August 6, 2025 • 16 mins
Reid Carter exposes the twisted tale of Kouri Richins, the Utah mom who allegedly poisoned her husband Eric with a fentanyl-laced Moscow Mule, then wrote a children's grief book while planning to profit from his $5 million estate. With $3 million in debt and a secret lover, she allegedly tried to kill him on Valentine's Day first, then succeeded two weeks later. Plus, the Jordan Palmer murder trial in Montana where jurors are so intimidated by the victim's family they want secure parking, and a bungled investigation that might derail the entire case. Google searches, poison cocktails, and justice delayed.
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Become a premium subscriber! (no ads and no feed drops). For Apple users, hit the banner on your Apple podcasts app which says UNINTERRUPTED LISTENING. You also get 25+ other series from comedy to paranormal, royals, romance, trivia, politics, movies, music, murder, sports, travel, religion, spirituality, celebrity gossip and feuds, consisting of THOUSANDS OF SHOWS AD-FREE! (it’s only $4.99 a month with a free-trial month) PLUS, subscribers get offers like early show releases and subscriber-only shows. Go to Caloroga.com for all our shows!
Join our new FB groups page here. Take the poll!
Join the Celebrity Trials community on social media! We're building a passionate group of true crime enthusiasts who love diving deep into the most shocking cases in America.
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram by searching "Celebrity Trials Podcast" on either platform.
You'll get exclusive behind-the-scenes content, breaking news updates on cases we're covering, and early alerts when new episodes drop. Our social media is where Reid Carter's hottest takes live, including reactions that don't make it into the show.
But more importantly, it's where YOU come in. Share your theories, debate the verdicts, and connect with fellow listeners who are just as obsessed with justice as you are. Did the jury get it right? What questions do you still have? Your comments and insights often shape future episodes.
We cover the trials that matter, but our community makes the conversation unforgettable. Come for Reid's signature cynical commentary, stay for the incredible discussions with thousands of true crime fans who get it.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Callaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm read Carter, and welcome
to celebrity trials. You know what takes a special kind
of evil Killing your husband with fentanyl then writing a
children's book about grief to profit off his death. That's
exactly what prosecutors say Corey Richins did, and her trial
(00:26):
is finally set for February twenty twenty six. Today we're
diving deep into this twisted tale of poison prophet and
a mother who allegedly turned murder into a marketing opportunity.
But first, a quick update on yesterday's Tennessee terror. Austin
Drummond is finally in custody. Remember Austin Robert Drummond, the
(00:52):
monster we told you about yesterday who allegedly murdered four
family members but left baby Westland alive on a stranger's lawn. Well,
justice moved fast on this one. Jackson, Tennessee police arrested
Drummond on Tuesday after residents reported seeing him in their
neighborhood carrying a rifle. Police warned everyone to stay inside,
and shortly after they had him in custody. No dramatic shootout,
(01:15):
no suicide by cop, just handcuffs and a jail cell
where he belongs. This piece of garbage is facing four
counts of first degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, and weapons charges.
His two buddies, Tanaka Brown and Giovante Thomas, are already
locked up for helping him after the murders. Good riddance. Now,
(01:36):
let's talk about a killer who's been waiting two years
for her day in court, the Moscow mule murderer. Coury
Richins had it all figured out, or at least she
thought she did kill your husband with a fentanyl laced
moscow mule, Collect the life insurance, pay off your three
million dollars in debt, and ride off into the sunset
(01:58):
with your side piece. Oh and right, O children's book
about grief to make yourself look like the sympathetic widow. Folks,
I've covered a lot of cases, but the audacity of
this woman takes my breath away. Let me paint you
the picture of what prosecutors say really happened in that
house in commas Utah. Back in March twenty twenty two,
(02:19):
Eric Richins was a successful stonemason worth about five million dollars.
