Karen Read Wrongful Death Lawsuit, Kouri Richins’ Defense STUNS Courtroom, “Walk the Dog” Letter Admitted, with Martin Radner

Florida, and current managing partner of Dave Aaronberg Law. Here's what's on the DACA today.

We're at the end of week three of Aquari Richens' murder trial. Housekeeper Carmen Lover was called back to the stand by the defense. Why? And Carmen's police interviews were shown to the jury will bring you all the details. And in a shocked turn, the state and defense

“both rested on Thursday with the defense calling, "No witnesses." What does that signal?”

We'll discuss later. We'll be joined by criminal defense attorney Martin Radner to discuss the infamous walk the dog letter that was read in court and the latest with Karen Reed. Also in Utah, a nurse is on trial for allegedly killing her friend with insulin

for insurance. We'll bring you up to speed on that one. I'm joined today by my co-host Ashley

Merchant, criminal defense lawyer from Georgia and also a fellow native Floridian. Ashley. Good to see you. Florida Lawman and Florida Lawwoman, a Lord Georgia Lawwoman. I love it. Well, Ashley, you and I have deferred on the query Richens' case and you're an excellent criminal defense lawyer, and I've said not even the great Ashley Merchant can pull a rabbit out of this head. What do you think about the defense side resting on day one?

You know, I'm not surprised that they didn't put up any evidence. You know, the defense doesn't

“usually put up evidence. And so that's what I think a lot of people are surprised when they don't”

put up evidence on TV, but in real life, we don't usually put up evidence. And that makes sense.

I mean, we're not the ones that are supposed to be proving the case. And a lot of times, we're actually just poking holes. And I hate to say that because it sounds like it's cheapening. But, you know, cross-examining, bringing out the other side, and we do that through the state's witnesses. So we put on our evidence through cross-examination. I think it's interesting what the defense or what exactly ended with the state. I don't think they ended on a strong note. Let's put it that way.

And we heard from a handwriting expert, which we all know, I don't love handwriting experts, but one of the folks that we heard from from the state before they rested was a handwriting expert. And this witness, his name is George Throck Morton. What a name, Throck Morton. But George Throck Morton, he's been a police officer in a forensic specialist for many, many years, but he testified. And I think we actually have a sought for him. We've got sought, too,

if we could play that, where he's talking about the signature on a life insurance policy. And then we can kind of talk about what that means. A couple of signatures on this page. What one were you focusing on? The one on the right, the one that was not. And that it appeared to be a simulated forgery, written by somebody who was familiar, had access to his writing in an attempt to copy, draw or duplicate his signature and try and pass it off

as a genuine signature of Eric. Now, Ashley, generally, pro prosecution. And I understand what you're saying that this is not the strongest testimony, because he said probably he can't absolutely eliminate that Eric didn't sign for it for sure, because he's dealing with a photocopening off the original. Why isn't he dealing with the original? By the way, maybe he can help me with that. And he also couldn't determine who was authoring the signature. So is that what you mean by

not closing on the strongest note? Oh, yeah. And I got a lot to say about this. I'll try to make it brief, but I have a lot to say. But let's just think about it. The real question with handwriting experts, isn't whether or not they're right. It's how often they're wrong. Because typically they're wrong. And they say probably, probably, why are they here? That doesn't help the jury. Probably does not aid the jury. Probably is nothing. So that's my little rant on handwriting experts.

But where this comes in? Let's just talk about that for a minute. So before and day 10 of the trial, we heard from the business partner. And the business partner of the deceased, the business partner,

“is one of those witnesses that I think has been important in this case. And I think plays a”

vital role. And there were some allegations that maybe he had signed this life insurance policy. He testified and he testified. And I think we actually have a thought about it. He testified specifically that he did not make the changes to Eric's life insurance policy. So that he was not the one that made these changes. And he didn't sign it. So if we could play salt one, then we can talk about what that means. Are you familiar with a buy sell agreement that you and Eric had in place? Should anything

happen to either of you? Yes. Are you familiar with a new York life insurance policy set of New York life insurance policies that were associated with that buy sell agreement? Yes.

in January of 2022? I was told those happened. Did you make those beneficiary changes to

your New York life policy in January of 2022? I did not. Did you ever make any beneficiary changes to that New York life policy? No. Did you ever observe Eric Richards make any beneficiary changes to that New York life policy? No. So Dave, what if we learned from these witnesses? Because I don't think we've learned a whole heck of a lot that helps the jury actually determine whether or not Corey Richards did this. What do you think? Well, I think the evidence is pretty clear.

She had this financial motive. She needed millions of dollars to rehab her next big house. And she was frustrated. She had no money. Deepened it. She hated her husband. She had a lover. Plenty of motive here. And this is not a hard motive to understand. As we've discussed,

“yours always want to know the why. And this is the why. So I think that's important. Now,”

I know that the defense lawyer, Nester, said that, "Hey, uh, there's not been any testimony about

whether Eric gave Corey permission to sign his name on documents." Well, okay. Is that a normal thing where you give the wife you don't trust a blood get out of jail for your kind of blank slate. Just go inside my name and all my documents when he clearly tried to keep things from her. So I think that's a poor argument by Nester. And in fact, uh, Odrisco, who is the detective, I was on the stand when Nester was asking that. He says, "No, I don't think that's required

to meet the forgery statue where you have to actually show that the defendant did not give or do not get permission from the victim to sign his name illegally." So that's what defense lawyers do. They throw anything just a wall hoping it will stick. I don't think that it's going to stick here, though. But there's also no evidence that, you know, that he didn't give someone permission

“to do it. So I would be arguing, you know, there's nothing like that. And I think if you've got”

some jurors that are going to have given permission to somebody in their life to sign something. And I know I don't know about your you, but I mean, I'll probably be divulging a little more than I should here. But like my 16 year old, by the way, can sign my signature way better than me. I have not signed a school permission slips since she learned cursive. And we have a thing, though, we have a thing where she asked me permission to sign it. But regularly, I get text from school.

