CENTENNIAL — An Aurora dentist accused of fatally poisoning his wife spent 10 days killing her, prosecutors told the jury during closing arguments in the two-week trial Tuesday.
James Craig faces six felony charges in the March 2023 death of his wife, Angela Craig, including first-degree murder, solicitation of tampering with physical evidence, solicitation of perjury and solicitation of first-degree murder, court records show.
The jury deliberated for about four hours Tuesday afternoon and will resume Wednesday morning.
Craig’s attorneys did not present a defense before both sides rested Monday, but suggested Angela Craig played a role in her own death.
“Angela Craig was innocent,” prosecutor Michael Mauro told jurors during Tuesday’s closing arguments. “She had no part in her death, and the only person who says otherwise is this man, a person guilty of the ultimate betrayal: her murder.”
Mauro punctuated the statement with a sweeping hand gesture toward the table where Craig sat. “The devil’s in the details, and he can’t keep the details straight,” Mauro said.
Angela Craig, mother of six and the youngest of 10 siblings, died on March 18, 2023, from lethal doses of cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, an ingredient found in over-the-counter eyedrops. It was her third trip to the hospital in a little over a week, investigators said.
James Craig purchased nearly 20 bottles of eyedrops containing the lethal ingredient in two days leading up to and during her symptoms, prosecutors alleged.
Prosecutors said James Craig purchased, and attempted to purchase, a variety of poisons before his wife’s death. They alleged he gave her a dose of cyanide while she remained hospitalized. She was declared brain dead soon after and never recovered.
Craig “offered three false narratives” at different times and to different people, Mauro said.
He claimed his wife wanted to die and killed herself outright, but also called it a “game of chicken” in which she accidentally went too far and died, Mauro said.
In a third attempt to explain his wife’s death, Craig tried to procure fake witnesses to come into court and testify that Angela Craig had set him up, Mauro said.
“These false narratives can’t all be true, and none of them are true,” Mauro said. “To believe any of the defendant’s false narratives, you have to suspend reason and common sense, and then you have to speculate into existence evidence that wasn’t found.”
Defense attorney Lisa Moses spent her closing argument fluctuating between the first two explanations.
“You know what, good job,” Moses said, addressing the prosecution team. “You proved beyond a reasonable doubt that this guy is a cheater. …He is a serial cheater.”
But, she said, that doesn’t make him a murderer.
The years of infidelity broke Angela Craig’s heart and soul, Moses said. She pointed to excerpts from the woman’s journal to illustrate the impact on her mental state.
“The weight of everything just seems to be crushing all the air out of me,” one entry reads. “…I haven’t figured out yet if I should give in or push through.”
“It almost killed me when he said he didn’t love me and I wasn’t enough,” Angela Craig wrote in another.
But Moses also called the poisoning “an ongoing game of chicken” that went too far.
Craig originally poisoned his wife’s smoothies and replaced a bottle of prescription pills with poison, prosecutors said. They said he also encouraged a family member to give the deadly capsules to Angela Craig and used a communal work computer to conduct hundreds of internet searches about poisons.
“This is not a reluctant participant in a super-secret suicidal pact or a game of chicken,” Mauro said. “This is a guy who was working to get the job done.”
The only proof of suicide is James Craig’s word, said fellow prosecutor Ryan Brackley. There is no concrete evidence that Angela Craig asked her husband to research, order, prepare or administer the poison, he added.
Moses also replayed a video of the Craigs arguing in their kitchen that was shown earlier in the trial.
“Nobody in their right mind would ever think I’d kill myself before I’d kill you,” Angela Craig can be heard saying. “…It’s your fault they treated me differently, like I was a suicide risk.”
While Moses said the argument was evidence of Angela Craig’s guilt-tripping of her husband, Brackley said it was “the most powerful piece of evidence of his guilt.”
Throughout the closing arguments Tuesday, the Aurora dentist alternated between staring at the table in front of him and the evidence posted on screens around the courtroom. At times, he turned his gaze to the jury box and stared with a furrowed brow.
The prosecution and defense had both rested their cases Monday afternoon, without the defense calling any witnesses. Prosecutors called nearly 50 witnesses throughout the trial, according to Denver7.
Members of the jury could find James Craig guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter instead of the initial first-degree murder charge, but Brackley urged them not to.
“He deserves to be found guilty, because he is guilty,” Brackley said.
What separates the three charges is the suspect’s intent and state of mind, Brackley said.
“He spent 10 days killing Angela Craig. He could have stopped… but he kept going,” Mauro said. “He kept going right until the end.”
The 10 days of work showed both deliberation and intent to kill, he said.
The trial was originally scheduled for December 2024, but was delayed when James Craig’s original defense attorney, Harvey Steinberg, withdrew on the day it was supposed to start, citing ethical concerns.
Robert Werking, another of Craig’s defense attorneys, withdrew from the case in early July after being arrested on suspicion of setting his home on fire.
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