Latest / NO FILTER / Husband Poisons Wife_ Then Targets Detective Who Caught Him_ The Murder of Angela Craig _ True Crime
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: In March twenty twenty three, forty four year old mother
- 0:04Speaker 1: of six, Angela Craig, died of unknown causes in the
- 0:07Speaker 1: hospital after battling a mysterious illness for almost two weeks.
- 0:12Speaker 1: While answers seemed elusive when she lived, they would reveal
- 0:16Speaker 1: themselves with shocking speed upon her death. A single suspicion
- 0:21Speaker 1: to investigators unraveled a dark plan, elaborate stories, deceit affairs,
- 0:27Speaker 1: and further murder plots.
- 0:30Speaker 2: You are undrest okay, christree murder?
- 0:33Speaker 3: Really? Thank you for.
- 0:38Speaker 4: Really?
- 0:40Speaker 5: Hi?
- 0:40Speaker 6: Do you do he relating?
- 0:42Speaker 4: And why did he want to kill mobiles? He said
- 0:45Speaker 4: that she had stacked the stacked the gap against them
- 0:47Speaker 4: in plenty others hists.
- 0:52Speaker 1: Hi there, I'm Kevin, and welcome to just that lounge.
- 0:56Speaker 1: Today's case has seen quite a bit of coverage over
- 0:59Speaker 1: the the last two years, but it was not until
- 1:02Speaker 1: very recently that some of its most bizarre details have
- 1:05Speaker 1: come to light. When I set out to gain access
- 1:08Speaker 1: to as much information about this story as possible, including
- 1:12Speaker 1: police interviews, bodycam surveillance, and other evidence, I had no
- 1:17Speaker 1: idea the depth of this strange story. Now that I do,
- 1:21Speaker 1: I'm ready to share it.
- 1:23Speaker 7: With you.
- 1:24Speaker 1: Let's take a look before we get into today's case.
- 1:39Speaker 1: If you're looking for another immersive story that will leave
- 1:41Speaker 1: you questioning the ethics and legality behind a murder case,
- 1:44Speaker 1: here's a podcast that you won't want to miss. On
- 1:48Speaker 1: Revisionist History, The Alabama Murders, best selling author Malcolm Gladwell
- 1:52Speaker 1: takes listeners back to nineteen eighty eight Northwest Alabama, where
- 1:56Speaker 1: a preacher entangled in an affair with a parishioner, makes
- 1:59Speaker 1: a devastating choice. Rather than face the shame of divorce,
- 2:04Speaker 1: he arranges for three men to kill his wife. But
- 2:07Speaker 1: that single decision sets off a chain reaction of murder, injustice,
- 2:11Speaker 1: and a horribly botched execution. One death cascades into more,
- 2:16Speaker 1: leading to one of the most divisive debates in American life.
- 2:20Speaker 1: Who should be allowed to live, who should die, and
- 2:23Speaker 1: how should they be killed? Find Revisionist History The Alabama
- 2:27Speaker 1: Murders on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your
- 2:32Speaker 1: podcasts at just passed eleven am. On March fifteen, twenty
- 2:39Speaker 1: twenty three, forty four year old wife and mother Angela Craig,
- 2:42Speaker 1: with the assistance of her brother, checked into University Hospital
- 2:46Speaker 1: in Aurora, Colorado. For over a week, Angela had been
- 2:50Speaker 1: experiencing strange and unexplained symptoms, amongst them severe headaches, dizziness, vomiting,
- 2:57Speaker 1: and low blood pressure. Hours after her arrival at the hospital,
- 3:02Speaker 1: Angela had a seizure. Her condition declined rapidly, forcing medical
- 3:07Speaker 1: staff to move her to the intensive care unit, where
- 3:09Speaker 1: she was placed on life support. Over the next three days,
- 3:14Speaker 1: Angela's organs shut down, and she was declared braindead. On
- 3:19Speaker 1: March eighteenth, roughly ten days after she first fell ill,
- 3:23Speaker 1: Angela Craig was removed from life support when she suddenly
- 3:31Speaker 1: crashed and was taken into the ICU. Angela's diagnosis was
- 3:34Speaker 1: still uncertain. The mother of six had first sought treatment
- 3:38Speaker 1: over a week earlier at the advent Health Parker Hospital.
- 3:42Speaker 1: At that time, she had an MRI, a CT scan
- 3:45Speaker 1: and blood work, but was sent home after nothing was found.
- 3:48Speaker 1: The next day, however, she was back at the er.
- 3:52Speaker 1: She felt strange, she said to her husband James. She texted,
- 3:57Speaker 1: my stomach feels fine, but my head feels fine and dizzy.
- 4:01Speaker 1: She was sent home yet again without a diagnosis. On
- 4:05Speaker 1: March ninth, Angela's children found her crawling across the floor
- 4:09Speaker 1: at home because she was incapable of standing up. This time,
- 4:13Speaker 1: she was admitted to the hospital, where she remained until
- 4:17Speaker 1: the fourteenth. Her discharge from the hospital on that day
- 4:21Speaker 1: did not seem premature, as her tests were coming back
- 4:24Speaker 1: normal and her condition stable. Nonetheless, she was admitted to
- 4:28Speaker 1: University Hospital the very next day, where she experienced the
- 4:32Speaker 1: seizure that led to her death. Her husband looked on
- 4:37Speaker 1: as medical teams descended upon her room, trying desperately to
- 4:41Speaker 1: save her. With Angela's condition still precarious, a nurse discreetly
- 4:46Speaker 1: placed a phone call to the Aurora Police Department.
- 4:51Speaker 5: Hi, my name is Chelsea. I am one of the
- 4:53Speaker 5: friends of Nisacture University and Hospital. I am needing to
- 4:57Speaker 5: amander Sport and officers marks. We have a suspected fine
- 5:08Speaker 5: night passing fine.
- 5:10Speaker 1: Angela's husband, doctor James Craig, dressed in a set of
- 5:14Speaker 1: blue scrubs, sat nearly motionless outside of her hospital room,
- 5:17Speaker 1: looking on, occasionally being informed and consoled by hospital staff.
