NEW YORK (AP) — Alex Laferriere had a goal and two assists to lead the Los Angeles Kings to a 4-1 win over the New York Rangers on Monday night.
Drew Doughty, Mikey Anderson and Trevor Moore also scored for Los Angeles, which has won three of five.
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Los Angeles Kings left wing Trevor Moore (12) chases the puck during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the New York Rangers, Monday, March 16, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
Los Angeles Kings players scramble to save the puck during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the New York Rangers, Monday, March 16, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
New York Rangers right wing Gabe Perreault (94) shoots during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the Los Angeles Kings, Monday, March 16, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
Los Angeles Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper, left, makes a save during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the New York Rangers, Monday, March 16, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
Los Angeles Kings left wing Artemi Panarin (10), a former New York Rangers player, looks on during the first period of an NHL hockey game against his former team, Monday, March 16, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
Darcy Kuemper stopped 21 shots.
Despite 22 saves from Igor Shesterkin, New York’s four-game winning streak ended.
Vincent Trocheck’s power-play goal 2:29 into the third period spoiled Kuemper’s bid for his third shutout of the season.
Los Angeles jumped out to a 1-0 lead on Doughty’s fifth goal of the year with 6:31 left in the first. Doughty flung a shot from the left wall that Shesterkin could not see through the screen.
Anderson scored his fourth of the season 4:31 into the second, and Laferriere’s power-play goal 28 seconds later extended the Kings’ advantage to 3-0.
Trocheck’s 14th goal of the season prevented New York from being shut out for the 10th time this season.
The game marked Artemi Panarin ’s return to New York after Rangers general manager Chris Drury traded him to the Kings for prospect right wing Liam Greentree and a conditional third-round draft pick on Feb. 4. The 34-year-old Panarin subsequently signed a two-year, $22 million extension with Los Angeles.
Kings: Begin a two-game homestand Thursday against Philadelphia.
Rangers: Host New Jersey on Wednesday.
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
Los Angeles Kings left wing Trevor Moore (12) chases the puck during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the New York Rangers, Monday, March 16, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
Los Angeles Kings players scramble to save the puck during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the New York Rangers, Monday, March 16, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
New York Rangers right wing Gabe Perreault (94) shoots during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the Los Angeles Kings, Monday, March 16, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
Los Angeles Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper, left, makes a save during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the New York Rangers, Monday, March 16, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
Los Angeles Kings left wing Artemi Panarin (10), a former New York Rangers player, looks on during the first period of an NHL hockey game against his former team, Monday, March 16, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — A Utah woman was convicted Monday of aggravated murder after poisoning her husband with fentanyl and self-publishing a children’s book about coping with grief.
Prosecutors say Kouri Richins slipped five times the lethal dose of the synthetic opioid into a cocktail that Eric Richins drank in March 2022 at their home outside the ski town of Park City. They say Richins was $4.5 million in debt and falsely believed that when her husband died, she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million. They also say she was planning a future with another man she was seeing on the side.
Richins stared at the floor and took deep breaths as the judge read the verdict.
The jury deliberated for less than three hours. Afterward, family members on both sides of the case left the courtroom hugging and crying.
She was also convicted of other felony charges, including an attempted murder charge in what authorities alleged was another effort to poison her husband weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich that made him break out in hives and black out. Jurors also found Richins guilty of fraudulently claiming insurance benefits after his death.
Sentencing was scheduled for May 13, the day her husband would have turned 44.
“Honestly I feel like we’re all in shock. It’s been a long time coming,” said Eric Richins' sister, Amy Richin, adding that the family can now focus on honoring her brother and supporting his sons. “So just very happy that we got justice for my brother.”
Richins’ defense attorney said Eric Richins was addicted to painkillers and had asked his wife to procure opioids for him. Kouri Richins, however, told police earlier in a video that her husband had no history of illicit drug use.
“She wanted to leave Eric Richins but did not want to leave his money,” said Summit County prosecutor Brad Bloodworth.
The most serious charge — aggravated murder — carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
What was scheduled to be a five-week trial was cut short last week when Richins waived her right to testify, and her legal team abruptly rested its case without calling any witnesses. Richins’ attorneys said they were confident that prosecutors did not produce enough evidence over the past three weeks to convict her of murder.
“They haven't done their job, and now they want you to make inferences based on paper-thin evidence,” defense attorney Wendy Lewis told the jury on Monday.
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 totaling about $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 fantasized 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 defense’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.”
The defense focused on trying to discredit the prosecution's star witness, Carmen Lauber, a housekeeper for the family who claimed to have sold Richins fentanyl on multiple occasions.
Lewis argued Lauber did not deal fentanyl and was motivated to lie for legal protection. Lauber said in early interviews that she never dealt the synthetic opioid, but later said she did after investigators informed her that Eric Richins died of a fentanyl overdose, the defense noted.
Richins had asked Lauber for “the Michael Jackson stuff,” which Bloodworth said likely refers to the drug combination that killed the singer.
“She knows she wants it because it is lethal,” he argued.
The housekeeper was already in a drug court program as an alternative to incarceration on other charges when authorities arrested her in connection with the Richins case, investigators said. She had also violated some conditions of drug court.
The defense showed a video of law enforcement warning Lauber that they could pull her drug court deal and that she could face a lengthy prison sentence.
“Give us the details that will ensure Kouri gets convicted of murder,” a man in the video said.
Lauber was granted immunity for her cooperation in the case. She testified that she felt a need to “step up and take accountability of my part in this.”
Shortly before her arrest in May 2023, Richins self-published the book “Are You with Me?” She promoted it on local TV and radio stations, which prosecutors pointed to in arguing that Richins planned the killing and tried to cover it up.
Summit County Sheriff’s detective Jeff O’Driscoll, the lead investigator on the case, testified that Richins paid a ghostwriting company to write the book for her.
Prosecutors showed the jury excerpts of a letter found in Richins’ jail cell that they said appeared to outline testimony for her mother and brother. In the six-page letter, Richins instructed her brother to tell her former attorney that Eric Richins confided in him about getting fentanyl from Mexico and “gets high every night.”
Defense attorneys said the letter contains a fictional story Richins was working on. They argued that Eric Richins was addicted to painkillers and asked his wife to procure opioids for him.
However, Richins told police on the night of her husband's death that he had no history of illicit drug use, according to body camera footage shown in court.
Associated Press reporters Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.
Defendant Kouri Richins, accused of poisoning her husband in March 2022, listens to closing arguments in Third District Court, Monday, March 16, 2026, in Park City, Utah. (David Jackson/Pool Photo via AP)
Judge Richard Mrazik listens to closing arguments in the Kouri Richins trial where she is accused of poisoning her husband in March 2022, in Third District Court, Monday, March 16, 2026, in Park City, Utah. (David Jackson/Pool Photo via AP)
Defendant Kouri Richins, left, accused of poisoning her husband in March 2022, listens to closing arguments in Third District Court, Monday, March 16, 2026, in Park City, Utah. (David Jackson/Pool Photo via AP)
Summit County Prosecutor Brad Bloodworth presenting the state's final arguments in the trial of Kouri Richins, accused of poisoning her husband in March 2022, Monday, March 16, 2026, in Third District Court in Park City, Utah. (David Jackson/Pool Photo via AP)
Defendant Kouri Richins, left, accused of poisoning her husband in March 2022, listens to closing arguments in Third District Court, Monday, March 16, 2026, in Park City, Utah. (David Jackson/Pool Photo via AP)
