CENTENNIAL — James Craig was on the clock.
A woman he’d met days earlier at a Las Vegas conference — a woman he said he might be in love with — was coming to visit Denver. This woman, Karin Cain, thought he was living separately from his wife, Angela Craig, 43. She thought the married couple were in the middle of a divorce.
They weren’t, and that was a problem, 18th Judicial Assistant District Attorney Ryan Brackley said during opening statements at James Craig’s murder trial Tuesday.
“They’re living as husband and wife, but he’s got a problem, he’s got a situation, he’s trapped,” Brackley told the jury. “And he’s got eight days. He’s got a countdown.”
Craig, 47, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Angela Craig, 43, who died March 18, 2023, from lethal doses of cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, a decongestant found in over-the-counter eyedrops.
Prosecutors allege James Craig bought arsenic, eyedrops and cyanide days before his wife was poisoned to death, searched online about how to poison someone, was having an affair and faced financial difficulties.
Evidence shows that Craig put poison in a smoothie he made for his wife, Brackley said, and that he later opened up a bottle of prescription capsules, replaced the contents of the capsules with cyanide and encouraged a family member to give the deadly pills to his wife.
Brackley alleged during Tuesday’s opening statements in Arapahoe County District Court that Craig poisoned his wife to get rid of her so he could start a new life with his paramour.
Craig’s defense attorney, Ashley Whitham, dismissed the prosecution’s theory and said Craig had been having affairs for the duration of the couple’s 23-year marriage.
“This cheating had been happening for 23 years,” Whitham said. “There were lots of women. This wasn’t just about three women or four women, this is something that had been going on throughout the whole entire relationship. And there is nothing new about Ms. Cain. I know the prosecution is going to argue that and tell you she is some sort of motive, she is just like all the rest of the women that Dr. Craig was having affairs with.”
Whitham accused police of conducting a biased investigation that wrongly focused on James Craig as the only possible suspect, and implied that Angela Craig died by suicide, suggesting she was isolated, overwhelmed and unhappy.
“She was broken,” Whitham said. “She was struggling.”
James Craig is also charged with two counts of solicitation to commit tampering with evidence, two counts of solicitation to commit perjury and solicitation to commit murder. He is accused of asking two different people — including his daughter — to cover up evidence in the case, and prosecutors allege he tried to pay another inmate $20,000 to kill the lead detective on the case and pay the inmate’s ex-wife to bear false witness at his trial.
Weeks before Angela died, James Craig used a communal computer at his workplace to conduct numerous searches about poison, prosecutors said.
The searches on YouTube and Google included: “how many grams of pure arsenic will kill a human,” “Is Arsenic Detectable in Autopsy,” “Top 5 Undetectable Poisons That Show No Signs of Foul Play,” “how to make poison,” and “The Top 10 Deadliest Plants (They Can Kill You),” according to a police affidavit.
James Craig ordered arsenic from Amazon.com on Feb. 27, the same day that Cain booked a trip to Denver for early March, Brackley said. Craig received the package on March 4, and two days later, his wife was admitted to a hospital with symptoms that aligned with poisoning, according to the affidavit. She was released that day, but returned to the hospital on March 9.
While she was hospitalized, James Craig ordered two additional poisons — cyanide and oleandrin — from medical suppliers, according to the affidavit. (He never received the oleandrin because the package was intercepted by police.)
Angela Craig frequently sought medical care during the final days of her life. She was hospitalized between March 9 and 14, 2023, then was released from the hospital but returned the next day. She was put in intensive care and on a ventilator, and then declared brain dead and taken off life support on March 18, 2023.
Angela and James Craig were married for more than two decades and shared six children.
Craig was charged with his wife’s murder hours after Angela Craig was taken off life support and died. The case was scheduled for a jury trial in December 2024, but was delayed when Craig’s defense attorney, Harvey Steinberg, withdrew from representing Craig over ethical concerns on the day the jury trial was scheduled to start.
Another of Craig’s attorneys, Robert Werking, withdrew from the case on July 1 after Werking was arrested and accused of setting his own home on fire. Werking is receiving mental health treatment, his attorney said, and Werking’s wife, who is also an attorney, is continuing to represent Craig during his jury trial.
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