The Poisoning of Angela Craig

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Speaker 4 This is a story that has obviously shaken Colorado. It's stunned the world.

Speaker 5 A Colorado dentist accused of poisoning his wife's protein shakes was charged today with her murder.

Speaker 4 You have got to be effing kidding me. That guy was my dentist.
Hi, I'm Dr. Jim Craig.

Speaker 6 You just don't see stories like this.

Speaker 4 Maybe in a Hollywood bad script.

Speaker 7 45-year-old James Craig is accused of putting arsenic and cyanide in her protein shakes.

Speaker 4 He's allegedly ordering potassium cyanide and arsenic. Online, you have got to be kidding me.

Speaker 4 Jim and Angela Craig seemingly had everything. Successful dental practice, beautiful large family.
They seemingly to me were in love.

Speaker 7 Investigators say he researched poisons in the days leading up to his wife's death.

Speaker 4 I couldn't believe the allegations. I couldn't believe the story.
I couldn't believe the mug shot. There's my dentist, a mug shot.
Good afternoon, Colorado. I'm Stephan Tubbs.

Speaker 4 I'm a talk show host here in Denver. Late-breaking news this afternoon.
I was told by several people, you got to do a podcast on this. People want to know.

Speaker 4 So we started a podcast called Arsenic DDS. Welcome to the first episode of this series.
I'd like the truth. Another new development.
I'd like to know why.

Speaker 4 Jim Craig is an innocent man until proven guilty. If the allegations are true, why did my former dentist kill his wife?

Speaker 10 Her symptoms, dizziness, blurred vision, headache, slowed responsiveness. What does that tell you?

Speaker 11 Yeah, that's really worrisome.

Speaker 11 I'm Dr. Jeff Lapointe.
I'm an emergency physician and toxicologist.

Speaker 11 Arsenic will be absorbed very rapidly and you would probably start getting sick pretty quick.

Speaker 10 What about potassium cyanide?

Speaker 11 Cyanide is one of the most effective poisons. You're being suffocated on a cellular level.

Speaker 4 Angela Craig is getting sicker and sicker and sicker and sicker.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 she'd quickly

Speaker 4 be declared brain dead.

Speaker 4 Dr. Jim Craig is accused of premeditated first-degree murder in the poisoning death of his wife, Angela.

Speaker 13 There does seem like there's substantial evidence in the case. The arrest warrant was 52 pages long.
I'm Sky Lazaro. I'm a criminal defense lawyer.
The spouse is a very easy target.

Speaker 4 He's entered a plea of not guilty.

Speaker 13 Maybe he's the most convenient person to look at. If I'm the defense on this, you go after the state and you say, you didn't go look at things you should have looked at.

Speaker 4 He administered allegedly the poison via her protein shakes.

Speaker 13 The state hasn't presented you any evidence that the poison was actually in the drink. You can't show that he did it.

Speaker 4 I wouldn't say this is a slam dunk case. There's no motive here.
What is the motive?

Speaker 4 Natalie Morales reports who poisoned Angela Craig.

Speaker 16 Under that vast rocky mountain sky on March 18, 2023, in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Angela Craig died.

Speaker 23 Just days later, former radio personality Stephen Tubbs began his podcast about the sensational case and the unimaginable news.

Speaker 4 I want to personally send our condolences to the friends and family of Angela Craig. Just 43 years old, she passed away, declared brain dead.

Speaker 4 And not lost on me is the fact that this family has been temporarily destroyed.

Speaker 27 Jim Craig had been almost immediately charged with the first-degree murder of his wife, Angela.

Speaker 20 He has pleaded not guilty.

Speaker 16 The story of the dentist, his wife, and the allegedly poisoned shakes would be told around the world.

Speaker 4 Come on. A dentist.

Speaker 4 Allegedly ordering potassium cyanide and arsenic.

Speaker 4 Really?

Speaker 26 But it was all as painfully real as a dentist's drill.

Speaker 31 Dr. Craig and Angela Craig were just like two peas in a pod.
The two of them in the office was cute because they would play pranks on each other all day long.