- 5:23Speaker 1: He looked down at his phone, messaging family, friends and
- 5:26Speaker 1: the six children that he and Angela shared, offering updates
- 5:30Speaker 1: and prompting them to get to the hospital. As quickly
- 5:33Speaker 1: as possible. One of James's messages was to his business partner,
- 5:37Speaker 1: doctor Ryan Redfern, who owned the dental clinic where James
- 5:40Speaker 1: ran his practice. Upon hearing of Angela's condition and her symptoms,
- 5:45Speaker 1: Ryan arrived at the hospital under the guise of offering
- 5:48Speaker 1: support to his partner while James stepped away to make
- 5:52Speaker 1: a phone call. However, Ryan took a nurse's side for
- 5:55Speaker 1: a discreet chat. Two days before, he and an employee
- 5:59Speaker 1: at their dental practice had come across a curious package
- 6:02Speaker 1: delivered to James Craig. The box had been opened accidentally
- 6:07Speaker 1: to reveal a container of potassium cyanide.
- 6:12Speaker 2: In the waiting room.
- 6:14Speaker 5: The husband's business partner, my mine, who's also a dentist,
- 6:18Speaker 5: was her earlier. We let him go home since because
- 6:24Speaker 5: he did not want husbanded to know of the story
- 6:29Speaker 5: that he told us, so he wanted to go home
- 6:33Speaker 5: to kind of separate himself from that. He doesn't know
- 6:36Speaker 5: we're calling you guys either. Okay, that's persons cause a
- 6:41Speaker 5: lot of issues because he's wanting my understanding is to
- 6:44Speaker 5: withdrap her on her pretty quickly, and so we're trying to,
- 6:49Speaker 5: you know, get you guys involved in trying to see
- 6:51Speaker 5: that medical decision all that.
- 6:58Speaker 1: Angela Craig was born in Kansas, the youngest girl and
- 7:01Speaker 1: a family of ten children. As an adult, she remained
- 7:05Speaker 1: close with her siblings. In December nineteen ninety nine, Angela
- 7:09Speaker 1: married James Craig. Over twenty three years of marriage, they
- 7:13Speaker 1: had six children. For the last fifteen years, she and
- 7:17Speaker 1: James had made Denver their home. Angela, a devout Mormon,
- 7:21Speaker 1: was fiercely dedicated to her family After her children, Angela's
- 7:26Speaker 1: faith was said to be her greatest passion, though her
- 7:29Speaker 1: interests stretched beyond the church. She loved family history, interior design, woodworking, reading,
- 7:36Speaker 1: and mystery shows. In the days before Angela fell ill,
- 7:40Speaker 1: she had been visiting family in Utah, where she attended
- 7:43Speaker 1: a genealogical convention with her sister, uncovering family history while
- 7:48Speaker 1: fitting in quality time. Her loss obviously came as a
- 7:53Speaker 1: devastating blow. The family needed answers in the immediate aftermath
- 7:58Speaker 1: of her death. Investigator believed they had them over the
- 8:03Speaker 1: objections of her husband. An autopsy was performed on Angela Craig.
- 8:08Speaker 1: Its conclusions seemed to confirm the concerns raised by James's
- 8:12Speaker 1: business partner. Results showed Angela ingested lethal doses of cyanide
- 8:18Speaker 1: and tetrahydrozoline, an ingredient found invising arsenic was also found
- 8:24Speaker 1: in her system.
- 8:32Speaker 8: My name is doctor Jim Craig and I practice at
- 8:35Speaker 8: summer Brook Dental Group. My approach to dentistry begins with
- 8:39Speaker 8: sincerely listening to the patient and wanting to find out
- 8:42Speaker 8: more about where they're coming from and what they're looking
- 8:45Speaker 8: for and what they want.
- 8:48Speaker 1: Aurora police obtained a warrant for James Craig's arrest and
- 8:51Speaker 1: located him with his brother just past midnight of March nineteenth.
- 8:56Speaker 3: Oh how are you?
- 9:00Speaker 2: Yeah, Hi, Hi Bob, you are underrest? Okay for screen
- 9:09Speaker 2: murder William.
- 9:14Speaker 1: The office manager, a woman named Caitlin at Summerbrook Dental
- 9:18Speaker 1: told investigators that she noticed strange things around the office
- 9:23Speaker 1: on March sixth. Towards the end of the day, she
- 9:25Speaker 1: found James in the back medical area known as Exam
- 9:29Speaker 1: Room nine. The lights were turned off and James was
- 9:33Speaker 1: using the computer. She thought this was odd because the
- 9:37Speaker 1: dentist had a computer in his office as well as
- 9:39Speaker 1: a personal laptop he took home with them. Each night.
- 9:43Speaker 1: With this curious observation in mind, investigators zeroed in on
- 9:47Speaker 1: the activity from this computer. What they found was a
- 9:50Speaker 1: search history brimming with queries about poisons. Beginning on February
- 9:57Speaker 1: twenty seventh. The history showed searches for how many grams
- 10:01Speaker 1: of pure arsenic will kill a human? And is arsenic
- 10:04Speaker 1: detectable in an autopsy? YouTube searches returned videos for top
- 10:09Speaker 1: of five undetectable poisons that show no signs of foul play,
- 10:13Speaker 1: how to make poison, and the top ten deadliest plants
- 10:18Speaker 1: they can kill you poison.
- 10:20Speaker 9: It plays a huge part in murder, mystery and fiction,
- 10:24Speaker 9: and in today's it's all viral video, we're going to
- 10:26Speaker 9: be bringing you the top five poisons that are nigh untraceable.
- 10:31Speaker 9: Now what you do with this information, well that's up
- 10:34Speaker 9: to you.
