Key Witness Testifies in Richins Trial, Defense Loss in Robinson Case, Kohberger College Denies Wrongdoing, with Angenette Levy

Welcome to MK True Crime. I'm Phil Holloway. I'm a criminal lawyer, I'm a former prosecutor, and I'm a former police officer. I have been in and around the criminal justice system for about 40 years now, and I think I know a great true crime show when I see one, and we've got one for you today. Here's what's on our MK True Crime docket. We're going to begin with the Corey Richens murder trial. It's currently underway, and we are live streaming it here at MK True Crime. You need to follow every minute of it there, but we're going to talk in depth about it today. There have been many legal moves to dissect for you, and Dave Ehrenberg, my co-host, and I will get into all of that. We'll talk about how the prosecution and the defense are shaping their arguments so far. Also, the judge in the Tyler Robinson case has ruled out the possibility of excluding the prosecutor's office. He says they are not disqualified for a conflict of interest. We'll bring you the latest. And we'll also be joined a little later in the show by Anjanette Levy. She's a correspondent for the Law and Crime Network and the host of the show Crime Fix. We'll be digging into the Corey Richens trial also with her, but a little bit deeper, particularly about Corey Richens' financial troubles. I'm happy to be joined by my co-host Dave Ehrenberg, my friend, the Florida lawman, former state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, and the managing partner at Dave Ehrenberg Law. Dave, we've got this Corey Richens trial right, and it's underway, started this week. By way of reminder, for those of you who may not be following the case quite that closely, Corey Richens is charged in Utah with aggravated murder, attempted criminal homicide, and various financial crimes in the death of her husband, Eric Richens. He died from a lethal dose of fentanyl in 2022. I know that you and Jonna, Dave, a couple of days ago on Wednesday, you discussed the beginning of this trial, but we didn't really get into the opening statement. So we're going to have all of that for you today. In fact, Dave, let me go ahead and call for SOT5 because prosecutors have alleged in their opening that this is a financial motive, that she killed him basically for his money. and then I want you and I to really flesh this out. The evidence will prove that Corey Richens murdered Eric for his money and to get a fresh start at life. More than anything, she wanted his money to perpetuate her facade of privilege, affluence, and success. All right, Dave, there you have it. That's just the snippet of the opening. There's a lot more to break down. I know you've been following this case very closely, as have I, and most of our audience seems to be as well, based on what I can see from their online and social media comments. But, you know, we've got a lot going on. We've got the defense is cross-examining a lot of the witnesses. What's your take so far on how each side is doing? And are you seeing particularly I'm interested to see from your former prosecutor perspective, what themes are you seeing that have sort of developed by each side? I mean, I see the prosecution giving us the goods. I mean, the facts are what they are. The facts are really strong against Corey Richens. And it doesn't help that she shed crocodile tears on national TV after her husband was allegedly poisoned to death by herself. when she wrote a book about grief. And so she wanted to tug at her heartstrings and get a few dollars along the way. So you have a person who is in love with another man who has a clear relationship with a boyfriend, not an open marriage, a hidden relationship. And she can't wait to leave her current relationship and go with this guy. So she has clear motive. Now she has a financial motive on top of that. And the existence of fentanyl is really devastating, especially when we'll hear how she got the fentanyl through someone she knew with a housekeeper. But I think, to me, the reason why the prosecution is winning here as a head-on point is not because the evidence is what it is, because it is, but it's also because I think the defense stepped on a rake. And it's happened a couple times now. But there's one particular instance on a cross-examination, and I know we have this side. I think it's top one, but I'll let you, you're driving the bus today, Phil. But it is when the question was asked about, hey, you know, it looks like based on the autopsy that it took a little longer for the victim to die. That would indicate he's done fentanyl before, right? That means he's the drug user, right? It didn't quite work out very well. Well, no, I think that's 3B. If we can go ahead and roll that one, we can get into that. That's a great point. Mr. Richens was alive long enough that his liver began to metabolize the norfentanil or the fentanyl resulting in norfentanil. Correct. All right. And that would be more likely for the body to start to metabolize it before death in someone who it was not their first time taking fentanyl. Correct? I don't think you can draw that conclusion. and well, let me back up. So it's possible someone has no exposure to fentanyl. They take it, they die very, very quickly. That's a possibility. Yes. And someone who has had exposure, I'm not saying that 100% wouldn't, they may show norfentanil, but it's more likely that someone who's had some exposure to fentanyl would start, especially at a higher dose, would start to metabolize it, having the norfentanil appear, as opposed to someone who had never taken it. True? I don't agree with that. All right. All right, Dave, look, clearly, I think what defense attorney Wendy Lewis is trying to get to there, They're trying to develop the theme, make the point that perhaps the victim in the case died of an accidental overdose, that maybe he was no stranger to using fentanyl or other drugs. So I kind of see where she's going with there. But I think that was a big swing and a miss. I don't know about you, but it seems to me that maybe, just maybe, a discussion with that witness, assuming the witness is willing to talk to the defense lawyer, sometimes they're not. But if you have a chance to talk to the witness ahead of time, you would not necessarily get the answer that you got in court, which was clearly not the answer that they were looking for. Yeah, and you notice you pronounce it fentanyl because it's pronounced fentanyl. So if this is a, you know, you pronounce it correctly, Phil. Well, I'm from the South. We say all kinds of crazy things here. No, no, that's the way it's supposed to be pronounced because fentanyl, it does bug me. It's like a pet peeve of mine. Maybe I'll do it in one of my closing rants one of these days where fentanyl, spelled N-Y-L. It's fentanyl, not fentanyl. I don't know where you get fentanyl. So the fact that you're making your whole case about the existence of fentanyl in someone's system beforehand, that this victim was a drug user, so you're essentially re-victimizing him again. First, he gets poisoned to death, allegedly, and then you blame it on the victim like he's a drug addict and let the defendant run off with her boyfriend and live happily ever after. No, it doesn't work like that. So pronounce it correctly. It's fentanyl, as you correctly had. And then, yes, never ask a question on cross-examination that you don't already know the answer to because you saw at the end she was like, okay, well, and then she just moved on, which is smart. You