Are You With Me? | The Kouri Richins Murder Case

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning. Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, it's caj You're back with another episode of Unspeakable. How's your week going? I know I ask you every time, but I'm genuinely curious. I've had a pretty solid week. I mean, I did have an epic cut down by my own child yesterday because I thought that maybe I was talented enough to wax my own eyebrows. Now, I will let you know that it was a failure because I don't know how to do it, apparently, and I waxed an eyebrow, y'all.

1:23 It was so swollen that she asked me what was wrong with my face? When I picked her up yesterday? So let that be your inspiration for this week. If you're having a bad week, at least you don't look like me, all right, So let's do a few shout outs here, and I'm gonna shoot you straight. I don't know if I might be duplicating some shout outs, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. So if you're like, wait a minute, you already gave me a shout out, Kelly, that's okay. You're getting double the pleasure, double the fun here, so I'm gonna do it again. So we're gonna start in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, where miss Amanda and I think we're gonna pronounce this ca Amanda caa or is it just C with a y? But I think so Amanda ca over there in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. How are you doing, my friend? I appreciate you joining and supporting my show. You're the difference. I say that all the time, but it is the absolute facts. I'm waving at you on the camera. Thank you, my friend. Please tell all your friends to listen to your shout out and to listen to this episode. But then we're gonna come right on back here to my neck of the woods, right in Springfield, Louisiana, where miss Amy Bennett is living. Hey, Amy, what is going on right there down the street? I actually went and looked at some property out your way recently, So thank you for joining my Patreon. You are the absolute best. And then I'm gonna go to a tooka, Tennessee where miss Lexi Munroe is living, and Lexi, how are you doing over there in Tennessee? Beautiful country, isn't it beautiful over there? I'm so happy to have you, and I thank you so very much for supporting my show.

2:53 But today we're gonna go to the great state of Utah. When I tell you, I have been flooded uh with requests for this episode, I am not exaggerating. So I'm gonna give you exactly what you want. And I'm gonna do you another solid and tell you that this is going to be a two part series because people have said, hey, can you tell us in the beginning instead of leaving us to find out at the end. Sure, Absolutely, no problem, So this will be a two parter. Trust me, you'll be glad that I did that, and I can give you all of the details. So, like I said, We're gonna go to Utah, and I have actually been there before, which a beautiful place to be. And I was actually in Utah whenever the Oklahoma Nope, not Oklahoma, whenever the Boston Marathon bombing happened. I remember watching that happen on a big screen right there in Utah. So this is a great place to live. And two people that would agree with me on this would be Eric and Corey Ritchens.

3:53 So the couple have been married for nine years whenever this story takes place, and they had created a beautiful family together, three children, three sons, were the product of their union. And these kids, and I know we all say this, but these kids were everything that their parents wanted and prayed for. And in the same right, these boys had just been born to a daddy built just built for the job of being a boy. Dad. See Eric, we're gonna talk about him for a second. He was a serious athlete whenever he was younger. And so you want to play sports, boys, you got it. Eric played all of the sports, basketball, baseball, soccer, He ran cross country.

4:37 And so whenever his boys got a little bit older and they were able to actually say I want to play sports, he was over the moon for this. That said He was even stoked so much that he wanted to act at his son's as his son's coach and damn near everything that they played, be aggressive, give it your all. He was someone that was going to cheer these kids on everything that he had, support them. But also the kids that he was coaching, well, he treated them just like his own sons. He took this team on and he believed that in these children that they could just succeed and that they would if they would listen. He could instill what they needed to be great athletes and their dedication was palpable as far as him being a coach, because he would do things like show up early to the games. He even had signs made okay that were individually for the kids for the athletes to cheer them on. He would show up early and he would put those in the ground so the kids would see those whenever they showed up. He was their number one supporter alongside being the coach. There was no doubt about this. And to give you a little insight to why he was the way he was, it's because he came from hard working stock. Himself. Eric and his sisters were raised on a cattle farm and from a very young age. They were taught the value of grit and sweat and hard work. Eric was the oldest child in

6:07 his family, and so he protected his sisters with a fierceness that only older brothers would understand. And he helped even his sisters as they grew up to learn the hard things in life and hard work. But he also encouraged them, and that probably was part of that foundation of how you have to work with young people to get them where they need to be, just as the he did whenever he was younger with his sisters. He did this with his own boys when he became an adult, and he would preach to them, if you do not put in the effort, you will not reap the success. Anybody can stand on top of a mountain and appreciate getting a medal, but if you don't put in the hard work, you're never going to reach the top. And Eric was proof of this on and off the field, so to speak, because work hard and play hard was his life. Eric had built a very successful masonry business from the ground up. It's not like he inherited it or something like that. No, it was his built from the ground up, and he was very wealthy as a result of all of his hard work. He worked this business so intensely that it grew beyond his wildest dreams, and he was certainly dedicated to working because he was reaping the benefits. But he also believed in enjoying life too.

7:31 It cannot be all work and no play. There was just more to life than making money. So alongside his sports talents, Eric was also an avid outdoorsman and hunter, and so he did things like travel the globe and he had even acquired multiple trophy animals from the likes of Africa, Mexico, Canada and beyond. And he couldn't wait for the day that his baby boys would be able to do this with him as well. But for now, I need you to know that these boys are all three under the age of ten, so world travel would just have to wait a little while.

8:11 Now. His wife, Corey, she wasn't one sitting on the back burner either in terms of success. She had built a name for herself as well. Buying homes and flipping them was her specialty. And we are not talking small, little you know, slumlord houses or anything like that. I'm talking big houses with million dollar budgets. To do the flipping. The company that she created had scaled extremely quickly, and for just some insight to this, she purchased one home in twenty nineteen that she would flip and sell, and by twenty twenty she had bought five and in twenty twenty one it had scaled to fifteen homes. So if you've never built homes or you've never flipped homes, I need you to know that is massive growth, and that is a lot for one person to be undertaking it one time. But she was killing it. She was making a lot of money. And it's safe to say, looking at what I've just told you that both of them had a lot to bring to the table. Now, Corey, she was originally from Oklahoma and her parents' marriage was just drought with issues. While Eric grew up on that farm with two loving parents that were very devoted and very involved in his life, Corey's upbringing was going to be a bit different. On the other side, her dad would end up going to prison when she was just six years old. Now, as the story goes, I'll tell you I didn't dive deep into this what her dad did,

9:42 but the story is allegedly that he was drunk and he fell asleep at the wheel and he hit a police officer, killing that officer that was trying to do like a traffic stop or something along those lines. When that happened, her parents divorced, which is when her mother packed up Corey and her brother and moved them to Utah where they would continue to grow up. So, while her future husband was busy working the land and the cattle, Corey was with her mother, moving from casino to casino as her mother gambled away any money that she had, so craving stability of her own and realizing through her you know, their teen years, that this is just not the type of life that I want for myself. Corey decided then in there that she was going to make her own way in life. And so what she did was she started by enrolling in college and working towards a college degree. So while she was in college trying to make changes so that she could build a life worth living, that's where she met Eric. That was in two thousand and nine, and the two fell in love.

