Transcript of For the Love of Money

Hey, Prime members. You can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballon podcast one month early, and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's podcast will feature two stories that prove that money is the root of all evil. The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called Loan Shark, and it's about a student who takes drastic measures to pay off debt. The second and final story you'll hear is called Western Russian Farm Animal, and the plot of this story is so absurd, it sounds like badly written fiction, but it's not fiction. It really happened. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. If that's of interest to you, please replace the Amazon Music Follow Buttons of the paper with the kind that doesn't have a good seam on the outside, and so you end up ripping it to pieces just to get it started.

Okay, let's get into our first story called Loan Shark.

I'm Afua Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankerpen. In our podcast, Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we're looking at the life of the most famous Queen of France, Marie-Antoinette. Her death is seemingly more well known than her life, but her journey from the daughter of the Austrian Emperor to becoming the most hated woman in France is just as fascinating. We're going to look at the ways in which her story was distorted during the French Revolution and dig deeper into her real experiences in a troubled, difficult time. Marie-antoinette is one of the most well-recognized but least well-understood names in history. We're talking about how her death led to the way that she was spoken about in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Follow Legacy Now from wherever you get your podcasts. Or binge entire seasons early and ad-free on WNDYRI Plus. From WNDYRI, I'm Raza Jeffrey, and this is The Spy Who. This series, we open the file on Ayman Deen, the spy who betrayed Bin Laden. In 1994, 16-year-old Ayman wants to die. He heads to Bosnia to join the Mujdatideen and save his fellow Muslims. He hopes to become a martyr.

Instead, he's about to be confronted by a cruel and bloody reality. Follow the Spy Who now wherever you listen to podcast. Costs.

In 2014, Alan Ruby was a 19-year-old freshman studying political science at the University of Oklahoma. Despite being relatively modest and soft-spoken in person on social media, he projected this lifestyle of wealth and grandeour. He'd oftentimes post pictures of exotic sports cars and expensive watches and clothes, and he would travel the world to Paris, London, New York City, and take all these pictures showing off this incredible life he had. He really wanted people to believe that he was this fabulously wealthy, successful guy. Alan was only able to project this phony lifestyle on social media because he was spending his father's money. His father was a successful businessman who was also the publisher of a newspaper that was quite successful, and so Alan would just spend his money. And then even after his father would give him money, Alan would steal his credit card and additionally rack up thousands of dollars of credit card debt. But as media began to shift away from print media to almost all digital, a lot of newspapers began to fail because they weren't able to transition to digital. And his father's newspaper was not making that transition very well, and they were losing money left and right.

And so Alan's father told everybody in his family, with a focus on Alan, that we all need to cut back on our spending because money is tight right now and it's unclear if it's going to turn around. We got to be careful with how much money we do have. Alan acted like he was going to cut back on his lavish lifestyle, but in reality, he wasn't going to. He was totally addicted to spending money and giving off this vibe that he was so wealthy and successful. Around this time, Alan steals his grandmother's credit card and secretly leaves the country and goes to Paris to have this vacation on his own. He's taking these pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower, and he's spending all this money. And his father finds out that he's stolen this credit card, and he's furious. And instead of waiting for Alan to come home and saying, Don't When he does that again, he decides he's going to send him a message that he's going to remember, and he calls the police. Alan gets charged with theft. He pleads guilty, and he has to go before a judge who sees that he has no criminal record, so he goes easy on him, and he says that you need to pay back all the money you spent to your grandmother, and you need to go to an addiction program to try to break this habit of yours, to stop spending all this money.

After Alan leaves court, his father felt like he finally got the message. It seemed like it had finally had really gotten through to him that this was a really big problem, and he felt like he had made the right decision in calling the police. But in reality, Alan hadn't changed at all. As soon as he got back from court, he was stealing from people outside of the family. He was taking loans from loan sharks, all of this just to keep up with this phony appearance he portrayed on social media. On October ninth, 2014, Alan owed $3,000 to a particular loan shark and had no way of paying it back. So instead of asking his parents for money, which for him would have been too embarrassing, he decides the best course of action is to kill his entire family. And so he strolls into his home and he shoots his mom dead, he shoots his sister dead, and then he waits for his dad to come home, and he shoots him dead because his big plan is with his whole family gone, he's going to become the sole heir to the family's estate, and that will be enough money to not only pay off this $3,000 debt, but have a little leftover so we can go on vacation to Paris again.