don't want to belabor it to make it obvious to the jury that you just made a huge blunder, but it was a huge blunder. Well, speaking of blunders, to me, there's another thing that happened a little earlier in the case that I would call it a little bit of a blunder. You know how when people are in custody these days, every phone call that they make is recorded, right? And prosecutors actually listen to those. I think it's smart. I mean, I think there's software that flags it and sends it to the appropriate prosecutor and all kinds of stuff. So everything that you say can and will be used against you in court, right? And so there was an issue that came up with another witness, which had to do with the jail calls, right? So defense attorney Nestor was questioning Chelsea Gibson's, the evidence tech, about these phone calls. Let's go ahead and run SOT1, and then the folks will know what we're talking about. As another part of your duties, and I want to use our language really carefully here, so if you could match my language, that would be helpful, okay? Okay. were there calls between Ms. Richens and her family that you obtained recordings of? Can you clarify? On about a weekly basis there for a while, were you downloading calls between Corey Richens and her family? Are you talking about jail calls? Your Honor, move to strike and need to approach. Let's go ahead and set this up so the folks will know what we're talking about. Normally, okay, you're not supposed to show the jury that a defendant is in jail, right? That's why they're in street clothes. But I don't think, Dave, that you know, I don't think you're supposed to expect that a jury doesn't know that someone who's on trial for murder either is not in jail or has not at some point been in jail. So I understand why they didn't want to talk about it. But the defense kind of was kind of kicking the door open on this. Yeah, they asked the question. It wasn't the prosecutor that asked the question. And what's the big deal anyways? Yeah, okay. Well, she's been sitting in jail. She hasn't been convicted of anything. And so you could fix it with a curative instruction by the judge. It doesn't need to be a mistrial. So these things happen in trial. It's real life. And I don't think it's that big of a deal. No, it wasn't. And we've got, speaking of the language that we use, you're talking about how people pronounce, you know, fentanyl. Well, there's been an objection over the word y'all. Now, this I thought was, I don't know that I really appreciate this objection because I'm from Atlanta. And look, Dave, you're in Florida, so you're southern adjacent, but you're in South Florida, so I don't know if you really count. But anyway, we'll just say that you do count for sake of this discussion. But anyway, Southerners ought to be offended a little bit by this objection, slot three. Is there any reason that you all believe that Ms. Richens knew in advance you guys were coming to her house? Well, let's find out if she has any knowledge and then we'll know whether or not it's speculation. I would just ask like a more precise question. I think and I'm not picking on Ms. Pester, but I think it was you all. And I think we just need a little more. Can we just limit the question to Ms. Gibson? It's a southern thing. Y'all is just in my blood. I'm not picking on her. I just want to be clear. I will try not to say y'all. Would you restate the question and limit it to this witness? I am happy to. I will try to keep y'all out of my vocab, but it's hard. It's deep in there. Did you have any reason to know that Ms. Richens either suspected there was a surge coming or knew there was a surge coming? Not that I'm aware of. Okay. Well, so Dave, look, I was joking when I said people should be offended by that. I understand the point of the objection by saying you all, which is actually what she said. It was a little bit unclear who she may have been referring to. So the objection might have been to seek a clarified question rather than the use of that particular word. But, you know, Dave, what they're doing, OK, they're trying to set up a theme as part of this defense that maybe some of the evidence was planted in this case. Did you pick up on that? Yeah, maybe. I mean, it's like the last refuge of the scoundrel. You know, it's like, well, the evidence overwhelming must be planted. You know, the FBI, the local law enforcement, whoever must have just put it there. Remember Brian Koberger? They had him dead to rights. It's like, well, the DNA from him was planted like like some rando is going to random cop is going to get some DNA from some guy like Brian Koberger and just smudge it on the knife sheath. No. Yeah, I just think that shows they're reaching. And as far as y'all, well, I am in South Florida, which is south, but you're right. It's really almost tilted. It's really like we're in the north. There's a phrase, you know, in North Florida, which is the deep south, we call it L.A. And L.A. stands for Lower Alabama. There you go. Well, so part of what they were getting at here was, so Defense Attorney Nestor is asking if, you know, folks are given a heads up before a search warrant is served. And of course, the answer is, is they're not. But I think where they're going with this. So the idea is that, all right, the defense, well, not the defense, let's just say the family of the victim, I should say. That's the appropriate way to put this. They are said to have hired a private investigator, an expensive one. And the story goes like this. And I'm not saying this is true, but I think this is the theme that they're going to get at. They're going to basically try to paint a picture that the private investigator went to the home after police had kind of finished there and then found items of evidence, called police back out there, who then showed up with a search warrant to look for and seize the items that perhaps they were allegedly going to be tipped off by the private investigator. So we see a lot of bits and pieces of themes developing. They're going to say evidence was manufactured or planted. They're going to say that the victim was a victim of accidental overdose, that he was a drug user. and all these kind of things. It's going to be very interesting to see how all this plays out. And I want you folks at home, whether you're watching on YouTube, you're listening on podcast or on SiriusXM, right here at MK True Crime, we're streaming the whole thing. And we're going to be breaking down every minute of this case and all the things that we can take from it. 