Speaker 15 Chelsea Otoya got to know Jim and Angela when she worked for Dr.

Speaker 18 Craig at Summerbrook Dental.

Speaker 31 They seemed like the perfect couple.

Speaker 14 Until, according according to Colorado cops, James took a shot at the perfect crime.

Speaker 7 Investigators say he researched poisons in the days leading up to his wife's death.

Speaker 29 The idea that the dentist stood accused of murdering Angela, his wife of 23 years, seemed incomprehensible because the Craigs seemed so close.

Speaker 31 It just was heartbreaking. for everyone and I felt bad.

Speaker 35 My name is Dr. Jim Craig and I practice at Summerbrook Dental Group.

Speaker 4 Coming up on our left, the former home of Summerbrook Dental. Is it this one over here? It's that one right there.

Speaker 20 For Tubbs, this office building, once home to Summerbrook, has become a tragic touchstone.

Speaker 4 The last time that I had eye contact with Dr. Jim Craig, he gave me a root canal.

Speaker 4 I thought he was a great guy. I got incredibly competent, friendly care.

Speaker 4 He was a family man. We talked about his family, his kids.
I met his wife.

Speaker 20 Angela was the heart and soul of that family, mother to their six children, and a hands-on partner in what seemed like a thriving business.

Speaker 4 She was not somebody just to sit there and stay quiet. She was engaged in the dental practice.
She was somebody who was talking about ideas and their marketing, their message.

Speaker 18 Tubbs helped refine that message, working on some of Summerbrook's advertising.

Speaker 23 He witnessed how those two peas in a pod work side by side with Angela pitching in as one of Jim's office managers.

Speaker 4 I thought it was kind of cool. You know, you've got a husband and wife, huge family.
I thought it was

Speaker 4 great to see a small Colorado business operated by, you know, husband and wife.

Speaker 4 Welcome to our third edition of this podcast.

Speaker 20 Tubbs podcast would delve into the disturbing details of Angela's medical journey, how and why she was allegedly murdered. That account from police is contained in this 52-page arrest warrant.

Speaker 4 In nearly 34 years of being a newsman, the most unbelievable and seemingly thorough arrest affidavit I have ever read.

Speaker 30 The warrant alleges that James has shown the planning and intent to end his wife's life by searching for ways to kill someone undetected.

Speaker 4 This was not the James Craig that I knew.

Speaker 35 Dentistry can be expensive. Dentistry can be scary.
Dentistry can be uncomfortable.

Speaker 15 The James Craig Aurora knew was on display that March 6, 2023, the day Angela's odyssey began.

Speaker 18 Jim was at Summerbrook when Angela texted from home.

Speaker 30 My eyes don't want to focus, she texted.

Speaker 34 I feel drugged.

Speaker 41 And Jim headed right home.

Speaker 30 He picked up Angela and drove to the ER at Parker Adventist Hospital.

Speaker 36 She reported feeling dizzy and weak.

Speaker 15 Doctors fast went to work.

Speaker 10 She ends up going into the hospital. First time was March 6th.
Is that correct?

Speaker 6 That's right. March 6th was her first time into the hospital.

Speaker 19 At the time, George Brockler was another force in Colorado Talk Radio.

Speaker 6 This is the George Show I'll be with you.

Speaker 20 He's also the former elected district attorney for Arapahoe County, where Angela lived and would die, rattling this community.

Speaker 6 This is a huge story.

Speaker 23 Like Stephan Tubbs, Brockler has immersed himself in the details of Angela's final days, a desperate two-week ordeal.

Speaker 44 But on that March 6th, as the hours passed in the ER, there were lots of questions, but few answers.

Speaker 6 They really didn't have a good answer for what she was going through, and they end up releasing her and sending her home.

Speaker 27 Home, where Angela appeared to think she was safe in her marriage.

Speaker 22 At least that's how she sounded in messages the couple sent each other, with Angela now home recuperating from her ER visit.

Speaker 6 There were texts that would suggest a very supportive loving relationship.

Speaker 40 Jim texts, I love you.

Speaker 20 It was so nice hanging out with you and just watching a show and snuggling. Angela texts Jim, hi baby.
I love your face.

