Does A Guilty Verdict Actually Give The Richins Family Closure?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is Hidden Killers, Half Year in Review. A look back at some of the most compelling cases of 2026 so far.
This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Dreeke.

**Tony Brueski** (0:16)
Kouri Richins is convicted. The jury came back, and now she's heading to prison for killing Eric. The trial is over, but the questions are not, as we're learning in our comments section. I don't blame you. We got a lot of questions too.
That's what we're going to do today on the program. We're going to go through Q&A live with you guys. I got some that I grabbed from your comments, so we're going to hit those. But if you have comments about this case, thoughts you want to share, drop them in live, and we will try to get to them as we work through this. We're going to talk today about the case here of Kouri Richins. We're going to talk the latest on Nancy Guthrie, and we're also going to talk about the Kelsey Fitzsimmons case, as well. So lots to get through. Robin Dreeke, retired FBI Special Agent, former Chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program with us as always. Welcome, Robin. This book is out this week. It's not all about me. It's big book week launch, and wherever you get your books, Amazon, whatever it is, be sure to go and put an order down.

**Robin Dreeke** (1:20)
And just tell a million of your friends, since my daughter's wedding is in May.

**Tony Brueski** (1:23)
So yes, tell your friend. It makes a great wedding gift right there.

**Robin Dreeke** (1:30)
So stories I could tell about this.

**Tony Brueski** (1:32)
Just give that to everyone. Yeah. But it's a great book. So please do. Please do check it out. All of his books are wonderful. If you like Robin, if you listen regularly and you can't get enough Robin in your life, there's plenty more books to get through. I mean, honestly, I mean, the size. I'm listening to this one for a second time right now.
And very much.

**Robin Dreeke** (1:52)
You know, I never really equated the things I wrote years and years ago or even not too far ago because I worked in the world of counterintelligence, behavioral analysis. But when we're looking at all of them, I'll throw it out the first time today, when you're looking at all the nutters in the world, oh my God, all of this is completely appropriate because when you're strategizing life every day, like normal people do with healthy people, dealing with morons is so much easier.

**Tony Brueski** (2:16)
Oh my God, yeah, yeah, it certainly is very interesting to look at it from those prisms. Your thoughts today, like I said, in the comment section. So we want to get into all of it. Let's start here on the Kouri Richins case. First comment I got and we'll get to some of yours here in the live. So please do drop those in here. It starts out, she sat through the entire trial, heard every piece of evidence against her, and never once visibly broke.
That's this listener's observation. Now she's convicted in going to prison for life. Robin, what happens to someone psychologically the moment that verdict hits? Does the mask finally come off or does it hold?

**Robin Dreeke** (3:06)
It's interesting.
I don't think she was consciously putting a mask on.
When you're in front of the public view for so long, your natural leakage is going to just start coming out. If you really sat there, and we mentioned on the show yesterday, which I really thought was really interesting when we analyzed her on the TV appearance she did, she only reacts and when we're looking at her in the courtroom, if you want to go back and look at some scenes, all she ever reacted to ever was things that impacted her. It was never, I mean, so think about we've seen people understand before when dealing with family. I mean, just think of Richard Allen. Anytime his wife is brought up or family, I mean, he would just break down. You saw him visibly or other people visibly really shaken when you're talking about the impact of what's going on to people in their lives, friends, family, cohorts, but never ever heard. Thinking about her reactions when her lover is on the stand, her boyfriend, nothing. Kids didn't even come up. I mean, just think about it. So now you fast forward that to what is she actually thinking and processing going to the prison? The only thing that's going through her mind is, what's happening to me? Do you really think she's thinking about and breaking down about what are going to happen to my kids? No, she's written them off. No, it's cruel to think of, and not her, as the great Bob Monter will say, but from her compartmentalization, she's got all these different little compartments, but the biggest compartment is her. I think she's only thinking about the impact on her and what she is going to do to survive in that environment that she's going to be in. And as I think as Kof said the other day, I think she's going to be okay in that environment.