Verdict at Kouri Richins' trial. Nurse accused of poisoning friend. Plus, AI at the police station.

I'm Craig Melvin. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way, too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges. Their stories are funny and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows? You might just come away with your own glass half full. Search glass half full with Craig Melvin from today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. In video games, you collect coins. But in real life, you can collect rewards. Our Xfinity members get access to one-of-a-kind experiences, exclusive perks, and great discounts with fresh rewards every Thursday. It's like having a power-up included with your Xfinity services. Right now, Xfinity members get access to Super Mario Galaxy exclusives. Check the Xfinity app for details and watch the Super Mario Galaxy movie only in theaters April 1st. Xfinity, imagine that. Restrictions apply. Visit Xfinity.com slash membership for details. Hey, good morning. Good morning. You're listening in to the Dateline Morning Meeting. There's also the Alabama charges. Our producers are swapping tips and story ideas. It sounds like the defense is that sort of dirt on forensics, right? We got some antifreeze. We got a love triangle. And maybe video interrogation, perhaps. Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly. I'm Andrea Canning. It's March 19th, and we're on the road, Bringing you the podcast from Utah, where I'm covering the Corey Richens trial. More on that in a little bit. First, here's what's on our docket this week. In Provo, Utah, a nurse is on trial for allegedly poisoning her best friend with insulin. Her defense team says the case is based on lies. Like Casey telling people she was afraid of Megan. Was Casey just lying about that? Can you believe anything of what she says? In Dateline Roundup, the latest on an Illinois killer fighting to clear his name. And the names of his parents, too. And the newly released police interview with the ex-lover of former Major League Baseball pitcher and convicted killer Dan Serafini. We always joke around that we're like a frepl because he always complains that he has two eyes. Plus, AI at the police station and the courthouse. How is artificial intelligence changing crime fighting? There's a lot of controversy around this. The whole idea is trying to intervene before the crime occurs. All right, let's get to our first story. We are here not too far from the Summit County Courthouse, and we've got a huge update for you in the trial of Corey Richens, the mother of three who authored a children's book about grief only to be accused of murdering her husband. There's a verdict. Over the past three weeks, prosecutors painstakingly built their case against Corey Richens by calling over 40 witnesses, presenting dozens of exhibits, phone records, toxicology reports, financial documents, all pointing, they say, towards Corey's involvement in her husband's sudden death. The prosecution alleged that the Utah mom had slipped her husband Eric a fatal dose of fentanyl in a cocktail so she could cash in on his life insurance and start her life over with a new man. Then it came time for the defense to present their case, and they took a very different approach. They announced they would not be calling a single witness. You know, actually, this time the defense intends to rest. A decision so surprising, the judge made sure Corey Richens was okay with it. I just want to make sure you've consulted with your client about this. Absolutely. Ms. Richens, may I ask you two direct questions? Yes. Do you understand that you have the right to testify at trial? Yes, I do. Are you following your attorney's advice and waiving your right to testify at trial? Yes, I am. Closing arguments got underway on Monday, and then the jury was sent off to deliberate. Dateline producer Karen Israel is here with me in the same room in Utah, and she is joining us now to talk about the final chapter in the Corey Richens case. Karen, thanks so much for being here in Utah with me. Thanks for having me. Before we get to the verdict, let's just spend a little bit longer talking about the closing arguments. The prosecution went first. Prosecutor Brad Bloodworth spent a lot of time describing Corey's character. The prosecutor, you know, went after her psychological makeup and said that she was intensely ambitious. Corey Richards is intensely ambitious. She wanted the perfect life or at least the appearance of the perfect life. Yeah, he used that phrase intensely ambitious five times in his closing. It's the phrase that he seemed to want the jury to hold on to, to understand just how driven Corey was to get what she wanted. And he said she'd do whatever it took to get it. And at first, her husband Eric seemed to provide exactly what she was looking for. But then the prosecutor said Corey got unhappy in the marriage and she couldn't just walk away. She had too much to lose. So, Karen, also in that motive bucket is this prenup that Corey and Eric had, and the prosecutor went into details about that. Their prenuptial agreement meant that if she left him, she would also leave most of his money. That's right. Bloodworth