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Air Doctor comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee plus a three-year warranty. That's an $84 value free. Get this exclusive offer now at airdoctorpro.com or A-I-R-D-O-C-T-O-R-P-R-O.com using promo code TRUECRIME. We've got some news in the Tyler Robinson case. You and I have talked about this, I believe. There was a motion filed to disqualify the prosecutors. They said the defense said they had a conflict of interest. And by the way, the same lead defense attorney, Catherine Nestor, is also representing Tyler Robinson, by the way. So, Dave, your thoughts on the judge's ruling? Well, first, it is amazing. She's working double time, taking two very high profile cases, doing them both. And, you know, respect. I always have respect for criminal defense lawyers, especially in unpopular cases, even as I disagree with them and their clients, who I feel are almost all the time guilty. But, hey, that's another matter for another video for another day. But as far as the motion this is a defense lawyer who is trying to slow things down by saying you know the prosecution needs to be conflicted off because of an attenuated situation a situation that wasn even a direct conflict something where there was a prosecutor in the office who not even working on the case whose child was at the event of the shooting and the child said the young person not totally a child, but was there. So what? So what? I don't even know why we're even thinking this was ever going to have a chance of success. I'm not surprised by the judges ruling, made the right decision, but this is what criminal defense lawyers are paid to do. They want to slow things down. They, because when you delay, then memories fade, the passion's cool. Witnesses could die or move away. Evidence could spoil. But here the judge said, nah, we're moving ahead. Well, let's speak to what the judge said. And you and I have talked about this here on the show. We, I think you and I both predicted this ruling, but let's go ahead and call for SOT4. This is Judge Graff issuing his ruling. Prosecutors need not be immune to the emotional response of others to prosecute a case. Indeed, it is part of a prosecutor's duty to interview witnesses and victims and evaluate the impact of an alleged crime. A prosecutor need not be disinterested on the issue whether a prospective defendant has committed the crime with which he is charged. If honestly convinced of the defendant's guilt, the prosecutor is free, indeed obligated, to be deeply interested in urging that view by any fair means. Yeah, so the defense, Dave, was arguing that the prosecutors were so quick to announce their intention to seek the death penalty that that could only mean that they were, I guess, improperly influenced because one of the assistant prosecutors in the office had an adult child who was there when Charlie Kirk was killed. Now, I thought that was a bit of a stretch. Clearly, the judge does too. And you know, as well as I do, prosecutors talk to witnesses. They should talk to witnesses. They should develop some idea of how these witnesses were affected by crimes, right? Yeah, of course. I do like your use of the term adult child. It's like jumbo shrimp. It's one of those oxymorons, right? But yes, an adult child. Yes, people – this is, again, the real world, and why is it a conflict? Why is it a problem that someone was there and said, oh my gosh, look what happened? That should not conflict an entire prosecutor's office off a case. But it's what defense lawyers do. So this one was an easy one. I don't think anyone really thought they had much of a chance of success. When I first heard there was a motion, I thought, oh, somehow the prosecutor that's on the case was somehow a witness to the case. No, no. No, not even close. It wasn't even the prosecutor on the case. And it's not even the prosecutor who's not a prosecutor on the case. It's an adult child of a prosecutor who's not on the case. Come on. Well, now we know that it was a deputy Utah County attorney, Chad Grunander. It was his adult daughter that was present. But she testified that she was there, but she did not actually see the shooting. She said she was in the crowd, but she did not learn until after she ran to safety that it was Charlie Kirk who had been, in fact, shot. And so that's really what the judge was having to go on. To me, it seems like much ado about nothing. But as you correctly pointed out, when you're defending a death penalty case, every moment that your client is not under the sentence of death, that your client is taking a breath, then, you know, that would be a victory. And look, I'm not trying to come down on the defense. I mean, you know, we and I both do defense. And we want lawyers who are zealous advocates for their clients. And just because you make an argument to a court that doesn't win doesn't mean that you've done something wrong. It simply means that you just didn't win on that particular issue. The judge's job is to call balls and strikes. Prosecutors do their thing. Defense attorneys do their thing. And judges are supposedly the neutral referee. But Dave, I've got some lingering concerns. Now, you and maybe some others have not, don't share my concern about this judge, but let me tell you where I'm coming from. You know, I'm a big proponent of open courts. I'm a big proponent that basically the default setting on courts needs to be everything's open, everything's transparent, we don't hide things, and the public has a right to see things. but Dave, do you know about the defense request to exclude cameras and to classify, you know, their motion to exclude cameras as a secret motion? Yeah, I didn't like that. In fact, you and I did a video previously about that and you blasted the judge. And I think Ashley and I were like, well, you know, we don't want to say bad things about judges. I do agree with you though, Phil, that transparency is best, especially in a case like this that is marked by so many conspiracy theories, it's outrageous. We know the person who, to me, did. I mean, we know the person who pulled the trigger, whether he wants to claim insanity or something about diminished capacity. So if you exclude cameras and make private motions and stuff, then it's just going to feed more of these conspiracies on the internet. And so I know that there was a request from a coalition of news organizations, including the Associated Press to allow attorneys for the media to view the defense request to classify documents in the case. So that's good. The judge granted that request. So at least not totally pushing for all secrecy. I mean, there is a ray of light there. You know, the defense, you know, files this motion and the judge is, I guess, very willing, too willing, in my opinion, to classify their motion as a private motion, or I call it a secret motion, right? The media lawyers, however, have been allowed access to it so they can meaningfully respond. But, you know, I mean, simply the motion to take cameras out of the courtroom, what's so, you know, crazy about that, that it's got to be hidden from the public? I just don't understand. Yeah, no, I agree with you on that. I don't know. Yeah, first off, they're trying to move cameras, and then they're trying to make the motion secret. Oh, no. Double secrecy is worse than regular secrecy, and regular secrecy is worse than transparency. Let's stick to transparency. I 100% agree on that. You know, this is very strange. I've never seen a case that has so many efforts and so much, I think, danger of some of it being hidden from the public. I'm very concerned about that because sunlight is the best disinfected, and the public has to know what goes on in the courtrooms so the public can have confidence in the result. If you got somebody who's convicted and gets the death penalty, but the public can't see what the hell happened in court, how can the public be satisfied in the integrity of that process? But look, I don't want to get up on my soapbox too much right now because we've got to talk about Savannah Guthrie, Dave. What's the latest on that one? There's just never any good news there. And it's just, it's heart-wrenching, You know, apparently Savannah Guthrie is going to abandon Arizona amidst the search for her mom and return to the Today Show. And I just think that's it's good to try to go back to work and and let the authorities do their best. And just to have her in Arizona where she's not being able to assist in any meaningful way. It's just it's it's like compounding