The fate of former Colorado dentist James Craig is in a Centennial jury’s hands as they deliberate whether he killed his wife.
In an earlier report by CrimeOnline, an affidavit revealed that in 2023, James Craig repeatedly ordered arsenic and cyanide before his wife, Angela Craig, passed away.
The affidavit detailed how an office manager at Craig’s dental clinic informed authorities that Craig regularly made protein shakes for Angela before their morning workouts.
After drinking the shakes, Angela often felt faint and subsequently ended up in an emergency room at UCHealth.
Angela, a 43-year-old mother of six, passed away on March 18, 2023.
During the closing arguments on Tuesday, prosecutors claimed that Craig meticulously orchestrated his wife’s death because he wanted to end their 23-year marriage to pursue other romantic interests.
“He suddenly realizes he needs to go buy 12 bottles of eye drops? Give me a break,” prosecutor Michael Mauro said.
Prosecutor Mauro also reminded the jury of Craig’s attempt to convince a fellow inmate at Arapahoe County Jail to plant falsified evidence at his home, suggesting Angela had suicidal tendencies. However, her family consistently stated she loved life and never talked about taking her own life.
The prosecution brought up Angela’s journal entries, which expressed her unhappiness with Craig’s infidelity but contained no indications of suicidal thoughts.
“Angela Craig was incredibly thoughtful, resilient, and hopeful — enduring his betrayals since at least 2009,” Mauro stated.
Mauro added that Craig didn’t “want to be the guy who left the mother of his six children to go out and chase other women,” and wanted to protect his public image.
The prosecution also referenced money issues, adding that Craig felt stuck in his marriage due to financial issues, ABC 7 reports.
Mauro then said, after meeting up with a mistress in Las Vegas, Craig returned home and starting researching how to make a murder look like a heart attack.
Craig never searched on how to be supportive of a purported suicidal wife, according to the prosecution.
Craig allegedly bought 12 bottles of eye drops in one night alone. He bought seven additional bottles the next night, and sent more than 12 text messages to employees at his dental practice, concerning a cyanide package on its way to the office.
“You have to believe that Angela Craig kept an incredibly dark secret — left no evidence whatsoever of this secret, acted completely out of character, deceived everyone… You’d have to believe that suddenly she went 180 degrees from her nature, that Angela Craig was ready, willing, and able to die a slow and painful death… ready to abandon her children,” Mauro said.
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The defense argued that although Craig had numerous affairs, he warned doctors about Angela’s alleged suicidal ideations and didn’t kill her.
“He cheated on his wife constantly,” Craig’s defense attorney, Lisa Moses, told the jury. “They [the prosecution] proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was not faithful. That’s what they proved. But this idea that somehow this was some sort of motive was nothing new.”
Moses countered the prosecution’s argument regarding financial issues, stating that the Craig couple owned a “million dollar home outright.”
“How many people get to say they owned their million dollar home outright?” she asked the jury.T
Moses suggested that Craig had been searching for cyanide or eye drops online “to maybe understand what Angela Craig was doing to herself? Was it to understand what was happening?”
The defense attorney told the jury that there was no evidence to show that Craig put poison in his wife’s workout shakes, while accusing the prosecution of guessing.
“They want you to guess. You don’t get to guess. You do not know if this was voluntarily or involuntarily ingested,” she said.
Meanwhile, Judge Shay Whitaker allowed the jury to consider second-degree murder, criminally negligent homicide, or manslaughter, should they not find Craig guilty of first-degree murder.
Craig is facing numerous charges, including murder, solicitation to commit tampering with physical evidence (two counts), solicitation to commit perjury (two counts), and solicitation to commit murder.
He has pleaded not guilty. Check back for updates.
[Feature Photo: James Craig and Angela Craig/Facebook]