10:49 They did date for four years, and through those four years they just were infatuated with each other, and so they eventually decided to tie the knot. Now. Eric took those four years that they dated one day at a time because he wanted to be sure, absolutely sure before he got married that this is what he wanted because this was not Eric's first marriage. Even though they were young, Eric had already been married and divorced. So when he was a little bit younger, Eric had married a girl by the name of Julie, and that was back in two thousand and five. They obviously thought that this was going to be forever, but things soured pretty quickly, and that was within four years of their marriage, and so they would end up divorcing in two thousand and nine. Again, two thousand and nine is the same year that he met Corey, so this time he was a little more gun shy about popping the question. But at the four year mark, when they were still completely smitten with one another, the marriage isle was where he wanted to be. He said, this shows me that this is the long run and that I actually want to do this. So off to the marriage aisle they went, well, I mean, I guess technically, off to the backyard they went, because they had their wedding at home in the backyard. But it was lovely and they sealed the deal with a kiss. And Corey couldn't have cared less when Eric had asked her to

12:20 sign a prenup whenever they were going to get married. I know a lot of people are turned off to that. Corey couldn't have cared less. The reason he wanted a prenup is really important because his first marriage, when it soured, it left this lasting impact on him because Julie, his ex wife, had fought him tooth and nail financially. So Corey, she knew that this was going to be the plan all along. They were going to sign a prenup, but it didn't matter, y'all. They were in love and it just it wasn't a thing. So after the wedding, they began building their family, one tiny baby boy at a time, So three boys within nine years made their family complete.

13:03 And even better was that Katie, which is Eric's sister, she was selling her sprawling home, a very nice home, and both Eric and Corey loved it. They loved it so much that they bought her house from her. So this family was just really tight knit and you know, up in each other's lives and even buying homes from one another. Now, the home was gorgeous. Like I told you, it was two stories. It had multiple garages with a massive shop in the back with an additional two large roll up doors on it. It was bricked on the front, all that jazz. So super nice house, especially when you're starting out your marriage together and life was coming together so beautifully that they were now at a point in their life where the world was literally at their fingertips with success abounding. It's things. I would say that dreams are really made of when you think about getting married and where will we be in five ten years. So on March third, twenty twenty two, after a very long day of work, the rich AND's family got settled in for the night, just like we all do. The boys got their bath, they got their pjs on, they ate supper, and then everyone went off to bed. Well, Corey decided to stay up for a little while while Eric went to bed to rest. But Eric told her he wasn't going to be going to sleep. He just wanted to go lay down and relax. Now, he was not a huge drinker or anything like that, but he did enjoy

14:36 a Moscow mule every now and then, and so Corey happily made him his drink, brought it to him in bed, and he sipped on his drink while he relaxed and watched a little bit of TV. So the evening went along. Everyone in the home fell asleep, and that was until Corey was awakened by one of the children having a nightmare or a night terror. And so she did what us mamas do. She got up and she went to go try to settle him down. Well, that resulted in her getting in the bed with him, and she snuggled down and the both of them fell asleep and kind of dozed off together, and it got quiet again in the house. Well, a few hours passed and in the early early morning hours, this is between about three and four am, Corey woke up, and with the baby boy now happily asleep and resting, she decided that she wanted to go seek the comfort of her own bed and sleep next to her husband. So she went to the bedroom and she quietly entered so that she wouldn't wake Eric up, and she slid into the bed and as she pulled up the covers, she kind of brushed against Eric, and my god, he was cold, you know, she said, goodness, gracious.

15:46 So she went and she tried to pull the comforter over Eric, thinking, you know, the air condition and the fan must have chilled him a bit. But when she went to go cover him, he just seemed off. It was like he didn't respond, like someone who's kind of being covered up would kind of snuggle or shift. As she did this, he was lying on his back and he did not move at all. So she reached over to kind of pat him, and she was surprised when she held her hand on him just how cold he was. So she's Eric, Eric, and she starts shaking him Eric, and that's when she realizes, oh my god, he's not responding, Eric, Eric, and so she jumps up, She flips on the light.

16:35 She searches for her cell phone. She grabs it and she dials nine one one. Here is a snippet the very beginning of that nine one one call No. No, that looks pretress of the emergency Manson's so breathing cold. Okay, what's theatress? Two into spoil o cord two eight days low court? Uh huh, I was the guest, one of one gays we got just connected him. We're three fives, he said, it was for ninety seven. Okay, it's gonna be in Francis. Hey, okay, tell me exactly what happened.

17:22 So I don't know what I was put it with my kids. Okay, I can't evenna tend you. I need you to take a deep breath. What's going on? I don't I don't know. I just I was like, became with my kids. I just came into bed, did our bed and I turned over and he's breaking just cold. He's so cold. Who's cold? I want said the line on it. And he's not breathing. He's not breathing, So I need you to confirm it for me and Ken not breathing.

18:02 So okay, we're gonna can you do Cprus. So this is just devastating to listen to. I know you picked up on that, and I do want to be very clear that this was the shortened version of the call. It was much much longer than that. But I just was gonna kind of sum it up for you because it was very medical, clinical type thing, and it's a very long call that I think honestly might lose your attention. So you got to hear that portion. After that, they discussed the operator and Corey discussed pulling Eric off of the bed. We've got to start CPR. But Corey is so overwhelmed and scared because of how cold he is that she says, oh my god, I can't touch him. I can't, I can't, I don't. I don't know what to do here. But the operator does her job. She continues saying, we've got to get him off the bed. We've got to get him off the bed.

