← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
He Sent His Mistress a Photo of His Dying Wife! | Dr. James Craig’s Trial Is Pure Insanity
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- [00:01]
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- [01:03]
Ashley Banfield
Hey everyone, I'm Ashley Banfield and this is drop dead serious. There is a crazy murder trial happening right now in Colorado and we have got to talk about this. Police say a dentist, yes, a dentist, killed his wife by spiking her protein drinks with poison and that when they closed in on him, he put out contracts on the investigators lives. It kind of sounds like a script right out of Hollywood. But it's not. The story of Dr. James Craig is true. He is the friendly neighborhood dentist everyone said, father of six, count him, six kids. He was a Mormon, churchgoing husband with a thriving dental practice in suburban Colorado. So when Angela Craig, his wife of 23 years, ended up in the hospital over and over and over again with a mysterious illness that nobody could diagnose, not one person suspected that her husband, Dr. Craig, was to blame. Not at first. Not at first. But then Angela died and stories started oozing out of the woodwork. Angela was just 43 years old, healthy, active mom of six. But suddenly she was just gone. Her body shut down and seemingly without any warning. The doctors couldn't explain it. They had absolutely no idea what it was that killed her. But the investigators say they know who killed her. They said it was Dr. Craig, her husband. And when police arrested him, the community was floored. One former patient posted on Facebook, quote, hold up my dentist. I've seen for 18 years. What in the world. Another person wrote, quote, this is heartbreaking. I can't believe it. He's a wonderful dentist, a wonderful human and person. And a third person wrote, omg, this is my dentist. But Angela's death didn't come out of nowhere. It turns out the first signs of what was to come started weeks earlier. So let's rewind to the beginning. James and Angela Craig lived in Aurora, Colorado. And by all accounts, it looked like Dr. James Craig had a successful dental practice. Summerbrook Dental. He and Angela were raising their six kids in a conservative religious home. But behind the scenes, things were not exactly as they appeared. Their marriage was unraveling. James had racked up a lot of debt. He'd allegedly been gambling. And according to Angela's family, Dr. Craig was involved with several different women having affairs behind Angela's back. In February of 2023, one month before Angela's death, James Craig met a Texas orthodontist named Karen Kane at a dental conference. And they started a relationship almost immediately. James told Karen that he was getting divorced and even flew her out to Colorado in March. And where was Angela while this new girlfriend was visiting Dr. Craig? In the hospital, where doctors were mystified by her illness and trying desperately to figure out what was wrong with her. Prosecutors say when it came to Dr. Craig, everything he did was part of a calculated plan to get rid of his wife. The police say as James Craig was cultivating his new relationship with this fellow dentist, he was also researching various different poisons. According to prosecutors, on February 27, 2023, Dr. James Craig created a brand new email account using a dental office computer. And that same day, he ordered arsenic from Amazon. Investigators also uncovered his Google search history, which they say included terms like how many grams of pure arsenic will kill a human? And how about this one? Top 5 undetectable poisons that show no signs of foul play. And how about this? How to make a murder look like a heart attack. Yeah, that one's not good. And how about this one? Is arsenic detectable in autopsy? That's going to be super interesting when the trial reaches that point, because I cannot wait to find out what his defense attorneys have up their sleeve. Somebody else was typing it. She was typing it. Her children were typing it. Whose fingers were doing the walking on the keyboard that typed all those extraordinarily damning searches? The arsenic that James ordered from Amazon arrived at his home on March 4, the Craig family home. And wouldn't you know it, just two days later, on March 6th, Angela was admitted to the hospital for the first time. She said she felt dizzy. She couldn't focus her eyes. She had a sluggish physical response. The doctors were absolutely stumped. And because of that, she was discharged on the Very same day, it turns out that on the morning of March 6, Angela had a protein smoothie made by her husband, James. In a text later that day, Angela told her husband, quote, I feel drugged. And this was Dr. James Craig's response. Quote, given our history, I know that must be triggering. Just for the record, I didn't drug you. Okay? That's weird. Like, that's really creepy weird. I know you're probably thinking, who says something like that? But I will say this. That really cryptic bizarro message is going to make a hell of a lot more sense in just a couple of minutes, because there's information coming that really starts putting it into context, and it is not good for Dr. Craig. So just three days after Angela first went to the hospital, she was hospitalized again on March 9th. And she stayed there for five days until March 14th. And then a pattern was starting to emerge. Both times that Angela was hospitalized, she had just knocked back something that was prepared for her by her husband. A drink. First time, it was a smoothie, and the second time, it was a protein shake. In fact, on March 10, James Craig told a family friend, quote, yesterday, the only thing she had was a protein shake in