Utah grief author Kouri Richins’ handyman died in tragic accident after telling cops she allegedly tried to get fentanyl from him

Kouri Richins’ handyman died in a motorbike accident soon after telling cops that the grief author had tried to buy fentanyl from him in the weeks before she’s accused of using the drug to fatally poison her husband, court documents reveal.

William Hayden Jeffs, 35, made the claim when he was interviewed by cops earlier this year as part of the long-running investigation into the 2022 death of Richins’ husband, Eric Richins, KSL reported, citing newly unsealed search warrants tied to the case.

Jeffs, who had worked on multiple homes owned by Richins, had claimed the mom-of-three realtor had asked him if he could obtain fentanyl and propofol for her in the weeks before her husband drank the fatally-laced Moscow mule on March 4, 2022.

During the interview, the handyman allegedly showed police copies of text messages that backed up his claim, the court papers state.

It wasn’t immediately clear when the interview took place.

But, in a tragic twist, Jeffs ended up being killed in a traffic accident on Sept. 30 while he was out riding his Harley Davidson, according to the search warrants and an online obituary.

In the wake of his death, a judge granted a search warrant for Jeffs’ phone to be used as evidence in the case against Richins, according to the court filings.

The search warrant didn’t divulge exactly what evidence was obtained. It also stopped short of revealing Jeffs’ response to Richins’ request for drugs, or whether he supplied them.

Richins is accused of slipping her husband five times the lethal amount of the synthetic opioid into the Moscow mule cocktail after trying — but failing — to spike his breakfast sandwich with street fentanyl weeks earlier, on Valentine’s Day 2022, at their home near Park City.

A year after her husband’s death, Richins then self-published an illustrated storybook about a father with angel wings watching over his young son titled, “Are You With Me?”

Richins, who has repeatedly called her husband’s death unexpected, said she wrote the book to help her sons cope with the loss of their dad.

Prosecutors, however, have argued that Richins was both financially and romantically motivated to kill her husband because she’d allegedly been having an affair and had mounting debts that she hoped to solve with the money she mistakenly believed she’d inherit after his death.

In a statement following the revelation of the newly unsealed search warrants, Richins’ attorney, Kathy Nester, said: “It has been over two years since Mr Richins’ death, and the state is still looking for evidence and coming up empty-handed.”

Richins — who’s been behind bars since her March 2023 arrest — has pleaded not guilty to a slew of charges, including aggravated murder and insurance fraud.

She is set to face trial next April.