Utah News

Where: Viejas Arena (San Diego, CA)

When: Friday, March 20 at 4:10 PM EST

How to Watch: TNT

FanDuel Betting Odds: Villanova +1.5 (subject to change)

NET Rankings: Villanova 35, Utah State 26

KenPom: Villanova 33, Utah State 30

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Torvik: Villanova 36, Utah State 29

About the Aggies: Utah State was selected to finish second in the Mountain West Conference Preseason Poll, but finished in sole possession of first at 28-6 (15-5). The Aggies then defeated San Diego State, who finished in second and was picked first in the preseason, 73-62 in the conference championship.

Leading the Aggies is Jerrod Calhoun, the recently-named Mountain West Coach of the Year. The 44-year-old is in his second year in Logan after a seven-year stint at Youngstown State. Calhoun is arguably the hottest name in the couching carousel, with rumors of him being the new Cincinnati coach once this tournament run is done.

Sitting at the top of the scouting report is Mason Falslev, who was named Mountain West Player of the Year. The 6’4” junior was also named to the All-Mountain West First Team and All-Defensive Team. Falslev has spent his entire career with the Aggies, despite being guaranteed to have plenty of interest elsewhere. Falslev averages 15.9 points, 5.7 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 1.9 steals on 51.9% from the floor and 41.7% from three-point range.

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Falslev’s running mate is MJ Collins Jr., who leads the team in scoring at 17.6 points per contest. The senior transfer from Vanderbilt shoots an efficient 49.5% from the floor and 37.2% from deep. The 6’4” guard was selected as part of the All-Mountain West Second team. Collins Jr. and Falslev are the only two Aggies who average in double figures.

Coming in at third in scoring at 9.3 points per game is the Mountain West Sixth Man of the Year, Karson Templin. The 6’9” junior forward shoots 53.9% from the field and 36.5% from three. Templin is part of a four-man frontcourt rotation with freshman Adlan Elamin, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi transfer Garry Clark and Utah transfer Zach Keller.

The last of the rotation players is starting guard Drake Allen, who scored 13 points in the championship against the Aztecs on 5/10 from the floor. The 6’5” senior is capable of scoring from the perimeter, but is only shooting 31.4% from deep on the year. Allen leads the team in assists at 4.7 per contest.

The Aggies are a highly-efficient offensive team, ranking 38th in the nation in points per game and 14th in field goal percentage. Utah State is also 48th in three-point percentage, 17th in assists and 20th in assist/turnover ratio.

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Villanova’s keys to victory:

1. Slow down Collins Jr. and Falslev: Easier said than done, of course. Collins Jr. comes from Virginia Tech and Vanderbilt, so you know he won’t be intimidated playing against a school like Villanova. Falslev (along with Templin and Allen) played in the 7/10 game against UCLA last year, with Falslev scoring a team-high 17 points on 6/17 from the floor. This time around should be more comfortable for the Mountain West Player of the Year. Look for Tyler Perkins to match up with Falslev, hopefully using his strength as an advantage. The duo averages 33.5 points per game. I would think the sweet spot would be 30 or below.

2. Do not play at the Aggies’ tempo: Utah State averages 83 points per game, whereas Villanova averages 77.6. The Wildcats are 22-5 on the season when holding the opponents to below 80, and 2-3 when the giving up 80 or more. As the adage says, it’s easier to slow the game down than to speed it up. While Utah State is only 173rd in adjusted tempo according to Torvik, Villanova is 306th. Slow the game down, use your strength to your advantage.

3. Go inside: This is not a game where the Wildcats’ lack of size should be as problematic. Duke Brennan should be able to have his way with whoever is put on him, both with and without the ball. And while Templin and Elamin have a height advantage on Malachi Palmer and Perkins, they don’t have a strength advantage. Kevin Willard talked about using both Brennan and Pierce together at the watch party on Sunday, but has since indicated he won’t be doing that in this one. Attack the rim, crash the boards and draw fouls (also please hit your freebies at the line).

Prediction: Most of the analysts and money seems to be on Utah State, and it’s understandable why. Villanova hasn’t beaten any at-large teams besides Wisconsin. Utah State is coming off of a conference championship, while the last image of the Wildcats was arguably the worst performance of the season against Georgetown. That said, this team hasn’t lost back-to-back games all season and will also be the best team that the Aggies have played all year. Give me Duke Brennan, Tyler Perkins and Devin Askew in a big moment (and hopefully, Acaden Lewis’ arrival to the bright lights). Villanova advances for an all-Wildcat match-up on Sunday in San Diego.

