In the wake of James Craig, the Colorado dentist accused of fatally poisoning his wife

CNN
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A smiling James Craig promotes his Colorado dental practice online and says his treatment philosophy “starts with genuinely listening to the patient and finding out more about where they’re coming from and what they’re looking for and what they want.”

“I love creating an environment where people are surprised at how comfortable they feel,” he says in the YouTube video.

A completely different portrait of the dentist and father of six appears in an affidavit laying out probable cause for an arrest warrant for him, accused in 2023 of killing his wife by lacing poison in her protein shakes .

In the lengthy affidavit, people who knew Craig, 46, described his alleged parentage: a risk-taker with a financially struggling dental practice and a tumultuous marriage.

In more than 50 pages, an Aurora police homicide detective presented evidence – including witness statements, text messages and computer search histories – that revealed what the head of the department’s investigative division called a “heinous, complex and calculated murder.”

The probable cause affidavit said: “James demonstrated planning and intent to end his wife’s life by searching for ways to kill someone undetected, administering poisons consistent with her hospital symptoms, and “Worked to start a new life” with another woman.

Craig has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and other charges in connection with the death of his 43-year-old wife, Angela Craig.

During the first week of Craig’s trial, prosecutors and police accused him of plotting to kill an Aurora detective who was investigating the case.

Craig faces two additional felony charges, including solicitation to commit first-degree murder, according to a statement filed by prosecutors with the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.

According to the police and the amended complaint, the defendant tried to persuade a fellow prisoner to commit murder. The document does not indicate the intended target, but Aurora police confirmed to CNN that it was one of the investigators investigating the case.

Neither the complaint nor the police department identified the detective involved in the alleged murder plot. The 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office has declined to provide further information.

The new charges were filed Nov. 22, a day after Craig’s defense attorney, Harvey Steinberg, withdrew from the case. Court records show Craig has not yet hired a new attorney. His trial is on hold until he gets new legal representation.

The judge in the case approved Craig’s former lawyer’s request to leave the company after a closed-door hearing last month.

CNN has reached out to Steinberg for comment.

According to the public prosecutor’s office, Steinberg invoked two professional rules in his application.

The first states: “The client persists in engaging in a course of action involving the services of the lawyer and which the lawyer reasonably believes to be criminal or fraudulent” and the second states: “The client insists “Taking actions that the lawyer finds repugnant or with which the lawyer agrees is a fundamental disagreement.”

Jury selection was scheduled to begin the day Craig’s attorney withdrew. Craig’s next hearing is scheduled for December 16.

On March 15, 2023, Angela Craig complained of severe headaches and dizziness and was later declared medically brain dead at a hospital, Aurora police said. The arrest warrant affidavit said it was Angela Craig’s third visit to the hospital this month.

“The hospital’s medical staff was unable to identify any known medical condition that caused Angela’s rapid medical decline,” the affidavit states.

During a hospital visit on March 15, 2023, Craig sent a text message to Michelle Redfearn, the wife of his business partner Ryan Redfearn, in which he described Angela’s condition as serious, according to the affidavit. The couple are friends.

James Craig had been texting Michelle Redfearn regularly since Angela’s hospital visit on March 9. She is a professor with a doctorate in nursing and asked him to keep her informed, the affidavit said. Angela Craig had reported feeling dizzy and weak, but doctors were unable to determine the cause. In the texts, James Craig included detailed information about the medical tests his wife underwent. He texted two photos of hospital staff working on his wife in a crowded room.

“If it wasn’t my wife, that would be a fun puzzle to solve!” he once wrote.

Another text from Craig said: “It’s weird not being able to wake her up.”

Michelle Redfearn told CNN on Friday that the couple declined to comment because they expected to testify in court.

Her husband, who is also a dentist, told investigators he had been a business partner with Craig since August 2022, the affidavit said. He acquired Craig’s practice, which was having “financial problems.” The two men attended dental school together and had known each other for more than two decades. Ryan Redfearn described Craig as a “risk taker” who was “on the brink of bankruptcy again” after filing for bankruptcy in 2021, the affidavit said.

On the day of Angela’s final visit to the emergency room, Ryan and Michelle Redfearn went to the hospital, where he told a nurse that he suspected his business partner’s wife had been poisoned, the affidavit said. Ryan Redfearn told nurse James Craig that he had recently ordered potassium cyanide from her office, even though there was “no medical reason or purpose” for the deadly substance in the office, the affidavit says.

Michelle Redfearn told investigators about a call Craig made to her husband after the couple’s hospital visit, the affidavit said. She overheard the conversation on the car’s speakerphone: Craig said he heard “some disturbing information” and asked if Ryan had said anything to hospital staff, the affidavit says.

Ryan Redfearn told Craig he told hospital staff about the package that was delivered to their office. Craig initially said the package contained a ring for Angela, but eventually admitted what was inside. According to the document, an office manager opened the package and reported its contents to Redfearn.

Craig told Redfearn that Angela had asked him to order the substance, but “he didn’t think she (Angela) would actually take it.” According to the affidavit, Redfearn told Craig to “stop talking and get one.” Get a lawyer.”

In a text message to Redfearn, the affidavit says, Craig “strongly” asked his friend not to talk to law enforcement.

“You are under no obligation to answer their questions … and you will do my family more harm than good if you continue to interfere in this matter,” Craig wrote in the affidavit, according to a screenshot of the text.

In the lengthy message, Craig accused Redfearn of unleashing a “terrible storm” on his family and pleaded, “If you ever feel love for me, please don’t make things worse by speaking to any officials,” according to the affidavit explanation said.

Craig concluded: “Also, please do not respond to this text message until I text you again,” the document said.

According to the affidavit, investigators also discovered text messages between Craig and his wife on the morning of March 6, 2023, when she first began feeling ill.

“I feel drugged,” she wrote, according to a screenshot in the affidavit.

“Given our history, I know this must be a trigger,” he wrote back, the affidavit says. “Just to clarify, I didn’t drug you.”

In the weeks before her death, James Craig used a computer in his dentist’s office to research several “undetectable poisons,” searching the Internet for “How many grams of pure arsenic would kill a person” and “How to make poison” on YouTube. to search. and “Top 5 undetectable poisons that show no signs of foul play,” the affidavit states.

Angela Craig’s sister told investigators that the couple’s marriage had been turbulent, and Angela told her that James Craig had previously drugged her because he was planning to attempt suicide and didn’t want his wife to be able to stop him, they said it in the affidavit.

The affidavit said Craig told the Department of Human Services that his wife was suicidal and “told her colleagues that his marriage was failing and he was in financial difficulty.” The document states that none of the people interviewed by investigators suggested that Angela Craig had expressed suicidal thoughts.

After Angela Craig was declared medically brain dead on March 15, her sister told investigators that James Craig had told her he did not want an autopsy.

“James said he felt that if they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her while she was alive, he wouldn’t let them poke her anymore when she was dead,” the affidavit states.

The Arapahoe County coroner’s office determined that Angela Craig had ingested lethal doses of cyanide and tetrahydrozoline and listed arsenic poisoning as a “significant condition” related to her death, CNN affiliate KUSA reported, citing the autopsy report. She died on March 18, 2023.

The affidavit states that at the time, Craig was “communicating with a woman … about what appeared to be a sexually intimate relationship.” The document says Craig bought the woman a ticket to fly to Denver “while his wife and the mother of his children were dying in the hospital.”