Mom, I forgot to get this permission slip sign. Can I sign your name to, of course? We've gotten to the point where literally I'm like, can you just please sign my name? Like, why am I signing it? You sign my name? You have my permission. My paralegal signs my name is a checks with permission. I mean, we have this thing with permission. And so I think, you know, the fact that if they argue this, I think that they're going to have a hard time disproving that she actually had

permission or somebody else had permission. You know, somebody else could have easily had permission. And I don't really buy this whole theory of this, this financial motive. Because if you think about it, he living. He was making money. And he was supporting her awful business venture of this flipping houses. So she was actually better off with him being alive because he was supporting it. She wasn't doing well, but neither was he. Nobody was doing well. They were all a hot mess. He's a

drug addict. They're all a hot mess. But what's happening is now he's dead. He can't finance her house. I mean, in theory, maybe she could have thought that she was going to get this life insurance policy. But she was fine. She wasn't doing well. But she was fine. He was still financing it. Why would she kill the ATM? He's the one paying the bills. He's the one paying for her financial, you know, flipping of these houses. Why would she off? Who's paying for her bills?

That was, I think the state's going to have a hard time proving that. Okay. Well, but if you're saying

“that you need to show that he did not give her permission to sign his name like you're 16”

year old, then how do you explain that just six months before his death? He established a living trust and named his sister as a trustee and beneficiary. Not Cory, I think if you gave her the trust that you had to sign your signature your name. Maybe he would make her the beneficiary instead of excluding her, making the sister the trustee and beneficiary and explicitly changing your will. Because that's what Eric did to ensure that his sister manages a state and not Cory didn't trust

Cory. He even removed Cory as his healthcare agent. He said he did not want her making the medical decisions for him if he came incapacitated and he also discovered that Cory had attempted to change

his $2 million business life insurance policy to make herself the sole beneficiary. So he

immediately changed it back to his business partner in his trust. So it doesn't sound like a guy who's saying to Cory, "Yeah, you can sign. Let me go ahead. Not yourself out." You know, Dave, I think you're an excellent prosecutor and I think we would have so much fun arguing of Cory because I would immediately be wanting to jump up and down and say, "But this man that you're

He is addicted to opiates. He has paranoia. He is faking illnesses. To seek drugs. Do we really think that he's doing things that are rational?" So he took her office policy. So he created a trust. He was paranoid. He was suffering from drug abuse. He was suffering addiction. He was suffering all of these different issues and they lead to bad decisions. Decisions just don't make sense. So I think we would have a good time. But we'll catch up on a little bit more. One thing I wanted

to talk about was Carmen Lauber actually came back to the stand, which I thought was really interesting. And I know we want to talk about some theories about why, but if we could play sort of three,

where we hear what Carmen actually is saying when she took the stand a second time.

Would you violate the weapons condition? If there was a weapon found in my room when they raided it, yes, advantage of your meaning. Was there a weapon found after you signed up these conditions? Yes. So you violated that condition? Yes. All right. You also violated the alcohol condition, correct?

If you're talking about, I went to a concert.

“That's correct. That's what I'm talking about. Yes. All right.”

But we didn't know, of course, the Doye, the little sheep is like, "Well, why am I here? Look about her. I'm so innocent."

No makeup, the hair pulled back. Oh, it's like Mendenna's brothers with the sweater,

the oversized glasses for the mass murder at Marjorie Stom and Douglas. I'm not going to lie. I love how that's what you saw with that side. Because what I see with that thought is Carmen is the biggest liar ever, and she is literally trying to say anything to get out of trouble. It's a more shock test, right? It's a more shock test. It is. It's totally the word.

Like, I can't get past that and all I'm thinking is this woman is lying. You know, and I think why they brought this up and we've got another stop. We'll play in a minute, which I think will help sort of bring this point home. But the reason that they brought her up you know, in trials, we have to follow the rules of evidence, and a lot of times they're not convenient. And so, you know, as the defense, we don't necessarily know what the state is going to bring in.

So when she testified, maybe the door wasn't open to this testimony. Maybe they didn't have this testimony and so they didn't need to rebut it. But then, once the state actually played her interview to the police, it became more relevant. And they decided, hey, it's worth it. They made a strategic decision to ask her more questions about that.

“And I think that theory is sort of buttressed by the fact that they did play. And we'll play in”

SOT 5. They did play. And this, I think, is just pivotal. I would, you know, in closing, I would play this, the SOT over and over again. But we've got Carmen actually talking to the detectives and the detectives tell her that drug court is looking to ask for seven years in prison for a violation. And the only exception is that if she helps the detective out with the rich in trial. So she knows she needs to give up details, or else she's going to jail. So let's see if we can play SOT 5.

Give up the detail that will ensure court gets convicted of murder. Oh my God. There's a serious case. Oh, and I'm not saying, oh, my, I know. I know, Mr. Don't, don't freak out. Okay, because this is a wrong process. And this is a good thing. And where there's a no excuse for you. It's about that. For the defense. That's good for the defense. Oh, yeah. But, you know,

who do you think is going to buy fentanyl for you? The Michael Jackson stuff. Mother Teresa. I mean, people like Carmen, the desperate housekeeper who wants to stay out of jail or has a criminal pass. And he just can't stay above the law or can't say, they say, not above the law, can't, can't stay us clean. And so she is going to cut deals. But doesn't mean she's lying.