- 10:35Speaker 1: Even more damning queries for chemical suppliers ultimately led to
- 10:39Speaker 1: James Craig's Amazon account. On the account was a purchase
- 10:43Speaker 1: of arsenic metal made on the twenty seventh, when Caitlin
- 10:46Speaker 1: observed the dentist in the darkened room. The package was
- 10:51Speaker 1: delivered to James's address and Aurora, and it showed an
- 10:54Speaker 1: arrival date of March fourth, the day before Angela returned
- 10:58Speaker 1: from Utah. Two days after after that, Angelo was released
- 11:01Speaker 1: from the hospital for the first time. The computer from
- 11:04Speaker 1: exam Room nine showed an order placed on that date
- 11:07Speaker 1: for one milligram of oleandrin. James ordered three of them.
- 11:12Speaker 1: These packages were intercepted by FedEx, however, and never delivered.
- 11:17Speaker 1: Undeterred investigators found a confirmation email for the purchase of
- 11:20Speaker 1: potassium cyanide on March eighth from a company called Midland Scientific.
- 11:26Speaker 1: In an email exchange with the company, the dentist claimed
- 11:29Speaker 1: that he was a surgeon performing a cranio facial reconstruction.
- 11:33Speaker 1: He would be using the chemical to check and see
- 11:35Speaker 1: if it will help with the layering of alternative metals.
- 11:39Speaker 1: His order of the cyanide was then approved. James requested
- 11:43Speaker 1: that it be shipped overnight, just in case his supply
- 11:47Speaker 1: of poisons was insufficient. At ten sixteen pm that same night,
- 11:52Speaker 1: James used his credit card to purchase seven packages of
- 11:55Speaker 1: vising eye drops from a King Super's store.
- 12:00Speaker 3: Just charges take the place, or you can give him
- 12:03Speaker 3: to him deliberation.
- 12:05Speaker 2: And so you take his gloves.
- 12:08Speaker 6: A bond won't be given until a pulmonary hearing, which
- 12:11Speaker 6: is usually within thirty or sixty days.
- 12:18Speaker 10: Just uh for you and the family. I mean, obviously
- 12:21Speaker 10: this is shocking from our standpoint. He's responsible for Angel's death. Okay,
- 12:26Speaker 10: there's no doubt in our mind. Okay, it's hard to
- 12:29Speaker 10: wrap your mind around that, and I understand, especially for
- 12:32Speaker 10: these poorn kids. But you know, we would obviously take
- 12:38Speaker 10: him into custody this quick if we were not sure
- 12:40Speaker 10: in our minds from our investigation that he's responsible for
- 12:43Speaker 10: her death.
- 12:44Speaker 6: Okay, okay, So in this case, then.
- 12:50Speaker 4: Through the funeral without him.
- 12:52Speaker 3: Yes, he's not gonna be able to get out of you,
- 12:53Speaker 3: I mean, and you will be able to attend.
- 12:55Speaker 11: You know.
- 13:01Speaker 1: James sat down with Detective Bobby Olsen, who read him
- 13:04Speaker 1: his Branda writes. The dentist was reluctant to speak freely,
- 13:08Speaker 1: yet also seemed hesitant to shut down the conversation entirely.
- 13:12Speaker 1: He spoke with Olson for over twenty minutes about the
- 13:15Speaker 1: reservations he had in offering his version of events. He insisted, however,
- 13:20Speaker 1: that there was an explanation for what appeared on the
- 13:23Speaker 1: surface to be damning evidence of his guilt.
- 13:28Speaker 6: Do you have the rest warrant for the murder of Angela.
- 13:32Speaker 3: My gosh.
- 13:35Speaker 6: So I know that you've expressed a few times you
- 13:41Speaker 6: have the answers, and I want to tell us. I
- 13:45Speaker 6: just want to give you that opportunity.
- 13:48Speaker 12: I haven't had my phone, so I haven't been able
- 13:50Speaker 12: to up to the interney that I reached out to, because,
- 13:53Speaker 12: as you can imagine, this is terrifying for me, and
- 13:57Speaker 12: you both seem very nice and like you're.
- 13:59Speaker 3: On my side.
- 13:59Speaker 12: But I know how this works, and I don't want
- 14:02Speaker 12: to encriminate myself for say anything stupid or there are answers.
- 14:07Speaker 12: There are answers, and this makes a lot of sense
- 14:08Speaker 12: when those answers come out.
- 14:10Speaker 3: But I don't know how navigate this.
- 14:11Speaker 4: I've never done this before, and I'm scared to death.
- 14:16Speaker 1: By the time James sat down with detectives, the data
- 14:19Speaker 1: from the computer in exam Room nine had already offered
- 14:23Speaker 1: a roadmap of how James had planned the murder of
- 14:25Speaker 1: his wife.
- 14:28Speaker 7: But you have a warrance.
- 14:29Speaker 6: You're going to go to jail today. I can't.
- 14:31Speaker 4: I can't change that.
- 14:33Speaker 13: Is.
- 14:35Speaker 14: Do you have something to say and maybe I can
- 14:37Speaker 14: verify it and that'll clear you and take away all
- 14:41Speaker 14: the evidence that I have then I would submit all
- 14:45Speaker 14: that to the dis attorney's office and it would submit
- 14:47Speaker 14: it to the judge to say that.
- 14:51Speaker 6: But again, nothing will change the fact that you're going
- 14:53Speaker 6: to go to jail today.
- 14:55Speaker 4: And there's there's basically a straight up up.
- 15:01Speaker 12: Written here's everything that happened from my iPhone that I
- 15:06Speaker 12: wrote that night before you took my phone. I wanted
- 15:08Speaker 12: to sit down and figure out the timeline so that
- 15:10Speaker 12: I can remember exactly what happened and when. I mean,
- 15:12Speaker 12: that's all there, but there's and so I don't.
- 15:16Speaker 4: I don't.
- 15:16Speaker 15: I don't know.
- 15:17Speaker 16: I don't know.
- 15:17Speaker 4: I'm so sorry, I don't know.
- 15:19Speaker 3: Detective LISTM.
