CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — Prosecutors allege that a Colorado dentist, accused of gradually poisoning his wife leading to her death, wanted to escape a marriage he felt imprisoned in without tarnishing his reputation or financial status by undergoing a divorce.
Senior Chief Deputy Michael Mauro, during closing arguments in James Craig’s trial, challenged Craig’s assertion that his wife wished to end her life rather than go through a divorce. Mauro portrayed Angela Craig as a resilient woman who, despite her husband’s infidelities over the years, leaned on her faith and remained optimistic.
Prosecutors claim that after previous poisoning attempts, including tampering with his wife’s smoothies, proved ineffective, Craig administered a deadly cyanide dose while she was hospitalized on March 15, 2023, as medical staff endeavored to diagnose her condition. She was subsequently declared brain dead.
Mauro emphatically stated, “She is the ultra-marathon runner of dealing with this man’s betrayal, but she couldn’t outrun it at University Hospital on March 15,” while identifying Craig in court as “this man.”
James Craig faces a murder charge in his wife’s 2023 death in suburban Denver. He also stands accused of trying to manufacture evidence to suggest she committed suicide and soliciting a fellow inmate to murder the detective heading the investigation.
Mauro pointed to hospital security footage shown during the trial that captured Craig with a syringe before entering his wife’s room, after which her condition dramatically deteriorated. Craig purportedly administered the lethal dose into her IV, exiting the room to engage in text messaging with a fellow dentist with whom he had recently begun a relationship.
But one of Craig’s attorneys, Lisa Fine Moses, told jurors that the image was blurry and the syringes that investigators recovered did not contain any poison. She also said the couple wasn’t in financial trouble and that Craig’s cheating had been going on for years and had never been a motivation for murder before.
“So you know what, good job,” Moses said sarcastically, looking at the prosecution, “you proved beyond a reasonable doubt that this guy is a cheater.”
Moses suggested Angela Craig, after struggling in her marriage for years, was suicidal. She pointed to a journal entry where Angela Craig wrote in 2009: “I feel depressed. I feel a huge sense of loss with no hope”, and then penned similar entries in 2018. Her journal ended that year.
Craig, wearing a light gray suit and white shirt, appeared to grow emotional as the entries were read. He wiped his nose and eyes with a tissue.
Angela Craig, who had six children with James Craig, died during her third trip to the hospital in a little over a week. Toxicology tests later determined the 43-year-old died of poisoning from cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, an ingredient found in over-the-counter eye drops.
James Craig didn’t testify, and his lawyers didn’t present any witnesses — and it wasn’t required. Instead, in opening statements and in their questioning of prosecution witnesses, Craig’s lawyers faulted police for focusing solely on James Craig as a suspect.
In notes that police found on James Craig’s phone, the dentist said Angela Craig asked him to help kill her with poison when he sought a divorce after he had affairs. In the document, which was labeled “timeline,” Craig said he eventually agreed to purchase and prepare poisons for her to take, but not administer them. Craig said that he put cyanide in some of the antibiotic capsules she had been taking and also prepared a syringe containing cyanide.
According to that timeline, Craig wrote that just before she had to go to the hospital on March 15, 2023, she must have ingested a mixture containing tetrahydrozoline, the eye drop ingredient, because she became lethargic and weak. Then, he wrote, she took the antibiotic laced with cyanide that 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.
The lead investigator, Detective Bobbi Olson, testified that James Craig’s timeline account differed from statements he had made to others about what happened, including accusing Angela Craig of setting him up to make it look like he had killed her.
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Associated Press writer Colleen Slevin contributed to this report from Denver.
