UT - Kouri Richins, 33, Author, wife, mom, charged in husband’s unexpected death last year, May 2023 #2

[Seattle1]

I've definitely read online anecdotally of it being prescribed as a sleep aid.

Theoretically, I think misuse of any Rx will likely cause sedation but as the medical examiner reported, using quetiapine as a sleep aide is not the intended us of the drug.

I'm thinking about ER and how frightening it must have been for him to feel different physically without knowing why -- yet suspicious his wife was trying to harm him.

 

[SteveS]

On the side drug...
1 Medications can be prescribed for other uses, even if that is not their primary intent. Only the doctor who prescribed it can tell us "it was (or wasn't) prescribed for that use when I gave the prescription" as well as describe what was being treated. And HIPAA privacy rules might make chasing Kouri's meds and conditions a challenge.
2 Even though it was prescribed to Kouri, it would be hard to know if Eric took it knowingly and willingly, or if Kouri somehow slipped it into his drink or something.
3 I have many other questions on this med use, such as ... How much did he take, and what effect would it have had? How long do traces of such a drug linger in the body, and is it possible he took it much earlier? Would there have been an extra effect in it being in the body at the same time as alcohol and/or fentanyl?
4 I suspect the answers to some of these things might be entirely irrelevant.

 

[angelainwi]

Quetiapine is an antipsychotic medication that treats several kinds of mental health conditions including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It balances the levels of dopamine and serotonin in your brain. These hormones help regulate your mood, behaviors and thoughts. The brand name of this medication is Seroquel®.

Quetiapine (Seroquel): Uses & Side Effects

Quetiapine (Seroquel) is an antipsychotic that treats schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It balances dopamine and serotonin in your brain.

my.clevelandclinic.org

Nope. Not one off label use to I find for Seroquel as a sleep aid.

Both my father and I are prescribed it for sleep. A good amount of my clients are prescribed it for sleep too, and another bunch for psychotic behavior, it works by basically putting them to sleep, IME. Many families give me some of the pills to use as needed during long transports of the client.

 

[arielilane]

According to KR she used the pills as a sleep aid.

Kouri Richins' medication was found during her husband's autopsy, court docs say

Fentanyl was not the only substance found during the autopsy for Eric Richins, whose wife is charged with murdering him in 2022.

ksltv.com

Jan 6, 2024, 2:34 PM


Kouri Richins told an officer she used the pills as a sleeping aid, but the medical examiner said that is not the intended use of the medication, according to the warrant.

 

[RickshawFan]

On the side drug...
1 Medications can be prescribed for other uses, even if that is not their primary intent. Only the doctor who prescribed it can tell us "it was (or wasn't) prescribed for that use when I gave the prescription" as well as describe what was being treated. And HIPAA privacy rules might make chasing Kouri's meds and conditions a challenge.
2 Even though it was prescribed to Kouri, it would be hard to know if Eric took it knowingly and willingly, or if Kouri somehow slipped it into his drink or something.
3 I have many other questions on this med use, such as ... How much did he take, and what effect would it have had? How long do traces of such a drug linger in the body, and is it possible he took it much earlier? Would there have been an extra effect in it being in the body at the same time as alcohol and/or fentanyl?
4 I suspect the answers to some of these things might be entirely irrelevant.

Didn’t Kouri burble at some point that Eric took her medicine on a regular basis? In the back of my mind, I recall she mentioned a pill bottle? IMO she did this to forestall the obvious problem about it being in his system.

 

[Seattle1]

Based on the latest MSM reports that KR was prescribed antipsychotic meds (allegedly as a sleep aid), I wonder what other meds KR has a history with.

I predict it just a matter of time before the next step by the defense will be to question KR's competency to proceed -- or will they just go straight for NGRI defense?