Speaker 20 Back home, the busy couple picked up the daily routine that sustained them.

Speaker 6 Jim and Angela apparently worked out in the morning. They worked out together.
And one of the things that Jim did for his wife was to prepare her a protein shake. It was an absolute routine.

Speaker 6 This was just part of the normal day.

Speaker 29 Jim texts, I'll need to ask what you're hungry for and bring it to you.

Speaker 28 I'm kind of feeling just a smoothie or something.

Speaker 47 I'm not feeling anything, Angela replies.

Speaker 20 Don't bring anything.

Speaker 28 I'll eat something here.

Speaker 20 Within 24 hours, Angela's symptoms came back fast and strong.

Speaker 27 She headed back to Parker Adventist.

Speaker 48 This time, she would be admitted.

Speaker 4 The doctors and nurses are trying. They're conducting tests.
They just cannot figure out what is ailing this relatively normal and healthy 43-year-old woman.

Speaker 6 All of the steps that the doctors and medical staff had taken seemed to not be working.

Speaker 6 It was a real mystery.

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Speaker 4 There was nothing that would be even remotely a red flag, or this is a rocky, troubled marriage, none of that at all.

Speaker 14 With Angela still terribly sick in March of 2023, she was back at Parker Adventist a second time, now as an admitted patient.

Speaker 20 According to the warrant, during her stay, Angela texted her husband Jim, now I'm hungry.

Speaker 27 And he texted back later that he was bringing food, writing, okay, I got you.

Speaker 6 Well, if the loving husband who wants to see his wife remain healthy.

Speaker 23 That arrest warrant contains numerous texts detailing how as Angela was hospitalized, Jim went back and forth from their home to her bedside to Summerbrook.

Speaker 36 A husband seemingly supporting his wife and caring for their kids.

Speaker 4 He's continuing to go to work and I don't begrudge him for that. He's got a family of six kids.

Speaker 52 And the warrant would show that apparent trust that Angela placed in Jim, how she reached out to him to share her symptoms, texting, I'm cold, super tired, weak, shaky, and dizzy.

Speaker 40 And Jim sent compassionate texts to Angela: I love you and miss you, and I'm so worried.

Speaker 20 I wish you were healthy enough to come home tonight and snuggle me.

Speaker 4 Angela Craig was so sick.

Speaker 22 It seemed that all her symptoms had returned.

Speaker 4 She had horrible headaches, horrible nausea.

Speaker 4 She was dizzy, and doctors were at a loss.

Speaker 6 They were struggling to figure out what in the hell is causing this. What is making her sick?

Speaker 4 And they just could not get an answer.

Speaker 20 As Angela stayed in the hospital without a diagnosis, Jim Craig was in touch with his friends Michelle and Ryan Redfern, a fellow dentist.

Speaker 24 Ryan had recently become business partners with Jim, he would later tell police.

Speaker 6 Ryan Redfern went to dental school with Jim Craig all those 20-plus years ago. He'd known him all that time.
He was a close confidant.

Speaker 20 And with Angela so sick, according to the warrant, Jim also texted with Ryan's wife, Michelle Redfern, trained as a nurse.

Speaker 10 What were they texting about?

Speaker 6 The texts were really the kinds of things you would exchange with someone who's another medical professional. I mean, he was talking about blood pressure.

Speaker 6 He was talking about concerns the doctors had expressed about symptomology that should have resolved by now.

Speaker 27 But one of Jim's texts in retrospect seemed odd as it appeared he was making light of Angela's mysterious illness.

Speaker 4 Jim Craig texts Michelle Redfern, quote: If it wasn't my wife, this would be kind of a fun puzzle to try to work out.

Speaker 4 Exclamation point.

Speaker 4 Who says that?

Speaker 20 Still, a bad joke in times of crisis isn't unusual, says former D.A.

Speaker 18 Brockler.

Speaker 6 Everybody reacts to trauma differently.

Speaker 46 And James Craig seemed worried.

Speaker 36 It had been four hectic days since Angela was admitted.

Speaker 18 1 a.m. in the desolate hospital corridors.