After he's committed this horrible crime, he leaves his family where they are. He goes and takes the surveillance footage from inside the house. It was on a DVD. Takes the DVD out, takes the murder weapon, leaves the house, chucks the DVD and the weapon into a lake, and proceeds to drive to Dallas, where he checks into a very fancy hotel and meets up with friends and parties the whole weekend. His friends that were with him that weekend would later tell investigators that Alan seemed totally normal. There was no red flags. There was no indication that anything was wrong. He was just laughing it up and having a great time that whole weekend. The following Monday, when Alan's father doesn't show up for work, the police are notified, they go to the house and they find the Ruby family. When police went out and got Alan and brought him back to the station to chat with him and tell him what happened and see if he knew anything, his sad reaction to his whole family now being deceased was apparently so insincere that officers almost immediately assumed that he was probably the guy that did it.

Ultimately, Alan would confess, and the prosecutor wanted to push for the death penalty, but Alan's remaining living family members actually said, Don't do the death penalty. We don't want to risk that not happening. We want to see justice served right now. Can we create a plea agreement where he gets life in jail, but there's absolutely no way for him to get paroled, no matter how good his behavior is, no matter how old he is, no matter what, he ever get out of jail. And so they did. They created that plea agreement. They gave it to Alan to sign. He signs it. And as they're walking out of the courtroom, his last remaining family members disown him and say, May God have mercy on your soul, and they leave.

If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good you are a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious. And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange, Dark, and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Balin's Medical mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years. And we finally decided to take the plunge, and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Mr. Balin's Medical mysteries wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're a prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

Hey, listeners.

Big news for true crime lovers. You can now enjoy this podcast ad-free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. Listen to all episodes of my podcast, Mr. Ballen's Medical mysteries and Mr. Ballen's Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories, along with a huge collection of top true crime podcasts, completely ad-free. No more waiting through cliffhangers or dealing with ads, because let's be honest, ads shouldn't be the most nerve-wracking part of true crime. To start your ad-free listening journey, download the Amazon Music app for free or head to amazon. Com/ballen. That's amazon. Com/ballen. Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today. The next and final story of today's episode is called Western Russian Farm Animal.

At around 9:00 PM on March 3, 2022, a 31-year-old woman named Cori Richens, talked her three young sons into their beds and then headed downstairs to her kitchen inside of her luxurious home in suburban Utah. Once she got down to the kitchen, she yelled out for her husband, whose name was Eric, to come join her in the kitchen. Cori had some big news that she had just learned that day, and now that their kids were all tucked away in their beds and were off to sleep, she and her husband could celebrate this big news and share a drink together. A moment later, Eric walked into the kitchen and Cori grinned at him and handed him his drink and then gestured for them to go upstairs to their bedroom. And so the two of them went upstairs, they sat down on the bed, and then Cori broke the big news. Cori's tiny real estate company had just found out that day that they were very likely going to close on a deal for this gorgeous 20,000-square-foot mansion in Utah for $2 million. Now, Cori knew once she bought this property, she could do a couple of renovations to it and then quickly sell it for $3 million meaning she was about to make a $1 million profit.

Cori had been working really hard on her real estate business for years, but this really represented the first big break. She and Eric lived in a very conservative part of Utah, where it was expected that someone like Cori would stay home with the kids and be a good housewife, and that would be her life. But Cori didn't really want that. She wanted to have a professional career that was on par with her husband's. Eric ran a very profitable masonry company that allowed the family to take vacations to Mexico and Spain every year, and also to afford their sprawling property at the end of the cul-de-sac. Cori had stayed home when the three were much younger, but now that they were five, seven, and nine years old, they had decided to hire a nanny, which had allowed Cori to finally go out and pursue her professional dreams. And so totally beaming with pride, Cori sat there on the bed and clinked her husband's glass and went over all the details of this deal and talked about how great their lives were about to become with all this additional income. But fairly quickly, both of them decided they were too tired to stay up and celebrate any longer, especially Eric, who earlier that day had gotten an allergy shot, and it had totally knocked him out.

He was feeling weak and tired. And so the two of them decided to just go to bed. And so after brushing their teeth and changing, they got into their bed, they turned off the light, and they were about to lay down and go to sleep when they heard their seven-year-old crying in his bedroom. And both parents let out a groan. And then, Cori, she stood up indicating she would handle this because they knew often their seven-year-old would have nightmares, and the only way he would go back to sleep was if his mom laid with him. And so, Cori, she kissed Eric. And then, as Eric rolled over to go to bed, Cori walked out of the room, she went down the hall, went into her son's bedroom, she got under the covers, and then before long, she and her son had fallen asleep. A few hours later, Cori suddenly sat up inside of her son's bed. It was about 3:00 AM, and for a second, she couldn't even figure out where she was. The house was silent. It was totally dark, and she was confused. But then she remembered she had gotten up to tend to her son.

