The Utah couple who bought a renovated mansion from Kouri Richins, who wrote a book about heartbreak after allegedly murdering her husband, blame the mother for their near-financial ruin.
Taryn and Alec Wright said they had grappled with “dangerous” levels of mold, a series of mysterious medical problems and endless financial stressors in the three years since Richins sold them the house .
“There was no attempt to right the wrongs that she had inflicted on us,” Taryn, 38, told “Dateline” in her first interview about her lawsuit against Richins.
“We are just innocent bystanders on his path of destruction.”
The Herber City home was the first Richins sold through his home remodeling business.
Richins is accused of slipping her husband Eric Richins a deadly Moscow mule laced with fentanyl in March 2022 after a day of arguing over a $2 million mansion she hoped to flip and he refused to pay.
She sealed the deal the next day and threw a party at the mansion with 10 friends.
The Wrights had sued Richins and her real estate company six months before the grisly murder, alleging she sold the house without disclosing a series of defects.
Former owner Val Maynard also confirmed to “Dateline” that he told Richins the house needed extensive repairs because there had been “a lot of water damage.”
After an inspection revealed no problems, the Wrights purchased the house for $409,000, nearly double what Richins had bought it for.
But a few months later, after the first spring rains, they discovered mold in the wall of their son’s bedroom and a pool of water on the floor.
Since then, they say they have had to evacuate the house several times and spent thousands of dollars trying to replace walls and windows damaged by mold, only to discover that the house also had serious structural problems.
A home inspection in August 2022 found “dangerous” levels of fungus in the basement, with spores spread throughout the house.
They also suffered from a series of illnesses and health problems – prolonged asthma and fungal infections, joint pain and brain fog – that required them to seek medical attention.
“We were constantly going to the doctor,” Taryn said. “There was never like, ‘Oh, that’s what’s wrong with you.’ It’s just kind of like, ‘Well, you’ll just get over it.’
“It was super, super hard,” she added.
They were eventually forced out of the house and struggled to continue making their mortgage payments.
They are also struggling to pay rent on the house they have since moved into, they said.
In a court filing earlier this year, Richins’ lawyers denied the Wrights’ allegations and said the company had made “full disclosure.”
The lawsuit is a last resort for the Wrights, who said they tried repeatedly to contact Richins for advice on how best to repair their home.
“We haven’t heard anything from him,” Alec Wright said.
New York Post