Speaker 20 Police say Jim told others he was sleeping on a stool next to Angela when her vital signs crashed.

Speaker 39 Doctors responded through the night.

Speaker 4 I have thought about every agonizing minute that Angela Craig was in.

Speaker 20 But over the next day, Angela seemed to stabilize.

Speaker 14 And on March 14th, still with no answers as to why she was sick, Angela was released from Parker for a second time.

Speaker 17 Once again, Angela came home to her husband of 23 years.

Speaker 24 But she wouldn't be home for long.

Speaker 20 Within a day, she started feeling sick again.

Speaker 20 So on March 15th, she was admitted to nearby University Hospital.

Speaker 40 There would be more tubes and tests and monitors.

Speaker 20 Jim was soon by her side.

Speaker 4 They had no idea what was wrong with her.

Speaker 50 Police say Jim didn't stay long at first.

Speaker 48 Within half an hour, he drove home from the hospital.

Speaker 29 Then, about an hour and a half later, he returned carrying food.

Speaker 24 Cops say he then went into Angela's room alone.

Speaker 20 Soon after, Angela had a seizure, and once again, her vital signs crashed.

Speaker 6 It was critical.

Speaker 38 Jim Craig took these photos of Angela as hospital staff tried to save her.

Speaker 38 Angela, once so full of life, was put on life support.

Speaker 20 What medical staff didn't know at the time was that days earlier, a package had reportedly arrived at Jim Craig's office.

Speaker 14 Authorities say what was in the package, ordered by Jim Craig himself, would become key evidence in this case.

Speaker 30 Craig allegedly told a staff member that he would be receiving a personal package and not to open it.

Speaker 4 Jim Craig had said, Don't open this package. Somebody did.
She sees the words potassium cyanide.

Speaker 4 Why are we getting potassium cyanide to a Colorado dentist's office?

Speaker 36 Angela Craig was on life support,

Speaker 20 fighting to survive.

Speaker 22 Jim Craig texted the photos he took to Michelle Redfern, writing, crash intubated.

Speaker 44 Doc says she's very, very worried.

Speaker 24 Michelle and Ryan raced to the hospital.

Speaker 14 Ryan would later tell police he watched as Jim Craig broke down.

Speaker 10 He saw Craig crying after speaking to doctors about Angela's prognosis.

Speaker 6 Yep, he did say he saw him crying afterwards.

Speaker 20 But according to police, Ryan Redfern was far from convinced those tears were real.

Speaker 42 That's because on his way to the hospital, he had gotten a call from a staff member at the office.

Speaker 20 The call was to alert Redfern about that package marked potassium cyanide that had arrived at Summerbrook Dental, allegedly addressed and later given to Jim Craig.

Speaker 4 And there's the dominoes that are now falling one after the other.

Speaker 54 Ryan Redfern led the way.

Speaker 6 He does what any other normal person would do.

Speaker 8 According to police, while Angela was on life support, Ryan tells a nurse that Jim Craig recently ordered potassium cyanide, adding that there was no medical reason or purpose to order potassium cyanide for a dental practice.

Speaker 4 The nurse, being a mandatory reporter, calls Aurora police. And I mean, it's like that.

Speaker 4 Within five hours, probably even less, there is a member of the homicide unit with Aurora PD at University Hospital.

Speaker 23 Cops started asking questions.

Speaker 52 Then according to the warrant, Ryan received a call from James' personal cell phone.

Speaker 10 Tell me about that phone call.

Speaker 6 I think Ryan and his wife are in the parking lot of the hospital when Jim calls them.

Speaker 42 According to police, Jim asked Ryan if he had said anything to the hospital staff.

Speaker 51 Ryan confirmed that he had and told Jim that he knew what Jim had ordered.

Speaker 21 And Jim replied that the package was a ring for Angela and that he wanted to surprise her.

Speaker 6 And Ryan says, it's not a ring. We know what was in there.
I mean, this is a testament to Ryan Redford.

Speaker 43 A decades-long friendship was about to be tested, then shattered.

Speaker 24 This tale was once again told in a text revealed in that warrant.

