A CHILDREN’S book author accused of murder “hid the truth” about her husband’s death with “defensive” body language in a TV interview, an expert has said.
Kouri Richins, 33, appeared on a daytime show to discuss how she overcame grief with her therapeutic book a year after allegedly poisoning her husband Eric with a fentanyl-laced Moscow Mule.
“We don’t feel her underlying passion about the messaging when she’s talking about her children,” internationally acclaimed body language expert Patti Wood exclusively told The U.S. Sun after watching the interview.
“She doesn’t smile. She doesn’t talk about it. She doesn’t move forward towards the host… It’s more rote and automatic, which could be grief and loss, but it’s more than anything detachment from what she’s talking about.”
Summit County deputies arrived at the couple’s Utah home after 3am on March 4, 2022, and discovered Eric, 39, dead in their bedroom.
Kouri, a real estate agent, told officials at the time that he had taken a THC gummy and enjoyed the cocktail she made him in bed while they celebrated a home she had recently closed.
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Later that night, one of their three sons had a night terror and she left to go be with him, she told cops.
She said that she returned to their bedroom, noticed that his body was cold, and called police.
One year later, Richins sat down with local ABC affiliate KTVX for a segment called Good Things Utah to promote her book detailing the loss.
Richins described her husband’s death as unexpected and said that it deeply impacted her and her three boys.
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She said grieving was about “making sure that their spirit is always alive in your home.”
“It’s – you know – explaining to my kid, just because he’s not present here with us physically, doesn’t mean his presence isn’t here with us,” she told the hosts.
Richins explained that she introduced the “three C’s” to her children throughout the past year, connection, continuity, and care, to help them process the loss of their dad.
The hosts plugged a promotional giveaway of the children’s book, which has now been removed from Amazon‘s website.
Wood found that Richins said the phrase “you know” upwards of 40 times throughout the interview, which could have been a secret ploy to protect herself, the body language expert said.
Wood, who has been called the “gold standard” of body language experts, acknowledged that this could have just been part of her normal speech patterns.
She went on to say that it might have been a desperate cry to be heard by those in the room.
However, the expert also noted that phrases that “cut up communication” can reveal a “lack of honesty.”
“So when you make a definitive statement, typically when you’re telling the truth, there’s strength and delivery that goes from the first word to the end of the sentence,” Wood told The U.S. Sun.
“When you’re saying it and there’s no interruption, that’s one of the indications of a true statement.
“So when you have an interrupter like ‘you know,’ it’s breaking up a sentence. It makes it easier for you to lie.
“It’s not a straight-off indication of deceit, but it does make it easier because it’s harder for (the listener) to distinguish.”
OUTFIT ‘PROTECTED’ KOURI
Wood went on to analyze Kouri’s outfit and the way that she positioned herself during the interview.
The mom-of-three donned a brown hooded leather jacket and dark jeans and sat with her hands gripping her crossed legs.
“That is not standard for an interview,” Wood said. “I would think that they would’ve told her some things that would be normal to wear.”
“You don’t wear heavy things. You don’t wear the color brown, you don’t wear hooded wear, but what it does do is it protects her.”
By wearing thick fabric with long sleeves, Kouri can “hide and protect” herself, Wood said, and it could even be an indication that she’s “hiding the truth.”
Her “guarded position” also could have been a desperate attempt to find confidence while revisiting the topic of her husband’s death, according to Wood.
Kouri’s hands were held “tightly” which showed “her tension.”
“She does gesture but her gestures come after her statements, showing a lack of confidence,” Wood said.
SHOCK ARREST
Arrest warrants revealed that Eric believed Kouri attempted to poison him multiple times before he was found dead.
An acquaintance of Kouri told cops that she allegedly purchased hundreds of dollars of fentanyl.
A toxicology report by the medical examiner found that Eric had five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in his system when he died.
Detectives said that Kouri sent multiple text messages and immediately deleted them after finding her husband’s body, police documents stated.
She also made herself the sole proprietor of his life insurance policy at the beginning of last year, but he changed it after the agency notified him, an arrest warrant states.
Her book soared to the top 10 list on Amazon after news broke of her arrest, but it has now been removed from the site.
She said that there were plans for a sequel and she dedicated the book to her “amazing husband and a wonderful father.”
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