Providence guard Stefan Vaaks plans to enter the transfer portal, a source told On3. The Friars parted ways with head coach Kim English earlier this month.

“Providence fans, coaches, and supporters, thank you so much for welcoming me into Friar Nation as one of your own,” Vaaks said on Instagram. “Due to the recent coaching change, I plan on entering my name in the transfer portal. Thank you for everything.”

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The 6-foot-7 freshman from Estonia averaged 15.8 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 3.2 assists per game. He shot 40% from the field and 35% from three.

He scored a season-high 28 points against Butler in the first round of the Big East Tournament, leading the Friars to a win. Vaaks scored 20 or more points in 10 games this season.

The 20-year-old was named to the All-Big East Freshman Team and was a two-time Big East Freshman of the Week.

Prior to joining the college ranks, Vaaks played professionally in Estonia, spending last season with BC Kalev as part of the Estonian-Latvian Basketball League and the FIBA Europe Cup. For BC Kalev, he averaged 15 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 2.5 assists per game. He was also named to the Latvian-Estonian League All-Star Five.

March 18, 2026, 6:55 a.m. ET

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — A Utah woman was convicted Monday of aggravated murder after poisoning her husband with fentanyl and self-publishing a children’s book about coping with grief.

Prosecutors said Kouri Richins slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a cocktail that her husband Eric Richins drank in March 2022 at their home outside the affluent ski town of Park City. They said she was $4.5 million in debt and falsely believed that when her husband died, she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million.

“She wanted to leave Eric Richins but did not want to leave his money,” Summit County prosecutor Brad Bloodworth said.

Richins, 35, stared at the floor and took deep breaths as the judge read the verdict.

She was also convicted of other felonies, including attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him black out. Jurors also found Richins guilty of forgery and fraudulently claiming insurance benefits after his death.

The jury deliberated for just under three hours. Afterward, family members on both sides of the case left the courtroom hugging and crying.

“Honestly I feel like we’re all in shock. It’s been a long time coming,” said Eric Richins’ sister, Amy Richins, adding that the family can now focus on honoring her brother and supporting his sons. “Just very happy that we got justice for my brother.”

Relatives of Kouri Richins left the courthouse without speaking to media.

Sentencing was scheduled for May 13, the day her husband would have turned 44. The aggravated murder charge alone carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

What was scheduled to be a five-week trial was cut short when the defendant waived her right to testify, and her legal team abruptly rested its case without calling any witnesses. Her attorneys said they were confident that prosecutors did not produce enough evidence over the past three weeks to convict her of murder.

‘A wife becoming a black widow’

The prosecution said Richins, a real estate agent focused on flipping houses, was deep in debt and planning a future with another man. She had opened numerous life insurance policies on her husband without his knowledge, with benefits totaling about $2 million, prosecutors said.

Richins also faces 26 other money-related criminal charges in a separate case that has not yet gone to trial.

Earlier Monday, prosecutors showed the jury text messages between Richins and Robert Josh Grossman, the man with whom she was allegedly having an affair, in which she fantasized about leaving her husband, gaining millions in a divorce and marrying Grossman.

The internet search history from Richins’ phone included “what is a lethal.dose.of.fetanayl,” “luxury prisons for the rich America” and “if someone is poisned what does it go down on the death certificate as,” a digital forensic analyst testified.

Bloodworth replayed for the jury a clip of Richins’ 911 call from the night of her husband’s death. That’s “not ‘the sound of a wife becoming a widow,’” he said, quoting the defense’s opening statement. “It’s the sound of a wife becoming a black widow.”

Defense attorney Wendy Lewis responded that the prosecution “looks at facts one way and sees a witch, but if you look at those facts another way, you see a widow.”

‘Give us the details that will ensure Kouri gets convicted’

The defense focused on trying to discredit the prosecution’s star witness, Carmen Lauber, a housekeeper for the family who claimed to have sold Richins fentanyl on multiple occasions.

Lewis argued Lauber did not deal fentanyl and was motivated to lie for legal protection. Lauber said in early interviews that she never dealt the synthetic opioid, but later said she did after investigators informed her that Eric Richins died of a fentanyl overdose, the defense noted.