US Supreme Court upholds strict insanity defenses, including Utah’s

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can prevent criminal defendants from pleading insanity without violating their constitutional rights, a decision affirming Utah’s strict insanity defense.

www.ksl.com

Inquiring Into Defendant's Competency in Utah Criminal Cases

In Utah a criminal defendant cannot stand trial if he is found to be incompetent. That is determined through an inquiry into competency.

www.salcidolawfirm.com

 

[charminglane]

Didn’t Kouri burble at some point that Eric took her medicine on a regular basis? In the back of my mind, I recall she mentioned a pill bottle? IMO she did this to forestall the obvious problem about it being in his system.

Kourisplaining.

 

[Marysmith]

Quetiapine is an antipsychotic medication that treats several kinds of mental health conditions including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It balances the levels of dopamine and serotonin in your brain. These hormones help regulate your mood, behaviors and thoughts. The brand name of this medication is Seroquel®.

Quetiapine (Seroquel): Uses & Side Effects

Quetiapine (Seroquel) is an antipsychotic that treats schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It balances dopamine and serotonin in your brain.

my.clevelandclinic.org

Nope. Not one off label use to I find for Seroquel as a sleep aid.

As a nurse I can say it is prescribed for this reason at times…

 

[Niner]

So - per my notes - we should be hearing something soon, eh?

12/29/23 Update: Jami Brackin, a former Summit County attorney known for her legislative & land-use expertise who now works as the deputy city attorney for St. George, filed a memorandum in support of the release of the contents on Friday. Brackin was selected as the state’s third-party representative earlier this month as ordered by the Third District Court. Under the court order, Brackin reviewed the material to argue why the defense should turn it over to the state. The filing was sealed to ensure prosecutors are unaware of the contents until the judge makes a ruling on whether it’s attorney-client privilege. The defense now has two weeks to file a response arguing why the envelope shouldn’t be public. Then, Brackin will be given until Jan. 12, 2024 to respond. The County Attorney’s Office is expected to ask the court to make a decision, which means a hearing could be scheduled.

 

[threesevenninefour]

As a nurse I can say it is prescribed for this reason at times…

Am also a nurse and can verify this as well. Seroquel/quetiapine often has a sedative effect, causing extreme drowsiness. Due to this, it works well as a sleep aid for those suffering from insomnia.

MOO.

 

[iusedtofloat]

SUMMIT COUNTY, Utah (Scripps News Salt Lake City) — Medical examiners found traces of Kouri Richins‘ anti-psychotic medication in her husband’s system during an autopsy following his death in March 2022.

The new detail was made public Thursday after search warrants in the high-profile case were unsealed.

Prosecutors charged Kouri Richins with aggravated murder after she allegedly poisoned her husband, Eric, with a drink containing five times the lethal dose of fentanyl.

However, one search warrant showed that a small amount of Quetiapine was also found in Eric Richins’ stomach during the autopsy. Kouri told detectives that she had been prescribed the anti-psychotic as a sleeping aid, but the medical examiner’s office said that is not the intended use of the medication.

...

Kouri Richins' anti-psychotic medication found during husband's autopsy

The medical examiner found traces of a drug prescribed to Kouri Richins in her husband's system during his autopsy.

www.courttv.com

Posted at 6:26 PM, January 5, 2024

it may not be the intended use, but it is prescribed for it!! (even though some have the opinion it shouldn't be)
quetiapine is the only thing that helps me sleep, honest to god. 200mg, out like a light!!
people also mistake anti-psychotics for only being prescribed in cases where psychosis is present. that is simply untrue and a myth that's been perpetuated due to the name of the classification...
just my two cents...

 

[iusedtofloat]

Quetiapine is an antipsychotic medication that treats several kinds of mental health conditions including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It balances the levels of dopamine and serotonin in your brain. These hormones help regulate your mood, behaviors and thoughts. The brand name of this medication is Seroquel®.

Quetiapine (Seroquel): Uses & Side Effects

Quetiapine (Seroquel) is an antipsychotic that treats schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It balances dopamine and serotonin in your brain.

my.clevelandclinic.org

Nope. Not one off label use to I find for Seroquel as a sleep aid.

I've definitely read online anecdotally of it being prescribed as a sleep aid.