18:56 And so eventually Corey goes, okay, okay, And so standard what we would do is if she's smaller than Eric, okay, is that pulling him and pulling his dead weight for lack of a better term, is very difficult. So you're gonna advise the person grab the sheet that he's on, and I want you to pull the sheet, pull as hard as you can. And Corey says, he's just too heavy, it's dead weight. I can't get him off of the bed. And so she's just coached. You got to pull him, pull him one side in the other, grab an arm, grab a leg, do whatever you've got to do. Do not worry about hurting him, don't worry about it. Just let him fall to the floor. That's the least of our worries get him on the floor. You got to understand how important it is that when you want to do CPR on someone, you cannot do it in a bed.

19:38 If you don't know that, I'd love to teach you that right now, They've got to be on a hard, flat surface so that the compressions will be effective. So she keeps working, she keeps working, and then eventually she is able to get him off the bed and drop down to the floor. So when she gets him on the floor, she does eventually start get getting CPR started. She's along with the operator one, two, three, four, she's giving these compressions and then it felt like a lifetime. But eventually EMS does arrive and they take over working on Eric. Now, with all of the commotion, the screaming, and just the panic, the kids had now woken up from their sleep. So Corey at one point, even on the phone, still says get out of the room, get out of go, go, go, get out of the room.

20:28 Do not stay in here. And she's trying to shield her children from seeing what is going on. So fire, police and medical responders were now all on the scene, and the gravity now that they have taken over starts to just really hit Corey. And this is a standard reaction, if you're curious, people will have this what's called maybe kind of like a relief reaction where someone else now has taken over and they can really just fall into all of their emotions. Well, Deputy Vincent Gwen he was a deputy with the Sheriff's office. He pulls Corey from the room to get her out of the chaos, and he wants to start kind of questioning her and try to make sense of what is going on, because not much was really given in that nine one one call as to how did we get to where we are right now? So his BODYCM was rolling the entire time that all of this is happening. And because you know that I'm one of those people, I went and watched because I wanted to see what all was said on the body cam. Seeing the home while this is happening, I'll tell you it was nice and neat and orderly lived in, but a very nice home. And the first responders are all huddled around Eric, who is on the floor, and they are working swiftly and professionally to try and save Eric's life. You can hear the first responders in the background as they call out audibly one thing after another to each other as they work on him. So you'll hear one responder will say, I gave him EPI talking about an EpiPen or apinephrin or epineph excuse me

22:01 to try to stimulate him. Another one says blood sugar four fifty eight, and that caught my attention. Whoa, you know, And even one of the responders that's there, you hear him audibly go whoa, because everybody knows that's a very high blood sugar, especially for someone that's lying on the ground. So Deputy Gwen, like I told you, pulled Corey from the room as all of this is going on. It's very traumatic, extremely emotional. So they're moved over to the living room. Corey is weeping. She is stunned by what is going on. She's crying, trying to make sense of what is happening here. And you can hear the steady hum of the Lucas machine while she's talking. And this Lucas machine, if you're not aware what that is, it's a portable robotic device and it's gonna deliver automated, consistent chest compressions to people or patients that are believed to be in cardiac arrest. So basically it's gonna give consistent quality the CPR. And at the same time, this is now freeing up the hands of the first responders so that they can do other necessary tasks. So it's really kind of a neat thing. I'm gonna put this video for you on Patreon if you would like to see and watch. But I wanted to explain to you what you're hearing while she's crying and everything is happening in all of this commotion. So Deputy Gwen asks her some questions while the responders are continuing to work on Eric, and I'm gonna let you listen here as she's answering

23:33 the questions for this officer. I'm going to alert you to this too, that you're gonna hear a lot of paper crinkling in the audio. It's not a bad audio. It's just that the deputy is looking through some documents and filling out some paperwork while this body cam is rolling. And I also want to be very transparent here that I have shortened the audio for some time purposes and cut out non essential portions of the video like silent gaps and things of that nature. So go ahead here, and I want you to listen to Corey as she's answering the questions for the deputy. As everything is still going on. Let's let them do their work in there. That's what happened today. He was just time we were there. When you say we were fine?

24:22 What what? What time did you see him? When he was alert? We had a dream together? And then I just celebrate something at work tomorrow. Okay, we went to bed, I would medic kids their bed. What time did you guys go to bed? Nay thirty nine? Okay? Fine? And then what what? What alerted you to him today? Right now? What? I just fucked up? I always when I sleep at, my kids wake up and I go back in my own bed. I just crawled over on his side, and he was laying in bed. He was on his back on the beat.

25:10 And then. Okay, and he was on you said he was on his back. Okay, where are your children now? Want to sleep in that? Round two are awake with their air to the door. Where are the other two at that are awake? Now? I bet your and where is that at? Who's there first? With your lap. Okay, is there any family members we can call right now? Yeah? I need to go. I need to go. My mom so bad. Okay, I think I don't know the name was once on the phone. Okay you my mom, yep, I'll give you a phone right now. Okay, I need to call his dad.

25:57 He's gonna be okay right like I went, I got it, bet and then it just good. They're they're doing their best. Okay, man, here, you can use my phone. Does he have any medical conditions or anything like that? I mean he has lives disease. Limes disease, but. I mean fucking major like. So, no heart problems or anything like that. No, I mean he just said his chest was hurting pretty much to them. But that's. I mean, not if he doesn't drink it off water, you know when he gets. On the bike downstairs. I don't know it just did dods.

26:46 I thought he was really tired because he got his allergy shots yesterday. Barty okay, but my son, and then when did did you discover him? One time? He got up? Like I got my phones. PEP three about three? Okay, did you immediately call the nine one one? Yeah? Well, I mean I got up and will soon as I turned over and he was cold, I just saw something.

27:30 I mean, I just put the blanket on it cause I. Just thought it from local. So I just. And then I stopped that for a minute, and I just didn't feel like it's like freaking or anything itself. I okay, Corey, I need it. I'm gonna need to ask you some questions real quick. Okay, has you ever been in the military? No, No, because he used tobacco. No. And what does he do for a living and ste facing company? And then when when you discovered him, was he on the bed?

28:22 Huh? Yeah, this is what I got to side like normal. I just thought he was cold, his gold in there, so I put the blanket on it. His buddy just felt like hoppy? Did I? And which way was he facing? Was he facing towards? No, he was just up, just facing up. Oh, so he's laying on his back. Okay. And then did you pull him to the ground. Yeah, that's the lady on the boat told me to Darst. To take this sheet.

