Kouri Richins customers blame her for home financial woes

The Utah couple who bought a remodeled mansion from Kouri Richins, who penned a book about grief after allegedly murdering her husband, blame the mom for their near-financial ruin.

Taryn and Alec Wright said they’ve been plagued with “hazardous” levels of mold, an onslaught of mysterious medical problems and endless financial stressors in the three years since Richins sold them the home.

“There was no trying to right any of the wrongs that she had thrown at us,” Taryn, 38, told “Dateline” in her first interview about her lawsuit against Richins.

“We’re just innocent bystanders in her path of destruction.”

The Herber City home was the first Richins sold as part of her house-flipping business.

Richins is accused of slipping her husband Eric Richins a deadly fentanyl-laced Moscow mule in March 2022 after a day of arguing over a $2 million mansion she hoped to flip that he refused to pay for.

She closed on the deal the next day and threw a party at the mansion with 10 friends.

The Wrights had sued Richins and her realty company six months before the ghastly murder, alleging she sold the home without disclosing a series of defects.

The previous owner, Val Maynard, also confirmed to “Dateline” that he told Richins the house needed significant repairs since there had been “lots of water damage.”

After an inspection found no issues, the Wrights bought the home for $409,000 — nearly double what Richins bought it for.

But just a few months later after the first spring rainfall, they found mold in the wall of their son’s room and a pool of water on the floor.

Since then, they claim they’ve had to evacuate the home numerous times and have spent thousands trying to replace walls and windows ruined by mold, only to find that the home also had severe structural problems.

An August 2022 inspection of the home found “hazardous” levels of the fungus in the basement, with spores spread throughout the house.

They have also suffered a series of illnesses and health issues — asthma and protracted fungal infections, joint pain and brain fog — that required them to seek medical treatment.

“We were constantly going to the doctor,” Taryn said. “There was never like, ‘Oh, this is what’s wrong with you. It’s just kind of like, ‘Oh well, you’ll just get over it.’”

“It was super, super hard,” she added.

They were ultimately forced from the house, and are struggling to continue making mortgage payments.

They are also barely covering rent on the home they have since relocated to, they said.

In a court filing earlier this year, lawyers for Richins denied the Wrights’ allegations and claimed the company made “fulsome disclosure.”

The lawsuit is a last resort for the Wrights, who said they repeatedly tried to get in touch with Richins on how to best fix their house.

“We didn’t hear anything from her,” Alec Wright said.