. These were not about Eric's death. They weren't She wasn't celebrating death. These gifts were sent earlier and she was celebrating closing on that mansion. It just doesn't follow she would kill him for money. She received less from life insurance than believe than she thought she was going to make on that mansion. Josh Gman told you that she was surprised when she found out about the million-doll life insurance policy from auto insurance. It appears she didn't even know that. And if you take Brooke Carrington's testimony is true. By the way, she was a good witness. She is a professional expert witness. First hired by the family and then paid $200,000 by the state. A prosecution witness sitting right here today behind the prosecution. Very different than the memes who were just here to tell you their findings. But anyway, if you accept her testimony, the life insurance wasn't going to fix the problem anyway. Corey spent that life insurance with a ma within a matter of weeks and was still in debt. And you know what you heard on that phone call between Bryce and Chelsea and Corey? All I want's the home. It's all I want. They can have everything else. They can have the money. I don't care. I just want my house. My house where I've raised my boys. And you know what? Eric was making good money in 2020 he told Christina Miller the attorney he went to about talking about a divorce that he was making his income that year was over 33,000 a month. Cody Wright testified that they made $500,000 each the last year that Eric was alive. I believe there was testimony that there were other years he made even more. Not sure about that, but I think that was in there. So if this case was about money, Eric was worth so much more to Corey alive than opportunity. Well, I guess her opportunity was she was the only one in the house. Who else was in the house, though? Who else had an opportunity to take those pills? Eric. Four years later, 10,000 searches, over $300,000 worth of expert witnesses, three weeks of trial, the FBI, the DEA, Homeland Security, the Summit County Sheriff's Office. They cannot tell you how Eric ingested that fentanyl. They haven't done their job. And now they want you to make inferences based on paper thin evidence. They speculated on a number of things during closing. and they want to tell you. They want you to do their job for them. Tell them no. Tell them if they're going to charge a person in your community with the most serious crime there is, they better have the facts. They better have the proof. They better have more than speculation and conjecture because that's their job. It's not your job.

All right. I want to talk about the elements. The first one, aggravated murder. murder. Okay. So, they have to prove that Eric or I'm sorry that Cory Richens intentionally or knowingly caused the death of Eric Richens. The state has not proven this. They haven't even proven that she obtained fentanyl. They have not proven where the pills ended up or how Eric took them. Stay stood up here and argued, "Well, it really doesn't matter what drug she purchased. As long as it was an illicit street illicit street drug, it absolutely matters because what did he die of? He died of fentanyl. There was no oxycodone in his system. There was no other drug in his system." They must prove that she purchased and gave him fentanyl.

Oh, and let me talk about Becky Lloyd for one minute. She said that she had a conversation after a drink or two where Corey allegedly said, "Oh, I'd be things would be easier. I'd be better off if Eric was dead." But what else did you hear? You heard Becky in a recording tell officers and investigators. I don't think I can testify to that on the stand. I'm not sure that that's true. But then she testified to it. I don't know. Maybe they threatened to bring a catch pole for her dog, too. One thing I want to point out here though is if after looking at all the evidence, you believe that Ms. Richens accidentally obtained fentanyl when she thought she was got ox getting oxycodone and then Eric took those pills voluntarily and died. That is not intentionally and knowingly. That is not aggravated murder. And if you conclude that, you must find Corey Richens not guilty.

All right. attempted murder. What is the evidence of this? And again, again, it has to be intentionally or knowingly, and it has the rest, the elements there. She had to take a substantial step. So, here's the evidence. Corey bought an omelette and an egg sandwich at 9:00 the morning of February 14th. There was no evidence that she left that sandwich in the truck. To the contrary, there was a conversation with her mother saying, "They think I left some sandwich in a truck." That didn't happen. Eric said he wasn't feeling well. He took a nap between 11:30 and 2. He called a couple of friends and sounded upset. He joked a few days later with Corey and friends that his wife had tried to poison him, that he'd had an allergic reaction and used an EpiPen. Alex Staking told you that. Ali Staking. She never said that Corey got defensive. She didn't say that. She said they were all laughing. She said that Eric didn't seem upset or scared. It was a joke. Would be the first time a spouse ate something and said, "Oh my god, my wife tried to poison me." But that's it. That's their entire case. He didn't go to the hospital. He didn't do anything that day but take a nap. eating an egg sandwich, having an allerg an allergic reaction to something, and taking a nap. There is no world in which that is attempted murder beyond a reasonable doubt.