the tragedy because it's bad enough what's happened to Nancy. But to see Savannah Guthrie in this state, I think it's better for her to be around her friends in the city where she lives, to be with her family and to be at the job she loves. So it's still just it's tragic. And just it's realistic that she can't just stay in Arizona forever. And I'm glad that she's back home because there's now a meaningful reward there, a million dollars. And she's done everything she can. The family's done everything they can. And you just hope that these criminals slip up and law enforcement can make an arrest because right now it just seems like law enforcement's been running in circles. Well, look, everybody deals with grief in their own way, and I can't even conceive of how Savannah Guthrie and Nancy's other loved ones have to be dealing with this. Everyone has to at some point move on. And I posted about this on X earlier. And by the way, if you don't follow me and Dave and Ashley and all of our colleagues on social media, do that because we talk about these things online, not just here. This is more like an ongoing conversation. So if you get a chance, check us out. Our handles are usually on the screen. For those of you watching on YouTube, I'm at Phil Holloway ESQ and you are at Ehrenberg. And so folks can find us because I know we talk about these things a lot. But look, I think Savannah Guthrie is having to come to terms with a very sad reality. And I wonder, and I hope I'm wrong, I wonder if this case is growing cold. We haven't seen any public momentum. In fact, there's been a flurry of activity at the home. Wednesday of this week, the FBI made their final sweep of the home because they're wanting to rule out whether there's any additional evidence there before the scene and the property is released to the family of Nancy Guthrie. The Pima County Sheriff's Office has said that they already have made that decision. They've released it. Now the FBI has been sort of hanging on to it, But they made a final sweep through there to see if the family could not go ahead and have access to it. And that probably, Dave, why they instituted a parking ban. Because when I was there in Tucson a couple of weeks ago for Megyn Kelly's show and for MK Media and, of course, for this show, the street in front of that house was essentially a parking lot. It's a very narrow street, but the media had crowded up at least half of the street to do their live shots and things. But now they're not allowing any parking for good ways around the house. Did you see that? I did see that, yes. But, you know, it's nice for them to at least create a barrier here because we've seen reporters go right up to the steps, video blood on the steps. In fact, I know we have a spot from Brian Enten. And we want to show that we can we can talk over that one if we can show that where Brian from News Nation just walked right up and there was the there was blood right on the stairs. Yeah. And we don't fault Brian. I mean, he's doing his job. He's a great journalist. In fact, he's a great guy. He is a great he's the first guy I went to find as soon as I got off the plane, by the way, in Tucson. But he he's not the only one. Other journalists went up there and the sheriff and I criticized him at the time and I stand by that criticism. I think it was the scene was sort of vacated and cleared by law enforcement too soon because there could have been other things of evidentiary value that were completely destroyed by all the third parties. And by that, I'm including the media that sort of descended onto the actual yard and on the scene. But anyway, I'm not trying to be too critical of the media, but my criticism is for, I think, law enforcement. By the way, did you catch this, that there was a one third party, a Dominic Evans, a 48 year old school teacher who plays the drums in a band with one of Miss Guthrie's sons in law and folks found him online. They found pictures and said maybe his features sort of looked like the features that they saw in the imagery, the videos and the photos we saw from that doorbell camera. Did you see what his response was to all this? Yeah, he was hiding in his home with the lights off, too frightened to pick up his son from his grandmother's house. He was worried about being followed. They had labeled him as like the main accuser online because he had an arrest back in 1999 for swiping a calculator and a watch while he was drunk at a bar. And so they thought, well, he resembled the guy in the mask and he had priors. So let's ruin his life now. Yeah, he said that the New York Times says that he said, quote, I feel like someone's taken my name. But for what reasons? I don't know. monetary clickbait to be relevant entertainment, but there are innocent people that get hurt. And I think that's a good point. One worth making. Bill, just so you know, this guy Evans, he spoke to investigators two weeks ago for about 40 minutes. Haven't, has not heard from them since. So it's not like he hasn't been spoken to. They've apparently spoken to him and decided he is not the guy. So they should, he should be left alone. All right. We'll leave it right there. Coming up next, we have Anjanette Levy, correspondent for the Law and Crime Network and host of the show, Crime Fix. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. If you're looking to make smarter choices for your health this year, Riverbend Ranch is a great place to start. Riverbend Ranch steaks not only are delicious, they also contain real high quality protein that helps fuel your body. Beef is a complete protein that contains all nine essential amino acids your body needs to function. 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It's a difference you will notice with your first succulent bite. My mouth is watering already. There are no shortcuts here. There's no middlemen, just incredible, healthy, and flavorful beef shipped directly to your home. Order today at riverbendranch.com and use promo code MEGAN, M-E-G-Y-N, for $20 off your first order. I'll be doing that as well. Welcome back to MK True Crime. Joining us now is Anjanette Levy, correspondent for the Law and Crime Network and host of the show Crime Fix. Welcome, Anjanette. Hey, thanks for having me. Hey, I love being on your show. It's great to have you on ours. Now, what are your thoughts on the Corey Richens trial so far? You know, it's really interesting, Dave. I just covered it on Crime Fix today, and we knew a lot of this stuff going into the trial. If you've been following the pretrial hearings and reading all of the documents. But it's very interesting to see us finally getting into the trial and hearing the evidence as it's unfolding. one of the most interesting things to me so far has been the body worn camera footage of cory when she calls police to the house that night and she's in her pjs you know in the gmes and she's got her hair pulled back and you know she's like sobbing oh my god oh you know like the whole nine yards about um eric you know he's dead he's dead she said he was cold uh she pulled a blanket over him because she thought, oh, he's just cold. But he, it sounded like they thought he had been, the EMTs thought he had been dead for a while by the time they got there, at least for, you know, a time. And they're wondering, did he have an aneurysm? I mean, this is a 39-year-old guy. 39-year-old people don't just die typically unless it's one of two things, maybe just some random heart thing or drugs. Typically the cardiologists will tell you that younger people just