Corey was a real estate agent, drowning in debt from
her house flipping business. She owed over three point one
million dollars, had exhausted her bank accounts, and was spiraling
toward total financial collapse, according to prosecutors, but Eric had
(02:39):
made a fatal mistake. He'd signed a prenup that said
if he died while they were married, everything would go
to Coury, and that, prosecutor say, is when Coury decided
her husband was worth more dead than alive. Here's the
timeline of premeditated evil. In January twenty twenty two, Coory
starts asking around for drugs. First, she hits up her housekeeper,
(03:01):
Carmen Lauber, asking for pain meds for an investor with
a back injury. She pays nine hundred dollars for some hydrocodone,
but that's not strong enough, so on February eleventh, she
goes back to the housekeeper asking for some of the
Michael Jackson stuff. That's right, she literally asked for the
drug that killed Michael Jackson. The housekeeper gives her fifteen
(03:22):
to twenty fentanyl pills for another nine hundred dollars. Three
days later, on Valentine's Day, Corey makes her first attempt
She buys her husband his favorite sandwich, spikes it with fentanyl,
leaves it in his truck with a love note, then
goes to spend the day with her boyfriend. Eric takes
one bite and breaks out in hives. Can't Breathe has
(03:43):
to use his son's EpiPen and downs a bottle of benadrille.
He tells a friend, I think my wife tried to
poison me. But here's where Corey shows her true evil genius.
She learns from her mistake. As Prosecutor Brad Bludworth put it,
she learns the one bite in the sandwich isn't enough.
It has to be administered at once, and it has
(04:04):
to be a lot. So she goes back to the
housekeeper on February twenty sixth for another nine hundred dollars
worth of fentanyl. But that's not all. Prosecutors now say
she was also asking a handyman working on her properties
for both fentanyl and propofol. This woman was shopping for
murder weapons like they were on Amazon Prime. On March third,
(04:27):
twenty twenty two, Courriy and Eric are supposedly celebrating the
closing of a house deal. She makes him a moscow
mule in the kitchen and brings it to their bedroom.
But this wasn't just any moscow mule. Prosecutors say she
mixed it as a lemon shot so Eric would throw
it back all at once. By three twenty two am
(04:48):
on March fourth, Eric Richins was dead five times the
lethal dose of fentanyl in his system twenty thousand nanograms
per milli leader still in his stomach. And get this,
Coury closed on that mansion property the next day. Her
husband's not even cold, and she's signing real estate deals.
(05:09):
The grief grifter. But wait, it gets worse, because killing
your husband is apparently just step one in Corey's master plan.
Step two become a sympathetic public figure. One year later,
in March twenty twenty three, Coory self publishes a children's
book called Are You with Me? It's about a father
(05:31):
with angel wings watching over his son after death. She
goes on local TV promoting it, talking about helping children
process grief. The woman who allegedly murdered her husband with
fentanyl is on morning television teaching people about coping with loss.
The absolute narcissism is staggering, and her google searches. Oh,
they tell a story. Prosecutors found searches for if someone
(05:55):
is poisoned, what does it go down on the death certificate?
As how long does life insurance companies take to pay?
What is a lethal dose of fentanyl? Luxury prisons for
the rich in America? Can cops force you to do
a lie detector test? She even searched death certificate says
pending will life insurance still pay? This isn't a grieving widow.
(06:19):
This is a killer checking to make sure her payday
is coming. Let's talk about the money, because that's what
this is really about. Coory wasn't just in debt. She
was in a financial death spiral of her own making.
In twenty nineteen, she discovered an abandoned twenty thousand square
foot mansion in Haber City, near Park City prime real estate.
(06:41):
She and some investors made an offer for three point
nine million dollars. Her mother says if they could flip
it successfully, they stood to make twelve million dollars, but
Eric didn't want her to buy it. His family says
they were arguing about it constantly. Corey didn't care. She
was determined to make this deal happen, and she needed money,
lots of it, So what does she do? She starts
(07:04):
stealing from her husband, opens a two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars line of credit on his house without his knowledge,
forging his signature, takes one hundred thousand dollars from his
bank accounts, borrows thirty thousand dollars on his credit cards
using fraudulent power of attorney. When Eric discovers this in
twenty twenty, he's had enough. He consults divorce lawyers and
(07:24):
estate planning attorneys. He changes his will, creates the Eric
Richms Living Trust, and puts his sister in charge of
his estate for the benefit of his kids. He changes
his life insurance beneficiary from Coury to his business partner.
