Kouri Richins — Convicted of Killing Her Husband With Fentanyl, Then Writing a Children’s Book About Grief
Kouri Richins was convicted of aggravated murder in April 2026 in Utah, found guilty of poisoning her husband Eric with a lethal dose of fentanyl. The jury did not buy the defense’s argument that Eric had a history of drug use and administered the fentanyl himself.
What the Kouri Richins Trial Established
Eric Richins died in March 2022. Toxicology results showed he had five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in his system at the time of his death. Kouri told investigators she found him unresponsive in bed that night.
Prosecutors argued she had been trying to kill him before that night, pointing to evidence suggesting multiple prior poisoning attempts. The trial began in February 2026 in Utah’s Third District Court. Prosecutors laid out a financial motive, including life insurance policies, a real estate business dispute, and a marriage Kouri had reportedly been trying to exit for years. The jury returned a guilty verdict on aggravated murder after roughly ten hours of deliberation.
The detail that made this case go nationally viral was not the poisoning. It was the book. While awaiting trial, Kouri Richins published “Are You With Me?” — a children’s book written for kids coping with the death of a parent. She promoted it publicly. That cognitive dissonance is the main reason this case broke through from local Utah news to national obsession.
What Happens at Sentencing — and Why the Death Penalty Is Still on the Table
Utah prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty in the sentencing phase. Utah uses lethal injection as its primary method of execution, with a firing squad as an alternative. The aggravated murder conviction makes Richins eligible for capital punishment under Utah law.
The sentencing hearing is ongoing as of mid-2026. The defense is expected to present mitigating factors, including Kouri’s role as the mother of the couple’s three sons. This case is almost certain to remain in the news cycle through the end of 2026 and into 2027 through any appeals process that follows.
Donna Adelson — The Mother-in-Law Convicted of Having a Law Professor Killed
Donna Adelson was convicted of first-degree murder in May 2026 for orchestrating the killing of Dan Markel, her former son-in-law. The conviction is the capstone on a prosecution that took over a decade to reach the person most investigators believed was central to the plot from the beginning.
Who Dan Markel Was and Why the Murder Took So Long to Prosecute
Dan Markel was a Florida State University law professor, a rising academic star in criminal law, and the father of two young sons. In July 2014, he was shot in the head while sitting in his car in his Tallahassee garage. He died in the hospital the following day.
The investigation eventually revealed that members of Markel’s ex-wife Wendi Adelson’s family had hired hitmen to kill him. The theory: Wendi’s family wanted Markel out of the picture to make it easier to relocate closer to them in South Florida without a custody battle blocking the move. Two hitmen, Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera, were arrested and convicted first. Then Donna’s son-in-law, Katherine Magbanua’s boyfriend, was convicted. The case unraveled slowly, one prosecution at a time, over nearly a decade.
The delay in charging Donna Adelson directly came down to evidence. Prosecutors needed witnesses willing to testify and a paper trail strong enough to link her directly to the conspiracy. A 2021 Oxygen docuseries called “Onward” helped sustain public interest in the case during the years between the hitmen’s convictions and Donna’s trial.
What the Donna Adelson Verdict Means for the Case Overall
Donna was convicted on three counts in May 2026: first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation of murder. She faces life in prison.
The Markel case is still not completely closed. Wendi’s brother Charlie Adelson was charged separately and his trial is pending. Charlie has been widely identified in media coverage and court documents as a central figure in organizing the murder-for-hire. His trial will likely attract the same level of attention Donna’s did, possibly more. For anyone tracking this case as a whole story, Donna’s conviction is the penultimate chapter, not the final one.
Sarah Boone — The Trial That Has Been Delayed for Five Years Is Finally Happening
Sarah Boone’s trial for the 2020 death of Jorge Torres Jr. is scheduled to begin in 2026, making it one of the longest pre-trial delays in recent Florida true crime history. Most people who followed this case at the time it broke assume it was resolved years ago. It was not.
What Sarah Boone Is Accused Of and Why the Case Stalled
Jorge Torres Jr. died in February 2020 after being locked inside a zipped suitcase inside the Orlando home he shared with Boone. She told investigators she had been drinking and fell asleep, then discovered him unresponsive in the morning when she opened the suitcase. Prosecutors say the evidence tells a different story entirely.
Investigators recovered videos from Boone’s phone that showed her taunting Torres while he was inside the suitcase. In the recordings, he can be heard begging to be let out and saying he could not breathe. Boone can be heard laughing. That video evidence is considered the most damaging piece of the prosecution’s case and is the reason this story spread so quickly when it first broke.