- 15:21Speaker 6: Sorry, this is a scary situation. Okay, we're not here
- 15:28Speaker 6: to pretend that it is.
- 15:29Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really scary.
- 15:32Speaker 1: Along with the confirmation orders for poisons, investigators found other emails.
- 15:38Speaker 1: These offered insight into why James Craig would wish Angela dead.
- 15:43Speaker 1: A new email account, Jim and Waffles at Gmail had
- 15:46Speaker 1: been recently created. The inbox showed multiple communications with a
- 15:51Speaker 1: woman named Karen Cain. Karen, an orthodontist from Texas, had
- 15:56Speaker 1: met James at a very recent dental conference unless Vegas
- 16:01Speaker 1: over the course of three days, from February twenty second
- 16:04Speaker 1: through the twenty fifth, they bonded. The two attended Dinners
- 16:08Speaker 1: conference events together and began texting each other into the
- 16:12Speaker 1: early morning hours. By the time he left Las Vegas,
- 16:16Speaker 1: James was declaring his undying love for Karen Kane.
- 16:21Speaker 7: So, if you want an attorney, we absolutely respect that
- 16:24Speaker 7: and understand that you're not the first person to tell
- 16:26Speaker 7: us that you feel more comfortable with that. We would
- 16:29Speaker 7: just wait until you or your attorney reached back out
- 16:32Speaker 7: to us. I guess I prob that wait for an attorney.
- 16:37Speaker 5: Okay, thank you for doing.
- 16:44Speaker 3: I really.
- 16:46Speaker 2: Hi, do you too? I?
- 16:47Speaker 1: Relating James's newly created Jim and Waffle's Gmail account appeared
- 16:56Speaker 1: to be used exclusively for plans to poison Angela and
- 17:00Speaker 1: to reunite with Karen Kin. Karen planned to travel to
- 17:04Speaker 1: Denver on March eighth, at the same time James began
- 17:07Speaker 1: researching and ordering poisons. Angela, having returned from her family
- 17:13Speaker 1: visit in Utah on March fifth, fell ill the next day.
- 17:17Speaker 1: Detective Olsen did not believe that the timing was coincidental,
- 17:21Speaker 1: but they found no evidence at all that Karen was
- 17:25Speaker 1: in on the plan, only that James had purposely deceived her.
- 17:32Speaker 3: Hi, Karen, Yes, I'm Sergeant Lawnaker with Thrower Homicide Unit.
- 17:37Speaker 3: You've taken Jim in the custody for homicide and I
- 17:42Speaker 3: was wondering if you have a minute to speak with me. Yeah,
- 17:47Speaker 3: we cant dress.
- 17:48Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 17:52Speaker 1: Investigators found Karen in her hotel room in Denver. She
- 17:56Speaker 1: was there to visit James Craig.
- 18:00Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I think he's told you a very elaborate story
- 18:04Speaker 3: of which probably most of it, if not all, of
- 18:07Speaker 3: it's nonsense. Obviously, we wouldn't take him into custody if
- 18:13Speaker 3: we weren't confident about what we've seen so far and
- 18:17Speaker 3: what we found. And you know, I wouldn't have found
- 18:22Speaker 3: you at this hotel if we didn't know all this
- 18:24Speaker 3: stuff that's been going on. I don't know what kind
- 18:27Speaker 3: of communications he's had with you about his wife and
- 18:32Speaker 3: what's been going on with her. We have noticed that
- 18:38Speaker 3: you seem to come to Denver when his wife was
- 18:42Speaker 3: in the hospital, and I don't know if that's just
- 18:46Speaker 3: what kind of timing is you know that.
- 18:49Speaker 1: Is James told Karen that he had filed for divorce
- 18:53Speaker 1: from Angela. The previous month, he had not. He told
- 18:57Speaker 1: her that his wife had a history of harming herself
- 19:00Speaker 1: and that she had previously taken medications from his dental
- 19:03Speaker 1: practice in order to do so. There was no proof
- 19:07Speaker 1: that she had done anything of the sort, as James
- 19:10Speaker 1: kept Karen in the loop with updates relating to Angela's
- 19:13Speaker 1: declining health. He also implied that his wife was behind
- 19:17Speaker 1: it all. She was depressed, perhaps over the pending divorce.
- 19:22Speaker 1: These claims formed the foundation of James Craig's story that
- 19:26Speaker 1: his wife was poisoning herself.
- 19:29Speaker 3: Explain that to me more though, that she got drugs
- 19:33Speaker 3: from his office, like he got her drugs from the office.
- 19:37Speaker 17: He said when she had attempted in the past, that
- 19:41Speaker 17: he would have to figure out what.
- 19:43Speaker 18: It was that she took so that he could reverse it.
- 19:49Speaker 18: I was like, well, where would she get this stuff?
- 19:53Speaker 18: And he said, well, she had taken stuff. She still
- 19:56Speaker 18: work at his practice. I guess she had taken step
- 19:59Speaker 18: out of the safe for He's.
- 20:07Speaker 3: Never told her he wants divorce. He's never told her.
- 20:10Speaker 3: There's no talk of him moving out.
- 20:12Speaker 9: With the kids.
- 20:13Speaker 3: She has no idea anything about a divorce. He's purchased
- 20:18Speaker 3: poisons and she's now dead because of poisons. A lot
- 20:24Speaker 3: of the things he's told you, assuming you've told me
- 20:26Speaker 3: the truth, are all nonsense. All right, You got my
- 20:32Speaker 3: card if you think of anything, or you got any questions.
- 20:36Speaker 18: I mean, because he told me he had specifically requested
- 20:38Speaker 18: a talk screening on her because.
- 20:40Speaker 3: Of his concern, because he knew that poisons he used
- 20:44Speaker 3: can be got to show up.
- 20:48Speaker 15: You're suspecting doesn't show up on.
- 20:50Speaker 3: That respecting arsenic, I'm suspecting cyanide. We've got all of
- 20:57Speaker 3: his search history for Google. Planning this whole thing out.
