Latest / The Mind of a Man / Husband Poisons Wife_ Then Targets Detective Who Caught Him_ The Murder of Angela Craig _ True Crime
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: In March, 2023, 44-year-old mother of six, Angela Craig, died
- 0:06Speaker 1: of unknown causes in the hospital after battling a mysterious
- 0:09Speaker 1: illness for almost two weeks. While answers seemed elusive when
- 0:15Speaker 1: she lived, they would reveal themselves with shocking speed upon
- 0:19Speaker 1: her death. A single suspicion to investigators unraveled a dark plan,
- 0:24Speaker 1: elaborate stories, deceit, affairs, and further murder plots.
- 0:30Speaker 2: You are under arrest.
- 0:31Speaker 3: Okay.
- 0:32Speaker 2: Okay. First degree murder.
- 0:33Speaker 4: Thank you for.
- 0:35Speaker 5: Doing the job you're doing. I really hope that truth
- 0:39Speaker 5: comes out.
- 0:40Speaker 4: I do too.
- 0:41Speaker 6: I really do.
- 0:42Speaker 4: And why did he want to kill Marlins?
- 0:44Speaker 7: He said that she had stacked the decks again, stacked
- 0:47Speaker 7: the deck against him.
- 0:48Speaker 4: And planned another one.
- 0:50Speaker 8: In this case.
- 0:52Speaker 1: Hi there. I'm Kevin and welcome to Just Thought Lounge.
- 0:56Speaker 1: Today's case has seen quite a bit of coverage over
- 1:00Speaker 1: the last two years, but it was not until very
- 1:03Speaker 1: recently that some of its most bizarre details have come
- 1:06Speaker 1: to light. When I set out to gain access to
- 1:08Speaker 1: as much information about this story as possible, including police interviews,
- 1:13Speaker 1: body cam, surveillance, and other evidence, I had no idea
- 1:17Speaker 1: the depth of this strange story. Now that I do,
- 1:22Speaker 1: I'm ready to share it with you. Let's take a look.
- 1:37Speaker 1: Before we get into today's case, if you're looking for
- 1:40Speaker 1: another immersive story that will leave you questioning the ethics
- 1:43Speaker 1: and legality behind a murder case, here's a podcast that
- 1:46Speaker 1: you won't want to miss. On revisionist history, The Alabama Murders,
- 1:50Speaker 1: best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell takes listeners back to 1988 Northwest Alabama,
- 1:56Speaker 1: where a preacher, entangled in an affair with a parishioner,
- 1:59Speaker 1: makes 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 podcasts.
- 2:36Speaker 1: At just past 11 a.m. on March 15, 2023, 44-year-old
- 2:41Speaker 1: wife and mother Angela Craig, with the assistance of her brother,
- 2:44Speaker 1: checked into University Hospital in Aurora, Colorado. For over a week,
- 2:49Speaker 1: Angela had been experiencing strange and unexplained symptoms. Amongst them,
- 2:54Speaker 1: severe headaches, dizziness, vomiting, and low blood pressure. Three hours
- 3:00Speaker 1: after her arrival at the hospital, Angela had a seizure.
- 3:04Speaker 1: Her condition declined rapidly, forcing medical staff to move her
- 3:08Speaker 1: to the intensive care unit where she was placed on
- 3:10Speaker 1: life support. Over the next three days, Angela's organs shut
- 3:15Speaker 1: down and she was declared brain dead. On March 18th,
- 3:20Speaker 1: roughly 10 days after she first fell ill, Angela Craig
- 3:24Speaker 1: was removed from life support. When she suddenly crashed and
- 3:31Speaker 1: was taken into the ICU, Angela's diagnosis was still uncertain.
- 3:36Speaker 1: The mother of six had first sought treatment over a
- 3:39Speaker 1: week earlier at the Advent Health Parker Hospital. At that time,
- 3:43Speaker 1: she had an MRI, a CT scan, and blood work,
- 3:46Speaker 1: but was sent home after nothing was found. The next day, however,
- 3:50Speaker 1: she was back at the ER. She felt strange, she said.
- 3:54Speaker 1: To her husband, James, she texted, My stomach feels fine,
- 3:59Speaker 1: but my head feels funny and dizzy. she was sent
- 4:01Speaker 1: home yet again without a diagnosis. On March 9th, Angela's
- 4:06Speaker 1: children found her crawling across the floor at home because
- 4:10Speaker 1: she was incapable of standing up. This time, she was
- 4:13Speaker 1: admitted to the hospital, where she remained until the 14th.
- 4:19Speaker 1: Her discharge from the hospital on that day did not
- 4:21Speaker 1: seem premature, as her tests were coming back normal and
- 4:24Speaker 1: her condition stable. Nonetheless, she was admitted to University Hospital
- 4:30Speaker 1: the very next day, where she experienced the seizure that
- 4:33Speaker 1: led to her death. Her husband looked on as medical
- 4:37Speaker 1: teams descended upon her room, trying desperately to save her.