The delay since 2020 comes down to a series of compounding legal issues. Boone underwent multiple competency evaluations, fired several attorneys, and the case also hit COVID-related court backlogs that affected most Florida criminal cases in 2021 and 2022. For a deeper look at where things stand before she goes to trial, the breakdown of Sarah Boone’s current situation covers her timeline in detail.
What the 2026 Trial Date Means and What to Expect
Prosecutors are pursuing a first-degree murder charge. Boone has maintained throughout the pre-trial period that Torres’ death was an accident.
The phone video is almost certain to be the centerpiece of the prosecution’s opening. It is the kind of evidence that is very difficult for a defense to neutralize because it is contemporaneous, it is in the defendant’s own voice, and it directly contradicts the accidental death narrative. Anyone who followed this case in 2020 and assumed it quietly resolved: it did not. The 2026 trial date is what they have been waiting for.
Shanda Vander Ark — Life Sentence Stands, and the Details Still Shock
Shanda Vander Ark is currently incarcerated in Michigan serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the murder of her 15-year-old son Timothy Ferguson. No appeal has resulted in any change to that sentence as of mid-2026.
Where Shanda Vander Ark Is Now in 2026
Shanda was convicted in 2022. Timothy died in May 2022 after months of prolonged abuse and starvation in the family’s home in Spring Lake Township, Michigan. He weighed 69 pounds at the time of his death.
The case attracted sustained national attention not just because of the severity of the abuse but because of how long it continued without intervention. Teachers, family members, and neighbors had varying levels of contact with Timothy in the years before his death. The case became a reference point in discussions about mandatory reporting gaps and the difficulty of detecting abuse inside households where one parent controls all access. For the full background on Shanda’s sentence and current status, the Shanda Vander Ark case breakdown covers the details of the conviction and where she is now.
What Timothy Ferguson’s Case Tells Us About How Abuse Escalates Undetected
The reason this case keeps circulating in true crime communities years after the conviction is not the verdict itself. People are not searching for case updates because they missed the sentencing. They are searching because the how-did-this-happen question does not have a clean answer, and the absence of a clean answer is unsettling in a way that a verdict does not resolve.
Abuse cases that go on for extended periods share a common pattern: escalation is gradual, and isolation of the victim is methodical. Timothy was progressively removed from situations where outside adults could observe his condition. By the time his physical deterioration was severe, the people who might have acted on it had been largely cut off. That pattern is documented in the court record and is the part of the case that true crime communities keep returning to.
Kaitlin Armstrong — 90 Years, a Netflix Documentary, and an Attempted Escape
Kaitlin Armstrong is currently incarcerated in Texas, serving a 90-year sentence for the May 2022 murder of professional cyclist Moriah Wilson. Her case came back into widespread public consciousness in 2026 after a Netflix documentary revisited it, and search interest spiked noticeably in the weeks after the documentary’s release.
The Moriah Wilson Murder and What Made Armstrong a Suspect
Moriah Wilson was shot dead in Austin, Texas on May 11, 2022. She had traveled to Austin for a cycling event and was staying at a friend’s house when she was killed. Armstrong was the girlfriend of Colin Strickland, a professional cyclist who had previously dated Wilson. Jealousy was established as the motive, supported by text messages and a documented pattern of Armstrong tracking Wilson’s movements.
Armstrong fled the country before she could be arrested, traveling to Costa Rica using a different passport. She spent 43 days as a fugitive before being apprehended in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica. That escape, and the steps she took to avoid detection, is what gave this case a second act in the media. The full picture of what drove Armstrong to kill is worth reading if you want to understand the psychology behind the case beyond the surface facts.
Where Kaitlin Armstrong Is Now and What the Documentary Got Right
Armstrong was convicted in November 2023 after a trial in Austin. The jury sentenced her to 90 years. She has not filed a successful appeal as of mid-2026.
The 2026 Netflix documentary “The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson” gave the case renewed visibility. It focused significantly on Wilson herself rather than Armstrong, which was a deliberate choice by the filmmakers and drew mostly positive responses from Wilson’s family and the cycling community. Armstrong’s legal team objected to certain characterizations in the documentary, but no legal action resulted from those objections. For anyone who wants the complete breakdown of what the evidence showed and how the trial unfolded, the full Moriah Wilson case details are covered separately.
Brooks Houck and the Crystal Rogers Case — A Cold Case Verdict After Nearly a Decade
Brooks Houck was found guilty of murdering Crystal Rogers in 2026, closing a Kentucky cold case that had stretched nearly eleven years from disappearance to conviction. Rogers’ body has never been recovered, making this one of the rare murder convictions in recent U.S. history where no remains were ever found.