And so she checked on her son. She saw he was still sleeping. And so she climbed out of the bed. She tucked him back in. She gave him a kiss. And then she left his room, went down the hall, and went back into her bedroom where she climbed into her bed. Then she saw that Eric had kicked off all the covers, and he was sleeping on his back. And so, Cori laid down on the bed and rolled up right against her husband, and she pulled the covers up over both of them, and then she closed her eyes to go to sleep. But right as she did that, she noticed something very strange. Eric's body felt freezing cold. Cori opened her eyes and sat up in bed. She turned over and pushed Eric to see if he would sit up and figure out why he was so cold. But Eric didn't budge. And when she pushed him, he felt really heavy, like dead weight. And so suddenly starting to panic, Cori yelled Eric's name several times, but Eric didn't budge. And so Cori leapt from the bed, she grabbed her phone and she dialed 911. When the dispatcher picked up, Cori was so hysterical as she's looking at her husband lying motionless in his bed that she could barely tell the dispatcher what was going on.

But finally, she did get it out to the dispatcher, and the dispatcher said, Stay calm. The ambulance will be there as soon as we can. Just moments later, Cori heard the sirens outside, and so she ran downstairs, she flung the door open and practically cried with relief as the paramedics charged charged into the house. But when the paramedics got upstairs into the bedroom and they went to go revive Eric, they saw right away it was already too late. Eric was dead. First responders had no idea what killed Eric. He seemed like a really healthy, fit guy who actually just the day before had gone for a casual eight-mile run, and he was also this big outdoorsman, always going on hikes and going on these long hunts. And so the The idea that this guy had just suddenly died seemed really suspicious. The police did find a painkiller pill bottle on the bedside table next to Eric's side of the bed, and for a second they thought, well, maybe he overdosed on painkillers. But when they looked at the label on this pill bottle, it was immediately clear that this was a really old pill bottle and almost certainly had been empty for some time.

When they asked Cori what she thought might have happened, she was totally in shock, But she did say, I don't know. I have no idea what happened to him. But the day before, he did get that allergy shot, and he had a adverse reaction to it and really wanted to go to bed quite early, which seemed odd. But both Cori and the first responder agreed that it seemed pretty far fetched that an allergy shot would lead to Eric's death. Suicide was also considered a possibility by first responders, but Eric really didn't have any reason to want to harm himself. He a very devoted and loving father who adored his sons. He coached all their sports teams and went on all these adventures with them and was always out back, kicking a soccer ball around with them. And his business was booming, and he had just learned that night that his wife's business was potentially going to start booming as well. And so ultimately, the police told Cori that we're just going to have to open an investigation and try to figure out what happened, and we'll be in touch. And if you think of anything that might help the investigation, please let us know.

And Cori said, Of course, I'll tell you. But she really wasn't listening. All she was thinking about was her three sons who were still sleeping in their beds and had no idea their dad was now gone. Over the next few weeks, while the family waited for autopsy results, Cori really focused her energy on her three boys who were really hit hard by the loss of their dad. Eric had been such a hands-on father that his absence was enormous in these boys' lives. The five-year-old kept asking, Where's dad? And when can I see him again? The older two boys who did understand that their dad was dead would also ask questions like, Well, can dad still see us? Or can dad still hear us? And these questions broke Cori's heart because she did not have an adequate answer to any of them. And so she tried to find a children's book online and in bookstores that dealt with grief in hopes that that would help her sons deal with what they were going through, but none of the books she got helped at all. And so a few weeks after Eric's death, when still nobody knew anything about how Eric died or what had really happened, Cori decided that she would take a different approach to helping her son's grief.

Instead of trying to read a book that somebody else wrote about how to handle grief, Cori just called her sons around one night and began telling them a story about their dad. And as she told them this made-up story about their dad being this angel that was taking care of them, she began drawing pictures with a crayon and paper of their dad with wings and a halo, and she'd draw the kids down below waving up at their dad, and she would tell the boys that your dad is an angel now, and he's looking down on you, and he can hear you, and he loves you. And this really seemed to work for the boys. It was for the first time since his passing that the boys connected with the fact that their dad was gone, but they still had this meaningful connection with him. And so very quickly, Cori's stories about their dad and the illustrations that would go with them became a ritual. Every night, Cori would tell these stories and draw these pictures. And so as the days and weeks went by, with still no word and no closure about what happened to their dad, Cori had a epiphany.