- 4:42Speaker 1: With Angela's condition still precarious, a nurse discreetly placed a
- 4:46Speaker 1: phone call to the Aurora Police Department.
- 4:51Speaker 9: Hi, my name is Chelsea. I am one of the
- 4:53Speaker 9: forensic nurses here at University Hospital. I am needing to
- 4:57Speaker 9: make a mandated FBI report, IPV, and meeting officer response.
- 5:05Speaker 9: We have a suspected cyanide, potassium cyanide poisoning.
- 5:10Speaker 1: Angela's husband, Dr. 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' messages was to his business partner, Dr.
- 5:37Speaker 1: Ryan Redfern, who owned the dental clinic where James ran
- 5:41Speaker 1: 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 aside 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 9: In the waiting room. The husband's business partner, named Ryan,
- 6:16Speaker 9: who is also a dentist, was here earlier. We let
- 6:21Speaker 9: him go home because he did not want.
- 6:27Speaker 9: Husband to know every story that he told us. So
- 6:32Speaker 9: he wanted to go home to kind of separate himself
- 6:34Speaker 9: from that. He does not know we're calling you guys either. Okay.
- 6:39Speaker 9: That's going to cause a lot of issues because he's wanting,
- 6:43Speaker 9: my understanding is to withdraw care on her pretty quickly.
- 6:47Speaker 9: And so we're trying to, you know, get you guys
- 6:50Speaker 9: involved in trying to figure out medical decision on that.
- 6:58Speaker 1: Angela Craig was born in Kansas, the youngest girl in
- 7:01Speaker 1: a family of 10 children. As an adult, she remained
- 7:05Speaker 1: close with her siblings. In December 1999, Angela married James Craig.
- 7:11Speaker 1: Over 23 years of marriage, they had six children. For
- 7:15Speaker 1: the last 15 years, she and James had made Denver
- 7:18Speaker 1: their home. Angela, a devout Mormon, was fiercely dedicated to
- 7:23Speaker 1: her family. After her children, Angela's faith was said to
- 7:27Speaker 1: be her greatest passion. though her interests stretched beyond the church.
- 7:32Speaker 1: She loved family history, interior design, woodworking, reading, and mystery shows.
- 7:38Speaker 1: In the days before Angela fell ill, she had been
- 7:41Speaker 1: visiting family in Utah where she attended a genealogical convention
- 7:45Speaker 1: with her sister, uncovering family history while fitting in quality time.
- 7:51Speaker 1: Her loss obviously came as a devastating blow. The family
- 7:55Speaker 1: needed answers. In the immediate aftermath of her death, Investigators
- 8:00Speaker 1: believed they had them. Over the objections of her husband,
- 8:05Speaker 1: an autopsy was performed on Angela Craig. Its conclusions seemed
- 8:10Speaker 1: to confirm the concerns raised by James' business partner. Results
- 8:14Speaker 1: showed Angela ingested lethal doses of cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, an
- 8:19Speaker 1: ingredient found in Visine. Arsenic was also found in her system.
- 8:32Speaker 10: My name is Dr. Jim Craig, and I practice at
- 8:35Speaker 10: Summerbrook Dental Group. My approach to dentistry begins with sincerely
- 8:40Speaker 10: listening to the patient and wanting to find out more
- 8:43Speaker 10: about where they're coming from and what they're looking for
- 8:45Speaker 10: 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 on March 19th.
- 8:56Speaker 9: Oh, how are you? I'm great. How are you doing?
- 8:58Speaker 11: Good.
- 9:00Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 9:00Speaker 9: Good.
- 9:02Speaker 2: All right, Bob, you are under arrest. Okay.
- 9:08Speaker 3: Okay, first-degree murder.
- 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 6th, towards the end of the day, she
- 9:25Speaker 1: found James in the back medical area known as Exam
- 9:29Speaker 1: Room 9. 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 him 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 27th,
- 9:58Speaker 1: the history showed searches for how many grams of pure
- 10:01Speaker 1: arsenic will kill a human and is arsenic detectable in
- 10:05Speaker 1: an autopsy. YouTube searches returned videos for top five undetectable
- 10:10Speaker 1: poisons that show no signs of foul play, how to
- 10:14Speaker 1: make poison, and the top 10 deadliest plants they can
- 10:18Speaker 1: kill you.
- 10:20Speaker 8: It plays a huge part in murder, mystery, and fiction.
- 10:24Speaker 8: And in today's It's All Viral video, we're going to
- 10:26Speaker 8: be bringing you the top five poisons that are nigh untraceable. Now,
- 10:32Speaker 8: what you do with this information, well, that's up 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 27th, when Caitlin observed
- 10:47Speaker 1: the dentist in the darkened room. The package was delivered
- 10:51Speaker 1: to James' address in Aurora, and it showed an arrival
- 10:54Speaker 1: date of March 4th, the day before Angela returned from Utah.