“I mean, that's what cross-examination is for. And if you believe that there's no”

corroboration for what she says, yeah, then collar a liar. But I think it's been plenty of corroboration. She's not an ideal person, non-ideal witness, but that's who you get as a prosecutor because the choir boys ain't walking through that door. Now, they're definitely not. They're not the ones that are selling drugs. But, you know, the issue for me is this fentanyl leap. They've got to make the states really got to show that Corey Richens actually got fentanyl

because that's what killed him and that he didn't get in himself or he didn't possibly get something that maybe he was laced with fentanyl. Everybody's heard those stories. And so, you know, I think that what the defense is doing and we haven't thought six is they're really planting this theory

this doubt as to the fentanyl because Carmen is not the first one to bring it up. The police are.

So you've got to think about where she is. She's in this coercive situation where the police are saying, you're going to go back to jail for seven years for drug court. She doesn't want to go back to jail. They're saying we need information and they say the word fentanyl. She doesn't say it first. So if we can place that six, I really think that's going to be something we see back in the defense in their closing. Did Ms. Lobbert tell you that because of what happened to her daughter

tragically, that she did not mess with fentanyl. She didn't deal with it. I believe those were her word to say. As a matter of fact, the first person, the first people that ever injected the

officers, correct? I came out of y'all's mouth first, not hers. I'm Jackson, you know, and I argue overruled. If you understand, she's referring to my y'all. Sorry, I did it. I'm so focused on the previous question because I thought there was going to be a follow question about not my impression. No. So the first people that mentioned fentanyl in the interview were law enforcement,

“not Ms. Lobbert, correct? Yeah, I believe so. Because I think we told her in that first interview”

that while investigating Eric Richard, we told them that we were investigating Eric Richard's death and that he had died of fentanyl overdose. She keeps getting hung up on the y'all's. Right. Well, you know, although the detectives may have mentioned fentanyl's, fentanyl first, prosecutors, I think, have the better argument because you have proof that Carmen was wanted to provide the fentanyl because she knew details that only the buyer would know,

like Carmen tests by the Cory specifically asked for some of that Michael Jackson stuff and Cory's defense is relying on Noel Eric's secret addict. Okay, well, if he was a secret addict, why were there no elicit dealers found in his phone, but Cory had a direct line to a supplier. Home security can feel overwhelming, but simply safe makes it simple. Many people are

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safe in their lives. Right now, you can get 50% off their new simply safe system, at simplysafe.com/magan. That's simplysafe.com/magan. There's no safe, like simply safe. So we're going to hear closing. Monday is what the court has said. They're going to come back early next week. So Dave, if you were given the closing for the prosecution, what point would you hit? What do you think is their strongest point? Oh, I would just rely on the evidence.

And, you know, this prosecutor, I think is doing a very good job, although Megan Kelly mentioned that he was a bit monotone for her taste, but monotone, when you cases, when you're building your case on a mountain of evidence. So I would, well, if you wanted to do some closing arguments, let's do some closing arguments. Okay, let's not. I would say something like, you know, ladies, oh, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, and hopefully I wouldn't have an earpiece falling

out on speaking. But I would say, I would use a line that says, like, this isn't a tragedy. This was a strategy. You know, Corey Richens didn't write a book on grief. She authored the very grief that her children now live with every single day. And I would say that what was the motive?

Well, how about $4.5 million? That's the price. Corey Richens put on Eric's life. She was drowning

in debt, and he was her life raft. And if you have any doubt about intent, you just look at the walk the dog letter. I mean, from the jail cell, she didn't write about missing your husband. She wrote a script. She told her family exactly what to lie about. How to frame Eric as a drug addict,

“and even give it a catchy non-secret or title, walk the dog. How would you use code like that?”

She thought she could write the ending to this story just like she did in her phony children's book where she had a crocodile tears when on national TV to try to explain why she is the victim here. Well, this story is going to end with the truth because Eric Richens didn't choose to leave his

children. Corey Richens chose it for him. That was amazing. That was so good. And by the way,

ladies and gentlemen, I'm pretty sure Dave had maybe five minutes notice that I was going to ask him to do that. So that is amazing to be able to do that on the fly. That's awesome. So that was our viewing it. I would, I would avoid first of all before I get into it, avoid that walk the dog letter. I just don't want anyone to touch that. I hate that fact. But side that would talk about this case being sort of like a murder mystery. You know, sometimes

we've got a group of deeply unreliable people, and you're trying to get them to explain. Chaos explain what happens when there's a drug problem. If you stay step back, you take an actual

The wife with a struggling house flipping business, the business partner. The cleaner, let's

see who else we have, the sister, the doctors, everybody has a story and not a single one of those lines up. They're all over the place. Then you add in this medical narrative, which I think is really at the core of this whole case. What does he have? He has a line disease and he has nerve pain. He's got some mysterious allergies. He's got the kind of diagnoses that are notoriously difficult to verify. But they're extremely useful if someone is doctor shopping for pain pills. And

people who are addicted to pain pills, they're going to put just about anything in their body. Could be laced with fentanyl. They don't care where they get it if they need a fix. Could get it from anybody. Any of these cast of characters. Now you layer on some paranoia. You layer on financial stress. You layer on a man who suddenly believes he's been poisoned because he broke out on hives. But he's already being treated for allergies. He doesn't make sense.

And don't get me started on this simulated forgery. This life insurance policy forgery. That testimony was just pointless. Carmen, what do we hear from her? She doesn't want to go to jail. It's easy. We know her motive. The police said fentanyl. And then heck yeah, she says fentanyl. I'd say fentanyl too. If I was faced in seven years in prison, I was a person who had potentially sold the drugs or given the drug. Heck, maybe she gave him the drugs.