- 21:06Speaker 1: It was not only James's search history that was revealing.
- 21:10Speaker 1: After the orthodontist had some time to digest the information
- 21:13Speaker 1: investigators had delivered, Detective Olsen sat down with Karen and
- 21:17Speaker 1: reviewed her extensive correspondence with James. In three short weeks,
- 21:22Speaker 1: the two exchanged over four thousand text messages. These included
- 21:27Speaker 1: passionate and poetic messages from James such as I want
- 21:30Speaker 1: to forever breathe in the influence of your sweet perfume,
- 21:34Speaker 1: and the short version is that I love you, Sonia Cornico,
- 21:39Speaker 1: my eternal love, and may Heaven let us bloom together
- 21:42Speaker 1: forever James also texted Karen extensively about Angela.
- 21:49Speaker 6: And then he's telling you she's not feeling well.
- 21:52Speaker 17: And then he texted me from where we were just
- 21:56Speaker 17: texting back and forth at work, just like hey, super
- 21:58Speaker 17: important aside kids said Anne wasn't feeling well and went
- 22:02Speaker 17: to lie down. I couldn't get her to respond. She
- 22:04Speaker 17: said she felt dizzy and has a blurred vision.
- 22:06Speaker 15: I came home and been doing homeschool with the girls,
- 22:08Speaker 15: but she looked super pale. I'm going to take her
- 22:10Speaker 15: to urgent care.
- 22:11Speaker 17: She had some pre workout drink this morning and wrote
- 22:13Speaker 17: her bike card for about a half hour.
- 22:15Speaker 15: I thought maybe she was just tired, but this is
- 22:17Speaker 15: something more.
- 22:18Speaker 2: Just defin why I so?
- 22:25Speaker 15: And then at one point he says, are you thinking
- 22:26Speaker 15: what I'm thinking about this situation? And I.
- 22:32Speaker 17: Thought maybe she was faking it because she was, you know,
- 22:38Speaker 17: trying to reach out whatever. So when you say and so,
- 22:43Speaker 17: I replied, well, when you say that, you're seeing her
- 22:45Speaker 17: pale and like that really quiets the waste of my head.
- 22:48Speaker 15: He said, I don't think we're thinking the same thing.
- 22:50Speaker 15: I think she tried to hurt herself. I said, oh no,
- 22:52Speaker 15: I wasn't thinking that, But.
- 22:53Speaker 17: I did think that initially, but maybe something maybe move
- 22:57Speaker 17: away from that thought. Are they doing toxicology? He said,
- 23:00Speaker 17: I can't think of what she may have done that
- 23:03Speaker 17: would result of these kinds of symtoms.
- 23:06Speaker 1: Notably, while he sat in the hospital watching medical staff
- 23:10Speaker 1: fight to save Angela's life, James was texting Karen, even
- 23:14Speaker 1: sending her a photo of his view into the hospital room.
- 23:18Speaker 17: He said, feelings, I'm divorcing a woman who's the mother
- 23:21Speaker 17: of my children, who seems to be trying our artists
- 23:23Speaker 17: to die.
- 23:24Speaker 15: Said I'm smagy Nikols, super super guilty, and then he
- 23:33Speaker 15: sent me that she had crashed and they had inticated.
- 23:36Speaker 6: Her and the heir bood pressure was like really low
- 23:39Speaker 6: three pm the picture.
- 23:44Speaker 1: It was roughly three pm when James texted Karen crash intubated,
- 23:49Speaker 1: along with the photo. They had a brief phone call
- 23:52Speaker 1: from the hospital. Then maybe an hour later, James texted
- 23:56Speaker 1: that he was about to tell his children that their
- 23:58Speaker 1: mother had no break inactivity. Karen responded by offering love
- 24:03Speaker 1: and prayers to him and the children. Thank you, that's
- 24:06Speaker 1: going to be so heartbreaking, James wrote of breaking the
- 24:09Speaker 1: news twenty minutes later. However, he messaged Karen again. What
- 24:14Speaker 1: should doing tonight?
- 24:16Speaker 3: He asked.
- 24:20Speaker 1: By most accounts, Angela Craig did not have a lot
- 24:23Speaker 1: of time to herself, but one activity that she rarely
- 24:27Speaker 1: missed was her morning workout, after which she usually had
- 24:30Speaker 1: a protein shake. Her daily shakes were a recurring theme
- 24:34Speaker 1: mentioned by witnesses after her death. In fact, it was
- 24:38Speaker 1: James's own statements that pointed investigators towards the shakes as
- 24:42Speaker 1: the mode of delivery for his poisons. He told Caitlin
- 24:46Speaker 1: at the dental office, for instance, that he gave Angela
- 24:49Speaker 1: extra protein in her pre workout shake one morning when
- 24:52Speaker 1: she felt sluggish. Immediately after she exercised, Angela became faint
- 24:58Speaker 1: and dizzy, and he needed to bring her to the hospital.
- 25:02Speaker 1: Cameras inside the craigcomb showed James regularly fixing shakes for Angela.
- 25:07Speaker 1: The container he used with the pink lid would later
- 25:10Speaker 1: test positive for tetrahydrozoli, the main ingredient advising. What these
- 25:17Speaker 1: cameras also revealed, at least initially in the days before
- 25:20Speaker 1: Angela's illness, was what appeared to be a happy marriage.
- 25:24Speaker 1: James and Angela were frequently captured embracing chatting and joking around,
- 25:29Speaker 1: kissing and exchanging I love youse. On the morning of
- 25:33Speaker 1: February twenty seventh, the same day that James would create
- 25:36Speaker 1: a new Google account and begin to plot to kill
- 25:39Speaker 1: his wife, the two were captured in a loving and
- 25:42Speaker 1: casual exchange, the type one would expect from a happy
- 25:46Speaker 1: husband and wife.
- 25:49Speaker 3: Hey.
- 25:57Speaker 1: Moments later, Angela took a sip of for boarding shake.
- 26:06Speaker 3: Ny.