Corey's golden goose is about to fly away, and she
knows it. In January twenty twenty two, she tries to
(07:44):
change the beneficiary on Eric's two million dollar life insurance
policy to herself without authorization. The insurance company catches it
and reverses the change. She even tries to change Eric's
business partner's policy to make herself the beneficial. The woman
has no limits. By March twenty twenty two, she's desperate
(08:06):
her house flipping business is hemorrhaging money two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars in monthly debt against one hundred and
seventy thousand dollars in revenue. She's trying to close on
this mansion with two point nine million dollars in debt
due in six months, and she has no way to
pay it. That's when Eric's Moscow mule became his death warrant.
(08:26):
Back in a moment, Welcome back to celebrity trials. I'm
read Carter, and we're exposing how Corey Richins allegedly turned
her husband into a fentanyl casualty and herself into a
(08:47):
grief influencer. So what's Corey's defense to all this overwhelming evidence?
Get ready for this? She claims Eric must have taken
a fentanyl laced gummy by accident. Right, the successful business
man with no history of drug use just happened to
eat a gummy with five times the lethal dose of
fentanyl on the same night his wife needed him dead
(09:08):
to close a real estate deal. Sure, Corey, but it
gets even more ridiculous. Remember that Walk the Dog letter
prosecutors found, where Corey was allegedly telling family members how
to testify her lawyers claim it's part of a fictional novel.
She's writing about a stay in a Mexican prison, a
fictional novel while you're in jail for murder about Mexican prison.
(09:30):
You can't make this stuff up. Oh and about her paramour,
the guy she was texting, life is going to be different.
I promise hang in there until Friday, right before Eric died.
Her lawyers say she was talking about divorce, not murder, really,
because she texted him the day after the Valentine's Day
poisoning attempt saying if he could just go away, life
(09:51):
would be so perfect. That doesn't sound like divorce. Talk
to me, that sounds like someone who wants their husband
gone permanently. Vents has also tried to get the case
thrown out, claiming all the media coverage means she can't
get a fair trial. They even wanted to move it
to Salt Lake City. The judge said no. Nearly eighty
percent of Summit County residents know about this case, but
(10:14):
that's what happens when you allegedly murder your husband and
then go on TV to promote your grief book. Justice delayed.
Courriy Richens has been sitting in jail since May twenty
twenty three, no bail, and she won't see a jury
until February twenty twenty six. That's almost three years behind
(10:35):
bars before her trial even starts. Her lawyers keep filing
motions she wants bail so she can live with her
brother in Salt Lake County. She claims she's taking college courses, history, art, parenting,
even botany. She's enrolled in paralegal studies and an MBA program.
She says her relationship with her three kids is being
(10:56):
damaged because she can't talk to them. Crimea River. Those
kids don't have a father because you allegedly poisoned him
for money, and the charges keep piling up. Last month,
prosecutors hit her with twenty six new financial crime charges
mortgage fraud, money laundering, forgery, bad checks. Turns out she
wasn't just poisoning her husband, she was also allegedly running
(11:19):
a one woman financial crime spree. The trial is set
for five weeks starting February twenty third, twenty twenty six.
Prosecutors plan to show how she bought fentanyel from multiple sources,
attempted murder on Valentine's Day, learned from her failure and
then succeeded two weeks later. They'll show her Google searches,
(11:40):
her text messages to her boyfriend, her desperate financial situation,
and Corey, she'll sit there and claim it's all a misunderstanding,
that Eric took drugs by accident, that she's being persecuted,
that her grief book proves she's innocent. But here's what
really gets me. This woman thought she was clever enough
to get away with murder. She thought she could poison
(12:02):
her husband, play the grieving widow, write a children's book,
and walk away with millions. She thought she was smarter
than everyone else. Well, Corey, you're about to learn what
happens when you underestimate prosecutors, forensic science, and the basic
decency of people who don't think murder is a financial
planning strategy. Now let's head to Montana, where another murder
(12:36):
trial is underway, and this one's got the jury so
scared they want secure parking. Jordan Palmer is on trial
for shooting his neighbor, Stephen Campbell seven times in April
twenty twenty four. Palmer says it was self defense, the
prosecution says it was murder, and the jury they're apparently
terrified of the victim's family. Here's what happened. Palmer found
(12:57):
some mail on the road and decided to be a
good neighbor and liver to the right address. But when
Stephen Campbell saw him approaching, Campbell accused Palmer of breaking
into cars. Campbell was drunk, and I mean drunk. His
blood alcohol was point three to zero one three times
the legal limit. He also had ketamine and other drugs
in his system. Palmer says Campbell threatened him and started swinging,
(13:20):
so he shot him seven times in one point four
to six seven seconds. Campbell died with a closed knife
in his pocket that police didn't even bother to collect
his evidence. But here's where this trial goes off the rails.