“At some point you have to ask the difficult question. Is this really a who done it? Or is this”

really a case about addiction? Money. And a group of people who are not making any sense. And if the story doesn't make sense, that's the state's problem. The states, the one that has to tie all these pieces together. They have all of the evidence. They have all of the ability. And they're the ones that need to present a story that actually makes sense. So ladies and gentlemen, if you are not convinced and you think there is a reasonable doubt

as to her innocence, or reasonable doubt just that she's not guilty. It's your duty to find her not guilty. I'll see. We'll see. I can't wait. That was really, really good. I mean, wow, this is, we didn't have a lot of time repair this.

We did it! We did it! We're going on the fly, I think it's fun now. Not to pat ourselves in the back too much, but that was, I was waiting for you to say, if the fentanyl doesn't fit, you must have quit. I know, I know, that would have been one.

I actually, I, I do have once, uh, one legit question about this. Now, you did an amazing job.

As a criminal, the fentanyl, though, and you've been on that side longer than I have, how do you ignore the walk-to-dog letter? The prosecution is going to hammer on it.

“I would think you have to address it in some way, don't you?”

Yeah, the walk-to-dog letter is going to be difficult. You know, I would, I, I'm one of those lawyers that I like to take the sting out of things, so I would definitely address it. You know, I'm not really sure in this case how I would do it, but I would address it, because I definitely do not let the state be the first one to strike.

I like to be able to explain it. I also like, this is kind of a, you know, a secret tip of mind that I'm giving away here, but I also like to end closing arguments with questions that I think the state should have to answer. And that's because, you know, here in Georgia, the state gets to go first and they get to go last, so it's a sandwich, and I go in the middle.

I don't get the last word, and so, because I don't get to talk to the jury,

I always like to leave some questions, and, you know, the state hates it.

I mean, who wouldn't, you know, hate that. They don't want to have questions sort of them, and so I always try to leave some questions that I don't think they're going to be able to answer. And so, some things to sort of make the jury think in the back, well, you know, I hear that lady talking, I hear that question, and I didn't hear the answer from the state, is that reasonable doubt? So, I would try to focus on that stuff, but I mean, the walk that

“dog's difficult. Which question would you pose at the end of your clothes to challenge the state?”

I know you'd load it up in a way where the state really doesn't have a good answer to, which he thinks is the most powerful question? You know, for me, I have a really hard time in this case, because they didn't put the fentanyl, they were not able to show that the fentanyl was not taken by him, like he didn't take it. And he's a drug addict. So, it's very reasonable to think that he could have consumed that.

He could have put his own fentanyl in the Moscow Mule, and the fact that he's a drug addict. And so, I would ask what evidence did they show to disprove that? Because, you know, there's a jury charge that says the state has to disprove all the, you know, reasonable inferences from the facts. And I think that they have a really a big hole in their case, because there just wasn't anything to disprove that he could have done this on his own.

And so, you know, if a jury has an option that maybe a crime didn't happen, they're likely to like that. If, you know, they want the pieces put together. They want the state to fill the whole puzzle. If there's a big hole in the puzzle, they don't like that. It's a great point. So, for any of you in law school, or want it a law school, that's really good, because the best defense lawyer is the ones who've been there, and know the rules of the game,

and then can do a tip like that, and not sound so monotone. You know, actually, we have another trial that's very similar. It's like Richens adjacent, which is a, which is the way to say Richens adjacent. It's also in Utah. You know, Utah's becoming the new Florida, because we have another case, and we don't have a lot of time in this block, but let's at least touch upon it. A case where you have, it's making some wall, and it's Utah woman,

who's standing trial, this week on charges she killed her friend with an overdose of insulin,

proof apparently from the autopsy that showed no terminal health problems. So, it looked like perhaps a monetary motive that this nurse who befriended this patient killed her to get the money.

“And got in her will, I mean, what do you make of this? I think it's crazy. This case,”

there's a lot going on here. I think the biggest issue is going to be proving that it wasn't a suicide,

because you could always already kind of preview that. If, I think we've got, let's see, we've got

um, slot eight, which is part of the defense opening statement. I think they're going to have a hard time. Yeah, let's enter that. So, insulin talks about as a method of suicide with being in these texts. I think there's going to be witnesses that say they've seen it. And you're going to see that Casey is begging her to help her be able to have access to that. It's saying she's going to use insulin to kill herself. Well, apparently you're going to hear that she's telling her sister

Megan's trying to kill me. Knitling with sister at one point. Yeah, we'll go out of the house, where she's got it free load in the basement of Mark's house, so that's basically nothing except deal with getting and using opioids and other drugs of abuse.

“Well, that's going to be an issue. I think the suicide, but we've got the prosecutor.”

And I mean, they're opening statement was strong, too. They're saying that Megan said to Casey, if you dying, we'd get me out of this mess in darkness, I mean, I would take it, which is really a cryptic and a troubling statement. I wonder how they're going to actually prove that statement, but I think we've got about seven where we can hear that. Since the beginning of the year in January 2024, Megan had lost her job, she had run over something on the road and caused $4,000 worth

a damage to her car. The car ended up being totaled. Her husband had doubled. His child support requirements from the prior marriage. They owned taxes, and then the car that they did have kept overheating. But she was stressed financially. She expressed in February of 2024 to Casey or Met, I'm sorry, Casey expressed to Megan. I wish I could just pass so you could get out of this mess. And Megan's response was, if you dying would get me out of this mess and darkness, I am in, I would take it.

