Pictured: (inset left) Angela Craig (Facebook), James Craig in court (KUSA/screengrab)
A Colorado dentist already facing murder charges in the cyanide poisoning death of his wife, a mother of six children, is now accused of trying to get someone to tamper with evidence as he sat in jail, adding another layer to an already shocking case.
According to local NBC affiliate WUSA, James Toliver Craig, 46, was accused in June 2023 of soliciting an unidentified family member to tamper with evidence in the case. As recently as Wednesday, however, he was hit with a second count of the same offense.
This time, was alleged that Craig attempted a cover-up from jail over a period of months by recruiting a second person to tamper.
In March 2023, James Craig was charged with first-degree murder after severe headaches left 43-year-old Angela Craig brain dead. The Aurora Police Department said that James was arrested days after Angela went to the hospital on March 15, 2023, the third such visit over a nine-day period.
“Shortly after arriving at the hospital, the wife’s condition deteriorated rapidly, and she was placed on a ventilator in an intensive care unit,” authorities said. “he was declared medically brain dead a short time later.”
Before additional details came out about the state’s theory of the case, locals were stunned that their Summerbrook Dental dentist had been booked for his wife’s alleged murder by poison.
As Law&Crime reported at the time, the dentist called himself and Angela “the proud parents of six great kids” on his dental practice website.
Authorities later alleged that Angela Craig’s mysterious illness and sudden death was caused actually caused by poison and that her husband was the prime suspect, using his dental profession to order arsenic and potassium cyanide.
An affidavit alleged that James Craig was possibly on the verge of bankruptcy and had been planning a life with another woman in the weeks before he Googled things in February 2023 like “how many grams of pure arsenic will kill a human” and “Is Arsenic Detectable in Autopsy?”
“The search history provided YouTube searches for ‘Top 5 Undetectable Poisons That Show No Signs of Foul Play’, ‘how to make poison’, and ‘The Top 10 Deadliest Plants (They Can Kill You),”” the affidavit continued.
Starting on March 6, 2023 and continuing until her death on March 18, 2023, Angela Craig experienced symptoms that authorities concluded were traceable to the protein shakes her husband allegedly made for her.
An unnamed witness who knew Angela and spoke with her “almost daily” told investigators on March 17, 2023, that the Craigs’ marriage “had always been tumultuous” and that James had “multiple affairs with several women,” plus a pornography addiction.
The witness also said that the suspect had drugged his wife years earlier.
Authorities said this must have been why James texted Angela in March 2023, “Given our history, I know that must be triggering. Just for the record, I didn’t drug you.”
Investigators said evidence showed the dentist appeared to have been carrying on a “sexually intimate relationship” with another woman he flew to Denver “as the mother of his children was dying in the hospital.” Craig was accused of trying to start a “new life” with the other woman.
Trial in the case is set to begin in August.
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