Who Crystal Rogers Was and Why the Case Took So Long
Crystal Rogers was a 35-year-old mother of five from Bardstown, Kentucky. She was last seen alive on July 3, 2015. Her car was found two days later on the Bluegrass Parkway with a flat tire, her phone, and her personal belongings inside. She was not in the car.
Brooks Houck, her boyfriend and the father of her youngest child, was identified early in the investigation as the primary suspect. Local law enforcement faced significant criticism over the handling of the initial investigation, and a federal task force eventually took over. Crystal’s father, Tommy Ballard, was shot and killed in November 2016 under circumstances that were investigated separately and added another layer of tragedy to the case. A grand jury indicted Houck on murder charges in 2021 after years of renewed federal investigative work.
The Brooks Houck Verdict and What It Means for the Rogers Family
The trial began in early 2026. Prosecutors built their case around circumstantial evidence, cell phone data, witness testimony, and evidence related to the timeline of Crystal’s last known movements. Joseph Lawson was also convicted in connection with the murder.
The conviction without a body is legally significant. It is achievable under Kentucky law and has precedent in other jurisdictions, but it requires the prosecution to construct an airtight circumstantial case in place of physical remains. The jury’s verdict signals that the evidence was strong enough to meet that threshold. Crystal’s family, who spent nearly a decade publicly pushing for accountability, were present in the courtroom when the verdict was read.
Chad Daybell — Death Sentence in Place, Appeals Expected
Chad Daybell was sentenced to death in 2024 after being convicted of the murders of his two stepchildren, Tylee Ryan and JJ Vallow, and his first wife Tammy Daybell. As of mid-2026, that sentence remains in place and the appellate process that typically follows a death sentence in Idaho is expected to span years.
What the Chad Daybell Conviction Covered
The case against Daybell was one of the most extensively covered true crime stories of the early 2020s. His co-defendant and second wife, Lori Vallow Daybell, was convicted separately in 2023 and is serving life without parole in Idaho. Chad’s trial, which included evidence of the children’s bodies being buried on his rural Idaho property, resulted in guilty verdicts on all counts.
The religious extremism angle distinguished this case from most true crime coverage. Daybell and Lori held fringe beliefs about “dark spirits” and “zombies,” and those beliefs were central to the prosecution’s argument about motive. The children were described by the couple as “dark” or “possessed” before their deaths. Chad’s children from his first marriage testified during the sentencing phase.
Where the Chad Daybell Case Stands in 2026
Chad Daybell is currently on Idaho’s death row. No execution date has been set. Idaho’s appellate review process for capital cases is lengthy, and it would be unusual for an execution to occur within the first few years following a death sentence. The automatic appeal to the Idaho Supreme Court is part of the required process for any capital conviction in the state.
The Bamfuzzle archive on Chad Daybell’s first marriage and family covers the family context that the main trial coverage often compressed into a single paragraph. If the children’s testimony during sentencing was something you wanted to understand better, that piece fills in the background.
Ruby Franke — Prison Update and What Happened to the “8 Passengers” Channel
Ruby Franke is currently serving prison time in Utah after pleading guilty in December 2023 to four counts of aggravated child abuse. Her sentencing in February 2024 resulted in four consecutive terms of one to 15 years each. As of mid-2026, she remains incarcerated and eligible for parole review.
What Ruby Franke Was Convicted Of
Ruby Franke ran the “8 Passengers” YouTube channel, which documented her family’s daily life and had accumulated millions of subscribers at its peak. In August 2023, one of her children escaped through a window of a neighbor’s home and asked for help. The child, a 12-year-old son, was malnourished, had rope marks on his wrists and ankles, and showed signs of extended abuse. Franke and her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested the same day.
Investigators found a second child in similar condition at Hildebrandt’s property. Both Franke and Hildebrandt pleaded guilty. Hildebrandt received the same sentence structure as Franke. The abuse was connected to extreme religious beliefs that Hildebrandt promoted and that Franke had adopted, involving ideas about children needing to “repent” through physical suffering.
Where Ruby Franke Is Now in 2026
For anyone who followed the “8 Passengers” channel before the arrest, the full picture of where Ruby Franke is now covers the current incarceration status, the parole timeline, and what happened to the channel and the family after the sentencing.