Well, first off, what do you think about the tone of the prosecutor? Is it good because it's

solemn or is it bad because it's a little bit too soft in monotone? I think it's a little soft in monotone, you know, and it's interesting talking to jurors about tone. They don't like the super-theiatrics, but they do like you to have energy in the case, and they do like you to be passionate about it. So, you know, there's a fine line between having passion and being monotone and boring. I think I really do, and I'm curious your opinion, Dave, but I really think that the hard part here

is going to be just proving that it could be suicide. Yeah, and also it doesn't help that the police work was not very thorough. You had a bunch of mistakes in there, apparently. She was arrested before there were forensics and medical records that were fully evaluated. I mean,

“that's why when you're a prosecutor, you always tell law enforcement, hold off on the arrests.”

Once you make the arrest, it changes everything. The clock starts ticking for speedy trial, and then evidence that you should be getting to make sure you've got to write, may contradict you afterwards. And so, yeah, I think this one is going to be a tough one. This is not going to be as easy in my mind as the court rich in the case. Yeah, I totally agree with you. Well, thank you for that great segment, and now we're going to go towards our next segment

after the break, which is with criminal defense attorney Martin Radner, who apparently actually you're friends with. Yes, he's my clients. Oh, oh, he's a client of yours? No, he's interviewed some clients. I thought you got a little too excited about that. I thought we were just violating attorney client confidentiality there. All right, Martin Radner is going to join us next at a big deeper on the query. Richens trial. Stay tuned.

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only off earth now at airdoctorprote.com. That's a-i-r-d-o-c-t-o-r-p-r-o.com using promo code true crime. Welcome back to MK True Crime. Joining us now is criminal defense attorney Martin Redner.

Martin has been covering the rich in trial on his popular YouTube panel brother counsel.

“Martin, we've got to start with what we have learned about Cory's kids book. Are you with me?”

So I want to ask you about this kids book. I know that one of the detectives was sent the book on air sent the book actually to Amazon. Can you tell us what's going on with this? Yeah, so I mean really I think the question that a lot of lawyers may be thinking about when this was introduced is what exactly is the relevancy to the crimes that she's being charged. I mean actually your defense attorney you're sitting there. You know you see this coming in.

You know like what does this have to do with whether she actually committed the crime or not whether she wanted to gain from a book that she published afterwards. But what was very interesting what you brought up was the fact that this was sent to the sheriff's office. Sheriff's office with anonymously by somebody. Seems like it's a fan of Cory saying with a letter saying something

to the effect of you got to see the other side. There's always two sides to a story and this is the

“Cory that's the devoted mom. You know so that's what came in to the sheriff's department and then”

they actually subpoena to Amazon's records and it turns out that it was none other than Cory's mother who sent that in to be police. So think it would have been better for us just some random person saying hey you know you got to look at both sides but you know your mom's always going to be kind of in your corner. So that came out. Yeah and your mom should be and I think we've actually got the detective talking about it on sottinine if we can play that. Is this an accurate depiction of a

scan of the cover of the book that the S. The Summer County Sheriff's office received along with the message that accompanied it. Yes when we received this evidence technician scan the cover of the book and then the note that came with it as well. Yes. Did detectives investigate who anonymously sent the book. Yes. Sopina was sent to Amazon to request the information on who the sender was

“and it came back as Lisa Darden. All right Lisa Darden. Let's talk about Lisa Darden. She has not”

gotten enough. Enough chatter during this trial. So she's got a little bit of a pastor self. So apparently there's some search warrants that were unsealed that said in March 2024 the mother and again this is the mother of Cory Richens who we've been talking about the Utah author accused of murdering her husband with fentanyl that she was investigated back in 2006 for the death of her very own romantic partner. That's an interesting twist, right? Yeah and as I was you know learning about that

information I was like I wonder if this could actually come out in trial. The fact that his mother looked the book came out who knows what else is going to be coming into the trial and actually it did not come out at all. This that nugget of information about how the mother Lisa Darden's romantic partner mysteriously died from an overdose of oxycodone. Right. Right. Switch to something that we heard about in this case actually that there was a bottle of oxycodone

next to Eric's nightstand or on Eric's nightstand. So yes, some very mysterious circumstances there and coincidences perhaps that mirror, very similar source stories would happen to the mother Lisa and to Cory herself. So was there any sort of interaction there? Was there any sort of corroboration there? Was the mother kind of whiffs whispering into her ear? Some ideas, you know, but the jury didn't hear about any of that. So that's just gone out of the losing my mind if they had. I don't know Dave

can you think of any way that that could have come in front of the jury? I mean I know as a defense lawyer out of literally in jumping out of my seat trying to keep it out. You know it's not the same as the previous attempt by Cory Richens or the Hush Poppies because we're dealing with a separate person her mother. I don't see how a judge would let that in because your mother did it. Obviously you would argue well this is where she learned it from. So we should be able to

call the mother stand and discuss it but I can see how it would be more prejudicial and probative.

even succeeded in getting it in that could jeopardize the whole conviction on a peel that a pellet cork could just say no now no overturned do it over again. Oh yeah definitely I mean I just

“can't really see any relevancy to it. It's very interesting to talk about. Oh well I think it's relevant.”