29:03 It full the sheet, Nica to THEO. They're out so I could do see your. Okay, what's his highest level education? It's a bachelor's degree. Ass't acted. We didn't just die in his sleep. This is insane. So there you can hear, Corey basically is recounting everything I've told you so far and that nothing the night before had happened. They had that drink together that I mentioned. She made him to celebrate a big work event that was happening the next day. She was supposed to be closing on a on a house, a big project, and they were proud of that. She adds too, that you know, trying to figure out what's going on here, Eric had lime disease, which had been affecting him. He had complained about chest pain the night before, and so she's like, I don't know if the lime disease can cause that.

29:58 She was convinced at one point point that maybe he had worked out downstairs on an exercise bike and maybe he just hadn't drink drank enough water was kind of her thoughts of why his chest would have been hurting. But now she's just racking her brain to anything that could have caused these chest pains because now she believed that's the cause of why he was on the floor getting CPR. And the other thing that had happened that she could think of was that he had gotten allergy shots that day. Okay, so allergy shots, if you've gotten those before, you know exactly what I'm talking about here. But I am highly allergic to cats, so highly allergic to that as well as pollen that I too get allergy shots every week. And so when you get those, because of your body's response to these allergy shots to try to build your immunity so you won't have horrible reactions, it can make you. You can get kind of tired almost from the reaction. So she brought up that he did get his allergy shots that day. This also is happening during COVID and COVID was was huge, and so they talk about COVID and she says, look, you know he had COVID, but he's over it. She said, he last tested negative about a week ago, so this can't be COVID related. I mean, he had a negative test.

31:15 The only thing questionable, and that's if you even consider this questionable, so a lot of people don't, was that she believed that he might have eaten a THCHC gummy before he went to bed. She said he did that every now and again. Now and again, because she said that he was having some back issues. His back had been hurting, and so he felt like these THHC gummies helped to ease that back pain that he was experiencing. But there was nothing that she could think of that was a direct cause of why her husband is now on the floor in the condition that he is in. So once she answers all of these questions, she gives everything she can possibly think of. That's when she gets on the phone and she starts making the phone calls, crying saying, oh my god, Eric's not breathing. Eric is not doing well. Help you know, everybody's here, they're working on him. Please help. So family starts showing up, which is an absolute emotional nightmare to witness because it's all again on this body cam. So his sister, Eric's sister Katie shows up. She is quite hysterical. She's hyperventilating in these in these videos, it's like she doesn't know what to do. She's almost out of control. Bless her heart too, because her daughter was extremely sick while this was going on, and so her little girl was vomiting. Okay, so she's

32:45 just double in a nightmare right now. Matter of fact, that's why she had been awake. Remember this was three to four am. And Katie explains that, look, I was awake and answered the phone because she said, I, you know, was calling me. And when she answered the phone, she kind of answered it, Dad, how'd you know? I was up? She was up because her daughter was vomiting, and she couldn't believe that her dad. She couldn't figure out how he knew that she was awake to even be placing this phone call. But that's whenever she realized he wasn't he didn't know she was awake. He was calling because Eric and what was happening. He was trying to call her and alert her, and so she just let out. This was when she was at home. She just let off this guttural scream and she collapsed to the floor.

33:31 Well because of her screams, that had alerted her husband and he comes running in the room and Katie is on the floor screaming, he's not he's not breathing, he's not breathing. Well, her husband thought that she meant their daughter because the daughter was sick. So he goes and he runs over to their daughter to check on her, and he's like, no, Katie. Katie calmed down. She's fine, she's fine, She's okay, and that's when Katie's able to get it out. No, it's Eric, it's Eric. And so they just grabbed their children, including their daughter who was actively vomiting, threw her in the car, and they flew over to Eric's house, and that is how they had gotten there so quickly. So as Katie comes into the house, her first initial thing to do was that she was trying to find all of the boys, her nephews, because she wanted to just wrap them up in a hug, comfort them. And she found the boys. They were all huddled in one of their bedrooms, and so she didn't want to scare them, but she just wanted to love on them, and so she got them all together and she took them all to the upstairs bonus room, because they're very clearly awake at this point. They know something is happening, but all of their toys were up there, all of their things to keep them busy. So she was trying to just give them something to do, get their mind off of it, reassure them it's okay. Aunt Katie's here, and then she goes back downstairs to try to understand what's happening. So she's asking questions that are all over the place, all over the place, and she's breathless,

35:02 clearly in shock. So as they're both women are trying to understand this, Katie and Corey together fall to the floor and they're just hugging each other in in devastation. Well about this time, Corey's own mom showed up as well as Eric's dad finally had made it on scene, and it becomes even more chaotic and emotional with each passing minute. The dad becomes so distressed that he goes to collapse and he has to be grabbed on either side. I think it was deputies that did that, grab him on either side, and they have to like kind of carry him to the couch because he's starting to go down.

35:43 I mean, this is this is a family that was so tight knit that they they could not even grasp this. So the cops in that moment step away, two of them at least, and they start kind of whispering to each other and they're trying to not talk in front of the family, but they're like one of them says, you know, the kids are in the house, I'm really I'm really worried about the kids. I don't want them to come downstairs and see what obviously is not a pretty sight. And so they're kind of discussing what to do and not trying to add to the drama. Well, by it was not a pretty sight. Let me kind of lay it out here for you. When responders got on scene and they start doing compressions, blood started coming out of Eric's mouth and blood started coming out of his nose. So it was really not a good looking scene. Okay, it was pretty bad. So eventually the responders continued to work on him. But eventually, I mean they just they had to make the call. Eric Richins could not be saved.

36:44 And now Eric was lying dead on the bedroom floor while his wife and his family and his kids were all in the other rooms, and it was going to have to be broken to them that there was nothing more that could be done. So when this is shared and the finality of it all hits Corey immediately is just I don't know, she doesn't know what to do. How do I tell the kids? What do I tell the kids? What do I go to I can't go look my children in the face. I can't go look at their young eyes and explain their daddy, their hero was gone. He was fine just hours ago, and now he's dead. It's she doesn't know what to do, and how do you break that news. Well, in a moment of clarity, Corey turns and she asks the officer why was their blood coming out of his mouth and his nose?

37:40 What was that? And by that time the officers and the first responders had kind of done a little discussion and had a little talk, and so the cop tells her, look, a responder said that this might possibly have been an aneurism, because in that responder's experience, if there was a type of aneurism, when CPR starts, blood sometimes will seep out of the mouth and the nose. But that was obviously not determined and the medical examiner would have to make the final call. For now, it was just a guess, and that's what the family had to go off of. So for a bit after they make the call that he is deceased, the home becomes somewhat of a scene that has to remain secured until investigators could get there.