Oh, they point out that months later in text to Chelsea, her friend, that she gets some details wrong about that day. Maybe because she didn't try to kill him and in her memory that day really wasn't all that important. She said, "I bought him lunch." Well, it was breakfast. Again, they stood here and said Eric was thinking this. Cy was thinking this. She was, you know, off with Josh thinking all these things. None of this was evidence. Not any of it. None of it is proof. They talked about some IRS calls that she made on those days. No evidence as to what was in those calls. No witnesses from the IRS. Speculation, conjecture, not proof, reasonable doubt.

Okay, I'm going to jump quickly. The other three counts I'm going to go through quickly, but count I'm going to go to count five, which is the forgery count. Now, remember what we're talking about here. This is one of those life insurance policies that any of us who belong to a credit union get where you don't have to do anything. He signed here for $100,000 free life insurance. And this was filled out for both Corey and Eric. Matthew Throckport, the handwriting expert, all he could tell you is that Eric probably did not sign the true stage insurance policy. Probably is reasonable doubt. And he could not tell you that Cory did sign it. They have not proven that Cory forged Eric's signature. And there was no evidence either way if Corey had permission to sign Eric's name on that true stage life insurance. I mean, let's be serious. It's the rare married couple who doesn't occasionally say, "Hey, honey, I'm going to sign this for you. Is that okay?" But there was no evidence either way. She's not guilty of forgery.

All right, jumping to the insurance fraud counts. Count three. Count three is directly um connected to count five because this count alleges that Corey fraudulently obtained that insurance policy and the fraud was forging Eric's signature. They said there was a reversed social security number on there, but the frauds the signature. So if the if the state hasn't proven to you count five, it automatically follows they haven't proven count three and you must find her guilty not guilty on count three. Count four says that alleges that Corey fraudulently collected the street the true stage insurance policy. All that means is if she did kill her husband and then represented something different to collect that insurance, that would be fraud. But if you find Corey Richens not guilty on count one, you have to find her not guilty on count four. The state has not proven their case. They don't have the evidence that Corey Richen killed her husband. So instead, they have tried to show you as much evidence as they possibly can to convince you that she's the sort of person who would.

Getting close to the end. I'm sure you would like me to stop talking. But I have to tell you, I'm afraid to stop talking because as I stand here right now, Corey Richen is still cloaked in a presumption of innocence. I don't ever want to walk back to that table. As a defense attorney, that is one of the longest walks a lawyer can make. This entire case is going to flash before my eyes. And all I will be able to think about once I sit down is what did I miss? What did we miss? What didn't we tell you that you wanted to hear? Did I focus on what you wanted to know? Did we do enough? You're about to go through those doors and into the jury room and start deliberations. Everyone in this courtroom, everyone watching around the world, we all wish we could follow you and listen in. But that room, that jury room is yours. It's sacros. And that room, you get to decide. And when you get in that room and you look at the evidence, if you think that Corey Richens might have killed her husband, that she likely killed her husband, that she probably killed her husband, you must find her not guilty because maybe, probably, likely, very likely, none of these reach that extraordinary burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

I'm going to ask you to do a couple of things when you go into that room. First, you might be tempted to go around the room and take a vote for guilty or not guilty to see where you all stand. We ask you refrain from this. Instead, we ask talk to each other about where you see reasonable doubt. Also, if Kathy or Alex or myself did something to offend you during this trial, please hold that against us and not against Corey. Now, the state's going to get up and talk to you again because they get the last word. And the reason they have that last word is because of that heavy burden. But when you filled out that jury questionnaire, we asked you if you would be comfortable making your voice heard in that jury room. Would you stand by your convictions by what you believe? And each and every one of you said yes. So here's my final ask of you. When you're deliberating and something comes up that we didn't respond to, will you be courageous? Courageous enough to raise your hand and talk about what our response would be. Raise your hand. Raise your hand for Corey because you are the last line between an innocent woman and the state. Be courageous. Courage is what this moment demands. The courage to stand between a member of your community and the state and demand that they comply with the Constitution, that they comply with their burden. Do not let them fool you. Do not fall for red herrings. Corey Richens did not kill Eric Richens. The state did not prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt. And you have the courage have the courage to tell them this and find Corey Richens not guilty.