Campbell's family has been showing up to court wearing Justice
for Stephen t shirts, and the jury is freaking out.
(13:42):
They told the judge they feel intimidated and wants secure
parking because they're uncomfortable being around the family. Think about that,
the jury is so scared of the victim's family that
they might not be able to be fair. The judge
is now questioning each juror individually to see if they
can still be in part Marshall, if not mistrial. The
(14:02):
judge has implemented security measures separate parking for jurors, deputies
escorting them. Family members with car decals have to park
with prosecutors. But the damage might already be done, and
the investigation it was a mess. The lead detective admitted
he'd never worked a homicide before. They didn't preserve the
knife as evidence because it was closed. They lost photos
(14:26):
of bullet holes in a software migration. The detective didn't
even review the nine to one one call or Campbell's
clothing before charging Palmer with deliberate homicide. Oh and that
video everyone keeps talking about, the one that supposedly shows
Palmer shooting Campbell without provocation. A defense expert says it's
so compressed and corrupted you can't tell anything from it.
(14:46):
Can't see if Campbell swung, can't see movement, can't see
anything decisive. This case is a perfect storm of bad investigation,
intimidated jurors, and questionable evidence. And somewhere in the middle
is joy Ordan Palmer, who either murdered his neighbor over
returned mail or defended himself against a drunk, aggressive man
(15:07):
who attacked him. The jury still out literally, but if
they can't get past their fear of Campbell's family, this
whole trial might be over before it really begins. You
know what connects today's cases People who thought they had
it all figured out. Corey Richins thought she had the
(15:28):
perfect murder plan, poison the husband, collect the insurance, write
a grief book, live happily ever after with the boyfriend.
She didn't count on forensic science, digital footprints, and prosecutors
who know how to connect the dots. Jordan Palmer thought
he was doing the right thing returning mail. He ended
up shooting a man seven times and now faces life
(15:50):
in prison. Whether it was self defense or murder seven
bullets is hard to explain. Away and Stephen Campbell he
thought he was confronting a car burglar. His point three
zero one blood alcohol level and drug cocktail made him
aggressive enough to start a fight that ended his life.
Bad decisions, fatal consequences, and families destroyed. That's it for today.
(16:14):
But remember this. If you're thinking about poisoning your spouse
for money, don't. If you're thinking about confronting strangers while
drunken high, don't, And if you're carrying a gun and
someone swings at you. Maybe seven shots is six too many.
I'm read Carter with celebrity trials. Don't poison your spouse,
don't write grief books if you're the killer, and for
(16:36):
God's sake, don't google what is a lethal dose of
fentanyl on your personal phone. Justice isn't always fast, but
Google search history is forever. See you tomorrow,
Callaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm read Carter, and welcome
to celebrity trials. You know what takes a special kind
of evil Killing your husband with fentanyl then writing a
children's book about grief to profit off his death. That's
exactly what prosecutors say Corey Richins did, and her trial
(00:26):
is finally set for February twenty twenty six. Today we're
diving deep into this twisted tale of poison prophet and
a mother who allegedly turned murder into a marketing opportunity.
But first, a quick update on yesterday's Tennessee terror. Austin
Drummond is finally in custody. Remember Austin Robert Drummond, the
(00:52):
monster we told you about yesterday who allegedly murdered four
family members but left baby Westland alive on a stranger's lawn. Well,
justice moved fast on this one. Jackson, Tennessee police arrested
Drummond on Tuesday after residents reported seeing him in their
neighborhood carrying a rifle. Police warned everyone to stay inside,
and shortly after they had him in custody. No dramatic shootout,
(01:15):
no suicide by cop, just handcuffs and a jail cell
where he belongs. This piece of garbage is facing four
counts of first degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, and weapons charges.