the morning when which she threw up, end quote. And then came March 13th. While Angela was still in the hospital, a package arrived at James Craig's dental practice. Police say he ordered medical supplies and that he told the supplier that the stuff in the shipment was for, quote, a complex medical procedure. But it wasn't. Inside that box was potassium cyanide. According to the investigators, they said Dr. Craig told his office manager not to open the package because it was, quote, personal. But another employee apparently didn't get the memo and opened up the package. Yo, Boop. Bad. Bad for Dr. Craig. And this employee, the police said, saw the packing slip, which said exactly what. What the box contained. Potassium cyanide. Two days after the cyanide arrived on March 15, Angela was hospitalized a third time. And three hours after she arrived at the hospital, Angela had a seizure. And then her condition rapidly declined, and she was placed on life support. And by March 18, Angela Craig was dead. That's when the business partner of Dr. Craig, a man named Ryan Redfern, told one of the nurses at the hospital about that box of potassium cyanide. And wouldn't you know it, the nurse called the cops. Natch. But later that night, Dr. James Craig made a phone call to his colleague Ryan Redfern, and asked Redfern, according to cops, if he'd said anything to the hospital staff. Redfern apparently said, yes, yes, he did, and that he knew about the package. And that's when James Craig allegedly started spinning. First denying the cyanide order and then admitting to the cyanide order, but claiming that Angela had asked him to buy it. And Redfern's response? Stop talking and get a lawyer. And soon, a full blown murder investigation was underway. And the more police uncovered, the worse it got. Dr. James Craig allegedly timed each poisoning to mimic a natural illness, According to investigators. He researched doses, he made Angela's smoothies, he warned staff not to open the packages. And all the while that his wife and mother to his six effing children lay dying. Police said he was texting his mistress, planning a brand new life. Nice. Angela's family talked to police and told them that Angela had confided in her sister before that Dr. James Craig, an elder leader in their Mormon church, was addicted to pornography and had drained their finances. Angela told her sister that the dental business, Dr. Craig's practice, was in crisis. Dr. Craig's business partner, Ryan Redfern, later told the police that James Craig had previously filed for bankruptcy and was about to do so again. And now back to that weird ass text message that Dr. Craig allegedly sent his wife, assuring her that he wasn't drugging her. It turns out, years earlier, police say Angela told her sister that her husband, Dr. Craig, once tried to kill himself and that to make sure he could go through with it, he drugged Angela to stop her from intervening in his suicide attempt. Yeah, I know. Head fully blown. It's something that makes the context of that text that he sent to Angela the cryptic one, I assure you I'm not drugging you. It makes it especially chilling. Before his arrest, Dr. James Craig told several people, including a caseworker with Child Protective Services, that Angela was having suicidal ideations right before her death. According to court documents, Dr. Craig told the caseworker that Angela had been suicidal for, quote, some time and that he believed she'd been, quote, intentionally overdosing on opioids and another unknown substance, end quote. That social worker told investigators the statements were concerning because Dr. Craig never reported the incidents, nor did he try to get her medical help. And on top of that, not one of those six kids, not one of the kids that that couple shared ever said a word about their mom having a problem. Never said that she suffered from anything like depression. It wouldn't be long before Dr. Craig was arrested and charged with first degree murder. And the Arapaho county coroner listed Angela Craig's cause of death as acute cyanide and tetra hydrozylene poisoning. The latter being an ingredient in over the counter eye drops, you know, like visine subacute. Arsenic poisoning was also listed as a contributing condition. So, yes, these are all really bad facts. Horrific facts, actually. But hold onto your hat, because it gets even worse. While sitting in a jail cell, Dr. Craig allegedly tried to cover his tracks by launching two separate schemes. One to arrange a couple of killings, like contract killings, and. And another scheme to fabricate evidence to help his defense. But let's start with the first alleged scheme. You know, the contract killings. According to the prosecutors, Dr. Craig tried to hire a fellow inmate named Nathaniel Harris to murder four people. Four. Not one, not two, not three. Effing four. And who were these people? Well, the lead detective on the case was one of them. Person named Bobby Olson. Also, there was a cop identified only as officer Hillstrand. Officer Hillstrand was on the list. And for good measure, Police say that Dr. Craig also tried to contract out the killing of two other inmates who were housed alongside of Dr. Craig in the jail's medical unit. So my, you know, mind is turning all over the place. Why the two inmates? Well, they have to do with anything. Maybe they overheard the conversation. Maybe. If prosecutors and Police are right, Dr. Craig was yammering on and hiring a fellow inmate who maybe was about to get out or had someone on the outside who could carry out the killings of these two cops. Two other inmates were in earshot, so they had to go too. Just my musings. I do not know yet. The trial's only just getting underway. Dr. Craig allegedly offered Nathaniel