These stories Cori told her kids about their dad and how now he was this angel looking out for them. She see firsthand how powerful it was and how really it was helping her sons cope with this loss. And she thought, why don't we turn our stories and all these illustrations into an actual grief book for kids? That way other families whose children are dealing with loss can read these stories as well and find some comfort. After all, Cori knew firsthand there really weren't any good grief books on the market, and so she knew for those that needed this, this would be huge. On April 13th, so six weeks after Eric had died and several weeks after Cori and her kids had begun officially writing this kid's grief book, Cori was backing out of her driveway when from the other end of the cul-de-sac, she saw a police car coming down the way, and it was the lead detective on Eric's case, Detective Woody. And as the detective came down the road, he was waving to Cori, clearly getting her to stop for a second. And so, Cori, she parked her car, she hopped outside and went up to talk to him.

And immediately, Detective Woody got out of his car, he walked up to Cori, and with a grave look on his face, he told her that he had some big news for her, and it was going to be pretty upsetting, but he knew he had to tell her in person and right away. He told her that the autopsy results were in, and they determined that Eric had not died of natural causes. He had actually died from a fentanyl overdose. Fentanyl is a very powerful opioid that's often mixed with heroine, and just a little bit of fentanyl can kill someone. Eric, it would turn out, had five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in his system. Cory was totally shocked at this news and told the detective that Eric didn't do drugs. The only drug he did was, periodically, he would eat a marijuana gummy before bed, but that was it. So this really didn't make any sense. The detective was respectful and nodded his head and said, I totally understand that, but these are the results, and we need to find out where he got fentanyl from, and so we're going to need to search all of the electronic devices in your house to see if we can find communication between your husband and whoever got him the fentanyl.

Cori told the detective that, of course, they could do that. But as she began thinking about all of their devices, she suddenly remembered that Eric's business partner, Cody Wright, had actually taken Eric's laptop very shortly after Eric had passed away. Now, Cory didn't know why Cody had taken the laptop, but Cody had been a thorn in both Cory and Eric's side for several years now. Eric and Cody had been very close friends when they had started their masonry business together about a decade earlier, but they'd had a serious falling out a few years back. The two men had been on this elk hunting trip, and at one point Eric had illegally shot and killed a bull elk, and Cody had actually reported Eric after this hunting trip to the game wardens. And as a result, Eric got in a lot of trouble and was temporarily banned from hunting anywhere in Utah. The two men still managed to continue to work together and build their Masonry business, but it was very clear their relationship was totally fractured and would never be repaired. Now, Cory didn't get into all the details of the tensions with Cody, but she did tell Detective Woody that if you want access to Eric's laptop, you got to go talk to Cody because he took it for some reason.

And also, you really just ought to talk to Cody in general because maybe he has more to do with what happened to Eric and this whole fentanyl thing than he's letting on. The detective told Cory that he appreciated the information, and he appreciated being allowed to go in and collect all the devices, and that he would go talk to Cody and try to retrieve Eric's laptop. And then after that, the detective thanked Cory and said they'd be in touch soon. But after this conversation with Cory, the investigation into Eric's death stalled out. When police did follow up with Cody, they didn't find anything really worth pursuing. And outside of talking to Cody, no new information came in about Eric's death or about his connection to Fentanyl. And so really, there was nothing for police to operate on. And so while the family just waited for more information to come out about whatever happened to Eric, Cori just focused her energy on taking care of her three boys and writing this grief book with them. And Finally, on March fifth, 2023, so almost exactly a year after Eric has died, and still police have no idea what happened to him, the grief book was finally done, and Cori self-published it on Amazon under the title Are You With Right away, the book was a total hit with parents of grieving children.

And as the five-star reviews poured in, so too did requests from local media for Cori to be interviewed and talk about this book and why she wrote it and how her kids are doing. Cori had no idea her book would be this successful, and so at first, she was really terrified to do any of these interviews. But eventually, she decided she would just say yes to all the interviews because she was very proud of what her and her kids had created, and she knew Eric would be proud to. However, what Cori didn't know was there was going to be a massive unintended consequence from publishing this book. Ever since Eric was found dead in 2022, the police in Utah began painstakingly searching all of the electronic devices that the Richens owned and that Cody, Eric's business partner, owned. Basically, they were just looking anywhere for some sign of communication between Eric and whoever had given him the lethal fentanyl dose. At some point during the search of all these devices, the police found something very unusual, and they knew it very likely had to do with Eric's death. But they didn't really have any evidence to prove that, and so they just had to sit on it and wait to see what happened next.

