Law&Crime Sidebar - Colorado Dentist Accused of Poisoning Wife’s Protein Shake to Leave Her for Orthodontist

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

A Colorado dentist stands accused of fatally poisoning his wife in March by putting cyanide and arsenic in her protein shakes to be with another woman. Investigators believe James Craig, known as a “family man,” began plotting the murder of his wife, Angela Craig, after he began dating Karin Cain, a Texas orthodontist. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber breaks down the disturbing murder with Laura Collins, the chief investigative reporter for DailyMail.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. My name is Dr. Jim Craig and I practice at Summerbrook Dental Group. A dentist is accused of poisoning his wife and mother of their six children. We talk about this tragic and bizarre story with Daily Mail's chief investigative reporter, Laura Collins. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. All right, let's go over to Aurora, Colorado, where 45-year-old dentist James Craig has been arrested in charge with the first-degree murder of his 43-year-old wife, Angela Craig.

So back in March, she actually visited the hospital two times, complaining of feeling dizzy and faint, but then on March 15th, Angela was admitted to a hospital again, where she suffered a seizure, was put on life support, and she died three days later. Now, the coroner has indicated that she was poisoned, poisoned with cyanide, and also something called tetrahydrozolline, Angela leaving behind six children that she had with James. So why do authorities believe that James killed his wife? Well, they say that he plotted her murder, and they claim that. that they found online searches for such things as how to make murder look like a heart attack,

how many grams of pure arsenic will kill a human, is arsenic detectable in autopsy? They also claim that he purchased cyanide and had it delivered to his office days before Angela died, and that James made Angela a protein shake before her first hospitalization where she became unwell after the workout. And they say that he did all of this to receive millions in life insurance payouts and because he was allegedly having an affair. I want to bring in right now Laura Collins, chief investigative reporter at the Daily Mail who has been following this case closely. Laura, thanks so much for taking the time to come here on Sidebar. Thank you.

Thank you for having me. What do we know? What do we know about James Craig and what do we know about his relationship with Angela? Well, I think what we know now is that the facade that James Craig had sort of put out there, you know, a respectable married man, successful dentist running his own practice, father of six children, and Angela, his wife, put out very positive family pictures on their social media, on her Facebook. I think what we know is that regardless of where this trial goes, all of that was a facade. That just simply wasn't true. Behind the scenes, James was absolutely up to his eyes

in debt. His dental practice was hemorrhaging about $120,000 a month. He had over $2 million in personal debt. He was having an affair. The police have said that was a motivation for him wanting to end his wife's life and that he wanted to start a new life with his mistress. His mistress has since come out and said, that's news to her and that she didn't actually know that he was married. And had she known that, it would have been a no-go. So who knows where the truth lies in that one.

But I think we know that the version of James Craig that he put out there, this devout man, this family man, this successful man, simply wasn't the case. And did it lead him to murder his wife? I mean, that's the big question. My understanding is you actually spoke with people that worked with James and also the family of Angela as well, right? Yeah, that's right. The people who worked with James had this really very positive view of him, although I have

to say it doesn't quite chime, how positive they were to some extent, doesn't quite chime with the fact that they clearly had suspicions because it was actually employees in his own dental practice that kind of raised the alarm as far as the arrival of controlled substances and cyanide at his practice was concerned. So there were clearly some concerns. So they were quite circumspect when they spoke to me. Well, isn't it more that they were shocked? It was the shock.

Like the guy that they knew was not who they know now. Yeah, maybe. And certainly Angela's brother, Mark, who's a really nice, incredibly dignified, gracious man, his clearly feels deeply betrayed. But again, I think also had suspicions because, you know, I did speak with him after we broke the story about the extent of James's debts. And they essentially said that was kind of. what they suspected. They had a feeling that all was not well.

They certainly Angela spoke to her sister. I mean, the probable cause shows texts, exchange between the sisters, where Angela essentially revealed that James had tried to poison her before, about five years ago. And I think many people would struggle to understand how you stay with a partner who has tried to poison you, whatever reason they give you. He said that he didn't want her to disturb his own suicide attempt. So he drugged her. So he a few years ago, she said, tried to poison her, drug her. He said he was doing it to kill himself and drugged her because he didn't want her to stop him. But then, doesn't that tie into what happened now?

Because I believe there was an exchange, a text between James and Angela, I think on March 6, right, where she's talking about not feeling well. And he, you know, basically addresses the elephant in the room about him allegedly drugging her in the past. He says he understands that it may be, quote, triggering for her, which is an unusual way of putting things in general. I mean, you wouldn't think that a wife would be triggered into thinking her husband had poisoned her but of course he had before so but he very much insists i know you may be triggered i essentially

i know i did this before but i haven't drugged you this time which in itself is is kind of an extraordinary admission and of course the police are saying is also nonsense that he did indeed poison her and i know that the text exchange was i feel drugged and he responds given her history i know that must be triggering just for the record i didn't drug you i am super worried though you really looked pale before i left like in your lips even yeah I mean, I think there's something very sinister, certainly, I know this is all alleged, but there's a sort of a sinister aspect as far as the prosecution are alleging that he's expressing great concern for Angela's welfare. He's expressing great concern that she's not well. He's talking

about maybe coming home and is she okay and should she go to the hospital? And if indeed he was behind all this, the extent of this facade is quite remarkable. And he's the one who was making her protein shakes and it's still a little bit unclear as to quite what the mechanism was of if he poisoned her, how that poison was sort of given to her. Because there's some question mark over eyedrops at the moment as well, that what she was actually found in her system, which I'm not going to try and pronounce, you pronounced it earlier, was actually in over-the-counter eyedrops.