- 10:59Speaker 1: Two days after that, Angela was released from the hospital
- 11:02Speaker 1: for the first time. The computer from exam room 9
- 11:05Speaker 1: showed an order placed on that date for one milligram
- 11:09Speaker 1: of oleandrine. James ordered three of them. These packages were
- 11:13Speaker 1: intercepted by FedEx, however, and never delivered. Undeterred, investigators found
- 11:18Speaker 1: a confirmation email for the purchase of potassium cyanide on
- 11:22Speaker 1: March 8th from a company called Midland Scientific. In an
- 11:26Speaker 1: email exchange with the company, the dentist claimed that he
- 11:29Speaker 1: was a surgeon performing a craniofacial reconstruction. He would be
- 11:34Speaker 1: using the chemical to check and see if it will
- 11:36Speaker 1: help with the layering of alternative metals. His order of
- 11:40Speaker 1: the cyanide was then approved. James requested that it be
- 11:44Speaker 1: shipped overnight. Just in case his supply of poisons was insufficient,
- 11:49Speaker 1: at 10.16 p.m. that same night, James used his credit
- 11:53Speaker 1: card to purchase seven packages of Visine eyedrops from a
- 11:57Speaker 1: King Soopers store.
- 12:00Speaker 4: The charge is first-degree murder.
- 12:02Speaker 2: Or you can give them to him.
- 12:04Speaker 12: Deliberation.
- 12:06Speaker 2: You take his gloves.
- 12:07Speaker 13: A bond won't be given until a preliminary hearing, which
- 12:11Speaker 13: is usually within.
- 12:12Speaker 2: 30 to 60 days. Just for you and the family,
- 12:20Speaker 2: I mean, obviously this is shocking. From our standpoint, he's
- 12:24Speaker 2: responsible for Angie's death. Okay? There's no doubt in our mind.
- 12:27Speaker 6: Okay?
- 12:29Speaker 2: It's hard to wrap your mind around that, I understand,
- 12:32Speaker 2: especially for these poor kids. But, you know, we would
- 12:37Speaker 2: obviously take him into custody this quick if we were
- 12:39Speaker 2: not sure in our minds from our investigation that he's
- 12:42Speaker 2: responsible for her death.
- 12:44Speaker 7: Okay?
- 12:46Speaker 3: Okay.
- 12:46Speaker 9: So.
- 12:47Speaker 14: In this case, then, are we just supposed to proceed
- 12:50Speaker 14: to the funeral without him?
- 12:52Speaker 2: Yes, he's not going to be able to get out
- 12:53Speaker 2: of jail.
- 12:53Speaker 12: I mean, if you guys.
- 12:54Speaker 4: Will he be able to attend the funeral?
- 12:56Speaker 11: No.
- 13:01Speaker 1: James sat down with Detective Bobby Olson, who read him
- 13:04Speaker 1: his Miranda rights. 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 20 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 4: Do you have the arrest warrant for the murder of Angela?
- 13:31Speaker 4: Oh my.
- 13:35Speaker 6: Gosh.
- 13:35Speaker 12: So I know that, you.
- 13:37Speaker 4: Know, you've expressed.
- 13:40Speaker 3: Sometimes.
- 13:41Speaker 13: You have the answers and want to tell us. I
- 13:45Speaker 13: just want to give you that opportunity.
- 13:47Speaker 5: I haven't had my phone so I haven't been able
- 13:50Speaker 5: to talk to the attorney that I reached out to
- 13:53Speaker 5: because as you can imagine this is terrifying for me
- 13:56Speaker 5: and you both seem very nice and like you're on
- 13:59Speaker 5: my side but I know how this works and I
- 14:01Speaker 5: don't want to incriminate.
- 14:02Speaker 4: Myself or say anything stupid or there are answers.
- 14:07Speaker 5: There are answers and this makes a lot of sense
- 14:09Speaker 5: once those answers come out but I don't know how
- 14:11Speaker 5: to navigate this.
- 14:11Speaker 2: I've never done this before.
- 14:13Speaker 4: 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 9 had already offered
- 14:23Speaker 1: a roadmap of how James had planned the murder of
- 14:25Speaker 1: his wife.
- 14:28Speaker 3: You have a warrant, so you're going to go to
- 14:30Speaker 3: jail today.
- 14:30Speaker 4: I can't change that.
- 14:35Speaker 13: Do you have something to say, and maybe I can
- 14:37Speaker 13: verify it? and that'll clear you and take away all
- 14:41Speaker 13: the evidence that I have, then I would submit all
- 14:45Speaker 13: that to the district attorney's office and they would submit
- 14:47Speaker 13: it to the judge to say that, but again, nothing
- 14:52Speaker 13: will change the fact that you're going to go to
- 14:53Speaker 13: jail today.
- 14:55Speaker 4: And, um, and there's, there's basically a, uh, straight up.
- 15:01Speaker 5: Written, here's everything that happened from my iPhone that I
- 15:06Speaker 5: wrote the night before you took my phone. I wanted
- 15:08Speaker 5: to sit down and figure out the timeline so that
- 15:10Speaker 5: I could remember exactly what happened and when.