Richins had asked Lauber for “the Michael Jackson stuff,” which Bloodworth said likely refers to the drug combination that killed the singer.

“She knows she wants it because it is lethal,” he argued.

The housekeeper was already in a drug court program as an alternative to incarceration on other charges when authorities arrested her in connection with the Richins case, investigators said. She had also violated some conditions of drug court.

The defense showed a video of law enforcement warning Lauber that they could pull her drug court deal and that she could face a lengthy prison sentence.

“Give us the details that will ensure Kouri gets convicted of murder,” a man in the video said.

Lauber was granted immunity for her cooperation in the case. She testified that she felt a need to “step up and take accountability of my part in this.”

Children’s book becomes a tool for prosecutors

Shortly before her arrest in May 2023, Richins self-published the children’s book “Are You with Me?” about coping with the loss of a parent. She promoted it on local TV and radio stations, which prosecutors pointed to in arguing that Richins planned the killing and tried to cover it up.

Summit County Sheriff’s detective Jeff O’Driscoll, the lead investigator on the case, testified that Richins paid a ghostwriting company to write the book for her.

O’Driscoll said shortly after Richins’ arrest, her mother sent the book to the sheriff’s office in an anonymous package with a note saying it exemplified the “true Kouri, a devoted wife and adoring mother.”

Prosecutors also showed the jury excerpts of a letter found in Richins’ jail cell that they said appeared to outline testimony for her mother and brother. In the six-page letter, Richins instructed her brother to tell her former attorney that Eric Richins confided in him about getting fentanyl from Mexico and “gets high every night.”

Defense attorneys said the letter contained a fictional story their client was working on. They argued that Eric Richins was addicted to painkillers and asked his wife to procure opioids for him.

However, Richins told police on the night of her husband’s death that he had no history of illicit drug use, according to body camera footage shown in court.

___

Associated Press reporters Hallie Golden in Seattle and Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix contributed.

With the backing of local leaders, the Utah Inland Port Authority board on Monday approved the creation of the Black Gold Project Area in Duchesne County.

The project area, spanning approximately 2,780 acres in Duchesne County and Roosevelt, will establish a framework for coordinating infrastructure improvements and economic development tools within the designated acreage.

Local land-use authority, however, would remain under the jurisdiction of Duchesne County and Roosevelt. Both the county and Roosevelt previously adopted resolutions supporting the establishment of the project area.

“The Black Gold Project Area is designed to align infrastructure planning and economic development tools with the needs of Basin communities,” said Ben Hart, executive director of the Utah Inland Port Authority. “This framework supports long-term economic resilience, encourages private investment, and helps position the region for a broader range of logistics-supportive and value-added industries.”

Governmental support

Duchesne Mayor Deborah Herron, who also serves as the county’s economic development director, said the inland port will help an area that has long been sustained by energy and agriculture build a “more resilient and diversified economy.”

“This project area helps diversify our economy by expanding opportunities beyond traditional extractive industries, while energy production will remain important in the Uinta Basin, the inland port framework allows us to intentionally recruit complementary industries,” Herron said, specifically mentioning logistics, manufacturing, warehousing and information technology.

She lauded the port’s ability to attract new businesses to the area while also emphasizing the importance of the county’s communities maintaining local control — a point echoed by Drew Eschler, Roosevelt planning director.

“This initiative supports a coordinated approach to economic development and infrastructure planning while preserving local decision-making authority,” Eschler said. “The Black Gold Project Area helps ensure that future investment aligns with the needs of our residents and contributes to long-term economic opportunity.”

Eschler added that the project could help the area better navigate the inevitable busts that accompany the booms of the extraction industry.

“Local businesses in downtown Roosevelt and throughout Duchesne County struggle when workers leave and spending declines. This is why creating a project area … is so important. An inland port project area would help attract new industries such as manufacturing, commercial logistics, energy services and agriculture, processing. These industries create year-round jobs that stabilize the local economy, even when oil markets fluctuate,” Eschler said.

Unanimously approved, the Black Gold Project Area joins 14 other established project areas across the state.

Friends and family expressed shock and disbelief when Kouri Richins was arrested in connection with the death of her husband, Eric, at their home in Kamas, Utah, in 2022.