Speaker 23 As the next morning, James Craig pleaded with his pal and partner, texting in part, I want to make an urgent plea to you.

Speaker 54 Please don't talk to anyone, including any law enforcement officers.

Speaker 25 You are under no obligation to answer their questions unless you are served a subpoena and you will do more damage than good to my family by continuing to insert yourself into this.

Speaker 10 How damning is that text in itself?

Speaker 6 I'm trying to think of all the innocent applications of the phrase, please don't talk to the police. I can't come up with any.

Speaker 6 It's a desperate effort to try to keep Ryan from cooperating any farther with law enforcement.

Speaker 12 But if that's what he was trying to do, it was too late. Police had already launched their investigation.

Speaker 56 On March 18th, 2023, Angela was taken off life support.

Speaker 57 Friend, wife, mother of six, Angela Craig was dead.

Speaker 31 I

Speaker 31 was in complete shock shock and complete disbelief. In my head, I'm like, this is crazy.
It's not true.

Speaker 47 I thought

Speaker 31 maybe

Speaker 31 it was an accident.

Speaker 26 But investigators didn't think so.

Speaker 52 Just hours after Angela died, Dr.

Speaker 29 James Craig would be arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of his wife, Angela.

Speaker 4 There's my dentist, a mugshot.

Speaker 20 James Craig would plead not guilty.

Speaker 12 Months later, Angela's autopsy would be released.

Speaker 53 That autopsy states Angela died from a lethal concentration of cyanide and a lethal concentration of tetrahydrozoline, the chemical found in some eye drops.

Speaker 20 And it says that Angela had toxic concentrations of arsenic in her blood in those two earlier hospital visits.

Speaker 4 To think about what what Angela Craig

Speaker 4 endured. This woman was in agony, dying

Speaker 4 for so long.

Speaker 33 Just a week before Angela got sick, according to the warrant, Jim Craig set up a new email account using the alias Jim and Waffles and used it to research multiple poisons.

Speaker 15 all part of his plan, according to investigators, to murder Angela.

Speaker 4 One particular Google search. How many grams of pure arsenic will kill a human?

Speaker 20 Craig, investigators say, also found these videos.

Speaker 58 Popular for many reasons, we have cyanide.

Speaker 8 With titles like top five undetectable poisons that show no sign of foul play.

Speaker 58 Arsenic is virtually undetectable.

Speaker 27 And police say on the same day he did that online research, James Craig made a purchase, arsenic, and had it delivered straight to his family's mailbox.

Speaker 6 I think he legitimately believed that he would be able to poison his wife, she would die, he would have her cremated, and then they'd move on.

Speaker 50 Poison.

Speaker 59 Some call it the recipe for a perfect crime, a silent, invisible killer.

Speaker 24 No blood, no gun, no fingerprints.

Speaker 59 Even doctors can have a hard time spotting it.

Speaker 11 It's a pretty rare medical subspecialty that you do.

Speaker 20 Dr.

Speaker 48 Jeff Lapointe is the director of the Division of Medical Toxicology at San Diego's Kaiser Permanente Hospital.

Speaker 11 If it's a poison or a venom, that's what we specialize.

Speaker 10 You're that guy.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 10 So we asked him, and Dr.

Speaker 59 Lapointe focused in on the alleged actions of James Craig and the final days of Angela's life.

Speaker 29 He reviewed the arrest warrant for us and some of the deadly drugs it lists.

Speaker 10 Let's start with arsenic.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 11 Yeah, arsenic is a very famous poison. It's not detectable by taste or odor.

Speaker 23 Dr.

Speaker 20 Lapointe says Angela's symptoms in those first two hospital visits are consistent with arsenic poisoning.

Speaker 11 Nausea and vomiting.

Speaker 10 Lower blood pressure, higher blood pressure.

Speaker 11 Generally lower.

Speaker 10 How much would kill a person?

Speaker 11 Because it does not take very much.

Speaker 20 But police say there was more.

Speaker 23 A week after he purchased that arsenic, they allege Craig, as Jim and Waffles, went back online.

Speaker 20 He ordered a second poison, Beguiling and beautiful.