38:29 The police investigators and they could document everything as well as they had to wait for the Medical Examiner's office to get there and do their part. So part of that includes maintaining what I guess I would use the word crime scene. I don't know if crime is necessarily right at this moment, but part of this included maintaining the scene a crime scene security log, and what would be I guess referred to as a death checklist. And so this is going to be including things like doing a basic sweep of the home to see if there's anything like illicit drugs. But they found no illicit drugs, no drug paraphernalia, there was no needle in his arm, there was no residue or anything like he had snorted something.

39:13 Things that they were just looking for that are common in unexpected deaths like this. Well, Narcan, which we're all familiar with, which is the reversal for opioid overdose. Narcan hadn't even been administered to Eric, because the truth was that the first responders were pretty certain Eric was already too far gone when they were just when they arrived. Their efforts had really just been an olympian leap of possibly trying to save his life. But that's why they had done what they had done. But they never administered Narcan because this was to them obviously not an overdose because they were given information that Eric was not a drug user in any way, shape or form. So I know, we all kind of jumped to negative thoughts sometimes when this kind of situation is going on, but it just wasn't the case here. So the homeless photographed the bedroom as was Eric's body. He was in his boxers and there was like a sheet on top of him. When they removed the sheet, the AED pads were put on like the shocking machine. Those pads were still in his chest.

40:23 He still had tubing in his mouth, and so they photographed all of this, and then his body was taken to the Morgue for autopsy. And again, as you know I always do, I've got photos and I've placed those on Patreon for you. So Eric's dad is just overcome with grief. He had already just so you know, recently lost his own wife to a very strange fungal infection that had attacked her lungs and it ended up killing her. And now a little bit of time had passed, but he's now lost his son. You know, right after using his wife, he and Eric had made these plans to buy a cabin together. They were going to try to just really hold on to one another, and this cabin was going to be a place that they could his dad could go now enjoy since he was close to retirement, and then he and Eric would buy in it together and then when his dad's time came to pass on, he would just leave it to Eric. It was just this plan that they had to help each other through the grief. But now he had not only lost his wife, but he had lost his son, who it's fair right now to say was his best friend. This man, this daddy was just in a world of hurt. And when the news was finally broken to the kids, they did not take it well either. The oldest son, when he heard tore off running to the bedroom Eric's body was gone by then, and grabbed his daddy's eye watch off

41:55 of his nightstand and he came running out with it, holding it and he wanted to wear it. He wanted to kill keep it because that I watched in that moment would make him feel close to his dad. Well, Corey was hesitant at first, and she took it from him and was like, hold on, you know, what are you doing? But then, realizing that this was their child's way of grieving and that it gave him comfort, she gave it back to him and said, okay. Here. So Eric's sister, Katie, she was also grieving extremely hard. They were very close, they had been their entire lives, and matter of fact, you know, Eric and his sister were planning a trip to Disneyland for all of the kids and their spouses when he died. It was on real I'm sure we've all experienced this. He was here, I talked to him last night, and now he's gone.

42:46 What the hell? You know? We were playing this Disney trip. One of their sons, Eric's seven year old son was an incredible mathematician, and they were just talking about putting him in special coding classes so that he could capitalize on this skill that he had. This just can't be real. It can't, but it is, and it was. So Katie would kind of take the role of the strong one in this moment, and she would really shoulder the important things that would have to be done in the next few steps. Now that everyone was just thrust into the situation. So Katie was also a good person to take control of this because she was very in tune with her brother's life, I mean his life, his finances, his business, and so she was the one that would take the reins. And what she did was she decided to call a family meeting to plan out Eric's funeral. There would be no expense spared for the man that they all loved so dearly, and they wanted to honor him in every way possible.

43:57 But at this family meeting, the family would kind of start having disagreements on what should be done and they would have some tense moments. So, for example, while Corey let Katie take the reins, Corey's mom was there too, and so they started talking about what to do with his body, and Corey's mom said, well, you know he's going to be cremated, right. Well, this very visibly upset Eric's dad, like he was clearly not happy with that statement because Eric, he said, my son wanted to be buried. He didn't want to be cremated. That's our family tradition. We believe in cremate. I mean, we believe in burial.

44:40 But Corey's mom was like, no, I talked to Eric, this is just a while back, a couple of years ago, and he told me he wanted to be cremated because he didn't want bugs crawling all over him after he died. We had this conversation, so emotions were running high, this is just an example, but were running high, and they were able to settle the dispute. Everybody calmed down, and they were able to move forward with the planning. And this is the hard part, isn't it, Because everyone's devastated. Everyone's wanting to do what's best for the person who is no longer around to even speak for themselves, and so it's a difficult thing. So when the service was planned and the plans were finalized, the final decision was made that they would bury Eric, and that they were going to bury him next to his sweet and precious Mama, who had already passed away. Well after the funeral, Corey would get the finalized report from the medical examiner, and she would find that Eric's death was actually a result of COVID in combination of an issue with his lungs due to fungus.

46:00 He's like, what. Are you saying, the same thing that his mother died of, And indeed it seemed that way. So the family was very surprised by this as was corey because Eric had none of the same symptoms as his mother had displayed none. So fungal lung infections can present with symptoms all over the place, and it could be symptoms that mimic bacterial pneumonia or even tuberculosis. So his mother her symptoms would be things like persistent fever, a cough that would sometimes produce blood, chest pain, shortness of breath, and fatigue. But other common indicators are like unexplained weight loss, night sweats, wheezing, muscle aches, and so. Thinking it through, Eric had some generally similar complaints. His back was aching, but there was nothing like what they had watched their mother suffer through before her death. Now it was all so tragic and so unexpected, and a once beautiful family was now broken without the leader of their household. Okay, but the cause of his death was just so. How could this happen to both a mother and a son?

47:23 Just so? What a weird link, you would think, right. So Luckily for the family, though, Eric in his life was no slouch. And when I say this, I mean in direct relation to the fact that he prepared for the worst for his family. He was smart enough that while he was alive, He had all of his financial matters in order as well as he had set up a trust to ensure that his kids would have a great life in the event that something ever happened to him or you know, their mother God forbid, or or anything like that. So as far as Dad's went, he was exceptional and his forethought to his children's lives was proof of this. So as the days and the months passed, the loss became easier to cope with, but it still hurt.