- 26:12Speaker 1: The kitchen camera caught more than James's deceit. As Angela's
- 26:16Speaker 1: condition worsened, The camera captured an argument between the couple.
- 26:20Speaker 1: After Angela's discharge from treatment. She accused her husband of
- 26:24Speaker 1: telling hospital staff that she was at fault for her sickness.
- 26:28Speaker 15: Areated me, like I was a suicide, like I did
- 26:32Speaker 15: it myself, and.
- 26:34Speaker 8: Like nothing I said.
- 26:35Speaker 4: I could be the lead.
- 26:37Speaker 1: While in the hospital, Angela had messaged her husband telling
- 26:40Speaker 1: him that she felt drugged, though the only thing she
- 26:43Speaker 1: had consumed that day was a protein shake. More accusations
- 26:48Speaker 1: were made in text messages. At one point James replied,
- 26:52Speaker 1: given our history, I know that must be triggering. Just
- 26:55Speaker 1: for the record, I didn't drug you. That message was
- 26:59Speaker 1: evidently in reference to an incident from roughly six years earlier,
- 27:03Speaker 1: in which James had admitted to drugging Angela. His aim
- 27:07Speaker 1: at that time, he claimed, was to harm himself. He
- 27:11Speaker 1: drugged his wife so she would not awake and stop him.
- 27:14Speaker 1: There was no way to verify or disprove that assertion.
- 27:18Speaker 1: Angela's own search history showed that she was desperate to
- 27:22Speaker 1: sort out what was wrong with her. Day after day,
- 27:25Speaker 1: she googled her symptoms as they worsened. She may have
- 27:28Speaker 1: suspected her husband was behind her illness, but she certainly
- 27:32Speaker 1: did not know it for a fact. On March fifteenth,
- 27:39Speaker 1: the day she checked into University Hospital, James promptly arrived
- 27:42Speaker 1: to pay her a visit. An hour and a half later,
- 27:46Speaker 1: he was captured returning to her room with a bag
- 27:48Speaker 1: of food that was at roughly one thirty pm. Twenty
- 27:53Speaker 1: minutes after that, he emerged from the restroom on the
- 27:56Speaker 1: other side of the nurses station. A small object is
- 27:59Speaker 1: visible in his hand. Investigators believe it was a syringe,
- 28:03Speaker 1: likely filled with cyanide. At two twenty he re entered
- 28:09Speaker 1: Angela's room once again. This time he is with his
- 28:13Speaker 1: wife for less than a minute before he re emerged
- 28:16Speaker 1: to tell nurses that she was experiencing pain in her arm.
- 28:20Speaker 1: Angela crashed moments later. James was held without bond, awaiting
- 28:31Speaker 1: trial for first degree murder. He maintained that Angela had
- 28:35Speaker 1: schemed to make herself ill. He told cellmates in the
- 28:39Speaker 1: county jail that there was proof of poison containers in
- 28:42Speaker 1: his home with her fingerprints all over them, somehow suspiciously
- 28:46Speaker 1: in his opinion, these pieces of evidence that would exonerate
- 28:50Speaker 1: him or at least support his defense, were never turned
- 28:53Speaker 1: over by police after they searched his house. The truth,
- 29:00Speaker 1: ording to James Craig, was that his wife asked him
- 29:03Speaker 1: to order the poisons. It was her plan, not his.
- 29:07Speaker 1: He blamed Detective Olson for framing him, so James believed
- 29:12Speaker 1: that he had no choice but to create the evidence
- 29:15Speaker 1: that was lacking and to order a hit on the detective.
- 29:21Speaker 1: A cellmate of James Craig's named Nathaniel Harris came to
- 29:25Speaker 1: law enforcement with a bizarre series of allegations against the dentist.
- 29:30Speaker 1: He claimed that he had gained James's trust while they
- 29:33Speaker 1: served time together. At first, Nathaniel claimed that James asked
- 29:37Speaker 1: him to find witnesses who could testify that they knew
- 29:40Speaker 1: James's late wife and that she had confided her plans
- 29:44Speaker 1: to them he offered to pay. James also requested that
- 29:48Speaker 1: the fake witnesses use Photoshop or a similar program to
- 29:52Speaker 1: create photos of them with Angela to support claims that
- 29:56Speaker 1: they were old friends in confidants with whom Angela would
- 29:59Speaker 1: share her dear pist secrets, some.
- 30:02Speaker 4: Of my gang tattoos from prison, and he asked me,
- 30:04Speaker 4: was asking me questions about those that sparked off. Do
- 30:10Speaker 4: I know anybody that would be willing to lie for
- 30:12Speaker 4: him to be a crowdably witness. I told him there
- 30:16Speaker 4: was going to max wife, and max wife and her
- 30:18Speaker 4: sister would be more than willing to do that, and
- 30:20Speaker 4: he said that there'd be a blank check that halfway through.
- 30:24Speaker 4: Once they had convinced Harvey, his lawyer, that there were
- 30:31Speaker 4: legitimate witnesses, that he would pay them both twenty thousand
- 30:34Speaker 4: dollars or ten thousand dollars half of the ten thousand
- 30:37Speaker 4: dollars at the beginning, and then ten thousand later.
- 30:40Speaker 1: After James believed his plan had been set into action,
- 30:43Speaker 1: he began asking Nathaniel about hired killers. The dentist had
- 30:49Speaker 1: three targets on his list. First was an Aurora deputy
- 30:52Speaker 1: whom he claimed had been awful to him after his arrest.
- 30:56Speaker 1: The second was Detective Bobby Olsen for framing him. The
- 31:00Speaker 1: third and final person he wished dead was his old cellmate,
- 31:04Speaker 1: a man named Rodney. That excelmate had originally offered to
- 31:09Speaker 1: assist him with locating fake witnesses, but instead of doing so,
- 31:13Speaker 1: police had discovered the scheme. James believed Rodney had turned
- 31:18Speaker 1: him in.