Speaker 10 An oleandrin, what is that?

Speaker 11 So oleandrin is a toxin found in oleander.

Speaker 10 I'm thinking of those white flowers.

Speaker 4 Yeah, they're really beautiful. Yeah.

Speaker 19 As lovely as a rose, only deadly.

Speaker 11 It prevents the heart from beating very efficiently.

Speaker 24 But after three days, the oleandrin hadn't been delivered.

Speaker 22 That's when investigators say Jim Craig upped the ante.

Speaker 28 Cops say he placed this order with a medical supply company for his strongest toxin yet, potassium cyanide.

Speaker 11 Cyanide is one of the most effective poisons that exist.

Speaker 10 Just a micro dose could kill you then.

Speaker 11 Yeah, a very small amount per kilogram and you're not going to live.

Speaker 11 When you are poisoned with cyanide, you're being suffocated on a cellular level. It's a very potent poison.
Your victim would die very rapidly.

Speaker 20 Cyanide is so deadly that you need a medical license to buy it.

Speaker 35 My name is Dr. Jim Craig.

Speaker 23 And police say that when Dr.

Speaker 48 James Craig placed his order from a medical supply company, he stated he needed it for a complex dental procedure.

Speaker 11 There's no use for potassium cyanide in my practice, or I can't think of many medical practices.

Speaker 10 So a dentist ordering arsenic, potassium cyanide, and oleandrine, what does that suggest to you?

Speaker 11 Someone is trying to collect poison.

Speaker 28 But this father and husband would offer a very different story about why he wanted those deadly poisons.

Speaker 4 What do you make of Ryan Redfern's choice? Chat now with the 48 Hours team on Facebook and X.

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Speaker 28 Detectives suspected Jim Craig had bought all those poisons to kill his wife, but they wanted to know why.

Speaker 17 They would find a lead miles away from Aurora on a trip Jim Craig made and a woman he met just before Angela got sick.

Speaker 4 Doesn't it just always seem like there's another woman involved? Always.

Speaker 4 Almost always.

Speaker 20 What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Speaker 27 It's a rule of the road there.

Speaker 51 But investigators allege it is yet one more rule James Craig didn't think he had to play by when he met Karen Kane.

Speaker 4 Karen Kane,

Speaker 4 an orthodontist from Austin, Texas, she meets Jim Craig at a dental conference in Las Vegas.

Speaker 20 It was February 23rd, a week and a half before Angela Craig first went to the hospital.

Speaker 34 The doctor was traveling alone, and he rolled the dice.

Speaker 6 They strike up a relationship.

Speaker 4 They hit it off. It's a whirlwind.

Speaker 30 A few weeks later, according to the warrant, Karen Kane would fly to Colorado and rendezvous in this hotel with James Craig.

Speaker 47 He would use that newly created email, Jim and Waffles, to flirt with her.

Speaker 13 It's not illegal to have affairs.

Speaker 20 Sky Lazaro is an experienced defense attorney familiar with cases involving poison. James Craig and his attorney declined our request for an interview.

Speaker 12 Lazaro reviewed the case against Jim Craig for 48 hours, and she identified potential weaknesses.

Speaker 13 Is it reasonable that

Speaker 13 you would kill your wife to be with someone that you had had a 10-day relationship with.

Speaker 10 The common defense strategy is affairs do not make a murderer.

Speaker 13 Right. One doesn't automatically mean you did the other.

Speaker 46 At the time she visited Jim in Colorado, Karen Kane did seem to know Angela was very sick and in the hospital.

Speaker 23 In fact, she had sent a concerned email to Jim.

Speaker 20 It read in part, Hi, honey, I am so sorry for what has transpired this week in your world.

Speaker 26 I am praying for you and seeking God's wisdom for this time.

Speaker 47 I love you.

Speaker 12 But there is no evidence to suggest Karen Kane knew anything more.

Speaker 6 Nothing that I have seen gives any indication that she knew that Jim was trying to kill his wife.

Speaker 45 And according to investigators, Jim Craig lied to Karen, telling her that he filed for divorce and was living separate in an apartment.