don't die like this. So that was a very interesting to see Corey because we really haven seen her except in court And we seen her in that interview about the grief book Well she lucky that when the cops came and the body cameras were rolling that she was dressed perfectly The pajamas from head to toe where she didn look to shovel The hair was was was well kept. She she looked like she was ready for her close up. So, you know, she's really lucky that it wasn't just like, you know, maybe like other nights where she's just, you know, not herself and not looking good and maybe dress a little more, you know, a little more adult like instead of just as a perfect, innocent, fully clothed individual who may need to get out of a murder charge. Dave, you're not saying this was staged, are you? Like her, you know, appearance to the cops. That's not what you're saying. Surely it can't be. Yeah, this is this took planning. And the only question was for me, like, what's the motive? Now we have so much motive, Anjanette. Does that surprise you that the motive, the $4 million that she was in debt, also the text messages with her lover? I mean, I didn't know about those before the trial. Yes. So we knew a little bit about the text messages. I must say, though, if you come to my house in the middle of the night, if I call 911, I'm not going to look that good. My GMEs don't match that nicely. I will say that. But she did look pretty good. And I must say, Dave, you cannot take the prosecutor out of you. You might be a defense attorney now, but they're taking the prosecutor out of Dave Ehrenberg. but yes we knew a little bit about these text messages before the trial they had been cited a couple of them in pre-trial documents that had been filed she had she had messaged this guy something about wanting to snuggle up and watch like murder documentaries or something like that the prosecutors had thrown that into some of the documents when they first revealed that this boyfriend existed. But yeah, they're saying, look, she, she was like in debt, like up to here, like she was drowning in debt, like more debt than anybody, any of us could ever imagine. Let me interrupt just real quick because, because I think this is real important because I want to talk with you about the prenup. But before I do that, if we can run SOT 5 and just back to back hit SOT 6 because both of these have to do with the prosecutor laying out the financial motive in their opening statement. The evidence will prove that Corey Richens murdered Eric for his money and to get a fresh start at life. More than anything, She wanted his money to perpetuate her facade of privilege, affluence, and success. The evidence will prove that on the day that Eric died, Corey Richens owed over $4.5 million to over 20 different lenders. and she did not have the ability to service that debt because her bank accounts were exhausted and her credit was exhausted she had been taking out new loans to include payday loans to service existing loans but her new credit was drying up. In the five months leading to Eric Richens' death, Corey Richens overdrafted over 200 transactions, totaling over $300,000. You know, when you're robbing Peter to pay Paul, as we say here in the South, you can get desperate, right? And so we've got now court documents revealing that there was this prenup from June of 2013 that outlined all these financial agreements related to their marriage. And you can go into that. I know you're up to speed on it. But one thing I wanted to point out here is that in October of 2020, the Salt Lake Tribune is pointing this out. Eric told an estate planning lawyer that he wanted to protect himself from, quote, recently discovered an ongoing abuse and misuse of his finances by his wife, Corey Richie. This is according to also to court documents. And there's other things, right. That just show that he was concerned about what she was doing. And I've got to think that this affair to tie that into this discussion and the text messages has to be part of this motive. Definitely. And she was taking, she had taken out alone, you know, without him knowing so she was doing things according to the prosecution behind his back and that's why basically he took steps you know to protect himself and his children he had made his sister katie you know she he had put her in charge basically of everything so if anything ever happened to him it was katie uh who was the beneficiary it was katie who would take care of you know, the money. So, so Corey was not going to get anything, say if he died, or if, you know, if he passed away, Katie would be in charge. Or there was another policy too, I believe, that his business partner, if I recall correctly, was in charge of as well, or was the beneficiary of. They have some evidence they'll be presenting later in the trial, I think that goes to that where Corey had gone in and tried to look at something related to one of these policies. Yeah, well, they say that in January of 2022, Corey Richens applied for a life insurance policy on Eric's life, named herself as the beneficiary, and that Eric had no idea that that even existed. Um, so look, I mean, I, at some point we gotta be able to, I mean, isn't this just like overwhelming circumstantial evidence here? Well, to me, it seems, it does seem overwhelming. Uh, I don't, her defense attorneys seem to be trying to chip away, you know, you know, it's obviously it's the state's burden. They have to build the house from the ground up, but they're trying to suggest that, that Eric, you know, may have had this fentanyl habit or a drug habit that nobody knew about. And they're just going to have to, I guess, chip away at this or hope to make some dings in the state's case because it does seem pretty overwhelming. You've got her, you know, in debt up to her eyeballs, as I mentioned, the boyfriend on the side. She wants to make plans with him. She wants to live in this guest house for that big monstrosity of a mansion that she was building out in the middle of nowhere and have this place be like an event center that they run out. So she she's making all of these plans with the boyfriend without Eric. So what else could you be planning? And then she's, you know, we've also got the testimony of the housekeeper who procured these drugs for her, according to, you know, that testimony. So it does seem very damning and very overwhelming. If you were the prosecutor on this case, I got to think you would be prosecuting this in exactly the same way. I would. I mean, the evidence is so strong. You lean into the evidence. And although motive is not an element of a murder case, you don't have to show a motive or prove it, but the jurors always want to know the why. That was what was so difficult in the Brian Koberger case. We never really got the why. There were all these rumors around there. But we don't have to ask for the why here. In fact, this is the easiest motive that you can explain. She fell out of love with her husband. She fell in love with someone else. Oh, and she was deep in debt. I mean, this is the easiest motive you can ask for for a prosecutor. It is so obvious when it comes to the motive. Now, does the evidence corroborate that? Yes, I would say. How about the housekeeper, like you said, who's the drug dealer here, who's now testifying? Angela, to me, the big question is, will we see Grossman on the stand? That's the lover, the boyfriend. Because he knows all, in my mind, right? I mean, is he going to get called? I certainly hope so. You would hope that they would call him because I feel like he's the linchpin in a lot of this. And they've already talked about him in opening statements. so I think that we need to see testimony from him and know what he was thinking and what he was seeing and what he knew at the time right so I think that that will be an important piece of this and it will be something I think that the jurors will be able to relate to and I think the jurors if they don't put him up there the jurors are going to be like where is he oh yeah who is this guy? Does he really exist? They have to put him up there. Well, he could take the fifth as an accessory, a principal maybe, and then they can give him immunity and then he has to testify. So yeah, they got to put him up there. That will wreck her relationship. Can you imagine? The one hope she has in the world right now is that she can get away with this and then live with her true love. Well, if the true love testifies against her, then he's got nothing. Even if she gets away with it, where is she going next? Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, we know her family is standing by her. We know that for certain they believe in her. And they appear, I believe, to believe in her innocence. So, you know, she- I want to talk about that. Because Lisa, Corey's mom, said to her at the end of a family meeting, they talked about the funeral. And she said, when are we going to talk about Eric wanting to be cremated? And then Corey appeared to be shocked and then was like, oh, yeah, yeah. He told me he didn't want any bugs crawling on him while he's dead. So let's let's cremate him. What do you take with that? What do you think about that? You know, there are a lot of cases there. There's another case that I've I'm covering right now in Chicago. It's not been adjudicated, but the husband is accused of murdering the wife. and it took a year for the cops and the district attorney the state's attorney to file the charges he wanted to cremate her she was thrown over a staircase and down she was pulverized they're trying to say she killed herself but she was thrown down like 29 flights of stairs in her luxury condo building the husband was like i want to she needs to be cremated i want to cremate her the parents went to court and fought to get her remains so they could give her a proper catholic burial i think anytime somebody's like yeah let's cremate the body let's do that really fast i think that's a red flag back on i think the first day of the trial um there was some testimony about this particular issue we've got a uh some video and some sound we've got katie richens benson uh testifying about this issue um if we can go ahead and run that then we can talk about it. Lisa Darden, Corey's mother, said, when are we going to talk about that Eric wanted to be cremated? Did you observe Corey react to her mother raising cremation? Yes, I did. She looked shocked like she was caught off guard at first, and then she went into it and said, oh yeah, he told me that he didn't want any bugs crawling on him after he was dead. It freaked him out. So we're cremating him. And I went on to ask, I said, Corey, why did we just do a whole entire funeral based around the casket, the burial, the pall barriers, pall barriers, sorry, excuse me. And now you're just bringing up cremation. And she played it off and said, oh, well, isn't that what you do? when you cremate him? And to that point, I said no. And then my dad started getting visibly upset because he knew his son wanted to be buried. And Jeanette, do people think that, you know, if you can arrange a quick cremation, that there won't be some kind of an autopsy? I mean, you know, that whole thing seems very strange, but I mean, that's really the only reason I think you would maybe try to make up the idea that the deceased victim preferred cremation, right? I just don't understand why there would be this type of discussion about that. I think anytime, as I said, you know, I think anytime there's a rush to do a cremation like that, I think that's a red flag, especially when you've had a casket with a funeral and you're talking about a burial. and it seems to me that maybe this is a sign that maybe this woman doesn't know how things work even if there's an autopsy you know obviously the the cops tell Corey they're going to take him for an autopsy you know because of his age and everything like that so I don't know if maybe the mom just didn't know how these things work thinking maybe he's he's cremated so maybe that just gets rid of any, I don't know. I don't know what they're thinking. It just sounds very, very strange. If I guess if you think if you cremate the body, then there's no way to go back and reexamine it again. Do you think that the family of Corey Richards was part of this in some way? You know, I don't know. They're standing by her. You know, they are standing by her. so they believe she's innocent i believe so um who who knows i i guess it's possible what do you think dave well i know that you don't we don't want to cast aspersions on someone who's not been charged yet of course not at all defamation but they are supporting her in a way that the coberger family did not support brian because they knew he was a serial killer and here they either have their head in the ground, refusing to see all the obvious facts right in front of their noses, or perhaps they're involved in some way. And I'm not going to make accusations because they haven't been charged with anything, but they clearly love their daughter. They are on her side, but come on. It's a strange conversation for sure. But speaking of Koberger, can I can we ask you about that case? Because I'm sure you've been following this lawsuit now by Washington State against Washington State University by the families of Brian Koberger's victims alleging that Washington State acted with negligence and basically is suing them for wrongful death. So what's going on with that case? Because what what we're seeing here is this lawsuit's now been moved to federal court, and there's been an official denial. And the idea is Washington State says, hey, look, we weren't put on any kind of notice. The guy, you know, maybe we knew something about him being a little creepy, but that's not enough to cause us to be liable. We don't, we're not able to see the future. We're not basically obligated to control Brian Koberger because he was a student or a teaching assistant here. What do you make of that? You know, when I first heard that they were going to file this lawsuit, the families of the four victims, I thought to myself, I'm just not so sure that this is going to fly. You know, and then they filed it and I started reading it. And, you know, it is very disturbing, the fact that it sounds like they knew they had this huge problem on their hands, you know, and a lot of this information came from the homicide investigation when they went to talk to the staff and the professors and the fellow students at Washington State, the Idaho State Police did and the FBI. I mean, they are being told that the professors there, these criminologists thought they had a future predator on their hands. They were like saying, basically, if we give this guy a PhD in a few years, he's going to be sexually abusing and stalking his students. Like it was, it's very stunning to hear that criminologists were basically saying, we've got a predator in our midst. And so the lawsuit said they received 13 formal reports of inappropriate predatory and menacing behavior. But what I keep going to is, I mean, look, these These are the most