“I was shocked,” said her mother Lisa Darden, remembering when she heard the news. “She can’t be arrested.” Darden believed that Kouri and Eric had a great relationship, though there were sometimes bumps in the road. Ronney Darden, Kouri’s brother, said that at the time of Eric’s death, “They were in probably one of the best spots I’ve ever seen them, um, in quite some time.” A year after Eric’s death, Kouri wrote a children’s book to help her sons cope with the loss of their father, and the family, Lisa says, was on their way to healing. Just two months later Kouri was charged in his death.

What is the real story of Eric and Kouri’s marriage – a marriage that would end in tragedy? It begins at their wedding, in June of 2013.

June 15, 2013: A wedding and a pre-nup

On June 15, 2013, Kouri Darden, 23, and Eric Richins, 31, got married in the backyard at their home in Utah. They already had one son, and their family would soon grow.

According to court documents, the couple signed a prenuptial agreement that day, establishing that each party did not have rights to one another’s “present or future income, property, or assets” — except if Eric died while the two were lawfully married. At that point, his stone masonry business, C&E Masonry, would transfer to Kouri.

April 2019: Kouri Richins starts her real estate business

Kouri started her real estate business, K Richins Realty LLC, in 2019. She began to buy homes, fix them up, and sell them for profit. As the business picked up, according to Kouri’s family, Kouri would typically be working on three houses at a time.

“That was what she loved doing,” said Kouri’s friend and marketing director Greg Hall. “Kouri was very successful at what she did.”

The spokesman for Eric’s family, Greg Skordas, told “48 Hours” something different. He says Kouri was not so savvy, and court documents allege that by 2022, Kouri’s business was drowning in millions of dollars of debt.

March-June 2019: “Stolen” funds

Prosecutors allege that in 2019, Kouri began stealing from Eric’s accounts and “misappropriating monies distributed from Eric Richins’ business.” Court documents claim that “without Eric Richins’ knowledge or permission,” Kouri used a “fraudulent” Power of Attorney to execute a $250,000 credit deed of trust on the family home, then withdrew the entire $250,000 from this home equity line of credit.

Kouri’s family insists that Kouri did not steal from Eric, and that Eric was always aware of the family’s finances. “Eric and Kouri sat down every month and did the bills together,” says Lisa Darden. “At all times, Eric knew what was going in and what was coming out.”

November 2020: The Eric Richins Living Trust

Prosecutors say that in late 2020 Eric discovered Kouri had misappropriated his funds. Kouri’s family disputes this claim. However, in November, Eric did meet with an estate planning lawyer, Kristal Bowman-Carter, to make a new estate plan. He created the Eric Richins Living Trust and named his sister, Katie Richins-Benson, trustee. In the case of his death, Katie – not Kouri – would manage his estate.

Bowman-Carter said in a statement filed with the court: “[Eric] told me he had two primary goals. His first goal was to protect him in the short-term from fairly recently discovered and ongoing abuse and misuse of his finances by his wife Kouri Richins. His second was to protect the three young sons he and Kouri had together in the long-term by ensuring that Kouri would never be in a position to manage his property after his death.”

Kouri was not informed about the trust and wouldn’t find out about it until after Eric died.

Early 2022: Kouri Richins allegedly asks for drugs

Prosecutors allege that in early 2022 Kouri Richins asked her housekeeper, referred to in court filings as “C.L.,” to procure fentanyl for her. Court documents say C.L. told investigators she sold fentanyl to Kouri. Court documents also say that phone records show that texts between Kouri and C.L. from January 2 until shortly after Eric’s death were deleted off of Kouri’s phone.

Kouri’s then-defense attorney Skye Lazaro says the evidence isn’t strong enough to prove Kouri ever bought drugs. She says there are no witnesses to confirm what C.L. says, and that C.L., who is a convicted felon, is not credible.

When C.L. spoke to investigators, she “was on probation at the time,” Lazaro said. “I think anytime you have an informant-type situation with promises made… by, you know, law enforcement or prosecutors, it can call into question the veracity of their statements.”

Feb. 14, 2022: A Valentine’s Day poisoning?

Prosecutors say that on Valentine’s Day, 2022, shortly after Kouri gave Eric a sandwich, he broke out in hives and had difficulty breathing. He used his son’s EpiPen and slept. According to the charging document, Eric believed that he had been poisoned, and told a friend that he thought his wife was trying to poison him.

