Children's Book Author Kouri Richins Gets Life in Prison for Poisoning Husband

Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who wrote a children's book about grief following the death of her husband, was just sentenced to life behind bars without the possibility of parole ... after being convicted of murdering him.

Kouri was convicted of aggravated murder in her husband's March 2022 death ... for lacing his drink with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl.

A Utah jury also found her guilty of attempted aggravated murder for trying to kill her husband on Valentine's Day 2022 with a fentanyl-laced sandwich ... plus insurance fraud and forgery related to his life insurance policy.

In handing down the sentence Wednesday, Judge Richard Mrazik said ... "A person convicted of those things is simply too dangerous to ever be free," The New York Times reports.

Kouri's life sentence comes on the day her husband, Eric Richins, would have turned 44 years old.

Prosecutors claimed at the time of Eric's murder Kouri was millions of dollars in the red and planning a future with another man ... despite sharing three sons with Eric ... aged 9, 7, and 5 at the time of the killing.

Kouri's maintained her innocence and told her sons in court Wednesday before the sentencing, "As much as you've been influenced into thinking that dad was murdered, that I took your dad from you, that is completely wrong. An absolute lie. And the thought of that is still as absurd today as it was four years ago."