I know of course you do. Don't think you're invisible. Well if there would be some text messages back and forth between Cory and Lisa you know something opening up the door about this you know that she was involved then maybe it can come in but yeah from what we've seen I don't see how it comes in either but again I was surprised at the book cut it and I have no idea how the book cut and can

I know I'm surprised about that too well and in this case I mean Lisa was never charged so there

were never charges actually brought you know which just really shows how hard it is on these types of cases and I know Davis convinced that the state has presented their case and proved it beyond a reasonable doubt but these cases are hard I mean how do you you know how do they disprove that he overdosed himself or how do they show that she actually put the put the drug in there and that's what killed him so I mean I'm not surprised that there weren't any charges so we want to talk

while we have you about the walk the dog letter I don't love the walk the dog letter Dave likes the walk the dog letter what do you think about the walk the dog letter Martin okay I'm going to get to the walk the dog but I really just want to mention one more thing about about the book and I think this came to me as a surprise and I think when the jury heard this I think it also because all these little pieces of nuggets I think is really building up on the jury so the fact

that actually Cory did not write that book it was ghost ridges you know like this is a mom like saying here I'm going to teach you what I you know what I did for my children how he supported them and these are the techniques that I use to help them get through this and not agree and the truth

“is that she didn't write a word of that book I mean that's what it seems like and the jury's hearing”

about this person just an imposter just trying to make money out of every situation that she's in I thought that that that was a very important part about that book as well but let's move on to the

walk the dog letter because you know to me and again like you know I always I kind of sit in the

in defense attorneys seed here because I feel like the prosecutors got you know the case kind of wrapped up in a little bit bow so I always try to like play on the other side and you know I'm I'm thinking this whole time what could the defense be what can the argument be you know can we argue that you know Carmen Lauer did not get her fentanyl how did she get the fentanyl you know that's going to be a question maybe they can argue reasonable doubt I think that this walk the dog letter

is the nail in the coffin I just think that it's just you know it it shows that she's trying to make up this story to fit in with all the evidence and very similar to the theme of how we're hearing the defense present their case and you know make certain points across examination you kind of see where they're going and then you see her put it together in this walk the dog letter and then basically asking her brother to testify to all these things which in the defenses mind

this is how the theory would work I just don't see how maybe even an actually merchant can get a acquittal after the walk the dog letter I appreciate your confidence but the walk the dog letter would be tough it would definitely be tough and I think we've actually got it was read out in court which is what's most wild about the jury of course didn't know that it was found in her jail cell they just know that it was found and you know for our viewers that's because

we don't like the jury to know that someone's in jail we don't want them to make an assumption that if you don't get bond that maybe you did it you know something like that we don't want that assumption because it's prejudicial so they just know it was found but it was read out in court and so we've actually got that we've got if we want to start with the part of the letter we've got three parts of the letter so we can start with the first one page one walk the dog but take

“vague notes so you remember here is what I'm thinking but you have to talk to Ronnie”

he would probably have to testify to this but it's super short not a lot to it he will need to tell sky at the meeting next week upon information and belief just like they say a year prior to Eric's death Ronnie was over watching football one Sunday and Eric and Ronnie were chatting about Eric's Mexico trips Eric told Ronnie he gets pain pills and fentanyl from Mexico

from the workers at the ranch not to tell me because I would get mad because I always said he

just gets high every night and won't help take care of the kids there are pictures in my phone of Eric passed out on the floor or in the chair Ronnie should have texts from Eric talking about getting high as well so the jury got to hear all this I mean it's definitely not good and just for our viewers Ronnie's reference is Corey's brother and then we've got sky who is the defense attorney at the time that's who that was referenced there were some reductions as you could

part that we've read and then we'll listen to the second and third was about fentanyl being bought in

Mexico I mean I would be arguing that crazy you know and closing that he was buying drugs anywhere

“he could I mean that's that's what he was doing and so we don't know that he didn't buy it off the”

street and get something bad and in fact I mean to support that is the fact that he was in Mexico very recently before he died he was during a hunting trip so you know I you know you saw this as you're watching the trial you saw the defense kind of planting all these seeds and this is where you see they're going with this either they told her the theory and then she goes and puts it in a you know a suggestion box for Ronnie that has to fight to about but that's what it seems that they're

they're ahead of that oh maybe he got this from Mexico I mean we keep hearing every single day in the news how fighting else coming across the water from Mexico so you know that could be a reasonable conclusion which which would create some reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury I know that's I'd focus on yeah well to me it shows a calculated killing when you have all this talk about what we're going to plan this and that's where the book comes in where we're going to try to it's like a

cover up and part of the cover up is the book which she paid $10,000 by the way to that goes the author well how do you do that right I I thought you had real grief now you this is part

“of the cover up it's the book that's why it was allowed in the evidence and it's the explanation”

about the drugs and it's the letter the walk the dog letter she is going to be hoisted by her own petard her own writings are coming back to honor yeah and let's see why we've got um subtle 11 which is the second part of it Eric told Ronnie he keeps them in an allergy pill bottle in his work truck so I wouldn't find them Ronnie never told me about the conversation

Eric finally told me an asked if Carmen could get him some Eric never wanted anyone to know

he had an issue especially get caught he always wanted Cory to go down for him when they traveled Eric would put his drugs and Cory's bag at the airlines right before they boarded that way if they were caught Cory got in trouble not him once they got to whenever