said Corey did everything she could to make enough money on her own to be able to leave Eric Richens and took incredible risks trying to do so in her house flipping business. And that's when she crossed paths with her handyman turned lover, Josh Grossman. She seemed to want a life with this man. The prosecutor told the jury that she really only saw one path forward. Corey Richens is an intensely ambitious person. She is a risk taker. There was a way forward. Eric had to die. How did the prosecutor sum up how Corey killed Eric? So the prosecutor said Corey bought illicit street drugs to kill Eric and that Corey gave Eric the drugs she got her hands on in a cocktail, possibly a Moscow mule or a shot or both. We heard early on that 911 call that Corey made the day Eric Richens died. The prosecutor chose to replay that 911 call in closings. Okay, what's the address? Yes, so on the call, you hear Corey giving excuses about why she can't give Eric CPR. Well, this is dead weight. If he has sheets under, pull them to the floor. Don't worry about hurting him. Corey, can you please send somebody? The prosecutor actually put up a time clock while playing the 911 call and estimated there was a six-minute delay before Corey actually started doing CPR. And so we go back to character here. The prosecutor wanted the jury to listen to Corey's demeanor and, you know, decide for themselves who this woman really is. The first minute is not the sound of a wife becoming a widow. the first minute is the sound of a wife becoming a black widow. Okay, then it was the defense's turn to present their closing arguments. Defense attorney Wendy Lewis poked holes in the prosecution's theory that Corey killed her husband to be with Josh Grossman, saying that even Grossman himself admitted on the stand that their future together was a mere fantasy. And Corey never promised she would leave Eric for him. If Corey was as motivated by money as they would have you think, Would she really have killed her wealthy husband to run off with the handyman who lived for free in one of her houses? As to Corey's behavior on the 911 call and after Eric's death, the defense said that people all grieve differently and she shouldn't be judged based on the worst moment of her life. The defense attacked the credibility of the state's star witness, Carmen Lauber. She's really key in this whole trial. She's Corey's former housekeeper who testified that she got the fentanyl for Corey, which the prosecution says was the deadly fentanyl. Yeah, Carmen is so important in this case. And the defense really zeroed in on the point that Carmen's testimony could not be trusted. They said that not only did she give her story in exchange for a get out of jail free card as she was facing serious drug charges they said her testimony was full of inconsistencies She couldn remember anything Not from 2022 not from 2023 She couldn't remember on Friday what she testified to on Thursday. Jury deliberations got underway Monday afternoon, and the mood was tense. Yeah, the judge checked in with the jury. They wanted to keep going into the evening. They actually locked up the courthouse, and everyone had to stay inside. Then after three hours of deliberating, we learned the jury had reached a verdict. Okay, let's take a listen. Count one, aggravated murder. We, the jury, unanimously find that the defendant, Corey Richens, is guilty of aggravated murder. Richens also faced charges of attempted aggravated murder, fraud, and forgery. She was found guilty of all of those charges. And Karen, I personally felt like as the verdict was being read, you got a sense of how Corey was feeling. To me, it was written all over her face. After hearing guilty for the aggravated murder charge, she tipped her head down and you could see her trying to regulate her breathing. When will Corey Richens be sentenced? The judge scheduled sentencing for May 13th. Richens incredibly also faces 26 other felony charges in a separate case. charges all pertaining to alleged financial crimes. And we'll have to wait and see whether prosecutors will pursue that in light of this verdict, because she is looking at some very, very serious time behind bars. Karen, thank you for being here with me in Utah. It's great to be here with you. Coming up, down the road from the Corey Richens Courthouse, we've got another Utah story for you and another alleged poisoning. This one involves a nurse and her best friend. Hey guys, Willie Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with Leah Michelle, talking about her lead role in the hit Broadway musical Chess, some of the Tony talk around it, and her road from the stage to Glee, and now back again. You can get our conversation now for free, wherever you download your podcasts. For our next story, we're heading to Provo, Utah, where it's week two in the trial of nurse Megan Sundwall for the murder of her best friend, Casey Terry. At the time of 38-year-old Casey's death in August of 2024, her friends and family believed she was terminally ill with cancer. But an autopsy revealed something astonishing. Casey didn't even have cancer. She died from an insulin overdose. After a seven-month investigation, police arrested Casey's friend, Megan, for her