His two buddies, Tanaka Brown and Giovante Thomas, are already
locked up for helping him after the murders. Good riddance. Now,
(01:36):
let's talk about a killer who's been waiting two years
for her day in court, the Moscow mule murderer. Coury
Richins had it all figured out, or at least she
thought she did kill your husband with a fentanyl laced
moscow mule, Collect the life insurance, pay off your three
million dollars in debt, and ride off into the sunset
(01:58):
with your side piece. Oh and right, O children's book
about grief to make yourself look like the sympathetic widow. Folks,
I've covered a lot of cases, but the audacity of
this woman takes my breath away. Let me paint you
the picture of what prosecutors say really happened in that
house in commas Utah. Back in March twenty twenty two,
(02:19):
Eric Richins was a successful stonemason worth about five million dollars.
Corey was a real estate agent, drowning in debt from
her house flipping business. She owed over three point one
million dollars, had exhausted her bank accounts, and was spiraling
toward total financial collapse, according to prosecutors, but Eric had
(02:39):
made a fatal mistake. He'd signed a prenup that said
if he died while they were married, everything would go
to Coury, and that, prosecutor say, is when Coury decided
her husband was worth more dead than alive. Here's the
timeline of premeditated evil. In January twenty twenty two, Coory
starts asking around for drugs. First, she hits up her housekeeper,
(03:01):
Carmen Lauber, asking for pain meds for an investor with
a back injury. She pays nine hundred dollars for some hydrocodone,
but that's not strong enough, so on February eleventh, she
goes back to the housekeeper asking for some of the
Michael Jackson stuff. That's right, she literally asked for the
drug that killed Michael Jackson. The housekeeper gives her fifteen
(03:22):
to twenty fentanyl pills for another nine hundred dollars. Three
days later, on Valentine's Day, Corey makes her first attempt
She buys her husband his favorite sandwich, spikes it with fentanyl,
leaves it in his truck with a love note, then
goes to spend the day with her boyfriend. Eric takes
one bite and breaks out in hives. Can't Breathe has
(03:43):
to use his son's EpiPen and downs a bottle of benadrille.
He tells a friend, I think my wife tried to
poison me. But here's where Corey shows her true evil genius.
She learns from her mistake. As Prosecutor Brad Bludworth put it,
she learns the one bite in the sandwich isn't enough.
It has to be administered at once, and it has
(04:04):
to be a lot. So she goes back to the
housekeeper on February twenty sixth for another nine hundred dollars
worth of fentanyl. But that's not all. Prosecutors now say
she was also asking a handyman working on her properties
for both fentanyl and propofol. This woman was shopping for
murder weapons like they were on Amazon Prime. On March third,
(04:27):
twenty twenty two, Courriy and Eric are supposedly celebrating the
closing of a house deal. She makes him a moscow
mule in the kitchen and brings it to their bedroom.
But this wasn't just any moscow mule. Prosecutors say she
mixed it as a lemon shot so Eric would throw
it back all at once. By three twenty two am
(04:48):
on March fourth, Eric Richins was dead five times the
lethal dose of fentanyl in his system twenty thousand nanograms
per milli leader still in his stomach. And get this,
Coury closed on that mansion property the next day. Her
husband's not even cold, and she's signing real estate deals.
(05:09):
The grief grifter. But wait, it gets worse, because killing
your husband is apparently just step one in Corey's master plan.
Step two become a sympathetic public figure. One year later,
in March twenty twenty three, Coory self publishes a children's
book called Are You with Me? It's about a father
(05:31):
with angel wings watching over his son after death. She
goes on local TV promoting it, talking about helping children
process grief. The woman who allegedly murdered her husband with
fentanyl is on morning television teaching people about coping with loss.
The absolute narcissism is staggering, and her google searches. Oh,
they tell a story. Prosecutors found searches for if someone
(05:55):
is poisoned, what does it go down on the death certificate?
As how long does life insurance companies take to pay?
What is a lethal dose of fentanyl? Luxury prisons for
the rich in America? Can cops force you to do
a lie detector test? She even searched death certificate says
pending will life insurance still pay? This isn't a grieving widow.
(06:19):
This is a killer checking to make sure her payday
is coming. Let's talk about the money, because that's what
this is really about. Coory wasn't just in debt. She
was in a financial death spiral of her own making.
