The news exploded in headlines around the country: Kouri Richins — the Utah children’s book author accused of killing her husband — had allegedly written a script for her family to lie for her.

NBC News: Richins “asked brother to ‘testify falsely,’ state says.” The Today show: Richins “allegedly tried to get mother to give false testimony.” CNN: Richins was “now accused of witness tampering,” through what the Daily Beast called a “bombshell jail cell letter.”

With “Walk The Dog!!” written in large letters at the top, the six-page document was found in Richins’ cell in the Summit County jail. Prosecutors, who had charged her with aggravated murder and four other counts in the death of Eric Richins, filed a scan of the letter in court on Sept. 15, 2023.

“Within minutes,” Richins’ defense attorneys wrote in a court filing, reporters were calling them for comment. Within days, the lawyers added, “countless media outlets had already reported on the WTD Letter.”

Legal battles over the letter continued for years, starting with prosecutors’ immediate demand that Richins be banned from communicating with her mother and brother.

The defense demanded that the charges against Richins be dismissed — arguing that prosecutors had made a fair trial impossible by disclosing the letter.

Neither request was granted, and during Richins’ murder trial this week, jurors heard an excerpt and testimony about it lasted only 17 minutes.

But it may be in the spotlight again Monday, as both sides make their closing arguments after 13 days of testimony. Richins waived her right to testify and did not call any witnesses. Here’s what to know about her letter.

Why was it called the “walk the dog” letter?

At the top of the first page of the letter, Richins wrote, “Walk the dog!!! But take vague notes so you remember.” The last line of the letter by the Kamas woman also states: “Take vague notes so you remember before you walk the dog.”

What’s in the letter?

Here’s what jurors were told: Richins wrote the six-page letter to her mother, Lisa Darden, and investigators found it in her cell in a book among Richins’ personal belongings on Sept. 14, 2023. The top of the first page is labeled, “Pg 1.”

The letter was found folded and tucked into a book about taking the exam required for admission to law schools: “10 Actual, Official LSAT Preptests,” prosecutors said in court documents.

Summit County Sheriff’s Detective Jeff O’Driscoll read an excerpt to the jury on Wednesday, at the request of Summit County Prosecutor Brad Bloodworth.

In it, Richins gives information to her mother that she wants her brother, Ronney Darden, to relay to her lawyer at the time, Skye Lazaro. The firm where Lazaro works later withdrew from the case, citing an “irreconcilable” situation.

The excerpt started with, “Here is what I’m thinking but you have to talk to ronney. He would probably have to testify to this but its super short. He will need to tell Skye at the meeting next week.”

Richins then wrote, “Upon information and belief: (just like they say),” using a phrase commonly used to begin investigators’ notes or allegations in court documents.

She then began a description of a conversation that she said Eric Richins had with Ronney Darden a year before his death: Eric said he acquired “pain pills and fentanyl” during hunting trips to Mexico. Eric warned Ronney not to tell Richins about the drugs, because she would “get mad” and that she “always said he just gets high every night and won’t help take care of the kids.”

In parenthesis, she noted: “There are pictures on my phone of Eric passed out on the floor or in the chair. Ronney should have texts from Eric talking about getting high as well.”

She continued describing the conversation: Eric told Ronney that he kept the drugs in an allergy pill bottle in his work truck “so I wouldn’t find them.”

The next sentences are: “Ronney never told me about the conversation. Eric finally told me and asked if Carmen could get him some.” Carmen Lauber is the housekeeper who prosecutors assert purchased illegal drugs at Richins’ direction.

Richins then began to refer to herself in the third person.

“Eric never wanted anyone to know he had an issue, especially get caught, he always wanted Kouri to go down for him,” Richins continued. “When they traveled, Eric would put his drugs in Kouri’s bag at the airlines right before they boarded. That way if they were ever caught, Kouri got in trouble, not him.”

This would cause a “huge fight,” because Richins would be angry that Eric would “risk her going to jail for his drug use,” Richins wrote.

“He would just laugh about it,” Richins said in the letter. “... Kouri has never taken any type of pills; didn’t like them.”

Richins added that Ronney should “reword this however he needs to make the point.”

“Just include it all,” Richins wrote. “The connection has to be made with Mexico and drugs. Ronney will have the messages to prove Eric confided in him about getting high. He can be short and to the point but has to be done.”

She cautioned her mother to meet with her brother in person when she spoke with him about the letter, since she worried her mother’s home and phone may be “bugged.”

Near the end of the excerpt, Richins tells her mother to “tell Ronney don’t over analyze it.”

“Tell him I need him to do this,” Richins added.

How did the defense respond?