Speaker 4 He gives the standard male typical, I'm going through a divorce. No, he's not.

Speaker 14 And a detective said she told them her relationship with Jim was intimate, but not sexual.

Speaker 28 Karen Kane sent 48 hours an email writing, I had absolutely nothing to do with this horrific crime, and my heart is absolutely broken for Angela Craig and her family.

Speaker 43 And she says she is cooperating fully with the police and prosecution.

Speaker 4 Karen Kane met the wrong guy at the wrong time. She didn't know anything.

Speaker 27 Tubbs and Brockler imply maybe no one knew anything about who Jim Craig really was.

Speaker 20 His pristine image, loving parent, church member, dedicated husband, now all being questioned.

Speaker 19 And as cops continue to investigate, another possible motive emerged.

Speaker 4 One of the things that surprised me in

Speaker 4 this story is

Speaker 4 the financial duress that Somerbrook Dental was under.

Speaker 20 In fact, Jim Craig's business had filed for bankruptcy in 2020.

Speaker 14 Shortly after, his then friend Ryan Redfern signed on as a partner.

Speaker 17 Financial problems.

Speaker 10 Financial problems. He was way in over his head then in debt.

Speaker 6 Way in over his head.

Speaker 30 And at a preliminary hearing in 2023, prosecutors argued that Jim Craig had about 3.4 million reasons to kill his wife, the value of Angela's life insurance.

Speaker 6 Jim had liabilities in excess of $2 million. We know that from some of the bankruptcy filings.

Speaker 23 But Lazaro says she's not convinced those financial problems give James Craig a motive for murder.

Speaker 10 Is this sort of the portrait of a desperate man?

Speaker 13 Not necessarily. We see businesses go through bankruptcy all the time and come out the other side.

Speaker 22 And as for any poisons he may have ordered, Lazaro states those purchases may not even be illegal.

Speaker 13 He can legitimately purchase it because he has a DEA number.

Speaker 10 As a doctor, as a dentist, right.

Speaker 13 Right. Just having it isn't murder.

Speaker 55 Administering it. Right.

Speaker 45 But according to the arrest paperwork, Jim Craig might have thought he he had that figured out too.

Speaker 36 Authorities say he could have slipped the poison into one of those protein shakes he so often made.

Speaker 10 The morning routine at home, for example. Yeah.

Speaker 45 On that morning of March 15th, the day Angela Craig would finally crash before she was taken to the hospital, she was home with Jim.

Speaker 54 Investigators say that's when he may have made her one of those protein shakes and laced it with potassium cyanide.

Speaker 6 It is tasteless. It is odorless.
It is colorless. It is really hidable inside something like a shake.

Speaker 26 And highly lethal.

Speaker 4 Highly lethal.

Speaker 47 But attorney Lazaro counters the evidence may not be there.

Speaker 20 She has reviewed the transcripts from that July 2023 preliminary hearing. and says there's nothing there that shows Jim Craig put poison in Angela's shakes.

Speaker 13 They went and tested tested everything in the house and didn't find any trace evidence of there being arsenic or cyanide or anything in the protein powder, in the protein bottles.

Speaker 13 The state hasn't presented you any evidence that the poison was actually in the drink.

Speaker 43 And Lazaro says the defense can paint a picture of Jim Craig as a kind and attentive partner.

Speaker 13 Jim's text messages to Angela are extremely loving and extremely caring. He repeatedly asks her how she's doing.
He tells her he loves her.

Speaker 16 So if Jim Craig didn't poison his wife, who did?

Speaker 23 Craig had a story to tell about that.

Speaker 4 Go behind the scenes with the 48 Hours Postmortem Podcast.

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Speaker 32 As Stefan Tubbs reported on his podcast, there may be another story to tell about Jim Craig and what happened to Angela.

Speaker 50 The story wasn't about murder, it was about suicide.

Speaker 4 Craig says to the business partner on the phone, she was just playing chicken.

Speaker 8 According to the warrant, when Ryan Redfern confronted Jim about the cyanide, Jim allegedly said that Angela asked him to order it for her.