48:14 You know. Corey was now a widow, and through that experience she was really understanding what it must be like, or what it is like to be the single mother of three children. So she decided after some time that she needed to evolve her grief into something useful. I can't just wallow in this. I've got to try to do something maybe it could possibly help others in the future. And so this is when she decided that she wanted to write a children's book with this central theme of sensing a father's spirit after death. Everything that she had learned through the experience of losing Eric had built her for this, and while she was going through the motions of trying to help her own children navigate this uncharted territory. She realized that this could be useful, there was something good that could come from this. And so here's an example.

49:16 She wrote the book by the Way, and she published it, beautiful book. And so here's Corey promoting that book on a show it's called Good Things Utah. And so I'm going to give you a little brief snippet of her explaining her book. Joining us Now is author of Are You with Me? Corey Richands to share her three c's to helping kids cope with grief. And Corey, I want to start with your story. What happened in your personal life? So, my husband passed away unexpectedly last year. So it's March fourth, was a one year anniversary for us, and he was thirty nine. It completely took us all by shock. And we have three little boys, ten, nine, and six, and you know, we kind of my kids and I kind of wrote this book on the different emotions and grieving processes that we've experienced last year, and you know, hoping that it can kind of help other kids, you know, deal with this and kind of you know, find happiness some way or another.

50:22 In terms of taking lemons and making lemonade. I'd say that this was a pretty good example of moving forward and having hope with remembrance of her beloved husband just at the peak of her life. So what I decided to do because I'm a curious person, and I did this. I wanted to hear the book. I wanted to buy the book and read it. Well. I went on Amazon to buy it not available, so I was able to find some excerpts of the book, And so I was going to just give you a taste of the book so that you could see what it's like. So the first page, obviously is kind of like a tribute, and it says always on our minds, forever in our hearts. And it's an image of a cartoon image of the dad with wings and the boys and the wife on either side, and even their little dog Harley. Okay, is there in cartoon form. And then the first page, are you in the clouds when I look up to see you to tell you about my day, ask you about yours, and tell you that I love you?

51:27 Are you at my soccer game when I scored that goal for you? I looked for you in the crowd, but you weren't there, did you see it. Are you with me on my birthday to blow out my candles to celebrate another year and watch me grow, teach me new things, and watch me make mistakes. So it's from a child's point of view, obviously what these pages are saying. And then it continues on are you with me on my first day of school? When I'm scared, nervous and have the butterflies while I make friends? Will the teachers be kind? Will you walk the halls with me on that day? Are you with me when I'm sad because I miss you, when I'm thinking about you and I'm wondering what would be be playing today if you were here?

52:18 Are you with me on Christmas? When Santa delivers my presence? When I rip through them as fast as I can because I can't wait to see what's next. Did you see what I got from Santa? Now that's just a few of the intro pages, but then it's really neat. But the follow up pages towards the end are kind of like the Daddy's response from Heaven. Yes, I'm with you. When you score that goal for me, You couldn't hear me, but I was with you. I yelled and clapped out loud, just as always. Yes, I am with you while you blow out your candles for yet another birthday. Although I'll miss the upcoming years, I stand hand in hand with you, walking with you, helping you, and praising you. I will watch you grow into a fine young man. And you read this, and my goodness, if that's not touching, if it's not wonderful way to express to a child that daddy is still here. He may not see him. It's kind of like the wind. You may not see me, but you will feel me. And I'm here. So the book is being promoted, it's going over well, and things do start looking up. Life does move forward. But something just really bothered Eric's dad about Eric's cause of death.

53:47 He just couldn't let it go. He couldn't get over the fact that his son's symptoms did not match his wife's. I get the feeling. Obviously I wasn't there, but I get the feeling that her death was very cral, very sad to watch, and Eric's was just so swift. So, uh, Dad makes a call to sister Katie and they start talking about this, and they kind of start going over the fact that that is just so different. How could this be and where did he get the fungus from? You know, what is this common connection? And also wouldn't you fear for his children that they might contract it? Or fear for your sister or the nephews or people that are around them that they might contract this somehow?

54:31 How is this happening? And so Dad asked, Katie, will you call the medical Examiner's office have them explain it to you again. I just need to understand, and she says, of course, Daddy, I'll do that for you. But when she made that phone call, the medical examiner confirmed that yes, he had spoken to Corey, but at that time, he hadn't determined the cause of death back whenever they spoke, because he was still awaiting the toxicology panel. He hadn't had the results back yet. So back in May, Corey called the Medical Examiner's office and mentioned to them that his mother had recently died from a fungal infection. It wasn't the other way around, And when Eric's autopsy report was completed, the medical examiner's report listed the following There was a set of menifit in a system, which is you know, tailan or whatever. And he also had alcohol in his system, which that makes sense because he had drink his drink at bedtime. He noted pulmonary edema, which is like, you know, fluid on the lungs, which is common in overdose deaths, but that was odd because this was not an overdose. But this finding of this pulmonary edema combined with the compressions from CPR when they're actively

56:01 trying to save someone, that can cause fluid to leak out, like the blood that had come out of his mouth or his nose. Also when they intubated him during those resuscitation efforts, that could have caused damage which could have caused blood to come out, but this was not the case here. He did have the pulmonary edema, but the blood and all of that coming out of the mouth, that was not the case here because Eric was already dead when they had started working on him. They knew that when they were on the scene, they were just trying that note you know, that Olympian leap, like I told you, to try to do something valiant and save his life. So the doctor explained that this meant even though he was getting CPR with that machine, there was no blood return that was actually occurring so the blood and that was coming out of his mouth and his nose could not be from that CPR and that pullm areaedema because again the blood was not returning while they were doing this. He was dead, so that would not have been the cause of the blood coming out of his nose in his mouth. But the doctor had kept looking at this and he just kept saying, and this really looks like a drug overdose. But Eric was not a drug user. Also already told you this. But he looks over the records and no drug paraphernalia of any type had been found at the home. And that's really common if someone's overdosing, they usually will find pills or

57:32 needles or something right there that go, well, there it is that's the cause of this overdose. And the doctor looking him over externally could find no outward cause of death. Now, internally, Eric did have some damage. He had some rib fractures, but that was attributed to the CPR. He looked at his heart, the heart was normal. A panel was run. All findings were negative for bacterial and fungal infections. They were negative. They had even checked to see if he had possibly died from anaphylaxis. After his allergy shots, but there was zero evidence of that. Now I'm going to tell you this, Like I told you, I get allergy shots, and so I was thinking along while I'm reading this report too, and I actually went into anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis when I got allergy shots one time. One time. Now I had been getting them for a year and had no problems.