Next. Next. Parter tricks are not legal standards. Legal standards are what matter. Let's review a couple of the important ones. You'll have them in your instructions when you go back to deliberate. Reasonable doubt. I come back to this one again and again. Evidence usually consists of testimony and exhibits presented at trial. What the lawyers say is not evidence. I've come back to this slide in rebuttal precisely because of defense's closing. There is a reason the state provided you in its slides with a site to every single piece of evidence it argued. We told you what transcript page and line number. We told you what exhibit number because what the attorneys say doesn't matter. The evidence is what matters. And there's a reason defense council did incite you to the evidence. Next slide, Scott. A lot of the evidence is circumstantial. It is. People do not video themselves poisoning their spouse. But circumstantial evidence is just as good as direct evidence. You can use circumstantial evidence to conclude fact just as you can use direct evidence. The instruction gives the example of it is wet outside and people are closing up their umbrellas. That makes sense. Let me put it to you a different way. Does everybody know what happened here?

>> Cory Richens chose Carmen Lobber. The state didn't. Hold on, let me text Cory Richen shows harm and lob, not the state. Go ahead, Scott. Thanks. Cory Richens chose Carmen Lobber because she was the drug dealer she knew. The state granted carbon law immunity because it cares more about a murder case than a drug deal. That should surprise nobody. Poy Richens chose Carmen Lobber in part because she had control over her. She could help her out. She employed her to some measure. She could help her out. Little quid proquo. You get me some drugs, I can help you out with your drug court. Cy Richens chose Carmen Lobber, not me. Her testimony is corroborated. If you only believe Carmen Lober's testimony that is corroborated, that is plenty of proof to convict. She was only at that Maverick in Draper three times. That's what the digital evidence shows. Each of the three times she was there, so was Robert Kazier. Those were the only three times he was there. Their testimony cooper corroborates each other in the relevant matter. It corroborates that they met, that he sold her drugs, illicit street drugs, that it had fentanyl. Blues had fentinyl. Corab said they weren't prescription drugs. He got them from a plug, not a pharmacy. They were packaged in a little clear baggie, not a prescription bottle. All the testimony of Carmen Lobber and Robert Kier that matters corroborates.

>> So with these transactions go ahead was at the gas station three times. Carroman Labber was there every time.

>> The March drug deal. Timing of this is very interesting. Shortly after Eric's death, Carmen Loberers spoke with Cory Riches and asked, "Please tell me these pills were not for him." Of course, she denied it. No. But then a few days later, she asked for more pills. It's curious as to why. Perhaps to cover up that the pills were indeed for Eric. If I asked for more, she'll know they weren't for Eric. It's also interesting that she said she needed something to get her mind. What? I don't know. Maybe she wanted the pills for herself. This suggests she wanted the pills for herself to calm her mind, which tells you she knows that a pill that she buys from Carmen Lobber is not bad. It's a whole bunch of pills that kill. Consciousness of guilt is evidence of guilt. Corey had a guilty conscience. She couldn't talk to her father that night. Not because she was overcome by grief because she couldn't face she could not face the man whose son she had just murdered. We're going to play these clips right here. Now, this is when Corey Richens is asked whether she's going to tell her children, whether she's going to talk to her children. Notice Corey re Corey Richen's reaction in the moment to This will be Katie Richen's reaction in the moment.

>> Go ahead, Scott.

>> Where where are your children now? to sleep in that room. Two are awake with their ear to the door. Please

>> don't know. We went too bad.

>> Hey, Clint's here. going to help her. Where are my boys?

>> Where's my brother?

>> Do I see my brother?

>> Is there a way to um relocate your boys upstairs

>> because there's going to be a lot of traffic. Cory Richards walks away. and takes the boys upstairs. In moments of tragedy and profound sorrow, you not only comfort your children, they comfort you. Corey Richens hides her face because she has she doesn't know how to react because she is not grieving. She doesn't want to see her o other people see her non-reaction. She's not grieving because she feels no grief. She just murdered Eric. You heard Deputy W testify. She wasn't crying. Deputy W's body camera did catch a moment of surprise. That's the moment he informed her that she was that he, Deputy Wyn, was sending Eric's body for an autopsy. That's her surprise. She didn't tell anybody that night that Eric used fentinel because she thought she would get away with it. She didn't think anybody would find out that Eric used fentinel. And the minute Deputy W said, "We're sending his body for an autopsy," that's her reaction.