murder. Tonight, a Utah nurse is behind bars accused of carrying out a years-long murder plot. Driven by greed for life insurance money, the woman allegedly killed her old roommate. Megan Sundwall says she's innocent and has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and obstruction of justice. And as her trial gets underway, her defense team is urging the jury not to jump to conclusions. They say Casey was lying to everyone about having cancer, and that wasn't the only thing she lied about. As a warning for our listeners, this segment includes discussion of suicide. Dateline producer Marissa Meyer, who has been covering the case, is here to get us up to speed. Thanks for joining us, Marissa. Thank you for having me, Andrea. So before we get into the details of the alleged crime, Marissa, tell us about Megan and Casey. Who were they? How did they know each other? and you say they were best friends, right? Or it appeared to be. Yeah, very, very close. Prosecutors say Casey and Megan met working at a center for adults with intellectual disabilities and they became close friends really quickly. And at one point, Casey even lived with Megan and her husband. So they were very, very close. At some point in their friendship, Casey started telling people she had cancer. How did Megan react? So prosecutors said the friends spoke often about Casey's cancer and how she was in pain and she was worried about dying. The state showed the jury text messages in which Casey expressed suicidal ideations to Megan, saying that she wanted to end her own pain. And they alleged that Megan seemed to be encouraging Casey to follow through with those ideations. mediations. Prosecutors say that the way Megan was talking to her was scaring Casey. And they called Casey's sister, Kylie, to the stand. She told the jury that Casey got so scared of Megan that she moved out of her house. I moved my husband, moved her out. Why did you and your husband move her out? How did she express that to you? And Kylie testified that as far as she knew, Casey wasn't suicidal at all. What did you perceive Casey's attitude about life to be? Happy. She was a lot more upbeat than I had seen her in a long time. Do you feel she would have confided in you if suicide intention was an issue? Yes. Kylie said she believed right from the start that Megan was involved in Casey's death. Tell us how life insurance fits into all of this. Yeah, so this is a central part of the case and what prosecutors say is the motive in the case. The jury learned that Casey told Megan that she had named Megan as the beneficiary of her life insurance policy. She showed her documents that indicated there was up to a million and a half dollars that Megan was going to be a beneficiary of. And prosecutors noted that Megan was in financial trouble at that point. She'd lost her job, she'd totaled her car, and her husband's child support payments from her previous marriage had gone way up. So, Marissa, with all of what we've just talked about, what do prosecutors say happened on August 12th, 2024? So they say that Megan entered Casey's home that day with a plan. Her plan was that she would go to her friend's and Carrie's house. She would inject her with insulin and monitor her blood glucose until Casey died. And prosecutors say Megan did not call 911 to get her help. Casey's uncle eventually did. And then Casey died three days later in the hospital. And there's a big twist in all this. We said in the intro, Casey didn't even have cancer. Yeah. So had she been lying to everyone then, including Megan? Yes. So Casey's lies have formed the basis of the defense's argument. The defense is saying that Casey lied a lot. They say that she was lying about cancer. She was lying about a ton of other things. and they say that, you know, maybe she was doing all this to try to get attention from people. Wow. Yeah. So the defense is basically attacking the credibility of the victim, which is always dicey. Yes, it's always a gamble. But I think for the defense, they feel it's really important here because it raises doubts for the jury about things the prosecutors said, which could be very damning about Megan's character. Like Casey telling people she was afraid of Megan, or being worried that Megan might kill her. Was Casey just lying about that? Can you believe anything of what she says? When it came down to those text messages about Casey's desire for a, quote unquote release from her illness wanting to die by suicide what did the defense have to say about that Well they saying that maybe Megan believed Casey and was trying to support her friend So does the defense dispute that Megan was with Casey on the night of August 12th? So they do not. And it's one of those things where they can't really dispute it because there are witnesses who place Megan there. But they say Megan was aware of Casey's alleged plan to die that night by suicide via this insulin overdose, and that she went to Casey's house to support her emotionally, just emotionally, not to administer any doses of insulin. So are they saying then that Casey injected the insulin into herself? Exactly. That's what this whole case boils down to. The question of who gave Casey that fatal dose of insulin? Was it Casey herself or was it Megan? Okay, so there's yet another twist in this story, Marissa, that has to do with this insurance policy. I know, I know. This is twist number four, five, or six. I think there's more at this point, yeah. Yeah. Both sides also agree that this $1.5 million life insurance policy Casey told Megan was in her name, it never existed. So Megan didn't actually stand to receive any money after Casey's death. What can we expect next in the courtroom? So the prosecution is still calling witnesses, and we'll continue to watch the testimony before the defense begins their case. Before we go, we'd like to share some information. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or visit 988lifeline.org for more resources. Thank you for bringing us this very complicated story, Marissa, and breaking it down. Thank you, Andrea. Up next, it's time for Dateline Roundup. Dramatic updates from an Illinois courtroom in a 30-year-old murder case and the sentencing of Samantha Scott, the ex-lover of former baseball pitcher and convicted killer Dan Serafini. Plus, more police departments are using AI to fight crime, even crimes that haven't happened yet. Hey guys, Willie Geist here. We're celebrating 10 years of Sunday today by hosting a very special Sunday sit-down live event. And our guest is one of the biggest stars on the planet, Ryan Reynolds. We're taking our conversation to the stage in front of an audience of you for one night only at City Winery in New York on April 7th, an intimate in-person evening I promise you won't want to miss. Tickets are limited, so grab yours now at today.com. Welcome back. Joining me for this week's roundup is Dateline producer Veronica Mazzica. Hey, Veronica. Hey, Andrea. Okay, so Veronica, for our first story, we're heading to a California courtroom and the sentencing of a key player in a case we have been following very closely. This is the 2021 shooting of Gary Spohr and his wife, Wendy Wood, by their son-in-law, former Major League Baseball pitcher Dan Serafini. He was married to the couple's daughter, Erin. Gary was killed at the scene. Wendy survived the shooting, but died by suicide the next year. My mom's blood is on Samantha Sponsky. That is the voice of Gary and Wendy's other daughter, Adrienne, talking about Samantha Scott, Serafini's nanny and lover. Veronica, remind us how Samantha Scott fits into this case. Yes. So a jury convicted Dan Serafini of first-degree murder and attempted murder in July, and he is now serving life without parole. Samantha Scott testified against Serafini at his trial. She admitted that they were lovers and that she dropped him off in Tahoe the day of the shooting. So, Veronica, interesting timing here. Samantha Scott's initial interview with detectives was just released. So we can hear for ourselves what she told them in those early days. Samantha says she thought Serafini was going to Tahoe to buy drugs, not to kill his in-laws. That's correct. And you hear the detectives getting frustrated with her. They say that they don't believe her, but she sticks to her guns. And that's actually consistent with what she said ever since. she says she had no idea what Serafini was planning. In that same interview, Samantha Scott also downplayed her relationship with Serafini at the beginning of all of this, saying it was more of a flirtatious friendship than an affair. Are you and Danny together, or is it a sexual thing, or just friends? So we're friends. I mean, they're family. I'm very close with Aaron, and I'm very close with Dan. And there's a recent flirtation going on, which I'm sure you will see on my phone. With Dan? Mm-hmm. Okay, not Aaron? No, not with Aaron. And we always joke around that we're like a fripple because he always complains that he has two wives. Eventually, Samantha agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and told them she'd been hiding something, that Serafini had actually confessed to her after the shootings. She pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact, which brings us back to her sentencing this week. What, Veronica, did the judge ultimately decide? Samantha Scott was sentenced to two years of probation with no additional jail time. And Samantha addressed the court as well? Yes. She apologized and took full responsibility for lying to investigators. My heart goes out to the victims and their family. I cannot undo what happened, but I truly wish that I had acted differently when I had the chance. The judge said he was troubled by her conduct but found her testimony credible. She is also prohibited from having any contact with Serafini. And he is filing an appeal, so we will see where that goes. For our next story, we're heading to Illinois where there's been a development in a case that's nearly 30 years old. In 1996, a boater on Lake Shelbyville found a bag containing the head of an aspiring model, Karen Hearn Slover. A few years later, Karen's ex-husband, Michael Slover Jr., and his parents were convicted in connection with her murder. Now, new DNA analysis could change everything. Veronica, give us a quick recap of this case. Karen went missing in late September 1996. The car she was last seen driving was found abandoned on the highway, but there