- 31:19Speaker 4: And he had told me the whole story about how
- 31:22Speaker 4: he had basically done the same exact thing that he
- 31:25Speaker 4: was doing with me and my ex wife, and that
- 31:28Speaker 4: guy had turned around and turned him in, And why
- 31:31Speaker 4: did he want to kill Ronniey for turning him in?
- 31:33Speaker 4: And somehow his daughter was involved in it. I'm not sure.
- 31:37Speaker 4: I can't remember. There was so much information so fast.
- 31:40Speaker 4: When you say his daughter James or James, jim Jimmy,
- 31:44Speaker 4: I call hi Jimmy, Jimmy, Yeah, his Jimmy's daughter, not Yeah,
- 31:48Speaker 4: Jimmy's daughter was involved. And he had gotten Classics Delany
- 31:52Speaker 4: I think he said, or was it him the guard
- 31:54Speaker 4: classics son. I can't remember which one, but I know
- 31:56Speaker 4: his daughter was implicated, and he said he was going
- 31:58Speaker 4: to have to take the volve for that.
- 32:00Speaker 1: Another scheme was revealed to police by James's eldest daughter
- 32:04Speaker 1: from jail. He had written her a letter that contained
- 32:07Speaker 1: detailed instructions. First, he asked her to purchase a new laptop.
- 32:11Speaker 1: She should use it to research and recreate a deep
- 32:15Speaker 1: fake video of her mother speaking with her father asking
- 32:18Speaker 1: him to buy poisons for her. When the AI video
- 32:22Speaker 1: was produced, she was to dispose of the laptop, discover
- 32:25Speaker 1: the video evidence, and tell no one of the plan.
- 32:29Speaker 1: It would prove his innocence, he claimed, because investigators had
- 32:33Speaker 1: framed him. Instead of following the instructions her father gave her,
- 32:37Speaker 1: James's daughter went to the police with the letter.
- 32:42Speaker 4: I've been on killers for the last twenty years in prison,
- 32:46Speaker 4: and I want I can tell by just talking to
- 32:49Speaker 4: somebody there's a distinction trait the people that are sadistic
- 32:55Speaker 4: in murderous Perry. That's what I thought me. He would
- 33:00Speaker 4: even talk to him, but he swore of it, and
- 33:03Speaker 4: he was so happy all the time, all the time, right,
- 33:06Speaker 4: And it was like, oh.
- 33:07Speaker 3: He didn't do it.
- 33:07Speaker 4: He's not even worried about anything. And I'm like, no,
- 33:09Speaker 4: he is that that's one of those traits. So I
- 33:14Speaker 4: knew from the get that he'd kill his wife.
- 33:17Speaker 1: Nathaniel explained that he had no interest in being involved
- 33:20Speaker 1: in the witness scheme or the murder for higher plots.
- 33:23Speaker 1: He was serving time for auto theft and wanted no
- 33:26Speaker 1: part in a life sentence for murder. For this reason,
- 33:30Speaker 1: he took note of what James had told him that
- 33:32Speaker 1: he wanted a now retired deputy hit by a car,
- 33:36Speaker 1: Detective Olsen shot and his excellmate killed. He did not
- 33:41Speaker 1: care how.
- 33:44Speaker 3: Hid.
- 33:45Speaker 4: He said, it was just horrible to him the whole time.
- 33:48Speaker 4: He was a medical excuse me, and that was the
- 33:54Speaker 4: guy that was next on the list.
- 33:56Speaker 3: So that was the one.
- 33:57Speaker 4: So it's actually at aso. Yes, he said that he
- 34:00Speaker 4: had retired, but he had his unknown whereabouts and first
- 34:07Speaker 4: he wanted pictures, somebody to take pictures of his son
- 34:10Speaker 4: getting on and off the school bus. He wanted to
- 34:13Speaker 4: tortu him a little bit. Then he said he wanted
- 34:16Speaker 4: to meet buy a car. Okay, and then what other target,
- 34:19Speaker 4: said Bobby Olsen? And why did he want to kill
- 34:23Speaker 4: Bobby Olds? He said that she had stacked the decks
- 34:25Speaker 4: again stacked the deck against him and planet evidence in
- 34:28Speaker 4: his case, and did he talk about how he wanted
- 34:31Speaker 4: an them? He told me he wanted her.
- 34:33Speaker 1: Shop opening statements in James Craig's murder trial began on
- 34:42Speaker 1: July fifteenth, twenty twenty five. The prosecution introduced jurors to
- 34:47Speaker 1: the video of James making his wife shakes in a
- 34:49Speaker 1: container that tested positive for one of the poisons that
- 34:53Speaker 1: killed her. They showed him entering her hospital room with
- 34:56Speaker 1: an object resembling a syringe moments before her seat, and
- 35:01Speaker 1: they showed his messages with Karen Kane, his promises to
- 35:05Speaker 1: love her forever and insisting that they belonged together. The
- 35:09Speaker 1: state also showed other correspondents Karen was not the only
- 35:14Speaker 1: woman James had been involved with. In late February and
- 35:17Speaker 1: early March of twenty twenty three, before his trip to
- 35:21Speaker 1: Las Vegas, James began messaging two other women that he
- 35:24Speaker 1: connected with through seeking dot com. The dentist's profile on
- 35:29Speaker 1: that platform described him as a multi millionaire, a sugar daddy,
- 35:34Speaker 1: happy to make a financial arrangement with the right woman
- 35:37Speaker 1: or women. Indeed, he had done so in the past,
- 35:41Speaker 1: spending thousands on affairs and landing himself in bankruptcy. Angela
- 35:46Speaker 1: had discovered his cheating many times over many years. Her
- 35:51Speaker 1: deep faith and desire to keep their family together was
- 35:54Speaker 1: the driving force in their routine reconciliations. This time, however,
- 36:00Speaker 1: the state argued it was different. Karen Kane was not
- 36:04Speaker 1: a younger woman who needed the dentist to buy her
- 36:07Speaker 1: a new car, pricey vacations or other luxury items. The
- 36:12Speaker 1: connection with Karen was real and James was truly in
- 36:16Speaker 1: love with her.