“wherever they were going Eric would pull the drugs out of her bag and it would cause a huge fight”

she was pissed he would risk her going to jail for his drug use he just would laugh about it Eric couldn't run couldn't ruin his image that he had drug issues so he would do whatever he had to Cory has never done any type of pills didn't like them rarely what she consumed THC only if Eric begged her because it was a special occasion reword this however he needs to to make the point just include it all you ever think that maybe she planted this maybe she wanted this theory to get out

if she wanted to really get convicted maybe right I know but I know her worked mine you know and her worked mine she wanted to get she thought somehow that this would I mean we see people do crazy things you know I thought somehow that this would throw some theory out or maybe throw them off I don't know I was just just just carrying so we've got we've also got side 12 which is the third part of the letter the connection has to be made with Mexico and drugs Ronnie will have the messages to

prove Eric confided in him about getting high it can be short and to the point but has to be done

upon information and belief LOL they never found pain pills or fentanyl in my house because he had

he hid it in allergy bottle and work truck and Cody emptied out work truck within a week so they were never found when you talk to Ronnie about this meet up with him in person I worry sometimes your house and phone are bugged maybe drive down to SL and meet him after work without breathe tell Ronnie don't overanalyze it it was a quick two-minute conversation LOL tell him I need him to do this bring me home and then we will get those damn bitches oh the damn bitches that's not a good statement

but about all the LOLs yeah I know I know it's not good upon information and belief LOL and uh you know don't overanalyze it was only a two-minute conversation LOL you mean like the conversation didn't really happen to LOL it's like using your quotes it's just you know like you sometimes you have a client who just you know you're working so hard in the case you've got it all figured out and then they do something so absolutely ridiculous and stupid that just completely loses the

they had maybe like if you get like a real good fence attorney maybe be able to figure out to argue

“some reasonable doubt they didn't search the work truck maybe he had some drugs in the work truck you know”

maybe the actric height uh the uh musical that actually codone pill was really you know fentanyl on there and they didn't search it didn't swab it and you know you can start making those arguments but then you got this letter it's like oh just yeah why you gotta do that cases you're a solution why do you gotta do this yeah definitely well I want to talk about Karen Reed because you are the master of Karen Reed so you can update us and I can't wait to hear about this

so just a reminder for a viewers Karen Reed was the Massachusetts woman that was tried she gained a

lot of national attention she was tried and it was a mistrial and then the second go around she was

tried again and she was found not guilty of everything except for driving under the influence of alcohol um this happened in um it outside of outside of Boston and essentially she was charged with killing her boyfriend and he was an officer and so there was a lot of stuff going on this was a really highly publicized case um but we've got a couple things coming up now because there's some civil lawsuits so I wonder Martin if you could just catch us up on these these civil lawsuits were

seeing coming out now so there was like a lot of times you have a criminal case where the person gets acquitted so actually you do your job but then then that person will also get sued because the standards are very different in order to prove someone's guilt in the criminal court you gotta prove beyond to reasonable doubt a very high standard in order to get some money

damages since that's just money it's just a couple million dollars so you know you only have to

prove your case by the preponderance of the evidence more likely than not so much easier bet burden to satisfy so what the Okey family did here is that they sued and the estate of John Okey of course they sued Karen read in civil court so now she's dealing with the civil case actually by the way actually that civil case was filed while the criminal court was still that criminal case was still going and in fact I believe I'm not 100% sure about this but I believe that they wanted

to take her deposition in the civil case while the criminal case was going on oh my gosh and that's

“rare martin right I mean normally they would seek a stay in that exactly so that's what exactly”

what happened because I think that they realize hey in the civil case you can't exactly I mean you could plead the fifth but then they could it could be used against you in the civil case and you know so they don't want any of that any of that gamesmanship so they actually saw to uh stay and the state was granted it was granted only with respects to Karen reads deposition but anyway so the criminal case continues she gets acquitted and now the civil case is ongoing they're

having all this discovery issues they want to take you know dozens and dozens of depositions in this case it's going to be a long time I think before we see trial although the judge is trying to push things along but what most interestingly happened very recently is with respect to Karen reads cell phone now the reason why this becomes interesting is that in the civil case one of the counts that they're suing Karen read for is something called intentional inflection of emotional

distress and that is by the fact so there's obviously the wrongful death which they're suing Karen

“read for that's for her killing jino key right and civil court they're going to feel that they”

can prove that but then on top of that is the fact that if she did that let's see if we go into the world of the plaintiffs in this case that she actually did kill jino key and then what she did was she spun this crazy conspiracy well then that conspiracy can be you know utterly intolerable

first civilized society it can read it can rise to a different cause of action for intentional

inflection of emotional distress is for her spreading this false narrative this conspiracy so in order to prove that they want to show that she was in concert with somebody else that you may have heard of before Nate goes by turtle boy who is the very loud youtuber he's a content creator he's a journalist and he gets on what he's getting on youtube for years saying about you know spewing this conspiracy so if they can show that there is some sort of corroboration

between Karen read and turtle boy so then they can say look we've got some evidence that she was actually involved in spreading this false narrative to you know satisfy the cause of action called intentional inflection of emotional distress so she was so they're trying to get her phone and be able to do a full extraction on her phone so this was interesting because in the criminal case they still they still see his phone and they didn't do the extraction and well she's so

very very weird they they had a search warrant on the phone but then they sat on it for 19 months and didn't do anything then the criminal case they said you cannot search it anymore so then she wants it back but in the civil case they filed for a TRO that she should not be able to get it back because we still want a full extraction and if she gets it back maybe they're going to she's going to manipulate it or alter the information and change it and delete it so all this

something completely on the side and so Larry but very significant and that is that there is a

“recording between Karen read and turtle boy that got leaked so this was a recording in illegal”

recording seems like it was a violation of the wire tapping statute where Karen read was talking two turtle boy on the phone and not very happy with him at that point but in the motion where the plaintiffs are seeking the full extraction to get the TRO they actually miss quote what she said in that recording so that became a huge issue in that case you got an attorney miss quoting Karen read and that blew up eventually the plaintiffs withdrew their motion and apologized

on the record I should say apologized but he corrected himself on the record and said I was mistaken

so it's just the drama never ends when it comes to Karen read so who do they think I'm who actually

recorded this that is a question yeah nobody knows it just got leaked it's there are it got leaked there are definitely some strong speculation about who may have done it but you know people want to be very careful about it because technically it's a crime you know so I don't want to speculate that somebody committed a crime but that was actually another issue that came up in this motion itself that maybe the plaintiff attorneys are not even able to use this recording

because if they know that it came from an illegal wire tap they're not allowed to use it at all so that that also blew up in this specific case so like it's just you can't get away from the Karen read case without getting sucked into all this drama that comes up in every single motion in every single hearing oh my god no we can and hopefully we will have you back to talk about it again because I'm sure there will be lots more thank you so much for joining us and can you tell us where

our audience can find you absolutely first of all was an honor and a pleasure to be both with you