Harris, that other inmate, $20,000 to carry out the killings. That's a lot of money for a inmate. Even if he isn't going to get out, it's a lot of money for his family. Investigators say in a letter that they intercepted, Dr. Craig wrote this, quote, the worst, dirtiest detective in the world is on my case. Her name is Bobby Olson. We have to discredit her. In a separate effort, police say Dr. Craig contacted his fellow inmate's ex wife, a woman who goes by the name Cassie. They said he offered her a blank check, quote, unquote, blank check to create fake text messages, phone logs and photos to back up a lie that Angela had planned to take her own life. Dr. Craig allegedly wanted that story sold to the d. A. To the district attorney. But he also allegedly wanted that story sold to his own defense attorney at the time. So, yeah, the plot thickens here. You gotta stick with me because it gets confusing. That first defense attorney's name was Harvey Steinberg. And attorney Steinberg abruptly withdrew from the case In November of 2024, on the day that jury selection was supposed to begin for his trial. And that attorney, Mr. Steinberg, cited ethical concerns as the reason that he had to drop off the case. And of course, we know now that that trial was postponed at the time that he withdrew from the case. Dr. Craig's lawyer cited two rules of professional conduct. The first one states, quote, the client persists in a course of action involving the lawyer's services that the lawyer reasonably believes is criminal or fraudulent. And the second rule that he cited, the client insists upon taking action that the lawyer considers repugnant or with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement. So, I mean, pretty strong statement about what was apparently going on behind the scenes with his defense before trial. And one day after his lawyer up and said, I'm out of here, prosecutors added additional charges to this dentist's roster. Solicitation to commit first degree murder, solicitation to commit perjury, and solicitation to tamper with physical evidence. So hats off to that lawyer if when this is all said and done, we find out that somehow he saw something in discovery or he came upon some kind of communications where he said, dear God, I can't be involved in this criminal activity. I am out. Not every lawyer would. Most would, because you're going straight to prison yourself if you suborn perjury or if you represent a client that you know is doing this and you help in this defense. So Dr. James Craig, he is innocent until proven guilty. He's pleaded not guilty to all the charges, including first degree murder. And his trial officially got underway July 15, 2025. But it came after another bizarre twist that nobody saw coming after his original attorney withdrew. You know, the guy who said, ethical concerns, I'm out of here. Dr. Craig was appointed two brand new public defenders, and turns out they're a husband and wife team. And then literally within two weeks of his new trial date getting underway, one of those brand new attorneys suddenly backed out because he himself had just been arrested, and the charge was arson. That all went down on July 3rd. But that attorney's wife, remember husband and wife team, the wife stayed on. She's still representing Dr. Craig while her, you know, husband deals with some pretty big legal proceedings of his own. Here's all we know about what happened with that. That lawyer that got charged with arson. First responders apparently saw that lawyer. His name is Robert, working W e r K. I N g Robert working, sitting on his front porch as his house was burning down behind him. So the arson charge is connected to his very own home. Don't know if the husband and wife live in the home together and if they're still together, but they're not representing Dr. Craig together. So back to Dr. Craig and the twists and turns of his murder case. The trial got back on track, and in opening statements, prosecutor Ryan Brackley told jurors that Dr. James Craig was a financially troubled dentist who had been cheating on his wife for years, but, you know, didn't want to have to go through with the divorce. So instead, prosecutors say, he poisoned her. He killed her. Just got rid of her easier. According to the prosecutors, Dr. Craig laced Angela's protein shakes with arsenic and with cyanide and with tetrahydrozoline. And he gave her a final dose of cyanide, they say, in her hospital bed to make sure that he finished the job and that she died. All the while, doctors are scrambling around trying to figure out what is wrong with Angela. Prosecutors also say that Dr. Craig sent a photograph of his dying wife in her bed to his mistress. That mistress, an orthodontist. We mentioned it before. She's from Texas. Dr. Craig met her at a dental conference. For her part, she was oblivious to this whole nightmare. Police say Dr. Craig lied to her, too, assuring her that he was getting a divorce. It's all good. I love you. He even invited her up to his home in Colorado and, like, what the fuck? With the picture of his dying wife in bed, why would he send that to his mistress? We're going to find out a lot more at trial, and I am told she is on the witness list for the prosecution, so I can't wait to hear all the stories that she's going to tell. But the defense is telling a much different story, as we expect, right? Dr. James Craig's lawyers did not deny that Angela was sick. They didn't deny that she'd been hospitalized. They didn't even deny that poison was found in her system. But they argued that the evidence doesn't prove that it was Dr. Craig who was the person who poisoned her or that he even ever intended to kill her at all. The defense admitted that he was a cheater. Horrible guy, right? More