- 15:11Speaker 4: I mean, that's all there. And so I don't know.
- 15:17Speaker 12: I don't know.
- 15:17Speaker 4: I'm so sorry. I don't know, Detective Wilson. You don't
- 15:20Speaker 4: have to be sorry.
- 15:21Speaker 3: I mean, this is a scary situation.
- 15:25Speaker 13: We're not here 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, jimandwaffles at gmail, had been recently created.
- 15:48Speaker 1: The inbox showed multiple communications with a woman named Karen Kane. Karen,
- 15:54Speaker 1: an orthodontist from Texas, had met James at a very
- 15:58Speaker 1: recent dental conference in Las Vegas. Over the course of
- 16:02Speaker 1: three days, from February 22nd through the 25th, they bonded.
- 16:07Speaker 1: The two attended dinners, conference events together, and began texting
- 16:11Speaker 1: each other into the early morning hours. By the time
- 16:14Speaker 1: he left Las Vegas, James was declaring his undying love
- 16:19Speaker 1: for Karen Kane.
- 16:21Speaker 15: So if you want an attorney, we absolutely respect that
- 16:24Speaker 15: and understand that. You're not the first person to tell
- 16:26Speaker 15: us that you feel more comfortable with that. We would
- 16:29Speaker 15: just wait until you or your attorney reach back out
- 16:32Speaker 15: to us.
- 16:32Speaker 2: I guess I.
- 16:34Speaker 4: Probably would.
- 16:36Speaker 3: Wait for an attorney?
- 16:37Speaker 2: Okay.
- 16:41Speaker 4: Detective Wilson, thank you for doing the job you're doing.
- 16:44Speaker 2: I really hope.
- 16:45Speaker 3: That truth comes out.
- 16:46Speaker 4: I do too.
- 16:47Speaker 2: I really do.
- 16:52Speaker 1: James's newly created Jim and Waffles Gmail account appeared to
- 16:56Speaker 1: be used exclusively for plans to poison Angela and to
- 17:00Speaker 1: reunite with Karen Kane. Karen planned to travel to Denver
- 17:04Speaker 1: on March 8, At the same time, James began researching
- 17:08Speaker 1: and ordering poisons. Angela, having returned from her family visit
- 17:13Speaker 1: in Utah on March 5th, fell ill the next day.
- 17:17Speaker 1: Detective Olson did not believe that the timing was coincidental,
- 17:22Speaker 1: but they found no evidence at all that Karen was
- 17:25Speaker 1: in on the plan, only that James had purposefully deceived her.
- 17:32Speaker 2: Hi, Karen? Yes. I'm Sergeant Lawnecker with the Royal Homicide Unit.
- 17:37Speaker 2: We've taken Jim into custody for homicide. And I was
- 17:42Speaker 2: wondering if you have a minute to speak with me.
- 17:45Speaker 11: Can I?
- 17:47Speaker 2: Yeah. Get dressed.
- 17:48Speaker 9: Yep.
- 17:52Speaker 1: Investigators found Karen in her hotel room in Denver. She
- 17:56Speaker 1: was there to visit James Craig.
- 18:00Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I think he's told you a very elaborate story.
- 18:04Speaker 2: of which probably most of it, if not all of
- 18:07Speaker 2: it's nonsense. Obviously we wouldn't take him into custody if
- 18:13Speaker 2: we weren't confident about what we've seen so far and
- 18:17Speaker 2: what we found. And, you know, I wouldn't have found
- 18:22Speaker 2: you at this hotel if we didn't know all this
- 18:24Speaker 2: stuff that's been going on. I don't know what kind
- 18:27Speaker 2: of communications he's had with you about his wife and
- 18:32Speaker 2: what's been going on with her. We have noticed that
- 18:38Speaker 2: you seem to come to Denver when his wife was
- 18:42Speaker 2: in the hospital. And I don't know if that's just
- 18:46Speaker 2: what kind of timing is, you know, that is.
- 18:50Speaker 1: James told Karen that he had filed for divorce from
- 18:53Speaker 1: Angela the previous month. He had not. He told her
- 18:58Speaker 1: that his wife had a history of harming herself. and
- 19:01Speaker 1: that she had previously taken medications from his dental practice
- 19:04Speaker 1: in order to do so. There was no proof that
- 19:07Speaker 1: she had done anything of the sort. As James kept
- 19:10Speaker 1: Karen in the loop with updates relating to Angela's declining health,
- 19:14Speaker 1: he also implied that his wife was behind it all.
- 19:18Speaker 1: She was depressed, perhaps, over the pending divorce. These claims
- 19:23Speaker 1: formed the foundation of James Craig's story, that his wife
- 19:27Speaker 1: was poisoning herself.
- 19:30Speaker 2: Explain that to me more, though, that she got drugs
- 19:33Speaker 2: from his office? Like, he got her drugs from the office?