was no sign of Karen. A few days later, her remains were found. Then, in 2002, Michael Slover Jr. and his parents were convicted of murder. Prosecutors told the jury that concrete debris found in Karen's abandoned car actually matched concrete debris found in the parking lot of the Slovers family business. And they said that investigators had found a button at the family business that matched the buttons on the shirt Karen had been wearing when she disappeared. Michael and his parents have always maintained their innocence, and the Illinois Innocence Project took on their case a few years ago. Yes. In 2024, they filed a motion asking for the conviction to be thrown out, arguing that the prosecution's case had been built on junk science, things like comparing the concrete debris and buttons. But the really big thing in that motion was that they said there was, quote, newly discovered DNA evidence in the case. What DNA evidence are they referring to? They said that there was forensic testing that had identified three DNA profiles on items associated with the crime, like duct tape that was used to seal the bags containing Karen's remains. They said none of the DNA belonged to the Slovers. They petitioned a judge to order the Illinois State Police to submit the DNA profiles to both state and national law enforcement databases, including CODIS. They said that this could actually lead them to the real killers. So what did the judge decide? The judge recently ordered that the police start submitting the profiles for analysis. And at a court hearing last week, the defense told the judge that the process is underway, but it is far from complete. OK, so where do they go from here, the police? The Illinois State Police will continue that analysis, but prosecutors are pushing back against the defense team's motion to overturn the convictions. They say that the jury made the right decision at trial and the investigation was solid. OK so meantime Michael Slover Jr is out of prison Yes he got out on parole in 2024 Both of his parents died in prison His attorney Carl Leonard spoke to our local affiliate WAND about Michael's reaction to this new development. It's been a really long wait for him, and he's, I think, eager to eventually have his day in court. It's progress, and he's happy about that. Very interesting, Veronica. Thank you so much for bringing us these stories. Of course. Thank you. For our final story this week, we're diving into a topic that's been getting a lot of attention lately. AI or artificial intelligence. AI is something that is increasingly in our lives, from the search engines on our computers and phones to our kids using it for their homework. But what if we told you that AI is also being used to fight crime, generating police reports, tracking down fugitives, even predicting future crimes? Here to fill us in on this new frontier in law enforcement is Professor Daniel Linna, Senior Lecturer and Director of Law and Technology Initiatives at Northwestern University. Thanks for joining me, Dan. Yeah, glad to be here. The first thing that jumps to mind is Minority Report, the movie with Tom Cruise about, you know, it came out a long time ago, but it was really about predicting future murders. We are arresting individuals who have broken the law. But they will. To pre-conquist the future, and they're never wrong. Right, right, right. Well, yeah, a lot of people bring that up. And how are they actually making these predictions? Is there any validity to that? And that's still kind of a relevant question to have here when we talk about AI. It's really important to understand what kind of tools are being used, what's the data being used, how is it being used for these different things? Let's just start with the basics of what we mean when we say AI, artificial intelligence. What exactly is it? There's a wide range of things you might think about. These generative AI tools that produce text, produce images, and you said writing police reports, right? Those are the kind of tools you could use, tools that would summarize a conversation perhaps and help create a police report or face recognition tools, which have been around for a little bit longer, different type of technology. Obviously, one of the things we love is how quickly these sites like ChatGPT can spit everything out that you're looking for. And there's some AI applications that could really, I feel like, cut down on time for law enforcement when they're searching for a suspect. We've talked about facial recognition, but also detecting fingerprint matches, identifying weapons on security cameras. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes that speed can be really important, right? If you can identify that someone has pulled out a weapon in a video camera, right, and draw people's attention to that right away versus expecting that someone was looking at that video camera at the time, right, that can make a huge difference. Another way police departments have started to use AI is by using software to analyze crime data and look for patterns that could help predict future crimes, which is what we were talking about earlier with Minority Report. Yeah, and this is something that's been going on for a while, different versions of this, and it's quite controversial. But there's a lot of different type of data that is gathered to make these predictions. There can be place-based predictions. Are there particular areas where you think there may be crime? Or it can be person-based prediction. Some of the person-based prediction used properly could be helpful in the sense that you identify individuals who, hey, maybe there's an intervention here and we can help change the pathway this person is on so they're not involved in a violent crime or something like that. The New York State Parole Board uses an AI tool called Compass to predict the likelihood of an individual reoffending when deciding on that individual's parole. You know, is this a good idea to be having a computer help deciding something like this when there's so many factors that go into a human being and what they've done, what they may do, what's their background, what's their future? Well, to give a lawyerly answer, I'd say it depends, right? And it really depends on the kind of tool that's being used. And we sometimes forget in these discussions that humans have biases as well. So having data to help assist judges in making decisions, there's risks with that. And I think a big problem with Compass, for example, is transparency and not having access to what is the algorithm, how are they computing this? And at the same time, there have been some studies that suggest that this information being provided to judges has actually resulted in better decisions where people were released that did not re-offend, right? Judges make decisions that aren't the best or biased sometimes as well. Can data counteract that in different ways so we get better outcomes? And I think that this highlights something that, you know, we're all going to have to get savvier about understanding the ways in which these AI tools work and learning more about Where we see problems is over-align some of the technology, the areas where outputs from an AI system is treated as like, you know, this is the way the world is. This is the correct result. Yeah, just last year, according to Gulf Coast News, a man in Lee County, Florida, was wrongfully arrested for luring or enticing a child. AI facial recognition software identified him as the person of interest on camera leaving a restaurant. Turned out that the man who was ID'd was 300 miles away at the time and had never been to that town. Yeah, we've had a few incidents like this, unfortunately. You know, the police need to understand that the computer can get it wrong. This is just one input into conducting good police work and investigations. Where do you think we're going with this as far as if we had this conversation in even, you know, two years, three years? Like, it's so rapidly evolving. Do you think we'll see someday robots at crime scenes? Yeah, for sure. I mean, it just depends on what your notion of a robot is, right? But yeah, I think that we're going to try to bring tools like that into more and more of our daily interactions. Dan, thank you so much for joining us. It's a fascinating conversation, and it just makes you wonder what the future is going to hold. Thank you. That's it for this episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly. But remember to check out my friend Josh's brand new original podcast series, Trace of Suspicion. It's got a lot of twists, and I think you're going to like it. It's about the aftermath of a Marine's unexpected death. Investigators suspected his widow had something to do with it, setting off a criminal case that took a stunning turn. I really want to let everyone know that this really can happen to them. Innocent people go to prison for life, and that's a scary thing. The first four episodes are available now for free wherever you get your podcasts. And if you subscribe to Dateline Premium, you can binge the whole series ad-free. Coming up this Friday on Dateline, we've got more Josh for you. You can watch his episode about the murder of a beloved tech mogul that stunned a city and sent investigators into a world of glamour, parties, and rage. That is the most far-out story I think I've ever heard in my life. I think that there is something deeply disturbing about this person. Watch Under the Bay Bridge, airing this Friday at 9, 8 central on NBC, or stream it starting Saturday on Peacock. Thanks for listening. Dateline True Crime Weekly is produced by Carson Cummins, Caroline Casey, and Kiani Reed. Our associate producers are Ellery Gladstone-Grath and Aria Young. Our senior producer is Liz Brown-Kurloff. Production and fact-checking help by Audrey Abrahams. Veronica Mazzaca is our digital producer. Rick Kwan is our sound designer. Original music by Jesse McGinty. Paul Ryan is executive producer. And Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Dateline. Okay, thanks very much. I'm Craig Melvin. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way, too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges. Their stories are funny and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows, you might just come away with your own glass half full. Search Glass Half Full with Craig Nolton from today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.