TAPALPA, Mexico (AP) — Maria Dolores Aguirre’s family corner store has lived off tourism that has flowed into her charming cobblestoned town of Tapalpa, tucked away in the mountains of Jalisco state.
That was until gunshots erupted and helicopters flew overhead as the Mexican army killed the country’s most powerful drug lord, just a few kilometers (miles) from her home.
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This wanted poster released on Dec. 4, 2024 on the U.S. State Department website shows leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho.” (U.S. State Department via AP)
A charred truck blocks a road the day after the Mexican army killed Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho," in Guadalajara, Mexico, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
A body lies beside a bullet-riddled vehicle in Tapalpa, Mexico, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026, a day after the Mexican army killed Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho." (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum gives her the daily, morning news conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026, the day after the Mexican army killed Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho." (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
Vehicles pass a burned car a day after the Mexican army killed the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho," in Guadalajara, Mexico, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Now, the 50-year-old Aguirre worries that the bloodshed will deal a blow to her livelihood and change towns like hers. It is something many in the western Mexican state are grappling with, from its Pacific Ocean beaches to its capital Guadalajara that will host matches in June for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
“It’s going to affect us. It’s collateral damage,” Aguirre said. “The government is going to have to have a lot of security. … The entire world just saw what happened and, of course, people are going to think twice about coming.”
Fighting between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and Mexican security forces raged on in a number of states Monday, fueling fears among many like Aguirre that there will be more violence to come.
More than 70 people died in the attempt to capture Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes and its aftermath, authorities said Monday. Known as “El Mencho,” he was the notorious leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the fastest-growing criminal networks in Mexico, known for trafficking fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine to the United States and staging brazen attacks against Mexican government officials.
The White House confirmed that the U.S. provided intelligence support to the operation to capture the cartel leader and applauded Mexico’s army for taking down a man who was one of the most wanted criminals in both countries. The U.S. State Department had offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest of "El Mencho."
The death of Oseguera Cervantes came as Mexico's government has stepped up its offensive against cartels in an effort to meet demands by U.S. President Donald Trump to crack down on criminal groups, threatening to impose more tariffs or take unilateral military action if the country does not show results.
Mexico hoped the death of one of the world’s biggest fentanyl traffickers would ease that pressure, but many people were anxious as they waited to see the powerful cartel’s reaction.
Oseguera Cervantes died after a shootout with the Mexican military on Sunday. Mexican Defense Secretary Gen. Ricardo Trevilla said Monday that authorities had tracked one of his romantic partners to his hideout in Tapalpa. The cartel leader and two bodyguards fled into a wooded area where they were seriously wounded in a firefight. They were taken into custody and died on the way to Mexico City, Trevilla said.
In the aftermath, a sense of unease simmered in tourist towns.
The Pacific Ocean resort city of Puerto Vallarta also was hard hit by cartel reprisals, frightening tourists.
Steve Perkins, 57, was visiting Puerto Vallarta with his wife Gayle and some friends. They were on their hotel room's terrace when explosions and black smoke started appearing around the city Sunday morning.
Their return to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, was delayed when their flight was canceled Monday and they were rebooked for March 1.
Perkins and his wife have been taking annual trips to Puerto Vallarta since 2012 and have always felt safe, until now. He said they don’t plan on returning to Mexico.
“There’s a lot of Americans trapped here,” Perkins said.
Back in Tapalpa, Aguirre worked next to her son from the small neighborhood shop her family has owned for 50 years. The 15-year-old's classes were canceled due to the violence.
Aguirre said it was unclear who exactly was in control of the area surrounding her: the military or the cartel. The other question on her mind was if this was just a one-off, or if there was more violence to come.
“We don't know if these people (cartel leaders) are permanently here or not,” she said. “If they really did kill this leader, it could be that they fight between each other to win control or see who will lead it.”
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AP writer Juan Lozano in Houston contributed to this report.
This wanted poster released on Dec. 4, 2024 on the U.S. State Department website shows leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho.” (U.S. State Department via AP)
A charred truck blocks a road the day after the Mexican army killed Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho," in Guadalajara, Mexico, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
A body lies beside a bullet-riddled vehicle in Tapalpa, Mexico, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026, a day after the Mexican army killed Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho." (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum gives her the daily, morning news conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026, the day after the Mexican army killed Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho." (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme)
Vehicles pass a burned car a day after the Mexican army killed the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho," in Guadalajara, Mexico, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Prosecutors portrayed a Utah mother and children’s book author as a money-hungry killer Monday on the first day of a murder trial in her husband’s death, while her defense team urged jurors not to make judgments before hearing her side.
Kouri Richins, 35, faces a slew of felony charges for allegedly killing her husband, Eric Richins, with fentanyl in March 2022 at their home just outside the ski town of Park City. She has vehemently denied the allegations.
Prosecutors say she slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a cocktail that he drank. She is also accused of trying to poison him a month earlier on Valentine's Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him break out in hives and black out, according to court documents.