In twenty nineteen, she discovered an abandoned twenty thousand square
foot mansion in Haber City, near Park City prime real estate.
(06:41):
She and some investors made an offer for three point
nine million dollars. Her mother says if they could flip
it successfully, they stood to make twelve million dollars, but
Eric didn't want her to buy it. His family says
they were arguing about it constantly. Corey didn't care. She
was determined to make this deal happen, and she needed money,
lots of it, So what does she do? She starts
(07:04):
stealing from her husband, opens a two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars line of credit on his house without his knowledge,
forging his signature, takes one hundred thousand dollars from his
bank accounts, borrows thirty thousand dollars on his credit cards
using fraudulent power of attorney. When Eric discovers this in
twenty twenty, he's had enough. He consults divorce lawyers and
(07:24):
estate planning attorneys. He changes his will, creates the Eric
Richms Living Trust, and puts his sister in charge of
his estate for the benefit of his kids. He changes
his life insurance beneficiary from Coury to his business partner.
Corey's golden goose is about to fly away, and she
knows it. In January twenty twenty two, she tries to
(07:44):
change the beneficiary on Eric's two million dollar life insurance
policy to herself without authorization. The insurance company catches it
and reverses the change. She even tries to change Eric's
business partner's policy to make herself the beneficial. The woman
has no limits. By March twenty twenty two, she's desperate
(08:06):
her house flipping business is hemorrhaging money two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars in monthly debt against one hundred and
seventy thousand dollars in revenue. She's trying to close on
this mansion with two point nine million dollars in debt
due in six months, and she has no way to
pay it. That's when Eric's Moscow mule became his death warrant.
(08:26):
Back in a moment, Welcome back to celebrity trials. I'm
read Carter, and we're exposing how Corey Richins allegedly turned
her husband into a fentanyl casualty and herself into a
(08:47):
grief influencer. So what's Corey's defense to all this overwhelming evidence?
Get ready for this? She claims Eric must have taken
a fentanyl laced gummy by accident. Right, the successful business
man with no history of drug use just happened to
eat a gummy with five times the lethal dose of
fentanyl on the same night his wife needed him dead
(09:08):
to close a real estate deal. Sure, Corey, but it
gets even more ridiculous. Remember that Walk the Dog letter
prosecutors found, where Corey was allegedly telling family members how
to testify her lawyers claim it's part of a fictional novel.
She's writing about a stay in a Mexican prison, a
fictional novel while you're in jail for murder about Mexican prison.
(09:30):
You can't make this stuff up. Oh and about her paramour,
the guy she was texting, life is going to be different.
I promise hang in there until Friday, right before Eric died.
Her lawyers say she was talking about divorce, not murder, really,
because she texted him the day after the Valentine's Day
poisoning attempt saying if he could just go away, life
(09:51):
would be so perfect. That doesn't sound like divorce. Talk
to me, that sounds like someone who wants their husband
gone permanently. Vents has also tried to get the case
thrown out, claiming all the media coverage means she can't
get a fair trial. They even wanted to move it
to Salt Lake City. The judge said no. Nearly eighty
percent of Summit County residents know about this case, but
(10:14):
that's what happens when you allegedly murder your husband and
then go on TV to promote your grief book. Justice delayed.
Courriy Richens has been sitting in jail since May twenty
twenty three, no bail, and she won't see a jury
until February twenty twenty six. That's almost three years behind
(10:35):
bars before her trial even starts. Her lawyers keep filing
motions she wants bail so she can live with her
brother in Salt Lake County. She claims she's taking college courses, history, art, parenting,
even botany. She's enrolled in paralegal studies and an MBA program.
She says her relationship with her three kids is being
(10:56):
damaged because she can't talk to them. Crimea River. Those
kids don't have a father because you allegedly poisoned him
for money, and the charges keep piling up. Last month,
prosecutors hit her with twenty six new financial crime charges
mortgage fraud, money laundering, forgery, bad checks. Turns out she
wasn't just poisoning her husband, she was also allegedly running
(11:19):
a one woman financial crime spree. The trial is set
for five weeks starting February twenty third, twenty twenty six.