58:30 And you have to stay there fifteen minutes after you get the shot, just in case, and I thought it was ridiculous. I remember thinking about going, this is dumb. I've been getting shots for a year. Why do I have to sit here? Sure enough, it only took one time, but I was sitting there all of a sudden, I started coughing. I started I couldn't catch my breath. I remember walking over to the window and I turned around and it just hit me like a ton of breath. I mean, I could not breathe. My airway closed off, and I turned around and by the grace of God, the receptionist looked up at me and went, uh, oh, that's all I heard. I know. People came running and then I kind of started losing it because I wasn't getting in any air. They carried me back on a gurney. They hit me with epipins. They poured benadrill liquid down my throat and started drinking that.

59:12 And it was scary. It was extremely scary. And I only share this not to make the story about me, but I can relate to why they even tested for that, because just because you don't have a reaction for a year doesn't mean you won't on a year and a day, right. So there was zero evidence though, of anaphylaxis, shock, or anything in his system. They also tested him for sepsis to see if maybe had a blood infection or something like that. That came back negative. The autopsy was really inconclusive. It found nothing, so the doctor decided to take it a step further, drew some samples and sent them off for an in depth complex toxicology panel to be run.

59:56 The findings of those tests they came back they would shock everyone, including Corey. Now, because Eric's official cause of death was a fentanyl overdose. He had five times the amount of fentanyl in his system that it would take to kill somebody. This was so out of the scope of believability that they thought that this had to be a mix up. Maybe it was the wrong labs. Maybe the wrong name was put on it, but no, there are measures in place to make sure that this is not mixed up. It was true, It was right there in black and white, and truth be told. It now made some other things looking back start to make a little bit of sense. So do you remember how Eric's blood sugar was well over four hundred when the first responders were working on him, and they yelled it out and they were like, WHOA, that's high. They kind of thought maybe his glucose was high because of undiagnosed diabetes, maybe he spiraled into a blood sugar event and that had caused his death. But the findings were that he was not a diabetic. But knowing what we know now, high glucose makes sense because the research shows that fentanyl induced respiratory depression leads to brain hypoxia, which is low oxygen,

1:01:30 you're not getting any air, and that will subsequently trigger your body to release glucose levels or glucose levels will rise as a result of that. So maybe that is why his glucose was so high. The once oddities now are kind of starting to fall into place, at least for the doctor. Okay, that makes sense for why the glucose was so high. But where in the hell did Eric ever come in contact with fentanyl? Corey and the rest of the family were dumbfounded and now completely and totally stumped. They didn't even know where to go from here.

1:02:11 When that toxicology panel came back. Eric was a family man. He was nowhere near suicidal. Also, his mother had been a drug counselor. That was her job, and she had taught them from children the dangers of drugs, and they took that serious. All of her children took that very seriously. Eric went to work every single day and he made tons of money. Have you ever seen somebody who is a drug addict, especially a fentanyl user. Does that sound like someone who uses fent? Because it doesn't to me. He even played sports well into adulthood. He rode four wheelers. The family joke was that he held the record for the most motorized vehicle collisions and rollovers, as well as the family's stitch count record of he got two hundred stitches in his face once from a wreck that he was in. My point is this, Eric was full of life.

1:03:07 He was always on the move and the thought of him, Okay, maybe he just tried it once and it killed him. The thought of that and overdosing that may have slipped into the minds of some people. But here's another element of Eric's life that matters, and this is why totality of circumstance. I love that thought process. But one of the major things in Eric's life was that he was a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. He was such a devout member of that church that he went on a two year mission in Mexico City. He was so invested in spreading God's word that he learned to speak Spanish fluently for this purpose. Now, let's be real, good people do make bad decisions, but this one was just so far fed. No one had ever seen him knotted out, slumped over, behaving oddly, nobody zero.

1:04:07 Where would he have even gotten it from? This would have been a huge question. When would he have had time to go get it. Everyone could account for him being at work and doing what he was supposed to do. He's coaching, he's doing all this stuff. So everyone was left with this burning question in their mind of basically what the hell. Even police were now very suspicious of everything that was going on. So they decided that they wanted to go search the house again and see if maybe they had missed something the first time that they had searched. So this time they were very meticulous in their search. When I say meticulous, I'm talking about looking in pockets of clothing, opening every cabinet, opening jars, and looking inside, very very meticulous. And this time they did locate thc gummies. So when I say they found some, I don't mean like three or four. I mean like a lot of them. They found them in multiple places around the house. Like I just mentioned, in the jacket, pockets of some clothing, in the closet, the master bathroom they found some. They also found some in clear baggies that were not in their original gummy packaging. Now, Corey had mentioned that maybe he had taken some of the gummies the night that he died, So was it possible that maybe he accidentally overdosed on those gummies. Well, no,

1:05:40 he did, So then it's like, well, did he get some bad gummies maybe and they had fentanyl in them. That's a good thought. So they take and they test none of them contained fentanyl. Also, this is where science comes in and it's super important. But the type of fentanyl that had killed Eric had specific properties that are only found in illicit forms of fentanyl, and it would not have ever been found in pharmaceutical grade facility prepared and sold fentanyl like on the patches and stuff like that. It has different compounds. So AKA, what I'm telling you is that this was absolutely a street dope drug that had to be bought ilicitly off the street. So Corey follows up with the medical Examiner's office herself, and she had some very specific questions for the medical examiner. She wanted to know why was there an addendum to the death report that had originally been made, But really what it was it wasn't an addendum, It wasn't a change.

1:06:44 It was actually a supplemental because when the toxicology results came back, obviously it was an updated report. So she says, Okay, can you tell me did he inject it or did he eat it? Can the report tell you how he got it in his system? And the doctor said or in the report had said that because of how much fentanyl was in his stomach, the doctor believed he would have had to have taken it orally. It was not injected, and the doctor also confirmed that this had been a massive overdose. People would die with half of what was in his system. And to be specific, and fentyl is so scary, y'all we all know this. I hope you're preaching to your kids the importance of you never take anything that a doctor did not describe, prescribe for you for this reason. But the fentanyl had killed him so fast after consumption. Get this. Eric's blood alcohol content when they tested him was the equivalent to a two point eight blood alcohol content. Point oh eight is drunk. Two point eight is what he had. This would have meant in every day. You know, if you pull someone over and give him a DWI that you were hammered drunk.