The 2016 empty hydrocodone bottle is immaterial. Eric had no hydrocodone in his toxicology results. The only other hydrocodone reference in the entire body of evidence before you is that investigators recovered on the first search warrant bag like a ziplock type bag full of hydrocodone pills in the laundry room in the mud room of the house. Perhaps Cory Richens removed him from that bottle and staged the crime scene. This is also inconsistent with the notion, you know, having those hydrocodone bottles in the house is pills in the house is inconsistent with the notion that Eric had a secret drug drug habit and was going to the street for elicit pain pills and there's a baggie of hydrocodone in the house. Okay, there is no good reason these images were accessed the same exact minute that deputies departed the house the morning that Eric died. None. And there is, by the way, despite what defense council just told you, there is no evidence that Eric Richens sent these images. He sent an image of the Midway mansion the night before that was accessed at the same time as these images. Sorry. He sent an image of the Midway Mansion the night before, but it was not the image that was accessed at the same time. The image that was accessed at the same time is the distance full view of the Midway Mansion, which makes sense in this context, not the image that Eric sent of the pile of rocks in front of the Midway Mansion. Details matter. We don't know who sent these images, but we do know that they were accessed on Corey's phone at 8:29 the exact minute that deputies signed the log out of the house and that whoever accessed them turned the phone this way to view them better. They also viewed the distant image of the Midway Mansion. Maybe she was celebrating the Midway mansion. Maybe she was celebrating Eric's death. Either way, there is no good reason these images were accessed at 8:29. Corey Richens minimized how Eric died because she needed to cover up her involvement in Eric's death. The worst minimization was the one to his father. After speaking on March 17th with the medical examiner's office, Corey Richens told Eric's father, knowing this was not true, that Eric Richens died in part of COVID and in part of the same lung fungus that Jean's wife, Linda, died of. That is not only covering up her involvement, that is cruel. She covered up with the medical examiner. She did pretended she didn't know what quitapene was even though she was prescribed it. She pretended she didn't know what acetaminophen was even though it's Tylenol. And there is probably not a mother in the United States that does not know what Tylenol is. She pretended she didn't understand the word elicit. She has a master's degree. In figning ignorance with Dr. Christensen, she was fishing for information to craft her defense. She was asking, "Was it injected? Did he eat it?" She wanted to know what the medical examiners knew so so that she could craft around it. She was really worried about the amount of alcohol. On April the 13th, Detective Woody told Corey Richens that Eric died of fentinyl intoxication. Right after that, she tells Josh, "Oh, it was just a trace, Chelsea. It was just a trace. It was his lungs that were shot to [ __ ] She is minimizing, deflecting, covering up. She is distancing herself from her murder.

Manner of death on the death certificate is immaterial. It's a box we check. It's used for statistical purposes. They turn the information over to the Bureau of Vital Statistics. It's immaterial for this case. You determine the manner of death. It's murder. Aggravated murder. Perhaps in a perfect world, the medical examiner would amend the death certificate, but you heard Dr. Mer. She signed it on June the 6th, 2022 when the investigation was really in its infancy and she had one foot out foot out the door. It was her best solution to finish her report before she retired. It is what it is. bure Eric did not ingest the THC lace gummy sorry THC gummy lace with fentinel when asked if she ate one that night by deputy win it didn't seem like he did toxicology there was no measurable THC in the toxicology analysis of Eric's blood or gastric the THC that they collected on the April 13th, 2022 search warrant. Right, the first search warrant. It was found in the cabinet above the toilet in the master bathroom. wasn't there the night before. You heard Deputy David Pimementel talk about how he searched it. You could see his search on the body cam. It wasn't there. It was put there after Eric died. That's where most of the gummies were. There was also package in the kitchen which was never searched that the night he died. But all the gummies were sent to the lab for testing. In fact, the gummies, lots of stuff was sent to the lab for testing. None of it confirmed any fentinel. Brian Holden, he was a state crime lab tech that to testify. Detective Haskell works the streets of Salt Lake City drugs his whole career. Never seen fentanyl laced marijuana. That's a red that that's that's cover up. That's misdirection.

