Kouri Richins’ three young sons told a judge they are terrified of her and want her to spend the rest of her life in prison as she faces sentencing Wednesday for killing their father with a fentanyl-laced cocktail.

Their statements, filed as prosecutors sought the harshest sentence possible, put a raw family voice on a case that has already ended in a murder conviction and is now moving into its final legal phase. Richins, 35, was convicted in March of killing Eric Richins by dosing his Moscow Mule with fentanyl, and a judge could sentence her to 25 years to life, which would still leave her eligible for parole.

Wednesday’s hearing lands on what would have been Eric Richins’ 44th birthday. Prosecutor Brad Bloodworth told the court Richins is irredeemable and asked that she never be allowed parole, a request that tracks the fear now voiced by the children she left behind.

The boys were 5, 7 and 9 when their father was killed, and the youngest was in preschool. After Richins’ arrest, they were placed in therapy and began living with Eric Richins’ family, who have cared for them since. Prosecutors said the family has been left to absorb both the loss of a father and the fallout from a case that has unfolded in public.

In their statements, the oldest boy said he is afraid Richins would come after him, his brothers and their whole family if she ever gets out. He said he does not miss her and does not want to call her mom or mother. The middle son said his father can no longer coach him, attend his games, come to his birthdays or teach him how to drive, and said he will not feel safe if she is released but can keep feeling safe if she remains in prison. The youngest said Richins took away his dad and that he would be scared if she got out.

The case has also exposed what prosecutors describe as a bitter and abusive home life before the killing. Richins wrote the children’s book Are You With Me? and said it was meant to help her sons cope with grief, but prosecutors said the Division of Child and Family Services found the oldest child had been physically and emotionally abused by her. They also said Richins used her middle son as a false alibi the night Eric Richins died.

Eric Richins died after drinking a Moscow Mule prosecutors said was laced with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl. That detail remains central to the sentencing fight because it is the basis for the murder conviction and the range now before the judge.

Prosecutors want Richins locked up for life without the chance of release. The defense has not been described in the facts before the court, but the record now includes something more forceful than legal argument: three children saying the same woman who says she wrote a book for their grief is the person they fear most. That is the measure the judge must weigh on Wednesday.