Killer Utah children’s book author Kouri Richins bizarrely instructed her three young sons to “be like your dad” — just moments before she was sentenced to life in prison without parole for his murder. 

“Love the outdoors. Find your peace, your therapy, your heart and soul on the top of a mountain somewhere … be like your dad,” Richins, 35, said during a desperate address to her sons — ages 9, 12 and 13 — at her sentencing hearing Wednesday. 

The chilling comment came after it was revealed in court that Richins’ sons were terrified of their mother and wouldn’t feel safe unless she remained imprisoned for life.

The boys are being cared for by their aunt, the sister of their father, Eric Richins, who was killed with a fentanyl-laced cocktail.

“My sweet baby boys, I know that today you don’t want to speak with me, have a relationship with me … and that’s okay,” the heartless mom began her 30-minute, deluded allocution statement from the courtroom podium. 

“I will never be angry at you for your feelings … I need you boys to know and understand that I have been desperately trying to get into contact with you, that all communication with you has been cut off since early 2024,” she continued.

“All I care about is you boys. I will do whatever it takes for you to hear the truth from me and to come home to you,” she said, insisting through tears that she “did not abandon” her sons. 

Richins — who sobbed on and off as she stood flanked by her lawyers, handcuffed at the front of her body — maintained she would never have killed the boys’ dad, despite a jury finding her guilty of aggravated murder for the March 4, 2022, death of her 39-year-old husband after a lengthy trial.  

Jurors heard evidence that Richins — a failed home flipper — carried out the killing, believing she would inherit Eric’s $4 million estate to help her wipe out her millions in business debt and run away with her handyman lover.

After once trying to dose his sandwich with fentanyl, Richins finally succeeded in her evil plan when she laced Eric’s Moscow Mule with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl, killing him in their Kamas home while their sons slept, prosecutors said.

She wasn’t arrested until a year later, and after she wrote a children’s grief book titled, “Are You With Me?” — and shamelessly promoted it on local TV and radio stations.

“I can beat myself up all day about how I could have been a better person or made better personal choices, but murder? No, absolutely not. I will not accept that and I will not be blamed for something I did not do,” Richins said during her sentencing, noting she planned to appeal. 

“I would have never taken him from you, from us … I know how much you need him, how much you love him.”

During her rambling and repetitive statements to her sons, she also said there “is always going to be someone out there ready to tear you down, misrepresent you, lie about you, tell you half-truths, and judge you.

“The one thing I can’t give you boys are the answers you want the most. I can’t give you something I don’t have, an explanation that I just don’t know,” she insisted. 

However, she bizarrely noted: “Your dad was in physical pain, a lot of physical pain. Just because people didn’t want to see certain things doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

Richins blabbed that she was “still in shock” about being “convicted of taking one of the people out of my life who filled it the most” — but admitted infidelity was plaguing her marriage with Eric. 

“I fell in love with someone who wasn’t your dad, your dad fell in love with someone who wasn’t me,” she said. “Don’t keep secrets, always put your spouse first. Your dad and I didn’t always do that.”

Nevertheless, she insisted, “Our love never failed. We stopped keeping track of each other’s wrongdoings and we forgave and we moved on and we loved.” 

The murderer also offered her sons some ironic, tone-deaf pieces of advice: “Apologize when you are wrong” and “take responsibility when you mess up,” she said. 

Earlier in the hearing, Richins pulled faces while Eric’s family begged a judge to never let her be free again.

Kouri appeared incredulous, with her expressions ranging from outrage to astonishment, including when Eric’s sister, Katie Richins-Benson, claimed Eric didn’t divorce her because he didn’t want to risk her sons being alone with her half the time.

“He believed Kouri was the most evil person he had ever met,” Richins-Benson told the judge. “He knew her sons did not like her and preferred to be far away from her. He said he could never allow his children to spend half of their time alone with her.”

Three social workers also read statements from her sons about how she took their dad away, mistreated them, and neglected their pets. Richins spoke to her lawyers as the statements were read and appeared skeptical.

Richins — who will now spend life in prison without the possibility of parole — faces a second trial for alleged financial crimes tied to Eric’s murder.