Kouri’s defense denies this version of events in court documents. Documents say Kouri purchased lunch for herself and Eric that day, and that he was simply not feeling well after lunch and went to take a nap. Kouri’s then-lawyer, Skye Lazaro, says that aside from an assertion from the family, there is no evidence to corroborate the claim that Eric was poisoned.

Late February 2022: “Some of the Michael Jackson stuff”

Court documents describe a second alleged transaction between Kouri and her housekeeper, C.L., that took place in late February 2022. According to those documents, C.L. told investigators that Kouri said that the fentanyl pills C.L. previously provided were not strong enough and that Kouri asked for “some of the Michael Jackson stuff.”

Documents say C.L. later conceded that Kouri may have made the Michael Jackson reference during the first request for fentanyl. Skye Lazaro insists that Kouri never made any such reference and never bought drugs from C.L., and that C.L’s stories are inconsistent and unreliable.

“48 Hours” reached out to C.L. for comment, but she did not respond.

March 4, 2022: A tragic death

Summit County Sheriff’s deputies and EMS staff arrived at the Richins’ home in Kamas, Utah, at 3:31 a.m. on March 4. They found Eric Richins deceased. According to court documents, the responding paramedic thought “he’d been dead a while.”

Documents say that at the scene, Kouri told investigators she’d made her husband a cocktail before bed then went to sleep with her son who was having nightmares. She said that when she returned to Eric’s side at around 3 a.m., he was unresponsive, and she called 911.

Eric’s family’s spokesperson, Greg Skordas, describes Eric’s death as “a huge loss … he was this beautiful son and – and brother, and father, and cared about people … cared about everything he was doing.”

March 5, 2022: The $3.9 million mansion

The day after Eric’s death, Kouri Richins closed on a big purchase she’d made for her house flipping business: this $3.9 million, 20,000 square foot mansion in Heber City, Utah. Kouri’s family says Eric was on board with the plan to fix up the house and sell it for a large profit.

“[Kouri] and Eric sat down with an accountant one time,”  Lisa Darden told “48 Hours,” “and he said, if you can get it done and stay under budget, you could walk away with $12 million.”

But according to a search warrant, Eric’s family told investigators that Eric was not happy with the purchase, and that he Kouri were arguing about the property before his death.

“He was on board with supporting his wife,” family spokesman Greg Skordas said. “That doesn’t mean he agreed with it.”

March 6, 2022: A fight breaks out

Two days after Eric’s death, court documents allege, Kouri Richins and Eric’s sister Amy fought at the family home. Prosecutors say Kouri called a locksmith to attempt to access a safe in the house, and Amy objected. Amy allegedly told Kouri that Eric’s property, under the trust, did not belong to Kouri, and Kouri “became enraged” and “punched Amy in the face and neck.”

“I was standing in the middle of them,” says Kouri’s brother DJ. “All they did was push. Both of them were trying to swing over the top of me … so the narrative that’s been pushed that it was, poor Amy got assaulted was nonsense.”

Kouri was charged with assault and later pleaded no contest.

April 2022: Five times the lethal dose

According to court documents, following an autopsy in April 2022 it was determined that Eric had died from an overdose of fentanyl. The medical examiner said that Eric had 15 ng/mL of fentanyl in his blood — and that in other deaths caused by fentanyl, concentrations have been reported as low as 3 ng/mL. This data indicates that the amount of fentanyl Eric ingested was five times the lethal dose.

March 7, 2023: A book to cope with grief

Kouri’s family says that after Eric’s death, Kouri and her sons were grieving. “The boys … lashed out a little bit because they couldn’t quite understand what was going on,” says Kouri’s brother Ronney. “They needed some help and Kouri needed some help.”

To help her sons cope with their grief, according to Kouri and her family, Kouri wrote a children’s book, “Are You With Me?” On March 7, 2023, she self-published the book, which she sold on Amazon. It follows the story of a child who lost his father but is reminded his presence still exists all around. Kouri’s family says it helped her and the boys, and they were on their way to healing.

In April 2022 Kouri promoted the book on a local TV show called “Good Things Utah.” Just a month later, she was arrested for Eric’s murder.

May 8, 2023: Kouri Richins arrested

On May 8, 2023, Kouri Richins was arrested and charged in her husband’s murder. Prosecutors allege that when Kouri made Eric that drink just hours before he died, she deliberately poisoned him with fentanyl she purchased from C.L. She was charged with one first degree felony count of criminal homicide, aggravated murder and three second-degree felony counts involving possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute.