Prosecutors plan to show how she bought fentanyel from multiple sources,
attempted murder on Valentine's Day, learned from her failure and
then succeeded two weeks later. They'll show her Google searches,
(11:40):
her text messages to her boyfriend, her desperate financial situation,
and Corey, she'll sit there and claim it's all a misunderstanding,
that Eric took drugs by accident, that she's being persecuted,
that her grief book proves she's innocent. But here's what
really gets me. This woman thought she was clever enough
to get away with murder. She thought she could poison
(12:02):
her husband, play the grieving widow, write a children's book,
and walk away with millions. She thought she was smarter
than everyone else. Well, Corey, you're about to learn what
happens when you underestimate prosecutors, forensic science, and the basic
decency of people who don't think murder is a financial
planning strategy. Now let's head to Montana, where another murder
(12:36):
trial is underway, and this one's got the jury so
scared they want secure parking. Jordan Palmer is on trial
for shooting his neighbor, Stephen Campbell seven times in April
twenty twenty four. Palmer says it was self defense, the
prosecution says it was murder, and the jury they're apparently
terrified of the victim's family. Here's what happened. Palmer found
(12:57):
some mail on the road and decided to be a
good neighbor and liver to the right address. But when
Stephen Campbell saw him approaching, Campbell accused Palmer of breaking
into cars. Campbell was drunk, and I mean drunk. His
blood alcohol was point three to zero one three times
the legal limit. He also had ketamine and other drugs
in his system. Palmer says Campbell threatened him and started swinging,
(13:20):
so he shot him seven times in one point four
to six seven seconds. Campbell died with a closed knife
in his pocket that police didn't even bother to collect
his evidence. But here's where this trial goes off the rails.
Campbell's family has been showing up to court wearing Justice
for Stephen t shirts, and the jury is freaking out.
(13:42):
They told the judge they feel intimidated and wants secure
parking because they're uncomfortable being around the family. Think about that,
the jury is so scared of the victim's family that
they might not be able to be fair. The judge
is now questioning each juror individually to see if they
can still be in part Marshall, if not mistrial. The
(14:02):
judge has implemented security measures separate parking for jurors, deputies
escorting them. Family members with car decals have to park
with prosecutors. But the damage might already be done, and
the investigation it was a mess. The lead detective admitted
he'd never worked a homicide before. They didn't preserve the
knife as evidence because it was closed. They lost photos
(14:26):
of bullet holes in a software migration. The detective didn't
even review the nine to one one call or Campbell's
clothing before charging Palmer with deliberate homicide. Oh and that
video everyone keeps talking about, the one that supposedly shows
Palmer shooting Campbell without provocation. A defense expert says it's
so compressed and corrupted you can't tell anything from it.
(14:46):
Can't see if Campbell swung, can't see movement, can't see
anything decisive. This case is a perfect storm of bad investigation,
intimidated jurors, and questionable evidence. And somewhere in the middle
is joy Ordan Palmer, who either murdered his neighbor over
returned mail or defended himself against a drunk, aggressive man
(15:07):
who attacked him. The jury still out literally, but if
they can't get past their fear of Campbell's family, this
whole trial might be over before it really begins. You
know what connects today's cases People who thought they had
it all figured out. Corey Richins thought she had the
(15:28):
perfect murder plan, poison the husband, collect the insurance, write
a grief book, live happily ever after with the boyfriend.
She didn't count on forensic science, digital footprints, and prosecutors
who know how to connect the dots. Jordan Palmer thought
he was doing the right thing returning mail. He ended
up shooting a man seven times and now faces life
(15:50):
in prison. Whether it was self defense or murder seven
bullets is hard to explain. Away and Stephen Campbell he
thought he was confronting a car burglar. His point three
zero one blood alcohol level and drug cocktail made him
aggressive enough to start a fight that ended his life.
Bad decisions, fatal consequences, and families destroyed. That's it for today.
(16:14):
But remember this. If you're thinking about poisoning your spouse
for money, don't. If you're thinking about confronting strangers while
drunken high, don't, And if you're carrying a gun and
someone swings at you. Maybe seven shots is six too many.
I'm read Carter with celebrity trials. Don't poison your spouse,
don't write grief books if you're the killer, and for
(16:36):
God's sake, don't google what is a lethal dose of
fentanyl on your personal phone. Justice isn't always fast, but
Google search history is forever. See you tomorrow,
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