1:08:00 But he wasn't. He died so quickly after ingesting this fentanyl that his body physically did not have any time to absorb it nor metabolize it. So all of the alcohol that he had drank in his system was still in his gastric system. It had not even been absorbed into his blood, so the blood alcohol was just high because it never had been processed at all. It just stayed in his stomach. He was dead very quickly, so she asked the question, will you be able to tell how it got into a system? Doctor's like, I can't be for sure, I don't know. So she follows up what else was in his system? And the doctor follows up with that too, and he said, well, now we also know that he had sarah quial in his test results. Now, sarah quill is a drug usually used for like bipolar and all that, but he can also be used sometimes people It makes you really so you could take it to aid if you were having trouble sleeping. So that's when Corey gets an aha moment. She's like, wait a minute, could the fentanyl and the sarah quill have been mixed?

1:09:12 And the doctor explained, well, I mean, I actually can't tell you that because usually what happens if we see this is that someone has been prescribed sarah quill, they took their medicine like normal, and then whenever they took the drug, the fentanyl, it just it killed them. But whether it happened together or separately, that's not something that I can I can figure out from testing. But all of that aside, it's kind of important to note here Eric wasn't even prescribed sarah quill, So where did he get that? So as Corey is asking all of these questions and she's trying to make sense of it all, Eric's sister was now stewing on something, something that Corey did not know. Remember when I told you that Eric and Katie had been extremely close their entire lives, that was not just word filler that I was giving you here.

1:10:07 They were so close. They talked about everything together, everything from politics to their own sex lives. I mean they were that close of siblings. And this closeness meant that Eric confided in Katie quite often, and in recent months, he was becoming increasingly agitated with Corey, so much so that he had even asked her if she knew any divorce attorneys. It made him sick to even think about having to break up his family and having to divorce again. But he had found out something that he was not willing to accept nor overlook. Back in September of twenty twenty, Eric was going through his financials and he happened to stumble upon some transactions that he was unaware of. All in all, I'll shorten it for you, but he believed that Corey had spent or withdrawn a massive amount of money from the bank accounts without his knowledge, and we're talking to the tune of one hundred grand.

1:11:16 Okay. Now they're rich, okay, for all intents and purposes, So you know, to the average joe's a ton of money. Now, it's still a lot of money even if you're rich. But he also found that she had borrowed an additional thirty grand against their credit cards. Now, look, they're married, all of their assets are obviously used together, and this was a lot of money. But the fact that she hadn't mentioned it to him just was not setting right with him. Failure to mention this meant it almost felt like she stole it, even though they were married, okay, and they shared finances and stuff. But when he realized this, he just he was already aggravated with her, and he just felt like he needed to make some serious changes in his life. Why was he still aggravate or already aggravated with her? Well, Corey had also been riding him on the fact that she was accusing Eric of cheating.

1:12:15 Now there was no evidence of him having sexual contact with any other woman, and he just at this he was just over it. Okay, All the money's being spent. You're accusing me of cheating. I'm working my ass off. This just isn't cool. So while everything on the outside may have looked blissful, you know, on Facebook and all that kind of stuff, behind closed doors things were not that happy. Now. Eric had confided all of this in his sister because she was his confidant and he was ready for a divorce, but he was just so worried about the boys. He was worried about his kids, and he wanted to do things correctly, and he wanted to do them initially under the radar so as to not alert Corey and calls a huge blow up that would have affect his children for the time being. So Katie spoke with her husband, and he did know a divorce attorney, and so Eric asked his brother in law, Katie's brother, excuse me, Katie's husband, if he would contact the divorce attorney for him. Okay, well that's kind of weird. So the question becomes, well, why why wouldn't he do it? Why would he want his sister's husband to do it. Well, Katie's belief was that Eric did not want Corey to see any of the calls or emails that would be going back and forth between him and a divorce attorney, because again all of theirs, you know, they looked at each other stuff.

1:13:40 So the brother in law had set it up and Eric had eventually met with that divorce attorney in person, but he would die before they went forward with it in any way. So Katie couldn't help but think, now, maybe Corey had something to do with his death. I mean, this is a pissed off sister. Just be flat out with it. Okay, she's pissed off her brother's dead. Now people are trying to almost make She felt like they were saying he committed suicide because he was a drug addict or an accidental overdose or whatever, and she just didn't want to believe that in any way, shape or form. And she knows in the back of her mind that Corey was kind of being a crappy wife, at least through her brother's eyes, and that he was wanting to divorce her. So Corey may not have known that, but Katie knew it. So Katie decided whatever, she was going to call the police, and she was going to alert them to the fact that there was a known financial issue that her brother told her about and when the police got that information, they went, hmm, maybe this is worth looking into, because again they agreed that Eric's death seemed really out of place. But the thing they realized very quickly from the start was that Eric and Corey had a signed prenup and this wasn't a secret. They sign the day of their wedding. Corey obviously knew about this prenup, So what would her motive be. She knew that she was not entitled to his business because the

1:15:12 prenup in essence, said that his masonry business was his and in the event of a split, it would remain his, and she was not entitled to any portion of it. So that kind of like want want, want on that theory that maybe this was financially motivated. Sure, she had made a financial decision that Eric was pissed off about, but lots of marriages have that happen. And then there's another kicker here if you're not following the timeline tightly. Eric died two years after that had taken place. It wasn't like she had stolen all the money and then like you know, he died. No, I mean, there was a two year gap between that and they had worked been working through things and living together since that time.

1:15:55 So police decided that maybe they should talk to more people who knew the Richens and maybe could give some additional insight to their daily lives. But they also wanted to look more closely at Eric's associates as well. There had to be a motive somewhere, if and only if this actually was nefarious, if somebody wanted him dead, there's got to be a motive. If not, it's kind of like, had Eric decided to kill himself or was it possible that it was all just a tragic accident. So as police dove deeper into the lives of everyone associated with Eric, this case would be turned on its head. And it's going to begin to sound more like a game of clue, because they're going to speak to Eric's sister and his business partner. They're going to talk to the housekeeper and to the attorney, and then a random PI, a random private investigator, is then going to appear out of nowhere.

1:17:05 Now he claims that he's been looking into things independently and says that there's details that these detectives haven't yet uncovered, and then almost too casually, he's going to reveal some things to them that kind of get the police going on a track. This wasn't the first time that something felt off, and now everything is going to begin to shift, because if what this PI is saying is true, then what happened to Eric Richins wasn't random, and it also wasn't simple, and it certainly wasn't over. So what really happened to Eric Richins the night that he died? Was it murder, an accident, or something way more calculated than anyone would ever realize. Well, this is just the beginning, and I'm going to give you all of the answers in Part two's conclusion next week.