Kouri maintains her innocence. Her family says they suspect that Eric accidentally took something – perhaps a THC gummy, which they say he was known to take – that he didn’t know was laced with fentanyl, and that his death was a tragic accident.

“[The State is] gonna have to prove that she did this, that she got the drugs and that she somehow gave them to him,” Kouri’s then-attorney Skye Lazaro told “48 Hours.” “And unless they can connect those dots, they’re gonna have a hard time proving murder in this case.”

June 12, 2023: Kouri  Richins fights for bail

On June 12, 2023, Kouri Richins appeared publicly in court for the first time to argue for release on bail. Her attorney was hopeful: in order to deny Kouri bail, the state would have to prove substantial evidence existed in the case against her. In the four-hour hearing, prosecutors presented evidence and called several witnesses, including Chris Kotodrimos, a cellphone analyst, and Detective Jeff O’Driscoll, the lead detective on the case.

One of the things analyst Kotodrimos talked about was a report of the Google searches Kouri made in the year after Eric died. The searches include “can FBI find deleted messages” and “what is a lethal dose of fentanyl?” In her cross examination, defense attorney Skye Lazaro pointed out the timing of the Google searches, emphasizing that they were made after Eric Richins’ death. She says they were innocent questions Kouri had about what she was being accused of in this case.

When Detective O’Driscoll took the stand, he told the court about interviews he conducted with C.L. He said C,L. told him the dates and times that Kouri allegedly purchased fentanyl from her. Lazaro maintains that C.L. – who is a convicted felon – is not a credible witness, and that the state does not have the evidence to prove that C.L. ever sold Kouri anything. In her cross-examination, she asked the detective if there were any texts from Kouri or witnesses to corroborate C.L.’s story, and he replied that investigators had not found any.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the judge denied Kouri Richins’ request for bail. She will remain in custody until her trial.

Nov. 3, 2023: Accusations of witness tampering

This unsent letter, found in Kouri’s jail cell, has become known as the “walk the dog” letter for the words scrawled at the top of the page. Its contents have become a point of controversy in the case. Prosecutors argued it’s evidence that Kouri was involved in witness tampering.

In the letter, prosecutors alleged, Kouri writes to her mother and gives her instructions on what her brother, Ronney, should say in court. She writes that her defense case needs “some kind of connection” between Eric and drugs. She says, “Here is what I’m thinking but you have to talk to Ronney. He would probably have to testify to this, but it’s super short not a lot to it.” She appears to tell her mother to tell Ronney to recount a story where “Eric told Ronney he gets pain pills & fentanyl from Mexico”.

On Nov. 3, 2023, prosecutors brought to court a motion for no contact, asking the judge to restrict Kouri’s communication with her mother and brother Ronney.

Kouri’s then-attorney, Skye Lazaro, argued that the letter wasn’t witness tampering. “It isn’t witness tampering,” she told “48 Hours,” “… ’cause it didn’t go anywhere and it was never communicated to anyone.” She says the document was private and should never have been released. The judge denied the state’s motion, saying prosecutors had failed to prove witness tampering.

Kouri Richins trial

On Nov. 12, 2024, a judge denied bail for Klouri Richins a second time, ordering the Utah mom to remain in jail until she goes on trial in the death of her husband.  Opening arguments in her trial began on Feb. 23, 2026 in Park City, Utah,.

A guilty verdict

On March 17, 2026, Kouri Richins was found guilty on all charges, including aggravated murder. Her sentencing is scheduled for May 13.  She faces the possibility of life in prison.

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SACRAMENTO — The Utah Jazz have just 14 games left to play in the 2025-26 regular season. Since the Jazz won’t be going to the playoffs and they aren’t trying to win games, it can be a little hard to know what to root for, so I’m here to help.

Root for the young guys

You can still root for small accomplishments and development for the players on the Jazz roster. The hope is that Ace Bailey’s concussion symptoms don’t last too long and that he’ll be able to play again. Root for some big nights from him, the chance for more plays to be called for him and for him to take on a bigger role in the final days of the season.

The same can be said for Cody Williams, who has shown some signs of improvement recently. The Jazz would be overjoyed if he gained even more confidence and opened up his game more as the team heads into the offseason.