sympathetic plaintiffs you can find on the planet. They are. They are. But I've covered this lawsuit on my on Crime Fix. And I spoke with an attorney who handles these types of cases You know the wrongful you know wrongful death employment law that type of thing And he basically said look it would be one thing He said, this sounds like a mess and the optics are terrible. And they are sympathetic plaintiffs. It's awful, but they may have more of a case, the families, if they were students at Washington State and they had interacted with Koberger and they were like the people who had filed these complaints and then they were the victim. But they're in another state, in another city. And so, you know, he doesn't think legally that they're going to have much to hang their hat on. However, the same lawyer said, I would still encourage the school to settle. Settlement, yeah. Well, I mean, it goes to what's foreseeable, what's reasonably foreseeable. And look, what is the most that Washington state could have done? They could have fired him and kicked him out of school? Maybe. But then the question is, would that have prevented the mass? The quadruple homicide. And that's very speculative. And one thing the law does not like is speculation, Dave. You know that. Yeah. And I, I, I think, I mean, I agree with you. They're incredibly sympathetic victims and Washington state had a mess on their hands, but does that mean that they were, if they had kicked him out, as you mentioned, would they have been able to prevent this? And I don't think you can go down that road. And I hate, you know, it's, it's sad. It's horrific. It's horrific that this happened, but I just don't know if they have a case. Well, also remember the victims here were not Washington State University students, but students of the University of Idaho. So does Wazoo have a duty of care to students who are not even at their own school? That's part of the legal issue at play here. I agree. I want these plaintiffs, these victims to get maximum compensation, maximum justice. It's just that the law is sometimes imperfect, imperfect as a vehicle to attain full justice. I think they should be filing a lawsuit against Brian Koberger because I'm not convinced that we've heard the last of Brian Koberger. I've been saying since this plea agreement happened, I felt that the state made a huge error. I believe that they should have required a proffer of him. Yes. Something, you know, in other cases I've covered where, excuse me, in other cases where I've covered that I've covered, not every case, but in. cases where you've got, you know, multiple homicide victims like this, you don't have to make them stand up and allocute in court, but you can sit that you can say, okay, we'll take the death penalty off the table. You want to plead guilty? We'll take the death penalty off the table. You're going to sit down. We're going to do a proffer. You're going to give us some facts. Tell us where you put the murder weapon. There are no more questions. As far as I'm concerned and i've been saying this since this happened they let brian koburger walk into prison with currency and that currency is his story somebody eventually is going to pay him for that story and and you can pass every son of sam law you want to pass but i've been saying this from the beginning they screwed up like there are ways to get around that and they need to they need to Sue Brian Koberger, because eventually that guy is going to talk. And I don't know who he's going to talk to, but it will happen. And he's going to revel in that. And whether his family gets the money or somebody else, I don't know how it's going to happen, but I just feel that it will eventually happen. And so I just think that was a huge blunder. I asked Bill Thompson about it when I interviewed him, and he really, in my opinion, didn't have a good answer. He said, well, the FBI why the BAU said these people will lie. My answer to that was sometimes the lies, you're going to get beads of truth in the lies. So well said, Anjanette. And that's a great point to end it on. We're all hoping for full justice here, at least Maxim, and just punish Coburg as much as possible. What an awful, evil human being who just needs to go away forever. I don't want to ever hear from him again, but I think you're right. I think he's just going to be hanging around us like a bad penny. So I want to thank you, Anjanette. Where can our audience find your show, Crime Fix? It's on Law & Crime's YouTube channel. So just go over there. It's there and have a look. And sometimes you can see Phil Holloway and me. Dave Ehrenberg, yes. Yes, thank you, Anjanette. And our closing arguments are next, as well as your questions. Stay tuned. Hey folks, let's talk about something we all want. Real peace of mind. For me, that starts with knowing my home and my family are truly safe no matter what. That's where SimpliSafe comes in. 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We'll get to our closing arguments, but first we have a question from Selena. Hi. On a recent episode, Phil talked about jury selection, and it got me thinking about how judges are assigned cases. It seems that the assignment of the judge is incredibly important. Definitely. So how are judges selected for cases? In addition, understandably, it is a huge deal to request a judge to accuse him or herself due to conflicts of interest. And I wondered if any of you on the panel have ever had to ask a judge to accuse themselves from a case. Thanks for always getting my mind thinking and maybe in another life, I could have been a lawyer as I find your work fascinating. Thank you for that awesome question. And Phil, what do you say? Well, that is a great question. And I do find that the questions we get from our audience, our viewers, our listeners are usually very thoughtful and just really good things to talk about. You know, she's right. Look, the assignment of a judge is critical. It's kind of like jury selection in a trial. It's one of those things that can literally shape the outcome of cases, whether it's a small like traffic court case or a murder case like we're following now with Corey Richens. These things are very, very important. And in most jurisdictions, and I can't speak, of course, for all of them, but the ones that I've been familiar with in my life, judicial assignment is usually random or there's some kind of a process to evenly distribute cases. So the idea that prosecutors in a criminal case or plaintiffs in a civil case can engage in judge shopping is something that our system of laws just doesn't really like. OK, we try to do everything to avoid judge shopping. And so the randomness of it seems to be what makes the most sense. Now, the point about being recused when a judge has a conflict of interest, sometimes that happens. And we take, for example, you know, Ashley Merchant had the case here in Fulton County, the Donald Trump RICO case, right? There was, I think, a judge on that case that recused themselves, and then it was randomly reassigned, and it landed in the hands of Judge McAfee, who ultimately remained on the case. Sometimes judges recuse themselves because either they, maybe they really don't want it, or they think that they have some kind of a conflict of interest, or a perceived conflict of interest. And yes, and I want to hear what you say, Dave, but I have had to ask a judge to do this before. Because one time I walked into court on a case, it was a criminal case, not a serious one, relatively minor one. But when I walked into court, the