Franke’s estranged husband Kevin Franke has publicly distanced himself from both Ruby and Hildebrandt and has spoken about the impact on the family. Their adult children have also spoken out. The parole eligibility timeline means Ruby Franke could theoretically be reviewed before the end of the decade, though parole is not guaranteed and the nature of the crimes makes early release politically contentious in Utah.
Luigi Mangione — Trial Pending in One of 2025’s Most Polarizing Cases
Luigi Mangione was arrested in December 2024 and charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who was shot outside a midtown Manhattan hotel on December 4, 2024. As of mid-2026, the case is moving through pre-trial proceedings and no trial date has been finalized.
Why the Luigi Mangione Case Became a Cultural Event
Brian Thompson was killed in what investigators described as a targeted attack. Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland family, was arrested four days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He had in his possession a handwritten document expressing grievances against the health insurance industry.
The public response to the arrest was unlike almost anything in recent true crime history. A significant portion of online commentary treated Mangione with a level of sympathy that disturbed Thompson’s family and prompted considerable media debate about the ethics of the response. That cultural context is part of why this case remains in heavy rotation even before the trial begins. The legal question of guilt is almost secondary to the broader conversation the case opened about healthcare frustration, economic inequality, and who gets cast as a villain in American public life.
Where the Luigi Mangione Case Stands in 2026
Mangione faces both state charges in New York and federal charges that include a potential death penalty. The federal case was filed by the DOJ and carries significantly heavier sentencing exposure. His defense team has been active in pre-trial motions, including arguments related to pretrial publicity and the possibility of seating an impartial jury.
A trial date in 2026 remains possible but is not confirmed. This is the kind of case where pre-trial maneuvering can extend for a long time, particularly when the federal government is pursuing capital punishment alongside a parallel state prosecution.
Ibraheem Yazeed — Convicted in the Aniah Blanchard Murder
Ibraheem Yazeed was convicted in 2024 of kidnapping and murdering Aniah Blanchard, the stepdaughter of UFC fighter Walt Harris. The guilty verdict came after years of delays and a case that drew national attention partly because of Blanchard’s connection to a well-known public figure.
What Happened to Aniah Blanchard
Aniah Blanchard was a 19-year-old college student who disappeared in Auburn, Alabama in October 2019. Her car was found with blood evidence inside. Her body was discovered in November 2019 in a wooded area in Macon County.
Surveillance footage showed her being forced into a vehicle at a convenience store, and that footage was central to the case against Yazeed. Yazeed had prior criminal convictions and was out on bond at the time of the abduction, a fact that prompted Alabama to pass “Aniah’s Law” in 2021, amending the state constitution to allow judges to deny bail in cases involving violent felonies. The law change is one of the more direct legislative responses to a specific crime victim in recent Alabama history.
What Ibraheem Yazeed’s Conviction Means in 2026
Yazeed was sentenced to death. The conviction closed the active prosecution phase of the case, though capital sentences in Alabama go through the same lengthy appellate process as other death row cases. As of mid-2026, no execution date has been set. The Blanchard case is regularly cited in discussions about bail reform and the consequences of releasing violent offenders before trial. Aniah’s Law has been tested in Alabama courts multiple times since its passage and remains in effect.
Samuel Bateman — Federal Sentence Finalized, FLDS Fallout Continues
Samuel Bateman, a self-proclaimed FLDS prophet who led a small polygamist group in Arizona, was sentenced to federal prison in 2023 after pleading guilty to charges related to the sexual exploitation of minors and obstruction of justice. As of mid-2026, that sentence is in effect and the broader legal fallout from his group’s activities is still ongoing.
What Samuel Bateman Was Convicted Of
Bateman led a group of followers in the Short Creek area of Arizona and claimed to be a religious successor to Warren Jeffs. He took multiple “wives,” including girls as young as nine years old. Federal investigators began building the case after followers attempted to help him escape custody. Evidence included recordings Bateman made of himself with the minors.
He pleaded guilty in 2023 to a federal charge of sex trafficking of a minor by force, fraud, or coercion, along with obstruction charges. The plea avoided a full trial.
Where Samuel Bateman Is Now in 2026
The full picture of where Samuel Bateman is now covers the sentence details, the status of the other individuals in the group, and the ongoing civil and family court proceedings that followed his conviction. Several of the women and girls involved have required continued support through the court system to address custody, family reunification, and safety issues.
The case drew significant attention from people tracking FLDS-related prosecutions more broadly, given the parallels to the Warren Jeffs case and the way isolated religious communities can sustain abuse over extended periods before federal intervention occurs.
FAQ
What is the current status of the Kouri Richins case in 2026?