Defense attorney Kathy Nester asked O’Driscoll questions that highlighted parts of the letter that have been verified by others’ testimony, and opportunities that investigators had to confirm other points.

Nester asked if investigators had asked Ronney Darden whether the conversation described in the letter ever happened. O’Driscoll said they reached out but “were not able to talk to him.” He also said investigators did not seek a search warrant to examine whether or not the texts described in the letter were on Ronney Darden’s phone.

Richins had written that her husband’s former business partner had cleaned out his work truck. Nester pointed out that the partner had testified about picking up the truck. She also asked O’Driscoll about testimony from Allie Staking, a friend of Richins. Staking described a time when she said Richins discovered that her husband had put drugs, which she described as “gummies” that contained THC, in her suitcase.

O’Driscoll noted Staking had described a single incident, while the letter’s phrasing seemed to claim there were multiple instances.

He acknowledged the letter was never delivered to Richins’ mother, brother or former attorney.

Was it a letter or part of a book?

In a call with her mother days after the letter was seized, Richins said the six pages “were not a letter to you guys.” Instead, the letter was “part of, like, a 65-page freakin’ mystery fiction novel that I’ve been working on,” she wrote. “Half the story,” she added, “is true.”

Prosectors wanted the defense to hand over the manuscript for review by an independent attorney, who would recommend which pages they should receive.

The Walk the Dog letter, prosecutors wrote in their request, “is the defendant’s frantic, dishonest attempt to explain how Eric Richins may have obtained illicit drugs when all available evidence establishes that she, in fact, obtained the fatal fentanyl.”

The letter “illustrates the defendant’s consciousness of guilt,” they wrote. “There is every reason to believe that the remaining 60-pages of the fictional manuscript are as equally valuable as the WTD Letter.”

Third District Judge Richard Mrazik eventually decided the manuscript — which had been in an envelope labeled with Lazaro’s name — was protected by attorney-client privilege.

The defense contended the letter also had been in that envelope, not in a book. That dispute didn’t need to be resolved, the judge decided, because no matter where it was kept, the letter was not “confidential attorney-client communication.”

“The court finds the letter is written to defendant’s mother,” he wrote in his ruling. “The letter refers to Skye Lazaro in the third-person while referring to defendant’s mother in the second-person.”

What parts of the letter weren’t heard by the jury?

Five sentences in the letter revealed Lazaro’s “mental impressions, opinions, and legal theories,” the judge said, and those were protected as part of her work.

Four of those sentences refer to Lazaro wanting to “link Eric getting drugs” to his trips to Mexico. “So we need some kind of connection,” Richins wrote, adding that a private investigator was looking into the place where Eric Richins stayed.

That was followed by the first sentence of the excerpt: “Here is what I’m thinking but you have to talk to Ronney. “

The jury also did not hear about the last three pages, where Richins directed her mother to look into finance options for loans Richins wanted “taken care of.” Then Richins advised her mother to anonymously circulate photos of her nieces — the children of Eric Richins’ sister, Katie Richins-Benson — to the media.

After his death, debates about the probate of Eric Richins’ estate and about his trust — which named Richins-Benson as trustee — ignited in civil court between Richins and the sister, court records show.

“She would be LIVID if it got out to the public,” Richins wrote, referring to photos. “You would just have to do it sneakily and be careful. She would try and trace it back to you.”

Richins also directed her mother to pass along information to friends who were planning to appear on Good Morning America.

Richins asked for one friend to “bring up that he hasn’t been to church in the 13 yrs. she has known him.” She asked for another friend to say “Eric always wanted Kouri to go down for him,” with the example that he’d put drugs in her suitcase while they were on trips.

Why did the jury get to hear the excerpt?

The defense argued the letter was “unfairly prejudicial” and should not be admitted as evidence “because it implies that defendant was attempting to tamper with a witness,” the judge wrote in a February ruling.

But he decided the excerpt was relevant “and probative of defendant’s internal thought processes about the alleged crimes charged in this case.”

In the letter, Richins “crafts an exculpatory narrative” — one that clears her — about Eric Richins’ death, he noted. “The statements in the letter can be fairly compared to other statements defendant made about the death of her husband,” he ruled. Prosecutors “may fairly argue that the letter is probative of defendant’s consciousness of guilt.”

But prosecutors could not argue that the letter shows she “was preparing to, attempting to, or actually tampering with a witness,” he added. “It was not sent to another person, and any implication that defendant was using the letter for unlawful purposes is unfairly misleading and prejudicial.”

In the end, the prosecution brought up the long-debated letter through its final witness. Bloodworth asked O’Driscoll a single question about it, to repeat who Lazaro was — leaving the jury to decide what the letter means.