than once. But they said he never stopped loving his wife, Angela. They pushed back hard on the idea that Dr. Craig was so swept up in an affair that he decided to kill his wife. Quote, that simply is not the case. One of the defense's Lawyers said he was candid with Angela about the affairs she knew. Quote, the defense argued that Angela wanted to stay married even after all the cheating, because of their shared faith as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And in a move that clearly previewed the defense strategy, they described Angela as, quote, broken, strongly implying that maybe Angela took her own life. The defense also questioned the credibility of the alleged fellow inmate involved in the jailhouse murder plot, accusing police of bias and saying their police work was shoddy. And I can't wait until the cross examination if that witness, the alleged inmate who was contracted to do a couple killings, takes the stand. Because whenever you have, like, a jailhouse rat or you have an inmate who gets up on the stand during trial, it is a rip job. I mean, you know, you're an inmate. What kind of credibility do you have? It's the only thing that the defense attorneys ever have, right? You're an effing inmate up there. You're a criminal. Why should anybody believe in you? Actually works. Jurors usually look at inmates as criminals and maybe not to be believed, but the lawyers for this dentist pointed out that the tests on the protein shake containers did not show any traces of poison that might be powerful. But, you know, prosecutors are going to say the tests were done days after the containers had the protein shakes in them. Nobody knew right away. On my News Nation show, Banfield, I talked with a Colorado criminal defense attorney, Eric Faddis, who has been following this case since the beginning. Here's our conversation. I'm joined now by Eric Faddis, who is a Colorado defense attorney who has been closely watching Dr. Craig's case. Oh, boy. Eric. Okay, first of all, I want to ask about openings and all the rest, but not before I ask you, what is his defense? There seems to be this mountain of evidence. What is he saying other than, oh, they had tunnel vision.
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Eric Faddis
It has an ominous set of circumstances here and not a ton of outs for the defense. The evidence does seem pretty overwhelming if proven. You know, during openings, defense kind of hinted at, sort of insinuated that perhaps Angela Craig was suicidal and perhaps that is the reason she ultimately died and not at the hands of a poisoning by her husband, James Craig.
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Ashley Banfield
So there are very few people who are suicidal who want to put themselves through weeks and weeks of poisoning and pain and suffering. But he had a story for that, that this was kind of all her plan to make him look bad.
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Eric Faddis
That was a piece of it. He also apparently disclosed that she was taking opioids and perhaps like, had overdosed on opioids in the past, that she had had suicidal ideation in the past, that this had been kind of a pattern for her. Now, that has not been proven in court, but these are the statements of the accused when he was interviewed.
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Ashley Banfield
Okay, so, Eric, I still can't get over the fact that this family is a family of eight. There are six kids. They're Mormon, they're living this life that looks so perfect. Those pictures look like they were, you know, for the COVID of People magazine, but not before the awfulness began. Where are the kids? How old are they? And are they backing dad?
- [27:35]
Eric Faddis
So they are on the younger side. I don't have their exact ages. In fact, the court has issued an order that really prohibits media from disclosing the names of the children and other identifying characteristics. That being said, it's a bit unclear what side that they are going to be on. Now, the prosecutor, at the end of the day today mentioned that there will be a service dog present in court sometime soon. And that usually signals that there will be a child who will be up on the stand testifying. We're in the prosecution's case in chief. And so that could mean that the children, that one or more of the children may testify against their dad.
- [28:11]
Ashley Banfield
Well, I have a feeling that's the case because as I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, they already told the police, no, mom was not suicidal. So that would tell you something. But you never know, right? With kids, you just never know. So the other question I have is this whole business of this guy has been spinning through lawyers. What happened with lawyer number one, what happened with lawyer number two, so that we've ended up on, you know, round three.
- [28:39]
Eric Faddis
Actually, these are peculiar developments. Usually you don't rotate through three defense attorneys in such a high profile, nationally publicized case. Lawyer number one was Harvey Steinberg. He is an esteemed criminal defense attorney. I actually worked for him for a period of time. He's filed a motion to withdraw on the day the trial was set to begin, stating that he. He. The course of action could be fraudulent or criminal and was repugnant or something with which he fundamentally disagreed. And so you can read into that what you will. The second attorney, Rob, working also very highly reputable in Colorado, he was recently charged with arson, and so he had to withdraw from the case. His wife, Lisa Moses, is handling the defense alongside Ashley Whittem, the woman seen there in that, who I think got on the case relatively recently.