- 19:37Speaker 16: No, he said when she had attempted in the past
- 19:40Speaker 16: that he would have to figure out what it was
- 19:43Speaker 16: that she took so that he could reverse it.
- 19:48Speaker 4: And I was like well where.
- 19:50Speaker 6: Would she get this stuff and he said well she
- 19:54Speaker 6: had taken stuff she used to work at his practice
- 19:57Speaker 6: I guess and she had taken stuff out of the safe.
- 20:01Speaker 5: Or I don't know how they store and then practiced
- 20:05Speaker 5: it he's never told her he wants a divorce he's
- 20:09Speaker 5: never told her.
- 20:10Speaker 2: There's no talk of him moving out with the kids.
- 20:13Speaker 2: She has no idea anything about a divorce. He's purchased poisons,
- 20:20Speaker 2: and she's now dead because of poisons. A lot of
- 20:24Speaker 2: the things he's told you, assuming you've told me the truth,
- 20:29Speaker 2: are all nonsense. All right. You got my card if
- 20:33Speaker 2: you think of anything or you got any questions?
- 20:35Speaker 3: Nobody.
- 20:36Speaker 6: I mean, because he told me he had specifically requested
- 20:38Speaker 6: a tox screening on her because of his concern.
- 20:41Speaker 2: It's because he knew that the poisons he used wouldn't
- 20:46Speaker 2: show up.
- 20:48Speaker 6: You're suspecting cyanide and cyanide doesn't.
- 20:50Speaker 2: Show up on that. I'm suspecting arsenic. I'm suspecting cyanide.
- 20:54Speaker 4: A tox screening?
- 20:56Speaker 2: We've got all of his search history for Google. on
- 21:01Speaker 2: planning this whole thing out.
- 21:06Speaker 1: It was not only James' 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 Olson 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 4,000 text messages. These included passionate
- 21:27Speaker 1: and poetic messages from James, such as, I want to
- 21:31Speaker 1: forever breathe in the influence of your sweet perfume. And
- 21:35Speaker 1: the short version is that I love you. Soñar conmigo,
- 21:39Speaker 1: my eternal love. And may heaven let us bloom together forever.
- 21:43Speaker 1: James also texted Karen extensively about Angela.
- 21:49Speaker 2: And then he's telling you she's not feeling well.
- 21:52Speaker 11: And then he texted me from work. We were just
- 21:56Speaker 11: texting back and forth at work. And he was like, hey,
- 21:58Speaker 11: super important aside. The kid said Ange wasn't feeling well
- 22:02Speaker 11: and went to lie down. I couldn't get her to respond.
- 22:04Speaker 11: She said she felt dizzy and has blurred vision. I
- 22:06Speaker 11: came home and been doing homeschool with the girls, but
- 22:08Speaker 11: she looked super pale. I'm going to take her to
- 22:10Speaker 11: urgent care. She had some pre-workout drink this morning and
- 22:13Speaker 11: rode her bike hard for about a half hour. I
- 22:15Speaker 11: thought maybe she was just tired, but this is something more.
- 22:18Speaker 17: Just FYI.
- 22:25Speaker 3: And then at one point he says, are you thinking
- 22:26Speaker 3: what I'm thinking about this situation?
- 22:28Speaker 7: And....
- 22:30Speaker 11: I, I thought maybe she was faking it because she was,
- 22:35Speaker 11: you know, trying to reach out, whatever. So, uh, when
- 22:42Speaker 11: you say, so I replied, well, when you say that
- 22:45Speaker 11: you're seeing her pale and like that really quiet to
- 22:47Speaker 11: the waist of my head, he said, I don't think
- 22:48Speaker 11: we're thinking the same thing.
- 22:50Speaker 3: I think she tried to hurt herself.
- 22:51Speaker 11: I said, Oh no, I wasn't thinking that, but I'd
- 22:54Speaker 11: Did think that initially, but maybe something made me move
- 22:57Speaker 11: away from that thought.
- 22:58Speaker 3: Are they doing toxicology? I said, I can't think of
- 23:01Speaker 3: what she may have done that would result in these
- 23:04Speaker 3: kinds of symptoms.
- 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 3: He said, feelings. I'm divorcing a woman who's the mother
- 23:21Speaker 3: of my children who seems to be trying her hardest
- 23:22Speaker 3: to die. She said, it's making me feel super, super guilty.
- 23:31Speaker 3: And then he sent me that she had crashed and
- 23:35Speaker 3: they had intubated her and.
- 23:37Speaker 4: That her blood pressure was really low.
- 23:38Speaker 3: 3 p.m.
- 23:41Speaker 2: The picture?
- 23:41Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
- 23:44Speaker 1: It was roughly 3 p.m. 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 brain activity. 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 news.
- 24:11Speaker 1: Twenty minutes later, however, he messaged Karen again. Whatcha doing tonight?
- 24:16Speaker 2: 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: a 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 Craig home showed James regularly fixing shakes
- 25:06Speaker 1: for Angela. The container he used with the pink lid
- 25:10Speaker 1: would later test positive for tetrahydrozoline, the main ingredient in visine.