Kouri Richins was convicted of aggravated murder in April 2026 in Utah for poisoning her husband Eric with fentanyl in March 2022. She is currently awaiting sentencing, and prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty. The jury found against the defense’s argument that Eric self-administered the fentanyl. She is perhaps best known outside legal circles for having published a children’s grief book while awaiting trial, a detail that drew national attention to a case that might otherwise have remained a regional story.
Was Donna Adelson found guilty in the Dan Markel murder case?
Yes. Donna Adelson was convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and solicitation of murder in May 2026 in Florida. She was found to have played a central role in orchestrating the 2014 assassination of her former son-in-law, FSU law professor Dan Markel. Her son Charlie Adelson has been charged separately, and his trial had not yet concluded as of mid-2026. The Markel case involved multiple prosecutions over more than a decade before reaching Donna Adelson.
Why has the Sarah Boone trial taken so long?
Sarah Boone was arrested in February 2020 after her boyfriend Jorge Torres Jr. died inside a locked suitcase in their Orlando home. The trial did not occur in the years that followed because of a combination of competency evaluations, multiple attorney changes, and court backlogs caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Florida’s pretrial process allows for extended delays when competency is questioned. As of 2026, a trial date is set. The case involves video evidence recovered from Boone’s phone showing her taunting Torres while he was in the suitcase.
Is Chad Daybell still on death row in 2026?
Yes. Chad Daybell was sentenced to death in Idaho in 2024 for the murders of Tylee Ryan, JJ Vallow, and Tammy Daybell. As of mid-2026, he remains on death row and no execution date has been set. Capital cases in Idaho go through a mandatory appellate review process that typically takes many years. His co-defendant and wife Lori Vallow Daybell was convicted separately in 2023 and is serving life without parole.
What happened with the Luigi Mangione trial in 2026?
As of mid-2026, Luigi Mangione has not yet gone to trial. He was arrested in December 2024 and charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. He faces both New York state charges and federal charges that include a potential death penalty. The case is in pre-trial proceedings. A trial date in 2026 is possible but has not been confirmed. The case generated an unusually polarized public response because of public grievances against the health insurance industry that Mangione expressed in writings found at the time of his arrest.
Did Brooks Houck actually get convicted without Crystal Rogers’ body ever being found?
Yes. Brooks Houck was convicted of murdering Crystal Rogers in 2026 despite the fact that her body has never been recovered. A no-body murder conviction is legally achievable and relies on circumstantial evidence, cell phone data, witness testimony, and timeline reconstruction. Kentucky law, like most U.S. states, does not require a body as a condition of a murder conviction. The conviction was also notable for closing a case that had been active since Rogers’ disappearance in July 2015.
Where is Ruby Franke now and is she eligible for parole?
Ruby Franke is incarcerated in Utah as of mid-2026. She pleaded guilty in December 2023 to four counts of aggravated child abuse and was sentenced in February 2024 to four consecutive terms of one to 15 years each. Under Utah law, she is eligible for parole review within her sentencing window. However, parole is not automatic, and the nature of the convictions, which involved extended abuse of children, makes early release politically and practically unlikely in the near term.
What is Aniah’s Law and why does it matter for the Yazeed case?
Aniah’s Law is a 2021 amendment to the Alabama constitution that allows judges to deny bail entirely to defendants charged with violent felonies. It was passed in direct response to the murder of Aniah Blanchard, who was killed in 2019 by Ibraheem Yazeed, a man who was on bond for a prior violent offense at the time of the abduction. Before the law passed, Alabama judges had limited authority to deny bail outright. Yazeed was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death. The law has been tested in multiple Alabama cases since its passage and remains in effect.
The One Thing All of These Cases Have in Common
The cases on this list are not connected by geography or crime type. They span poisonings, hired killings, cold case murders, child abuse, and a corporate assassination. What they share is this: in every single one of them, the delay between the crime and the resolution was long enough that most people stopped actively tracking it and assumed it must have been resolved already.
That assumption is how people end up piecing together outdated information from podcast episodes recorded in 2022 and Reddit threads that were never updated. The 2026 developments on cases like Sarah Boone’s trial and the Crystal Rogers verdict are genuinely new information for a lot of followers who had mentally closed those files.
The smart move from here is to bookmark the cases where the story is still moving: the Kouri Richins sentencing, the Charlie Adelson trial, and the Luigi Mangione trial are all still live. Those are the three most likely to produce major headlines before the end of 2026. Everything else on this list is either concluded or in the slow-moving appellate phase where years pass between meaningful updates.