What happened next was shortly after Cori published her grief book, it got all this media attention, and in turn, because of this attention, Eric's death, specifically the unsolved nature of his death, also got a lot of media attention. Eventually, several people who kept seeing all this news about Eric's unsolved death, reached out to police and said, You know what? He did not overdose on fentanyl. He was murdered, and I'm almost positive I know who did it. Lo and behold, the alleged killer that all these people brought up to the police was the same person that the police in Utah had become suspicious of because of all those unusual things they had found during their search of all of the electronic devices. And so on May 8, 2023, not long after getting all these tips about this alleged killer, the police in Utah felt like they finally had enough ammo to go after this person, and they headed out to make an arrest. While we don't know for sure what happened, because again, this story, it's ongoing. This case has not even gone to trial yet. Here is what prosecutors say really happened to Eric Richens on March 3, 2022, the night he died.

That night, Eric was upstairs when he heard Cori down in the kitchen calling for him, saying to come down and join her. And so he went downstairs, he went into the kitchen, and immediately, he saw his wife grinning ear to ear, and she promptly handed him a drink and said, I have big news, and we're going to celebrate. And after the two of them went up to their bedroom, Cori told Eric all about this big real estate deal and how their company was about to profit a million dollars. And then after that, they clinked their glasses together, said cheers, and took a sip from their cups. The drink that Cori made for both of them was called a Moscow Mule. It's made with ginger beer, vodka, and lime. But when Cori mixed When she raced Eric's Moscow mule, she added one additional ingredient, a lethal dose of fentanyl. It would turn out, Cori had been stealing money from Eric's bank accounts, and he had found Eric also had discovered that Cory had been taking out these massive loans in their family's name, which Eric was really upset about. In fact, Eric was so upset with Cory that he wanted a divorce and was talking to a divorce lawyer and making sure after the divorce was finalized that Cory could not touch his money.

But perhaps sensing that a divorce was imminent and the money faucet would be turned off, Cory simply took out a $2 million policy policy on Eric and then killed him. Then shortly after that, in order to help her sons deal with the loss of their father, who she killed, she wrote a grief book about it and sold it for a profit. Police say Cori had been working for weeks to figure out the right fentanyl dose to give to her husband. On Valentine's Day that year, Cori had given Eric a poisoned sandwich that had fentanyl in it that she attached a love note to, but it obviously did not kill Eric, he just broke out in hives. So Cori got a stronger dose of fentanyl. She put it in his drink on March third, and this time it worked. The story that Cori told first responders when they arrived to hopefully try to save Eric was that they had this celebratory drink, and then they went to bed, and then she had gotten up to see her son, and then when she came back at 3:00 AM, Eric was cold to the touch, and she called 911.

But in reality, after she poisoned her husband, and he's laying there still on the bed, slowly dying from this overdose, she just got up and paced around the house for several hours, googling things like how to destroy electronic evidence and luxury prisons for the rich in America. These searches were, of course, the highly unusual and suspicious things that the police saw when they looked through all those devices during the initial part of the search. But as much as it made them think, Cory likely had something to do with this, they didn't have enough to actually arrest her. However, after Cori published her grief book and went on this big tour promoting her grief book, Eric's family, who's watching this happen on TV and listening to the radios, they just couldn't take it. It disgusted them because they secretly believed that Cori had killed Eric over money. They didn't like Cori to begin with, and it just felt like she did this, and now she's profiting on Eric's death. And so family members began reaching out to police in Utah, and they said, You really need to look into Cori. We think she killed Eric. This whole grief book thing is a joke.

She's a killer. Ultimately, it was those calls from Eric's family to the police, combined with Cori's very unusual and suspicious search history and electronic activity on the night that Eric died that allowed police to arrest her at her home on May eighth, 2023. Cori, who who denies any wrongdoing and says she did not kill her husband, is currently charged with aggravated murder, which could lead to the death penalty if she's convicted. She's being held without bail while she awaits trial, and her book, Are You With Me? Is no longer being sold on Amazon. A quick note about our stories.

They are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Balin podcast. If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studio's podcasts. This podcast, the Mr. Balin podcast, and also Mr. Balin's Medical mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, Run Full, and Redacted. Just search for Balin Studios wherever you get your podcasts to find all of these shows. To watch hundreds more stories just like the ones you heard today, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Balin. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time. See you. Hey, prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballen podcast one month early, and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondry. Com/survey.