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Ashley Banfield
Okay, I want to ask our control to put that picture up again. There's this picture of the victim in this case and she kind of looks like she's in a hospital bed, maybe in her final, you know, few days of life. And I think I heard, please tell me if I'm wrong. I think I heard that he sent that picture to his mistress. He took the picture of his dying. This one here takes a picture of his dying wife. Maybe she's in her bed at home. It actually looks more like a picture at home. Is that actually true? Is that something they're asserting in court?
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Eric Faddis
That's my understanding. And if they establish that, you know, how callous, what an utter disregard for the well being of one's wife to simply send a photo to their mistress of, you know, their dying mother of their six children. And if that comes out, I don't think it's come out in court just yet, but. But if it does, I think it's going to have a huge impact on this jury. They're going to say, hey, if he's capable of that, gosh, he could be capable of this.
- [30:31]
Ashley Banfield
My great thanks to Eric Faddis. But can I just say something? I get on my soapbox a lot, right? And there is one thing in my decades long career in criminal justice that never fails to cause the top of my head to pop right off and hit the ceiling. And that is gag orders and cameras being banned from courtrooms. Whatever you feel about the media, I get it, media's got a bad rap. But the media is you. The media is you. Those cameras are you. They are your portal into your process. The process you elect, the process you pay for, the process you trust and the process you laud as democracy. You know, we're the shining example on the Hill. This is our open, transparent system of justice, public system of justice. Not hooded, secret justice that happens in many countries that I have visited as a war correspondent. This is America and we're supposed to know what's going on. We don't carry out justice in secret. We allow taxpayers, voters, citizens to be a process, to be a part of the process. And I get just crazy when I see judges, you know, banning the cameras. Out you go. You can only be here for, you know, maybe openings and a verdict. But the rest of it, we're just going to leave it to reporters to write down their impressions and then translate that to you. So really, you're not getting the real McCoy. As much as I love reporters, I'm one of them. We're not perfect. I'd prefer you to see it with your own eyes and then make your own call as to whether you think that justice prevailed. Okay, that's my soapbox, but you're with me here, right? This case is nuts. I mean, I think this case is nuts. There's so many twists and turns. I have covered a few before of. Wow. One case, probably 20 years ago, this lawyer, lawyer killed his wife, rolled her up in a carpet, took her out to the truck and got rid of her. And the kids were really little. And the only thing that the kids could say to the police was, daddy rolled up mommy in a carpet. And they never could find mommy. But they charged daddy, the lawyer, and they charged daddy's dad, the grandpa, who was like a big highfalutin fella in the military. And they alleged that the dad was part of the hiding of the body, that the dad came in and helped the son, the lawyer, get rid of the dead wife. Right? So the lawyer, you know, gets charged, and he's sitting in a jail cell and never fails to amaze me. He's a lawyer, but what does he do? He starts trying to contract out the killing of the investigator who's leading his case. Right. It's just like a carbon copy of this case in Colorado. It did not go well for the lawyer. Can I just say, last I checked, he's still cool in his heels on life, no parole in prison. Dad, the grandpa, I think his name was Colonel something. He ended up being squeezed like a lemon. They had to really put the screws to him, whereby they gave him a deal, but he had to testify about what his part was in all of it. And his part was, I'm an old man and I helped, but I don't know where we dropped that body. We can't find it. And they never could find it. But that lawyer went down again. Lawyer. Lawyer. Talking to inmates. Can I just tell you something? If you ever end up in jail, inmates aren't your friends. Doesn't matter how friendly they are. Everyone's in there for themselves. They're caged rats. They want out. And if you give them information, information is king in prison. They can trade that stuff with prosecutors to get, like, you know, years off or better treatment. So lawyers should have known better. And a dentist. You think the dentists are smart? If you really did this, as the, you know, as the allegations suggest, what an idiot. All that university, all those thousands of dollars spent in college. What a waste. But listen, I would love to hear what you have to say. Let me know in the comments on YouTube or in the reviews for podcast listeners. If this is a case that you want to hear more of, I'd love to show you more of it, but Soapbox can't Judge, won't let me. But we do have regular reporting going on, so I do want to know what you think and we'll continue to follow this. I'm Ashley Banfield. Thank you so much for being a part of this. I just love our true crime community. Remember one thing, truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.