The fate of former Colorado dentist James Craig is in a Centennial jury’s hands as they deliberate whether he killed his wife.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, an affidavit indicated that in 2023, Craig ordered arsenic and cyanide multiple times before his wife, Angela Craig’s, death.
According to the affidavit, an office manager at Craig’s dental practice told police that Craig prepared protein shakes for Angela every morning before their 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 closing arguments Tuesday, the prosecution argued that Craig “meticulously” planned his wife’s death after wanting out of his 23-year marriage, so he could continue seeing other women.
“He suddenly realizes he needs to go buy 12 bottles of eye drops? Give me a break,” prosecutor Michael Mauro said.
Mauro also reminded the jury of how Craig tried to get a fellow inmate at the Arapahoe County Jail to plant fake evidence in the Craig home, suggesting that Angela had been suicidal, although other family members claimed she loved life and never mentioned suicide.
The prosecution referenced Angela’s journal entries, which showed she was unhappy with Craig’s infidelity, but made no mention of wanting to take her own life.
“What it shows is that Angela Craig was an incredibly thoughtful, resilient, and hopeful person — because this guy has been doing this stuff to her [cheating] apparently since 2009,” Mauro said.
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.
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[Feature Photo: James Craig and Angela Craig/Facebook]