- 25:16Speaker 1: What these cameras also revealed, at least initially in the
- 25:19Speaker 1: days before Angela's illness, was what appeared to be a
- 25:23Speaker 1: happy marriage. James and Angela were frequently captured embracing, chatting
- 25:28Speaker 1: and joking around, kissing and exchanging I love you's. On
- 25:32Speaker 1: the morning of February 27th, the same day that James
- 25:36Speaker 1: would create a new Google account and begin to plot
- 25:39Speaker 1: to kill his wife, the two were captured in a
- 25:41Speaker 1: loving and casual exchange, the type one would expect from
- 25:45Speaker 1: a happy husband and wife.
- 25:49Speaker 7: Moments later, Angela took a sip of her morning shake.
- 26:12Speaker 1: The kitchen camera caught more than James' 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.
- 26:29Speaker 3: They treated me like I was a suicide risk, like
- 26:32Speaker 3: I did it to myself. And like nothing I said
- 26:35Speaker 3: could be believed.
- 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
- 27:02Speaker 1: earlier in which James had admitted to drugging Angela. His
- 27:07Speaker 1: aim at that time, he claimed, was to harm himself.
- 27:11Speaker 1: He drugged his wife so she would not awake and
- 27:13Speaker 1: stop him. There was no way to verify or disprove
- 27:17Speaker 1: that assertion. Angela's own search history showed that she was
- 27:21Speaker 1: desperate to sort out what was wrong with her. Day
- 27:24Speaker 1: after day, she googled her symptoms as they worsened. She
- 27:28Speaker 1: may have suspected her husband was behind her illness, but
- 27:31Speaker 1: she certainly did not know it for a fact. On
- 27:37Speaker 1: March 15th, the day she checked into University Hospital, James
- 27:41Speaker 1: promptly arrived to pay her a visit. An hour and
- 27:45Speaker 1: a half later, he was captured returning to her room
- 27:48Speaker 1: with a bag of food. That was at roughly 1.30pm.
- 27:52Speaker 1: 20 minutes after that, he emerged from the restroom on
- 27:55Speaker 1: the other side of the nurse's station. A small object
- 27:59Speaker 1: is visible in his hand. Investigators believe it was a syringe,
- 28:03Speaker 1: likely filled with cyanide. At 2.20, he re-entered Angela's room
- 28:10Speaker 1: once again. This time, he is with his wife for
- 28:13Speaker 1: less than a minute before he re-emerged to tell nurses
- 28:17Speaker 1: that she was experiencing pain in her arm. Angela crashed
- 28:21Speaker 1: moments later. James was held without bond awaiting trial for
- 28:32Speaker 1: first-degree murder. he maintained that Angela had schemed to make
- 28:36Speaker 1: herself ill. He told cellmates in the county jail that
- 28:40Speaker 1: there was proof of poison containers in his home with
- 28:43Speaker 1: her fingerprints all over them. Somehow, suspiciously in his opinion,
- 28:48Speaker 1: these pieces of evidence that would exonerate him or at
- 28:51Speaker 1: least support his defense were never turned over by police
- 28:55Speaker 1: after they searched his house. The truth, according to James Craig,
- 29:01Speaker 1: was that his wife asked him to order the poisons.
- 29:04Speaker 1: It was her plan, not his. He blamed Detective Olson
- 29:08Speaker 1: for framing him. So, James believed that he had no
- 29:13Speaker 1: choice but to create the evidence that was lacking, and
- 29:17Speaker 1: to order a hit on the detective. A cellmate of
- 29:22Speaker 1: James Craig's named Nathaniel Harris came to law enforcement with
- 29:26Speaker 1: a bizarre series of allegations against the dentist. He claimed
- 29:30Speaker 1: that he had gained James' trust while they served time together.
- 29:35Speaker 1: At first, Nathaniel claimed that James asked him to find
- 29:38Speaker 1: witnesses who could testify that they knew James' late wife
- 29:42Speaker 1: and that she had confided her plans to them. He
- 29:45Speaker 1: offered to pay. James also requested that the fake witnesses
- 29:49Speaker 1: use Photoshop or a similar program to create photos of
- 29:53Speaker 1: them with Angela. to support claims that they were old
- 29:56Speaker 1: friends and confidants with whom Angela would share her deepest secrets.
- 30:01Speaker 7: Some of my gang tattoos from prison, and he was
- 30:04Speaker 7: asking me questions about those. That sparked off, do I
- 30:10Speaker 7: know anybody that would be willing to lie for him,
- 30:13Speaker 7: to be a corroborate, a witness? I told him that
- 30:16Speaker 7: I was going to my ex-wife, and my ex-wife and
- 30:18Speaker 7: her sister would be more than willing to do that.
