According to prosecutors on Tuesday, a dentist from Denver, Colorado, brought a syringe into the hospital room where his wife was bedridden due to an unexplained illness. After he left, she quickly declined and passed away.
They claimed that the syringe contained cyanide.
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Jurors in the murder trial of James Craig in suburban Denver started deliberating after prosecutor Michael Mauro and the defense concluded closing arguments Tuesday afternoon. The trial will resume on Wednesday.
Craig is charged with killing his 23-year-married wife by poisoning her over a 10-day period in March 2023, sending her to the hospital where Craig reportedly administered the last, deadly dose.
Lisa Fine Moses, one of Craig’s lawyers, vehemently objected in court. She said that the images captured by hospital security cameras of Craig holding a syringe were hazy and that the needles that investigators found were free of poison.
Following his detention on suspicion of murder, Craig was also charged with soliciting a fellow prisoner to kill the detective looking into his wife’s death and offering to pay people to make it seem as though his wife, Angela Craig, was suicidal.
According to Mauro, Craig killed his wife in order to cash in on life insurance, spend time with a woman he was having an affair with, and avoid the financial and reputational consequences of a divorce.
Angela Craig was resilient and hopeful, according to Mauro, who denied that she was suicidal. In dealing with this man’s betrayal, she is the ultra-marathon runner,” he remarked. On March 15, however, she was unable to outrun it at University Hospital.
Moses refuted the notion that Craig was struggling financially, claiming that they owned a costly home and were not behind on their payments. Moses contended that his infidelity had been ongoing for years, was known to Angela Craig, and had never served as a catalyst for a murder.
You know what, nice work, Looking at the prosecution, Moses cynically remarked, “You proved beyond a reasonable doubt that this guy is a cheater.”
Although prosecutors were unable to establish Craig’s guilt, Craig’s defense lawyers did not contest the discovery of tetrahydrozoline and deadly cyanide in Angela Craig’s body.
Rather, Moses implied that Craig’s years of adultery had “broken” Angela Craig, who might have committed suicide. She referred to a 2009 diary entry by Angela Craig that read, “I feel depressed.” There are comparable entries in 2018 that make me feel a great feeling of loss and hopelessness.
Craig used a tissue to wipe his tears and nose as the submissions were read.
Moses said that the cops had been biased against Craig from the beginning. Moses claimed that neither the search of Angela Craig’s computer nor the discovery of cyanide residue in a smoothie shaker that prosecutors claimed Craig used to poison his wife.
Prosecutors claimed that Craig looked up information about poisons online in the days leading up to his wife’s passing, including how to make murder appear to be a heart attack. Craig allegedly ordered a number of poisons, which he secretly gave to Angela Craig in the form of pills and protein smoothies.
Doctors couldn’t understand Angela Craig’s symptoms, so she kept going in and out of the hospital. On her third visit, she became brain dead and passed just a few days later.
James Craig’s attorneys did not call any witnesses, and he did not testify. When James Craig filed a divorce from Angela Craig, the dentist wrote in notes discovered on his phone that she requested him to assist kill her with poison.
Craig eventually consented to buy and prepare poisons for her to consume, but not to administer them, according to the document titled “Timeline.”
Craig claimed to have created a cyanide-containing syringe and added cyanide to some of the antibiotic capsules she had been taking.
Craig stated in that timeline that she must have consumed a concoction containing tetrahydrozoline, the substance in the eye drop, soon before she was admitted to the hospital on March 15, 2023, since she started to feel weak and listless.
He said that she then swallowed the cyanide-laced antibiotic he had prepared for her.
Mark Pray, Angela Craig’s brother, who was there to assist with her unexplained illness, testified that he provided the capsules to Angela Craig at James Craig’s request because James Craig wasn’t home.
According to Pray, after taking the medication, his sister sagged and lost her strength. Then he took her to the hospital with his wife.
If jurors think Craig assisted his wife in killing herself, they can find him guilty of manslaughter.
However, prosecutors claim that James Craig, who they claim is untrustworthy and allegedly attempted to create evidence to make it appear as though his wife committed suicide, is the only source of proof that Angela Craig intended to take her own life.
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Denver is where Slevin reported from.