After her husband's death, Kouri Richins self-published a children’s book about grief to help her sons and other kids cope with the loss of a parent.
As arguments in the case got underway Monday, Richins sat next to her attorneys, taking notes and passing some to them. Her legal team has not said whether she will take the stand in her defense.
Summit County prosecutor Brad Bloodworth told jurors that Richins was $4.5 million in debt and wrongly believed that if her husband died she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million. Prosecutors have argued she was planning a future with another man she was seeing on the side.
“The evidence will prove that Kouri Richins murdered Eric for his money and to get a fresh start at life,” Bloodworth said. “More than anything, she wanted his money to perpetuate her facade of privilege, affluence and success."
Defense attorney Kathryn Nester started her opening statement by playing the recording of Richins’ 911 call from the night of her husband’s death. Richins was sobbing on the call and seemed barely able to answer the dispatcher’s questions.
“Those were the sounds of a wife becoming a widow,” Nester said.
Eric Richins had Lyme disease and was addicted to painkillers, Nester argued. She suggested he may have overdosed.
However, in body camera footage shown later Monday, Richins tells police her husband had no history of illicit drug use.
Eric Richins’ sister, Katie Richins-Benson, also testified that their mother was a drug and alcohol counselor who had instilled in the siblings from an early age the dangers of drug use.
The trial is slated to run through March 26. A few dozen people hoping to watch camped outside the courthouse in lawn chairs starting at 4 a.m., four and a half hours before the trial began.
Richins faces nearly three dozen counts, including aggravated murder, attempted murder, forgery, mortgage fraud and insurance fraud. The murder charge alone carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
In the months before her arrest in May 2023, Richins self-published the children’s book “Are You with Me?” about a father with angel wings watching over his young son after passing away. The book could play a key role for prosecutors in framing Eric Richins’ death as a calculated killing with an attempted cover-up. Bloodworth told jurors Monday about how Richins promoted it on local TV and radio stations.
Years before her husband's death, Richins opened numerous life insurance policies on Eric Richins without his knowledge, with benefits totaling nearly $2 million, prosecutors alleged. Court documents also indicate she had a negative bank account balance and was being sued by a creditor.
Bloodworth showed the jury text messages between Kouri Richins and Robert Josh Grossman, the man with whom she was allegedly having an affair. She had texted Grossman about her dream of leaving her husband, gaining millions in the divorce and one day marrying Grossman.
Bloodworth also showed Richins’ internet search history, which included “luxury prisons for the rich America” and “Can cops force you to do a lie detector test?”
The body camera video shown in court from Summit County Sheriff’s Deputy Vincent Nguyen showed Richins distraught as she told police that her husband had chest pain before he went to sleep and may have taken a THC gummy.
“My husband’s active. He didn’t just die in his sleep. This is insane,” she said in the video.
Richins appeared to be in pajamas as paramedics worked to resuscitate her husband in a nearby room, the video showed. She held her head in her hands at times and paced around while talking to a deputy and family members who later arrived.
Richins-Benson testified that she entered the house that night to find Richins looking “well-put together” with her hair “all done up.”
Among the key witnesses expected to be called later in the trial is the family’s housekeeper, Carmen Lauber, who claims to have sold fentanyl to Kouri Richins on multiple occasions.
Defense attorneys argued Monday that Lauber did not give Richins fentanyl and was motivated to lie for legal protection. Lauber is not charged in connection with the case, and detectives have said she was granted immunity.
No fentanyl was found in Richins’ house, and the housekeeper’s dealer has said he was in jail and detoxing from drug use when he told detectives in 2023 that he sold fentanyl to Lauber. He later said in a sworn affidavit that he sold her only the opioid OxyContin.
Nester showed jurors photos of an empty pain pill bottle sitting on Eric Richins' bedside table the night of his death and bags of gummies he was known to use regularly. She said he had asked his wife to procure opioids for him.
Katie Richins-Benson, the sister of Eric Richins, testifies in the trial of Eric's wife, Kouri Richins, who is accused of fatally poisoning her husband, during her murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Internet searches recovered from the phone of Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, are displayed on a screen during her murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Kathy Nester, the defense attorney for Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, shows the jury an image of a pill bottle while delivering her opening statement in Richins' murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Brad Bloodworth, chief prosecutor for Summit County, motions toward Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, while delivering his opening statement in Richins' trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Judge Richard Mrazik, right, talks to Brad Bloodworth, chief prosecutor for Summit County, during the trial of Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, looks on during her murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother accused of fatally poisoning her husband, talks to her attorneys during her murder trial at the Summit County Courthouse in Park City, Utah, Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Spenser Heaps, Pool)
FILE - Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three who wrote a children's book about coping with grief after her husband's death and was later accused of fatally poisoning him, looks on during a court hearing on Aug. 27, 2024, in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool, File)
FILE - Kouri Richins, a Utah mother of three who wrote a children's book about coping with grief after her husband's death and was later accused of fatally poisoning him, looks on during a hearing on Aug. 26, 2024, in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool, File)