Even if there isn’t enough development or promise to make you confident in a player being a part of the Jazz’s future, a good showing throughout the rest of the season could make a player a more valuable asset to be used in an offseason trade. So, good performances are always a welcomed sight.

Root for Jazz losses

This needs little explanation. The Jazz want to keep their pick in the upcoming draft and the only way to increase their chances of doing so is to lose as many games as possible.

Two ways to quell the sting of rooting for losses are; embrace the hilarity of the situation; or, root for the other team to win.

Root for other teams to win

This is where your rooting interests can get interesting. Any win for the Sacramento Kings, Indiana Pacers, Washington Wizards and Brooklyn Nets would be great for the Jazz. Those are the teams that currently have worse records than the Jazz do, so they are competing for lottery odds. If the Jazz could possibly end up with a worse record than any four of those teams it would be great.

Notably, if the Jazz have one of the four worst records at the end of the season it guarantees that they keep their pick.

There are also a couple of teams that are dangerously close to the Jazz in the standings and if they go into a free fall in this last stretch of the season, it would mean more lottery competition for the Jazz. So, you also want the Dallas Mavericks, New Orleans Pelicans and Memphis Grizzlies to win games.

Root for yourself

This is the option that would probably give you the most peace of mind. You don’t have to watch these games that feature bad teams playing bad basketball. You can tune out. You can check the standings and check back on May 10 for the draft lottery results and then again in late June for the 2026 NBA Draft.

In between, enjoy March Madness, enjoy the NBA playoffs, and think about the Jazz getting a high pick and finally trying to win games when the 2026-27 season begins.

Updated March 16, 2026, 11:07 p.m. ET

A Utah jury convicted Kouri Richins of murder Monday after a weekslong trial in which prosecutors accused the children’s grief author and mother of three of fatally poisoning her husband with fentanyl.

Richins, 35, was found guilty of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, fraud and forgery in a unanimous verdict.

Richins, wearing a floral blouse, lowered her head as the judge read the verdict. Her sentencing was scheduled for May.

Richins‘ trial was expected to last through March 26, but it concluded Monday with closing arguments. She did not testify, and her defense team rested without calling any witnesses.

Speaking outside the court after the verdict was read, Amy Richins, Eric’s sister, said her family was grateful to everyone who worked to bring justice to the case.

“Our focus is now on honoring Eric’s life and supporting his voice as we all continue to heal,” she said.

Richins was arrested in May 2023, a little over a year after Eric Richins died in their home on March 4, 2022. She told investigators that she had made him a drink to mark her recent sale of a property for her real estate business and found him unresponsive in their bedroom.

A medical examiner said Eric, 39, had five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in his system when he died, according to court documents. The medical examiner said that the drug had been orally ingested and that it was “illicit” and not medical-grade fentanyl.

A year after Eric’s death, Richins wrote a children’s book about grief, which she dedicated to her “amazing” husband.

“For nearly three years, the public has heard accusations about Kouri. Those accusations created a narrative that spread far beyond this courtroom,” Richins’ attorneys, Wendy Lewis, Kathy Nester and Alex Ramos, said in a statement Monday after closing statements.

“But in court, accusations are not enough. The law requires proof. … Kouri has maintained her innocence from the very beginning. … Kouri should finally be able to go home to her three young boys and begin rebuilding her life.”

Prosecutors called more than 40 witnesses, including Eric’s friends and family, investigators and a housekeeper who testified about selling Richins fentanyl pills.

The housekeeper’s testimony was pivotal. Carmen Lauber, who cleaned a home for Richins, told the court that she sold pills to her multiple times in early 2022.

After Eric’s death, Lauber said, she talked to Richins over the phone.

“I said, ‘Please tell me these pills were not for him.’ She said: ‘No they were not. Eric passed away from a brain aneurysm,’” Lauber told the court.

She testified that investigators eventually told her that Eric had died from an overdose.

“That hit hard,” she said. “Only for the fact that if that’s what happened, I needed to step up and take accountability of my part in this.”

“At first, it took a minute to process everything,” she said, wiping away tears.

The prosecution also called Richins’ former boyfriend as a witness. Robert Josh Grossman became emotional as he testified about their affair and hopes of a future together. He told the court that the relationship ended a few months after Eric’s death and that at the time, he didn’t believe she was involved.