prosecutor told me that his words were something to the effect of, I've heard it straight from the horse's mouth that I'm not allowed to offer you this, that, or the other thing on a plea deal. And when he said the horse's mouth, I'm thinking that must be his boss. I'm thinking, why would your boss be interested in this kind of a routine case? This is not a big deal that much at all. He said, no, not that horse. And he pointed to the judge's office. He said, that horse. And I'm like, surely the judge hasn't gotten involved in what you can and cannot, you know, offer me on a plea deal. So we just, I said, let me just go ask her. So we went in there together to her office. I said, judge, is this true? and her reaction told me that it was true because she became rapidly incensed and the fact that I could even think of asking her that question she found to be insulting but honestly I found it to be insulting that she's going to tell the prosecutor what he can offer me in a case because judges aren't supposed to be that involved and really involved at all in that kind of thing plus it's improper to talk to one of the lawyers about a case without the other side being there. So I didn't have to file the motion. I just had to ask the judge the question, and she tossed her own self from the case. So yes, it's uncomfortable, but it's the lawyer's duty when they realize that there is a conflict by a judge or perhaps even a prosecutor to raise that issue. Yeah, all good points. I've never had to recuse a judge. It's a high burden, And also, you're always worried that if you do that, that if the judge, if it doesn't work out, the judge, you've just poisoned the well with the judge, not just for that case, but for future cases. And so you've got to be really careful. I mean, like if you're going to go after the king, you better succeed. So, yeah, well said, Phil. Thank you for that excellent question. And now for our closing arguments. Dave, we'll let you go first. Okay, well, I'll go. All right. Thank you, my friend. All right. Well, Phil, you remember that classic horror movie setup? You remember the babysitter is terrified, the phone keeps ringing, and finally the police trace the signal only to tell her the call is coming from inside the house. Well, in 2026, the horror movie is real, except the intruder isn't hiding in the attic. It's mopping your kitchen floor. We've reached a new level of surveillance absurdity. According to Popular Science magazine, a software engineer just accidentally became the general of a 7,000-strong robot vacuum army. He wasn't trying to be a supervillain. He just wanted to drive his vacuum with a PlayStation controller. And with a little help from an AI coding tool, he didn't just get a remote. He got a front row seat to thousands of living rooms across 24 countries. Think about that. When you're in your pajamas, a total stranger with a joystick could be watching your camera, listening to your mic, and mapping your entire home. We are inviting Trojan horses into our bedrooms and calling it convenience. If it has a camera and a Wi-Fi, it's a witness for the prosecution waiting to happen. In this high-tech age, maybe the most revolutionary thing then you could do is maybe just buy a broom. It doesn't need to be, or it doesn't need to have a password. it doesn't have a cloud, and it's never going to testify against you. But who am I kidding? Alexa is so darn convenient, never complains, intuitively knows exactly when to order my toothpaste. And yes, it starts to vacuum when my beagle shedding starts to make my floors look like carpet. So yeah, the latest story from popular science is scary, but it's also scary to imagine a world where technology stopped advancing after clap on, clap off. I'm not willing to declare that I, for one, welcome our new Roomba overlords, but I recognize that day may one day come. on to you phil well thank you very much for that day look a lot of times here uh on mk true crime i like to talk about things that maybe have some educational value to maybe explain to folks things about how the trial process or other legal issues were in real life but today is a little bit different. Today is a cautionary tale, and it's about something that's, you know, it's, it's, unfortunately, it's something that we are seeing more and more of in our society and in our culture today. And this is, this is messages mainly to parents, parents of smaller children. So folks, I want you to, if you're in that category, to think about exactly what's involved in handing your child over to a babysitter, a daycare worker, or people that you may think you know, you're literally putting your kids' lives in their hands. I want to show you this video, but what this is, this is a San Diego babysitter who just breaks down in tears in court after being sentenced to 100 years in prison for essentially handing over children, even disabled children to her boyfriend so that he could do unspeakable things in ways of victimizing them. So let's go ahead and run that. A 31-year-old Brittany Lyon back in 2021, her boyfriend Samuel Cabrera Jr. was sentenced to multiple terms of life without parole after he was found guilty on several counts of child molestation, kidnapping, burglary, and conspiracy. The two were also charged for allegedly molesting multiple girls while Lyon videotaped the crimes. Today, family members of those victims confronted Lyon in court, calling her a monster. The defendant is a monster. There's just no other way to describe it. Absolute monster for the havoc that she's wreaked upon our society, upon our citizens. It's deplorable. It's disgusting. But it's up today. Prosecutors say Lyon found babysitting jobs on Care.com, which is an online platform that connects families with caregivers. Prosecutors also say Lyon and Cabrera would often assault the young girls inside their own home. Every single day in the United States, caregivers walk into homes. They have their spotless smiles. They have also their hidden pasts. Unfortunately, a quick Google search is not going to show you the domestic battery charge from three or four years ago, and it won't show you the person's name necessarily on a sex offender registry, and it certainly won't reveal the three or four jobs they may have been fired from for theft or neglect or other types of wrongdoing. But here's what you can do. You can do a proper background check, folks, in less than about 10 minutes. and for less than the price of a ham sandwich, you can basically do a background check and you can know if the person who is watching your baby has a violent record, a DUI, or a pattern of endangering children. You'll be able to sleep better knowing that you've taken this simple, I think, common sense step to protect your children. This isn't about being paranoid. It's about being a parent. You can vet these caregivers and you should. you know your children can't call 911 they can't vet these caregivers themselves and a lot of times they can't run you know if something feels wrong so you know these our kids are our precious most precious gifts in life and we've got to do everything we can to protect them so I'm serious before you hire that new babysitter do a proper background check every single time because literally your kids' lives depend on him. And that's it for us today. That's it for this particular episode of MK True Crime. I want to make a special thanks to Dave Ehrenberg and to Angelette Levy, our guest today. Thank you all for watching and for listening, and we'll see you back here next time on MK True Crime.