- Prosecutors allege Colorado dentist James Craig poisoned his wife with cyanide-laced shakes.
- Craig's financial troubles and affairs are cited as motives for the alleged murder.
- Defense says Angela Craig struggled and claims investigators had "tunnel vision" with the husband.
CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Angela Craig returned home to her husband and six children in Colorado on March 5, 2023, after taking a few days to attend a family history conference in Salt Lake City with her sister.
The next day, prosecutors claim her husband, James Craig, started to poison her by placing poisonous chemicals in a protein shake he gave her — the only thing she had eaten that day when she went to the emergency room for the first time.
After 10 days of hospital visits with no answers and searching her own symptoms online, Angela Craig's brain stopped working due to lack of oxygen on March 15, 2023. She died days later on March 18 at age 43, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
Opening arguments in the murder trial for James Craig, a 47-year-old dentist, began in Arapahoe County, Colorado, Tuesday after 15 jurors, including three alternates, were selected Monday.
Alleged motive — money and women
Prosecutor Ryan Brackley referred to James Craig as another medical professional, wearing the same blue scrubs as others who were helping his wife at the hospital. But he said Craig did not help her and instead gave her another dose of poison.
"He didn't go into that room to fight for her life or support her. He went into that room to murder her, to deliberately and intentionally end her life with a fatal dose of cyanide," he said.
Brackley said Craig used arsenic, cyanide and tetrahydrozoline — a chemical found in eye drops — to poison his wife. The prosecutor cited searches he made beginning in late February 2023, including, "How to make a murder look like a heart attack" and "Is arsenic detectable in an autopsy."
He claimed Craig was motivated by money and other women. The prosecutor said he had a failing dental practice and a business partner who had recently told him he would either need to take a pay cut or work more.
The prosecutor told jurors that Craig had multiple relationships with women he met online. His profile said he was not looking to change his situation but for financial arrangements, travel and companionship. According to the attorney, in messages with these women he would call his marriage a "situation" or "problem" and say he felt stuck.
Craig had exchanged 4,000 messages with a woman he met in February at a dental conference, and Brackley said an upcoming visit from this woman, who believed he was separated, gave him a deadline.
'Tunnel vision'
Defense attorney Ashley Whitham depicted Angela Craig as a "broken" and "struggling" woman, a stay-at-home mom who homeschooled, and suggested to jurors she could have taken her own life.
She said her client loved his wife, despite cheating on her throughout their marriage. She rejected the claim from prosecutors that a woman he had just met in February would have had such an impact on him to lead him to kill his wife.
Whitham said the Latter-day Saint couple valued family and stayed together despite marital problems. She said investigators had "tunnel vision" and only investigated the husband as a potential suspect.
"You may not like him; you may not think he's a good husband. But that's not what you're here to decide," Whitham told the jury.
Plans for the future
Brackley said Craig had recently been caught by his wife for infidelity, and the couple had decided to fight for their marriage. He said Angela Craig was fighting for their marriage along with her life in her last few days.
While Angela Craig was in Utah earlier that month, he said she spoke with her husband each evening. She made plans to go to the Salt Lake family history conference again in 2024, showing that she had plans to live.
Home surveillance footage, which Brackley told jurors they will see during the trial, shows Angela Craig accusing her husband of implying that she was suicidal to the doctors — saying because of that they treated her like she shouldn't be believed.
The prosecutor also described how she fought to live, seeking medical care, and when she is at home, trying to figure out what caused her dizziness and lethargy — considering diabetes, a stroke or heart problems.
Brackley said her husband could have answered that question.
"Dr. James Craig never shares with her what he's been doing with her," he said, and shared a text message where the husband assures his wife that he is not poisoning her.
Meanwhile, he claimed that Craig's messages with the female dentist show he had other plans for his future.
Solicitation
An office manager reported late-night computer use and a package of potassium cyanide arriving for Craig on March 13 at the dental office. Craig had told her the package he had coming was personal, but the manager said she saw the packing slip after another employee opened it.
Delivery records show arsenic had been shipped to the Craigs' home and delivered on March 4, 2023, according to charges.
The charges also claim that after his arrest, Craig offered a fellow inmate $20,000 to kill the lead investigator in the case and asked others to find people who would falsely testify that his wife had plans to commit suicide.
He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, solicitation to commit first-degree murder, solicitation to commit tampering with physical evidence and solicitation to commit perjury.
Contributing: Jesse Bedayn, Associated Press; Andi Babineau and Eric Levenson, CNN