Speaker 38 That it was all a dare, kind of a deadly game of chicken.

Speaker 4 According to Jim Craig, she's been threatening suicide,

Speaker 4 and this game of chicken is... Now,

Speaker 4 are you going to take it?

Speaker 23 But according to that 52-page warrant, none of Angela's family members told police she was suicidal.

Speaker 39 A more likely argument for the defense, says Attorney Lazaro, is that Jim Craig had been looking for cyanide not to kill Angela, but to kill himself.

Speaker 13 There were some statements that he, in fact, was suicidal, not her.

Speaker 20 At that preliminary hearing in 2023, Jim Craig's defense team said Jim had spoken to a friend about his own past plans to die by suicide and that Dr.

Speaker 42 Craig had made a statement to that friend that he was going to die by by suicide with something that was not traceable.

Speaker 33 The defense pointed out that Jim suffered from depression and went to counseling in the past.

Speaker 29 And as the defense indicated, Jim told Angela at one point that he had actually drugged her years earlier when he had tried to kill himself, hoping that while she was drugged, she wouldn't be able to stop him.

Speaker 59 It sounds like there had been something that he had tried before with her.

Speaker 13 That he had drugged her so that she would fall asleep so that he could go essentially kill himself and she wouldn't be there to render any aid or call for help.

Speaker 22 And remember when Angela first started feeling sick and she texted Jim, I feel drugged?

Speaker 20 Craig's defense points out that he texted back, given our history, I know that must be triggering.

Speaker 25 Just for the record, I didn't drug you.

Speaker 43 The defense said this text supports the story of Jim Craig's past depression and suicide attempts.

Speaker 20 But Lizaro says it's unlikely the defense would try to tell a jury that Jim and Angela were both trying to die by suicide.

Speaker 13 You have to pick one at some point. And it's either she's suicidal or that he's suicidal and this is why he bought the drugs.

Speaker 30 But perhaps the most compelling evidence authorities say they have is what Angela Craig left behind in her own blood.

Speaker 12 That autopsy revealed something investigators find remarkable. The levels of cyanide in Angela's body actually increased while she was in the hospital on that final day.
The possible implication?

Speaker 45 Tubbs wonders if prosecutors will contend Craig gave his wife more poison in the hospital.

Speaker 4 If the allegations are true, this is about as cruel as it gets.

Speaker 2 Period.

Speaker 43 Jim Craig's defense has hired its own toxicologist.

Speaker 38 And come his trial for murder, Sky Lazaro says Jim Craig, innocent until proven guilty, may himself be portrayed as a victim of cops too eager to make a fast arrest.

Speaker 13 It's essentially a three-day investigation.

Speaker 12 Jim Craig's quick arrest, she says, could be a weakness for the state.

Speaker 13 You decided from the get-go that this had to be poisoning. This was the foregone conclusion.
So you never went and looked for anything else.

Speaker 45 And as for that idea that poison might be the key to someone trying to commit the perfect crime, toxicologist Dr.

Speaker 23 Jeff Lapointe says, that is just plain wrong.

Speaker 4 You're going to get caught.

Speaker 10 That's an important message. Yeah, very.
There are ways that these will be traced and you will be found. You'll be found.

Speaker 21 And while Angela's friends and family are waiting for their day in court, they are left with photographs and their memories.

Speaker 22 Three of Jim and Angela's six children are living with Jim Craig's brother.

Speaker 29 The other three are now adults living on their own, including their daughter Mira.

Speaker 20 On Mother's Day 2023, Mira wrote this on social media.

Speaker 25 As of tomorrow, my mom will be two months gone.

Speaker 20 I haven't the words to express the heartache my siblings and I feel every day.

Speaker 31 There's no words, you know.

Speaker 31 The whole situation is just traumatic.

Speaker 4 This will all all end. The lights will come down, the cameras leave.
30 years from now, those kids who are in their teens right now still will be without a mom.

Speaker 28 Mira's last words in that post, I love you so much, Mama.

Speaker 36 We miss you.

Speaker 63 On July 30th, 2025, a jury found James Craig guilty of murdering his wife, Angela Craig. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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