David Dave and Ashley obviously to very renowned attorneys that I can just be happy to be in the your company but I do have my own YouTube channel it's called Brother Council and that's you can find me on YouTube and I'm also on Twitter at Brother Council. Awesome so everyone who hopefully will check you out and we would love to have you back thank you again. Next up we've got our closing arguments and your questions stay tuned. If you're looking to make smarter choices for your health

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arguments but first we have a question from Tina hello I love mk true crime thank you Tina

“thank you for streaming the Quart Richens trial I think she's probably guilty but I'm disappointed”

that I haven't seen any direct evidence linking Cory to giving her husband Eric the fentanyl and your opinion is the state and trouble here thank you actually yeah and I think you know you and I sort of had it out early on so hopefully hopefully that answered your question when we were arguing what we would argue in closing arguments but you know I'm with you I think she's probably guilty but I really don't think the state proved it here and I think the state proved it I

think that Cory didn't just find the fentanyl keep mine she allegedly reached out to the house

search history for lethal doses and luxury prisons it shows it mine focused on a certain outcome also there's the walk the dog letter I mean if she's innocent why right that six page manual from jail to

“instructor family to invent a story about Eric's drug habits so I think there's a lot of evidence”

but we don't normally have like a smoking gun in these types of cases so you're right to identify that so thank you Tina for your excellent question and now for our favorite part of the program

it's our closing arguments actually ladies first want your first thank you Dave

hurry I'm gonna do something a little bit different today and I got my clients permission to talk about this so it's the first thing I wanted to say but everyone is a little bit obsessed with AI right now we talk about it all the time but clients are starting to run every legal question through chat GBT, Claude, perplexity, grunk there's all these that I can't even keep up with whatever the flavor of the week is they're running it through it and sometimes sometimes it's

useful AI can help explain complicated things in a way that someone may understand a little better because AI is supposed to be trained to talk like you talk and talk I speak to you but here's the problem AI does not know the law in your courtroom so I had a client again full permission but he was absolutely convinced that when we filed a certain motion a very specific thing would happen in relation to that motion being filed and I said no no that's not how it works

me insisted yes yes it is yes AI said it is and I knew that he runs just about everything I say through AI so I already anticipated that talked about it I said you know fine ask AI what statute says that ask your AI see what it says so he gets the statute he sends me the statute he says AI says it says statute I look at that and I say yes what so wrong statute it's actually this one

and I cited the statute from memory he plugs that into the AI boom AI comes back and it basically

“says oh wow you're right I was wrong and it said that he screenshot it and sent it to me and I think”

I want to blow it up and paint it on my wall my client says my lawyer beat AI and I told him no your lawyer didn't beat AI your lawyer read the statute your lawyer knows the law AI can summarize the law but it cannot replace actually knowing it there's my rant so well said and AI there's going to be tools just for lawyers clawed apparently it's coming up with one but in the meantime there's nothing that beats an experience criminal defense lawyer like you are actually

the computers don't do it right well thank you well you know I'm a relatively recent criminal defense lawyer I've been prosecutor for a lot longer and so now I'm on the dark side with you so we're happy to have you hey happy to be here and I'll do my rant so you may have seen I have this Miami heat cup that I drink out of and I may Miami heat fan and just as a caveat this is not a sports rant so stick with me this week bam out of bio a great guy he's at the Miami heat

he's an upstanding member of the community he did something so remarkable so shocking that I need to mention it here he scored 83 points in a single game in the entire history of the world only will Chamberlain one person has ever scored more coming into this his average was just 20 points a game his previous career high was 41 points so he didn't just beat his personal best he doubled it and left it for debt but here's the real purpose of this closing statement it's because you

have this glass half empty brigade out there they are ready you know the type the kind of people who would win the lottery and then complain about the font used on the giant check well online they're out there right now complaining about free throws or fouling trying to take the lustroff this

“achievement honestly imagine being that miserable in life imagine witnessing a once in a century”

masterpiece and responding with yeah but the lighting was mid to the haters your negativity is the only thing more exhaustive than the guys who had to guard bam in that game so as you head out remember greatness is rare enjoy seems to be even rare don't be the person looking for a motive when you should be enjoying the evidence because in a world full of cold cases bams game the other night was pure unadulterated fire and that's my closing argument actually that's awesome I love thank you

did you watch the game by the way I did not watch the game I admit it but I am watching the gators tomorrow you know and I'm getting very excited for the final four good gators that is exciting March madness

is upon us and I admit I didn't watch bams incredible game because it was like a game against a

Washington what are they call these as the capitals it was the generals the usually the bullets

guessed that because you were giving me goosebumps describing it so I assumed that you had watched it

you know I was following it online and they said he scored 62 points I was like well and then

“I didn't realize it was the end of the third quarter oh my gosh that's amazing I think everybody”

should enjoy good talent right and it's not like he's Michael Jordan or I mean not even considered

one of the top 10 20 players elite but it's just great to see the captain great guy and on that day he

“was so I want to say thank you to our guest Martin Bradner and to my coast actually merchant and thank”

you for joining us here at MK True Crime have a great weekend