“A WIFE BECOMING A BLACK WIDOW”
Prosecutors said Richins, a real estate agent focused on flipping houses, was deep in debt and planning a future with another man. She had opened numerous life insurance policies on her husband without his knowledge, with benefits totalling about US$2 million, prosecutors alleged.
They showed the jury text messages between Richins and Robert Josh Grossman, the man with whom she was allegedly having an affair, in which she fantasised about leaving her husband, gaining millions in a divorce and marrying Grossman.
The internet search history from Richins’ phone included “what is a lethal.dose.of.fetanayl (sic)”, “luxury prisons for the rich America” and “if someone is poisned (sic) what does it go down on the death certificate as”, a digital forensic analyst testified.
Bloodworth replayed for the jury a clip of Richins’ 911 call from the night of her husband’s death. That’s “not ‘the sound of a wife becoming a widow,’” he said, quoting the defence’s opening statement. “It’s the sound of a wife becoming a black widow.”
Lewis responded that the prosecution “looks at facts one way and sees a witch, but if you look at those facts another way, you see a widow”.