DENVER (AP) — The trial of James Craig, a Colorado dentist accused of killing his wife Angela Craig by gradually poisoning her, is nearing its conclusion. Lawyers are scheduled to deliver closing arguments on Tuesday, after which the jurors will begin their deliberations.
The jurors have listened to testimony from some of Angela Craig’s relatives and women with whom James Craig had affairs, all summoned by prosecutors. James Craig chose not to testify, and his lawyers did not present any witnesses, which is within their legal rights.
Who was Angela Craig?
Angela Craig, 43, was a mother of six children who, according to her friends and family, was devoted to her family. She was the youngest of 10 siblings and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Known for her organizational skills and dependability, she had assumed her mother’s role as the genealogist for her birth family, a significant position in their faith. Her older brother Mark Pray described her as “happy and positive” from a young age. However, her sister Toni Kofoed testified that Angela had confided in her about marital struggles. While refuting defense suggestions that Angela may have taken her own life, Kofoed stated that her sister had a “broken heart” but not a “broken mind.”
What killed Angela Craig and how?
Angela Craig died in 2023 during her third trip to the hospital in a little over a week. Toxicology tests later determined she died of poisoning from cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, an ingredient found in over-the-counter eye drops. Early on, James Craig had purchased a variety of poisons before his wife’s death and had put some in the protein shakes he made for her, according to police. During the trial, prosecutors alleged that he also gave her a dose of cyanide as she lay in her hospital bed on March 15, 2023, as doctors tried to figure out what was ailing her. She was declared brain dead soon afterward and never recovered.
What does James Craig say?
In a notes file later found on James Craig’s phone by police, he said Angela Craig had asked him to help kill her with poison when he asked for a divorce after having affairs. In the document, which was labeled “timeline,” Craig said that he had eventually agreed to purchase and prepare poisons for her to take, but not administer them. Craig said that he had put cyanide in some of the antibiotic capsules she had been taking and also prepared a syringe containing cyanide.
According to his timeline, Craig wrote that just before she had to go to the hospital on March 15, 2023, she must have ingested a mixture containing the tetrahydrozoline, the eye drop ingredient, because she became lethargic and weak, before then taking the antibiotic laced with cyanide that he said he prepared for her. Mark Pray, who was visiting to help the Craig family because of his sister’s mysterious illness, testified that he gave Angela Craig the capsules after being instructed to do so by James Craig, who was not at home. Pray said his sister bent over and couldn’t hold herself up after taking the medicine. He and his wife then took her to the hospital.
What do investigators and the defense say?
The lead investigator, Detective Bobbi Olson, testified that James Craig’s timeline account differed from statements he had made to others about what had happened, including accusing Angela Craig of setting him up to make it look like he had killed her.
Craig is also charged with trying to hire a fellow jail inmate to kill Olson.
The defense argues that the evidence doesn’t show that James Craig poisoned and killed his wife and have seemed to suggest that Angela Craig may have taken her own life. They introduced into evidence Angela Craig’s journal in which she talks about the struggles in their marriage in previous years and her husband’s infidelity. In one entry she wrote, “He doesn’t love me and I don’t blame him.” The journal ended in 2018 and did not include any mentions of suicide, Olson said.
In opening statements, one of Craig’s attorneys, Ashley Whitham, repeatedly described Angela Craig as “broken,” partly by Craig’s infidelity and her desire to stay married, since they were part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