- 30:20Speaker 7: And he said that there'd be a blank check that
- 30:23Speaker 7: halfway through, Once they had convinced Harvey, his lawyer, that
- 30:29Speaker 7: there were legitimate witnesses, that he would pay them both $ 20, 000,
- 30:34Speaker 7: or $ 10, 000, half of it, $ 10, 000 at the beginning, and
- 30:37Speaker 7: then $ 10, 000 later down the line.
- 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 Olson 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 ex-cellmate 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 7: And He had told me the whole story about how
- 31:22Speaker 7: he had basically done the same exact thing that he
- 31:25Speaker 7: was doing with me and my ex-wife. And that guy
- 31:28Speaker 7: had turned around and turned him in.
- 31:30Speaker 4: And why did he want to kill Rodney? For turning
- 31:33Speaker 4: him in. And somehow his daughter was involved in it.
- 31:36Speaker 7: I'm not sure. I can't remember. There was so much
- 31:38Speaker 7: information so fast. When you say his daughter, James?
- 31:42Speaker 4: James' daughter. Yeah, Jimmy.
- 31:43Speaker 2: What do you call him? Jimmy.
- 31:45Speaker 4: I call him Jimmy.
- 31:45Speaker 7: Jimmy. Yeah, his daughter.
- 31:47Speaker 4: Jimmy's daughter, not Ron.
- 31:48Speaker 7: Yeah, Jimmy's daughter was involved and had gotten a class
- 31:51Speaker 7: six felony, I think he said, or was it him
- 31:53Speaker 7: that got a class six felony? I can't remember which one,
- 31:56Speaker 7: but I know his daughter was implicated and he said
- 31:58Speaker 7: he was going to have to take the fall 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
- 32:21Speaker 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' daughter went to the police with the letter.
- 32:42Speaker 7: I've been around killers for the last 20 years in prison.
- 32:46Speaker 7: And I can tell by just talking to somebody. There's
- 32:50Speaker 7: a distinct trait that people that are sadistic and murderous carry.
- 32:58Speaker 7: That's what intrigued me to even talk to him. But
- 33:02Speaker 7: he swore up and he was so happy all the time.
- 33:05Speaker 4: All the time, right?
- 33:06Speaker 7: And it was like, oh, he didn't do it. He's
- 33:07Speaker 7: not even worried about anything. And I'm like, no, he is.
- 33:11Speaker 7: That's one of those traits. So I knew from the
- 33:15Speaker 7: 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-hire plots. He was
- 33:24Speaker 1: serving time for auto theft and wanted no part in
- 33:27Speaker 1: a life sentence for murder. For this reason, he took
- 33:30Speaker 1: note of what James had told him, that he wanted
- 33:33Speaker 1: a now-retired deputy hit by a car. Detective Olson shot.
- 33:38Speaker 1: and his ex-cellmate killed. He did not care how.
- 33:42Speaker 7: A deputy that he said was just horrible to him
- 33:47Speaker 7: the whole time he was in medical. And that was
- 33:54Speaker 7: the guy that was next.
- 33:55Speaker 11: On the list.
- 33:56Speaker 4: So that was the one, so it's actually that ACSO. Yes.
- 34:00Speaker 7: He said that he had retired, but he had his
- 34:04Speaker 7: known whereabouts and wanted... First, he wanted somebody to take
- 34:08Speaker 7: pictures of his son getting on and off the school bus.
- 34:13Speaker 4: He wanted to torture him a little bit.
- 34:15Speaker 7: Then he said he wanted him hit.
- 34:16Speaker 4: By a car. Okay, and then what other targets did
- 34:20Speaker 4: he talk about?
- 34:21Speaker 11: Bobby Olson.
- 34:22Speaker 4: And why did he want to kill Bobby Olson?
- 34:24Speaker 7: He said that she had stacked the deck against him
- 34:27Speaker 7: and planted evidence in his case. Okay, and did he
- 34:30Speaker 7: talk about how he wanted to do that?
- 34:32Speaker 4: He told me he wanted her shot.
- 34:38Speaker 1: Opening statements in James Craig's murder trial began on July 15th, 2025.
- 34:44Speaker 1: The prosecution introduced jurors to the video of James making
- 34:48Speaker 1: his wife shakes in a container that tested positive for
- 34:52Speaker 1: one of the poisons that killed her. They showed him
- 34:54Speaker 1: entering her hospital room with an object resembling a syringe
- 34:58Speaker 1: moments before her seizure. And they showed his messages with
- 35:03Speaker 1: Karen Kane, his promises to love her forever. and insisting
- 35:08Speaker 1: that they belong together. The state also showed other correspondence.
- 35:12Speaker 1: Karen was not the only woman James had been involved
- 35:15Speaker 1: with in late February and early March of 2023. Before
- 35:20Speaker 1: his trip to Las Vegas, James began messaging two other
- 35:24Speaker 1: women that he connected with through Seeking.com. The dentist's profile
- 35:29Speaker 1: on 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 17: Karen Kane was different, on at least the surface, right?