So there's a little bit, you know, it's not entirely clear what happened. But yeah, he drugged her in the past. And he's also claimed this time round that he was ordering the drugs for himself, possibly to commit suicide again. So he's come up with this suicide story again. Angela's brother pointed out that he's never, seen anyone try to kind of create a faux story to conceal a suicide bid. It's all just a little bit

odd. Yeah, and I think I also read that one of the rationales that he was ordering these drugs to the dental offices for research. I think I saw that as well. That's right. Yeah, try to maybe not alarm suspicion. Again, he's innocent until proven guilty, but it is alarming to hear about this. One of the questions I have is if she visited the hospital multiple times before that final admission, did you see anything in your investigation about why the hospital released her, did they not see any traces of poison? I think, I mean, my understanding is they simply didn't test for that. They were perplexed and they didn't quite understand what was going on. But I suppose it wasn't a go-to diagnosis for them. I mean, she presented with these various symptoms. She seemed to be okay.

She seemed to be sort of getting better and she headed home. And certainly the last time when she came in, they just apparently, I mean, again, according to the probable cause, they just could not figure out why her system was failing so catastrophically. They couldn't understand what was going on until it was actually James' best friend, an old friend from dental school, a business partner, who actually flagged up. There had been this delivery of poison to dental practice, and it had been the employee who had opened it, who alerted him to that. So then they were like, okay, so now we get what's going on. And by then, obviously, it was just too late. I mentioned some of the searches that he was conducting online. They believe in anticipation of doing this. You mentioned,

the affair. I also said that there was, the reporting indicates that there was a financial motive for him, the life insurance payouts. Based on the probable cause affidavit and what we've learned in the preliminary hearing and any of the research you've done, how do we know that finances were a potential motive for him? Well, we certainly know he was in a great deal of debt. I mean, we uncovered quite a lot of that in terms of he filed for bankruptcy. In fact, his own personal bankruptcy was completed in 2020. He was on the cusp of a second bankruptcy. He'd invest pretty poorly and dismally in cryptocurrency, which ended up being essentially worthless. And he had poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into what was essentially a crypto Ponzi

scheme. He was actually embroiled in a different legal suit, a federal suit in relation to that. He was named as one of the victims. I'm not quite sure how he was managing to lose money at the rate that he was, but he had almost $800,000 worth of salary each year, but he was still about $2 million worth in debt. He'd remorched the house a couple of times. basically all of the things that he appeared to have were mortgaged up to the hilt so he he was in a pretty dire financial situation for sure I mean his friend Ryan Redfern who was his business partner described him as a risk taker he also seems to have had a gambling problem he lost thousands and Vegas you know he was and conducting an affair there were sort of expenses in his

business expenses which were a little bit eyebrow raising and I think it was something like $60,000 worth in entertaining and travel I'm not quite sure he met this he met this woman at a convention, right? That's right. Yes. She's an orthodontist based in Texas, but I'm not quite sure how this local dentist justify 60 grand's worth of entertaining in his taxes. So there's some eyebrow raising things. Let me ask you this. So he hasn't entered a plea. I think he's awaiting a Raymond on August 29th. Based on the statements from his defense attorneys, have you gotten a sampling of where they might be going, what they might be questioning in the prosecution's case? And what their potential defense may be?

I think what jumps out to me so far is that they seem to be essentially saying this is completely circumstantial. You've got absolutely nothing that puts a bottle of poison in his hand, dropping it into her protein shakes or whatever, that there's nothing that has actually linked up the purchases of the poison to Angela's ill health

other than the timeline, i.e. it was a matter of days from the arrival of certain poison to her being in hospital. So I think, I mean, I suspect they're going to be finding this pretty strong. And, I mean, obviously, they try to claim that there wasn't enough evidence to bring the case. I don't think anyone is very surprised that a judge said, yes, there is enough.

So, I mean, I don't think he's going to be, I mean, I could be wrong, obviously, but I don't think he's going to be taking any sort of plea. I think he's going to be fighting this. And they're going to be saying you don't actually have any hard evidence. It's all circumstantial. Yeah. And in terms of the preliminary hearing, it's a low bar to have this case go forward. They just believe the judges believe there's enough forward to proceed to trial.

Laura Collins, chief investigative reporter at the Daily Mail, to read. analysis of this. I encourage everyone to check out your reporting on this story. And real quick, let everybody know where they can find you. Dailymail.com. No social media? Oh, me. Yeah, at Collins, Inc. I'm on Twitter. I want to forget that sort of thing. But yeah, it's mail online, daily mail. I was, I was actually impressed. I was like, oh, my goodness, the one person who's not on social media. Genius. Genius. Smartest person of all. Laura, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. All right. Thank you. All right, everybody. That's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time.

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