A Colorado dentist accused of lacing his wife’s protein shakes with poison was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder and related charges.
James Craig, 47, allegedly used a combination of cyanide and tetrahydrozoline — an ingredient found in over-the-counter eye drops — to kill his wife of 23 years, Angela Craig, more than two years ago in Aurora.
The 43-year-old victim died on March 18, 2023, while hospitalized in suburban Denver and recovering from previous poisonings.
Craig was arrested the following day for what police called a “heinous, complex and calculated” killing. He later pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.
On Wednesday, following a two-week trial, a jury convicted Craig of first-degree murder, solicitation to commit murder, solicitation to commit perjury and solicitation to commit evidence tampering.
After emotional statements from Angela Craig’s family — including from one of the couple’s six children, who said her father will forever be a villain — Judge Shay Whitaker sentenced James Craig to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“Everybody here shares a loss, whether that is a mother who is never there, whether that is a son who will be in prison for the remainder of his life,” Whitaker said before handing down the sentence.
Craig — who was accused of having an affair with a fellow dentist at the time of his wife’s death — attempted to poison her multiple times over 10 days in March 2023, prosecutors said at trial.
After his initial attempts failed, Craig visited his wife in the hospital — where she was recovering from mysterious symptoms that had baffled doctors — and gave her a fatal dose of poison. His attorneys attempted to argue that she’d sought his help in ending her own life.
“He didn’t go into that room to fight for her life or support her,” Assistant District Attorney Ryan Brackley said on the first day of the high-profile trial. “He went into that room to murder her, to deliberately and intentionally end her life with a fatal dose of cyanide.”
With News Wire Services
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