- 36:24Speaker 17: He didn't meet her on Seeking.com. There's no financial arrangements
- 36:29Speaker 17: to their relationship. And perhaps most importantly, she's not going
- 36:34Speaker 17: to sleep with him if he is still actively married
- 36:38Speaker 17: to Angela, actively living at home as husband and wife.
- 36:43Speaker 17: Three major differences between Karen Kane and the Seeking.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 $ 4 million. The defense focused in
- 37:35Speaker 1: on a diary of Angela's in which she recorded emotional struggles.
- 37:39Speaker 1: Its last entry was from five years before her death.
- 37:45Speaker 12: This was about a family who looking in Angela and Dr.
- 37:50Speaker 12: Craig looked happily married. There were no problems. Angela's mental
- 37:56Speaker 12: health seemed fine.
- 37:58Speaker 11: Dr.
- 37:58Speaker 12: Craig's mental health seemed fine. In that journal, though, you
- 38:04Speaker 12: will see the struggles that Angela was having, right? Where
- 38:07Speaker 12: she's talking about being isolated, where she's talking about the
- 38:10Speaker 12: struggles of her relationship.
- 38:13Speaker 4: Dr.
- 38:13Speaker 12: Craig's cheating and infidelity broke her. That Ryan Redford calls
- 38:19Speaker 12: and is talking about the things happening at the dental office, right?
- 38:25Speaker 12: That there was a package delivered and that that package
- 38:28Speaker 12: contained cyanide. It was over for law enforcement, right? They
- 38:32Speaker 12: had tunnel vision.
- 38:34Speaker 1: James Craig's defense relied on a timeline written out in
- 38:38Speaker 1: notes on his phone in the early morning of March 16th,
- 38:42Speaker 1: the day Angela was declared brain dead.
- 38:47Speaker 5: And there's basically a straight up written, here's everything that
- 38:53Speaker 5: happened from my iPhone that I wrote the night before
- 38:56Speaker 5: you took my phone. I wanted to sit down and
- 38:58Speaker 5: figure out the timeline so that I could remember exactly.
- 39:00Speaker 4: What happened and 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. After
- 39:34Speaker 1: several hours of deliberations over two days, the jury returned
- 39:38Speaker 1: with its verdict.
- 39:40Speaker 4: That's the verdict form, count one, murder in the first degree.
- 39:44Speaker 16: We, the jury, unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt, find
- 39:48Speaker 16: the defendant, James Craig.
- 39:49Speaker 17: Guilty.
- 39:56Speaker 1: Amongst those that spoke at the sentencing was James and
- 39:59Speaker 1: Angela's eldest daughter.
- 40:03Speaker 7: James Craig was sentenced to life in prison without the
- 40:11Speaker 7: possibility of parole.
- 40:20Speaker 1: Arapahoe County District Judge Shea Whitaker imposed the mandatory life
- 40:25Speaker 1: sentence for the murder charge, adding a consecutive 33 years
- 40:30Speaker 1: for the additional counts.
- 40:32Speaker 14: Clearly, Craig wanted out of his marriage, but was unwilling
- 40:36Speaker 14: to face the consequences of divorce, especially a divorce initiated
- 40:40Speaker 14: by him. He gave in to greed and cowardice, ultimately
- 40:45Speaker 14: treating Angela as an object, an obstacle to the life
- 40:48Speaker 14: he wanted.
- 40:54Speaker 1: And that was the tragic case of Angela Craig. Thank
- 40:58Speaker 1: you for joining me, and a special thanks this week
- 41:01Speaker 1: to Victoria Wilkinson, Hope Ford, Nicole Bucciarelli, Joanna Kelly, and
- 41:06Speaker 1: Nikkel for joining our Sherlock Holmes membership. Welcome to the
- 41:11Speaker 1: Members Lounge. I'm Kevin, this is Just Thought Lounge, and
- 41:15Speaker 1: I'll see you in the next one.
- 41:20Speaker 4: Got to be selective.
- 41:21Speaker 8: Doing all the research.
- 41:22Speaker 11: Keeping it objective.
- 41:23Speaker 16: Always been effective.
- 41:24Speaker 8: Can say he got a neck.
- 41:25Speaker 16: Pick it a litter.
- 41:26Speaker 1: You see how Newton got his back.
- 41:28Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 41:28Speaker 4: The content that you need.
- 41:29Speaker 3: This could be a new sign.
- 41:30Speaker 4: We talk in the comments. They jot in a few lines.
- 41:33Speaker 4: Tune in and hit like. Love that.
- 41:34Speaker 2: It's too kind.
- 41:35Speaker 4: Feels like the.
- 41:36Speaker 12: Whole world is online for true crime.
- 41:38Speaker 2: Watch him on the run, but it's not a race.
- 41:40Speaker 4: Really hard to disappear.
- 41:41Speaker 3: Proof without a trace.
- 41:42Speaker 12: Sherlock Holmes with it. I put you in your place.
- 41:43Speaker 4: Got my smoking pipe.
- 41:44Speaker 10: Only right.
- 41:44Speaker 14: I crack another case like.