Corey Richen's plan, if it wasn't plan, to make money on the Midway mansion is not tethered to reality. Across her portfolio, she lost money. And she lost money on nearly every individual project. She even admitted it's out of my league, but the margins are so insane that I had to pick it up and then figure it out. Haha, help. That's haha with $3.2 million of other people's money. She is intensely ambitious. Her plan was not tethered to reality because she could not with more money than she could even imagine overcome the core of engineers holds on this property. Not going to happen. She asked Eric Richens for for um input on how much it would cost to rehab the house. That's the text string right there. Read the whole thing. You'll see that she sold the Midway Mansion to him, not as a project they were doing, but as just a sale that she was brokering.

>> come back in the corner There we go.

>> Richard.

>> Richard.

>> Richard. Yep.

>> Richard.

>> You're Afghanistan warrior.

>> You are an Afghanistan warrior. People grief differently.

>> There's no ancient artwork of that photograph. This book provides kind of three pieces of insight into Corey Richens. The first is she wrote it, had it written, and published it in early 2023 when she knew that investigators were investigating her for the murder of Eric Richens. She promoted it. Her mother sent a book to investigators, all to deflect attention away from Corey Richens. She also wrote it to make money. You see the emails, they're in evidence. She thought she would sell 100,000 copies in 10 months at $5 profit a copy. That is not tethered to reality. But it does provide insight in how desperate she was for money that she would trade she would trade on her sons and the death of her father to make money. The final things it tells you about Corey Richens is that she wanted as part of her facade, as part of her appearance of success, privilege, and affluence, she wanted to be an author. But she didn't write it. And you can see from her writings in text messages, orange notebook, the notes, the walk the dog letter. Not only did she not write it, she's not a good writer, but she wanted to appear as one. The appearance was what was important to her.

In defense is closing. When you strip out rhetoric that could be argued at any closing, any time, anywhere, on any case. When you strip that out of defense's closing and you hone in on substance, the entire substance of the defense's argument is based around trying to explain the walk the dog letter. Corey Richens is saddled with this letter. and needed to craft the defense around this letter. It's obvious that the letter was written to get her brother to testify to a narrative that would explain everything. Let's unpack the letter in about 15 or so sentences. Not with what Corey Richens wrote, but with what the evidence shows. It's a translation from what Corey Richens wrote to what the evidence shows. First part here is what I'm thinking, but you have to talk to Ronnie. He would potentially have to testify to this, but it's super super short. What the evidence shows is this says, "I'm thinking that if you tell Ronnie to testify to what I'm about to write, it will explain everything and I will not get convicted." Ronnie will need to tell this to my lawyer because I just made it up and it will have to come from him. Never mind that I was arrested four months ago. I need an excuse for Ronnie and Eric to be hanging out. Never mind that football season ended a month earlier. I need to explain the fentinel and fentinel must be everywhere in Mexico. Never mind that Eric would have to fly with the fentinel and I later say that Eric would not fly with drugs for fear of getting caught. Never mind that I know this story despite Ronnie never telling me. I need to explain why everyone will testify that Eric never used drugs. This kind of happened once with THC gummies on a trip to Hawaii. Hopefully, this is enough to corroborate my entire Walk the Dog story. I need to distance myself from fentinel. These are my madeup words, but Ronnie can make up his own words. If Ronnie does not say these things, I'm convicted. I need to explain why investigators never found a trace of fentinel in my home. Never mind that it doesn't make sense that Eric hid the fentinel after asking me to buy it. Don't get caught passing this madeup story along to Ronnie. That would be horrible. Tell Ronnie to keep the story short so that he does not mess it up. Since his conversation with Eric never happened, tell him that it was only two minutes long. Ronnie needs to do this so that I do not get convicted. I can then extract revenge on Eric's sisters. Remember, I just made this story up, so my lawyer does not know it yet. All the evidence in this case proves that Corey Richens murdered her husband and the father of her three children, Eric Richens. There is no other rational explanation for the evidence. And despite all the evidence, Corey Richens clings to the facade that has enabled her to get away with so much for so long. And despite all the evidence, Corey Richens doubles down and blames Eric. She is intensely ambitious. See through her facade. Check her ambition. Do not let her get away with murder.