Cliff Notes
- James Craig is accused of poisoning his wife, Angela, using cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, allegedly motivated by an affair and financial issues leading to a life insurance payout.
- Prosecutors presented evidence suggesting he poisoned her protein shakes and attempted to make her death appear suicidal; he has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges, including first-degree murder.
- The defence argues that evidence is insufficient to prove poisoning and claims that Craig was candid about his infidelities, seeking to undermine the prosecution’s narrative of motive.
James Craig: Dentist in Colorado poisoned wife’s protein shakes with cyanide, murder trial hears
The trial of a dentist accused of murdering his wife by poisoning her protein shakes has begun in the US state of Colorado.
James Craig denies using cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, an ingredient in over-the-counter eye drops, to kill Angela Craig in a suburb of Denver.
During the trial’s opening statements on Tuesday, prosecutors claimed the 47-year-old was having an affair with another dentist, had financial difficulties and may have been motivated by the payout from his wife’s life insurance.
Assistant District Attorney Ryan Brackley told the jury at Arapahoe District Court that the 43-year-old victim – who had six children with her husband – had been suffering worsening symptoms including dizziness, vomiting and fainting.
She died in March 2023 during her third trip to the hospital that month.
Mr Brackley accused Craig of poisoning her protein shakes – then giving his wife a final dose of poison while she was in hospital, and said: “He went in that [hospital] room to murder her, to deliberately and intentionally end her life with a fatal dose of cyanide … She spends the next three days dying.”
Craig, who shook his head at times during the prosecution’s opening statement, has pleaded not guilty to several charges, including first-degree murder, solicitation to commit murder and solicitation to commit perjury.
Prosecutors said Craig had tried to make it appear his wife of 23 years had killed herself. His internet history showed he had searched for “how to make a murder look like a heart attack” and “is arsenic detectable in an autopsy”.
In an argument, captured on home surveillance video, his wife also accused him of suggesting to hospital staff that she was suicidal.
After Craig’s arrest in 2023, prosecutors alleged that he had offered a fellow prison inmate $20,000 (£14,993) to kill the case’s lead investigator and offered someone else $20,000 to find people to falsely testify that Angela Craig planned to die by suicide.
Craig’s attorney, Ashley Whitham, told the jury to consider the credibility of those witnesses, calling some “jailhouse snitches”.
Ms Whitham argued that the evidence didn’t show that he poisoned her, instead seeming to suggest she may have taken her own life. She 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 and Latter-day Saints.
Hospital staff had said Craig had been caring and “doting” while Angela Craig was in the hospital, said Whitham.
The defence argued prosecutors had overdramatised Craig’s financial problems and dismissed the prosecution’s suggestion that Craig was motivated to kill because of an affair he was having with a fellow dentist from Texas.
“That’s simply not the case,” Whitham said, adding that Craig had many affairs over the years that his wife knew about. “He was candid with Angela that he had been cheating.”
The trial continues.