Yep @chimpface you're right!

Doctors prescribe it as a sleep aid all the time actually. It is indeed a very common off-label use... It is (in my experience) only prescribed for sleep in people who have already tried many sleeping aids without success, and especially if those people have bipolar, extreme anxiety, psychotic depression, etc, etc.

Does Seroquel (quetiapine) help you sleep?

Official answer: Low doses of Seroquel, which causes drowsiness and somnolence as a side effect, are increasingly being prescribed...

www.drugs.com

Seroquel has been used at low doses to help with sleep, but studies are lacking and serious side effects can occur. Many doctors do not recommend Seroquel as a sleep aid in the general population, or may only prescribe it for people with certain mental health mood or psychosis disorders

 

[dcfi224]

Ughh quetiapine “for sleep”… the hill I will die on as a psychiatric pharmacist.

At low doses, quetiapine acts primarily on the histamine receptors causing sedation (think of the effects of other antihistamines like Benadryl). It also still caries some of its cardiometabolic side effects at these low doses. It’s usually better to figure out what’s actually causing the sleep disturbances (untreated MH condition, sleep apnea, BPH, etc.) and treat those/use medications with less risks (although there are no great sleep medications, imo). But I’ll digress.

The most important part of this to me is that it is a medication prescribed to her, found in his system. I’ll be interested if she plays dumb and says “I had no idea he was taking my pills”, but I think someone up thread said she might have been aware?, in which case she knew and therefore broke the law. All prescriptions have the following statement on them “Caution: Federal law prohibits the transfer of this drug to any person other than the patient for whom it was prescribed”.

She seems like someone who carries at least manipulative personality traits, jmo, and no medication is going to fix that.

 

[RickshawFan]

Oooh.... Law & Crime on the Seroquel detail:

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[Curiosum]

I've definitely read online anecdotally of it being prescribed as a sleep aid.

While I don’t recommend this for many reasons, I have admitted a lot of patients who are on Seroquel QHS for sleep. I generally don’t continue it if it is truly being used off label and they aren’t convinced it helps in the context of a good understanding of risk/benefit.

 

[RickshawFan]

Ughh quetiapine “for sleep”… the hill I will die on as a psychiatric pharmacist.

At low doses, quetiapine acts primarily on the histamine receptors causing sedation (think of the effects of other antihistamines like Benadryl). It also still caries some of its cardiometabolic side effects at these low doses. It’s usually better to figure out what’s actually causing the sleep disturbances (untreated MH condition, sleep apnea, BPH, etc.) and treat those/use medications with less risks (although there are no great sleep medications, imo). But I’ll digress.

The most important part of this to me is that it is a medication prescribed to her, found in his system. I’ll be interested if she plays dumb and says “I had no idea he was taking my pills”, but I think someone up thread said she might have been aware?, in which case she knew and therefore broke the law. All prescriptions have the following statement on them “Caution: Federal law prohibits the transfer of this drug to any person other than the patient for whom it was prescribed”.

She seems like someone who carries at least manipulative personality traits, jmo, and no medication is going to fix that.

I wonder if Eric was even the kind of guy who was likely to take someone else’s pills. Most on-the-ball folks would get their own medication/treatment for sleep issues IMO; it’s general knowledge that sleep is important, and these days often covered in annual PCP visits.

 

[LordMo]

I wonder if Eric was even the kind of guy who was likely to take someone else’s pills. Most on-the-ball folks would get their own medication/treatment for sleep issues IMO; it’s general knowledge that sleep is important, and these days often covered in annual PCP visits.

Okay, so..... I want to preface by saying that I think KR is so obviously guilty that aliens in distant star systems are reporting on her sentence. JMOO.

BUT I have known people who, during the COVID years, got a diagnosis that solved most of their problems but had a hard time getting the medication, just due to the provider backlog. On top of that, during the COVID era where remote work became much more common, a lot of people taking psychiatric/sleep/related meds (myself included) found themselves having to take smaller doses (on account of not having to make the commute) which lead to a temporary swell in extra pills.