- 36:18Speaker 4: Karen Kay was different on at least the surface.
- 36:23Speaker 13: Right, he didn't meet her on Seeking dot Com, There's
- 36:27Speaker 13: no financial arrangements to their relationship, and perhaps most importantly,
- 36:33Speaker 13: she's not going to sleep with him if she is
- 36:36Speaker 13: still actively married to Angela, actively living at home as
- 36:41Speaker 13: husband and wife, three major differences between Karen Kane and
- 36:47Speaker 13: the Seeking dot Com.
- 36:49Speaker 1: The defense argued that James's relationship with Karen was the
- 36:53Speaker 1: same as many many others that he had throughout the years.
- 36:57Speaker 1: He had affairs, but always convinced Angela to stay in
- 37:00Speaker 1: the marriage. There was therefore no motive after meeting Karen
- 37:04Speaker 1: to kill Angela. For James, carrying on multiple affairs was
- 37:09Speaker 1: business as usual, he was guilty of being a serial cheater,
- 37:13Speaker 1: but not a murderer. Prosecutors argued that even if his
- 37:17Speaker 1: love affair with Karen was not enough motivation for the murder,
- 37:21Speaker 1: James Craig was also the beneficiary of four different life
- 37:25Speaker 1: insurance policies that listed Angela as the insured party, with
- 37:29Speaker 1: a combined coverage of four million dollars. The defense focused
- 37:34Speaker 1: in on a diary of Angela's in which she recorded
- 37:38Speaker 1: emotional struggles. Its last entry was from five years before
- 37:43Speaker 1: her death.
- 37:45Speaker 15: This was about a family who looking in.
- 37:50Speaker 16: Angela and doctor Craig looked, Have we married? There were
- 37:52Speaker 16: no problems. Angela's mental health seemed fine. Doctor Craig's mental
- 37:59Speaker 16: health seemed fine. In that journal, though, you will see
- 38:04Speaker 16: the struggles that Angela was having right where she's talking
- 38:08Speaker 16: about being isolated, where she's talking about the struggles of
- 38:11Speaker 16: her relationship the doctor Craig's cheating and infidelity broke her.
- 38:17Speaker 16: That Ryan Redford calls and is talking about the things
- 38:21Speaker 16: happening at the dental office. Right, that there was a
- 38:26Speaker 16: package delivered and that that package contained cinide.
- 38:30Speaker 15: It was over for long b Right, they had.
- 38:33Speaker 1: Tunneled James Craig's defense relied on a timeline written out
- 38:38Speaker 1: in notes on his phone in the early morning of
- 38:40Speaker 1: March sixteenth, the day Angela was declared Braid dead.
- 38:47Speaker 12: And there's basically a straight up written here's everything that
- 38:53Speaker 12: happened from my iPhone that I wrote the night before
- 38:56Speaker 12: you took my phone. I wanted to sit down and
- 38:58Speaker 12: figure out the timeline so I could exactly what happened
- 39:01Speaker 12: that when.
- 39:02Speaker 1: In it, he admitted to several extramarital affairs, but said
- 39:06Speaker 1: that when Angela found out about them, she decided that
- 39:10Speaker 1: death was better than divorce. From that point onward, he
- 39:14Speaker 1: claimed that Angela started to research poisons that could kill
- 39:17Speaker 1: her in a quick and painless manner. There was never
- 39:21Speaker 1: any evidence of these searches uncovered by law enforcement, only
- 39:25Speaker 1: of her increasingly desperate searches to self diagnose her illness.
- 39:33Speaker 1: After several hours of deliberations over two days, the jury
- 39:37Speaker 1: returned with its verdict.
- 39:40Speaker 19: That's the.
- 39:42Speaker 4: In the first degree.
- 39:44Speaker 18: We the jury, unanimously and not a reasonable doubt, find
- 39:48Speaker 18: the defendant, James Craig, guilty of murder in the first degree.
- 39:56Speaker 1: Amongst those that spoke at the sentencing was James in Air,
- 40:00Speaker 1: Angela's eldest daughter, and James Craig was sentenced to life
- 40:17Speaker 1: in prison without the possibility of parole. Arapahoe County District
- 40:22Speaker 1: Judge Shay Whittaker imposed the mandatory life sentence for the
- 40:26Speaker 1: murder charge, adding a consecutive thirty three years for the
- 40:30Speaker 1: additional counts.
- 40:32Speaker 11: Clearly, Craig wanted out of his marriage, but was unwilling
- 40:36Speaker 11: to face the consequences of divorce, especially a divorce initiated
- 40:40Speaker 11: by him. He gave in to greed and cowardice, ultimately
- 40:45Speaker 11: treating Angela as an object, an obstacle to the life.
- 40:48Speaker 1: He wanted, and that was the tragic case of Angela Craig.
- 40:58Speaker 1: Thank you for joining me, and especially thanks this week
- 41:01Speaker 1: to Victoria Wilkinson, Hope Ford, Nicole Butcherelli, Joanna Kelly and
- 41:06Speaker 1: nikel for joining our Sherlock Holmes membership. Welcome to the
- 41:10Speaker 1: members lounge. I'm Kevin. This is just thought lounge, and
- 41:15Speaker 1: I'll see in the next one.
- 41:17Speaker 15: Let me go ahead and settle in.
- 41:20Speaker 19: Gotta be selective, doing all the research, keeping it objective
- 41:23Speaker 19: always been effective. Can say he got his neck pick
- 41:26Speaker 19: it a litter. You see how Newton got his back. Yeah,
- 41:28Speaker 19: the content that you need is to be a new sign.
- 41:31Speaker 19: Talking in the comments they got in, tune in and
- 41:34Speaker 19: like love that. It's feels like the whole world is
- 41:36Speaker 19: online for crimes.
- 41:37Speaker 15: Watch him on a run, but it's not a race.
- 41:40Speaker 19: Really hard to disappeared without a brace.