It is absolutely my experience that people who have a hard time finding a prescriber will ask people they know if they have spares of the meds they're supposed to be taking.

 

[RickshawFan]

Okay, so..... I want to preface by saying that I think KR is so obviously guilty that aliens in distant star systems are reporting on her sentence. JMOO.

BUT I have known people who, during the COVID years, got a diagnosis that solved most of their problems but had a hard time getting the medication, just due to the provider backlog. On top of that, during the COVID era where remote work became much more common, a lot of people taking psychiatric/sleep/related meds (myself included) found themselves having to take smaller doses (on account of not having to make the commute) which lead to a temporary swell in extra pills.

It is absolutely my experience that people who have a hard time finding a prescriber will ask people they know if they have spares of the meds they're supposed to be taking.

Do we know if Seroquel was in fact in short supply? And there’s delivery, too, from pharmacies. We were past COVID, too, in the KR case, yes? And why would “hard to find a prescriber” be a thing except when the supply is illegal? A prescriber would surely be how you get the assessment and prescription, and know it’s appropriate in the first place.
That’s like “hard to find a prescriber for hydrocodone”. You only have that problem if you haven’t had a prescription or you shouldn’t be taking them. Then, you buy it from someone else.
These days, you only need a nurse practitioner or PCP to get a prescription for psychiatric drugs: it’s not like you need a psychiatrist.
All you’d need to do would be to Google-lite Seroquel, and you’d not go closer than 10 feet to someone else’s supply. It’s clearly something that needs expert input, dosing and decision-making, since the first line references the scary schizophrenia and “psychotic”. No chance I’d be ingesting a pill with those kinds of labels without direction. Besides, what’s the dose?
IMO the chance is very low Eric was taking Seroquel voluntarily.
I somehow doubt KR was prescribed them for sleep, either. The tablet size/her dose could be very revealing.

 

[dcfi224]

Do we know if Seroquel was in fact in short supply? And there’s delivery, too, from pharmacies. We were past COVID, too, in the KR case, yes? And why would “hard to find a prescriber” be a thing except when the supply is illegal? A prescriber would surely be how you get the assessment and prescription, and know it’s appropriate in the first place.
That’s like “hard to find a prescriber for hydrocodone”. You only have that problem if you haven’t had a prescription or you shouldn’t be taking them. Then, you buy it from someone else.
These days, you only need a nurse practitioner or PCP to get a prescription for psychiatric drugs: it’s not like you need a psychiatrist.
All you’d need to do would be to Google-lite Seroquel, and you’d not go closer than 10 feet to someone else’s supply. It’s clearly something that needs expert input, dosing and decision-making, since the first line references the scary schizophrenia and “psychotic”. No chance I’d be ingesting a pill with those kinds of labels without direction. Besides, what’s the dose?
IMO the chance is very low Eric was taking Seroquel voluntarily.
I somehow doubt KR was prescribed them for sleep, either. The tablet size/her dose could be very revealing.

Agreed.

For me, it’s just one more red flag to add to her list:
-who allegedly attempted to poison her husband while on vacation? Kouri
-who had multiple insurance policies on her husband? Kouri
-who made her husband a “Moscow mule” and then went to sleep in another room? Kouri
-who sought out and paid for fentanyl found in his system? Kouri
-who is prescribed a medication found in his system? Kouri

If this were to actually make it to trial, I’d be shocked if jury deliberation took more than 15 minutes.

 

[MeAndYouOutThere]

Agreed.

For me, it’s just one more red flag to add to her list:
-who allegedly attempted to poison her husband while on vacation? Kouri
-who had multiple insurance policies on her husband? Kouri
-who made her husband a “Moscow mule” and then went to sleep in another room? Kouri
-who sought out and paid for fentanyl found in his system? Kouri
-who is prescribed a medication found in his system? Kouri

If this were to actually make it to trial, I’d be shocked if jury deliberation took more than 15 minutes.

She's definitely guilty