A Colorado dentist, James Craig, was sentenced to life for murdering his wife with cyanide. Photo / @insidethetrial via X
A Colorado dentist was sentenced today to life in prison without parole after being convicted in the 2023 murder of his wife, to whom investigators said he served protein shakes laced with arsenic before giving her a fatal dose of cyanide while she was hospitalised.
The dentist, James Craig, 47, of Aurora, Colorado, was found guilty on all six counts in the poisoning of his wife, Angela Craig, 43, which caused her to have a seizure, difficulty breathing and a host of other symptoms that had confounded her doctors, prosecutors said.
Craig denied that he had killed his wife – they had six children and were married for 23 years – and had suggested to investigators that she had been depressed and was suicidal.
But he quickly drew suspicion, not only from the police, but also from friends and co-workers around the time of his wife’s death in March 2023.
His internet browsing history in particular helped cement his conviction of first-degree murder.
Less than three weeks before his wife’s death, he searched in Google: “How many grams of pure arsenic will kill a human” and “Is Arsenic Detectable in Autopsy?” on a computer at the dental practice where he worked, the police said.
Miriam Meservy, the couple’s eldest daughter, delivered a victim impact statement moments before sheriffs deputies led her father away for the rest of his life.
“I was supposed to be able to trust my dad,” she said. “He was supposed to be my hero, and instead he’ll forever be the villain in my book.”
The jury has reached a verdict in the James Craig case. Do you agree with the outcome-or do you think justice wasn’t fully served? #jamescraig pic.twitter.com/GIeoHyFOaz
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During the trial in District Court in Arapahoe County, which took more than 10 days, prosecutors painted a portrait of Craig as a man on the verge of bankruptcy who had had several affairs and wanted a divorce.
The jury heard testimony from a Texas orthodontist who said that she had met Craig at a dental conference a few weeks before his wife’s murder and had exchanged thousands of text messages with him as part of a blossoming relationship.
In an attempt to cover up the poisoning of his wife, prosecutors said, Craig tried to hire a hit man to kill the detective leading the murder investigation. He also tried to pay witnesses to lie about the case, the authorities said.
“She survived and fought for her life, and he found new ways to poison her,” Osama Magrebi, a deputy district attorney in Arapahoe County, said moments before Craig was sentenced.
Craig was also found guilty of solicitation to commit murder in the first degree, two counts of solicitation to commit tampering with physical evidence and two counts of solicitation to commit perjury in the first degree.
Those five counts added a further 33 years to the life sentence imposed on Craig, who did not speak at the hearing.
“Dr Craig unleashed a path of destruction as wide as a tornado and just as devastating,” Judge Shay Whitaker said during the sentencing.
According to the police, Angela Craig went to the hospital three times in nine days leading up to her death, complaining of headaches, dizziness and vomiting.
She had been showing signs of improvement, but she experienced a seizure just hours after being admitted to the hospital for the final time and after her husband had visited her, the authorities said.
At the trial, jurors viewed images from hospital security cameras that showed James Craig holding a syringe, which prosecutors said had cyanide in it.
Toxicology tests showed that Angela Craig had lethal levels of cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, an ingredient in over-the-counter eyedrops and nasal sprays, in her system when she died.
Angela Craig first began feeling ill in early March 2023, which is when her husband started to lace her protein smoothies with arsenic before the two of them exercised in the morning, police said.
On the day that Angela Craig was admitted to the hospital for the final time, a friend of the couple who was her husband’s business partner told one of the nurses that he suspected that Angela Craig might have been poisoned.
He also told the nurse that James Craig had recently ordered potassium cyanide to be delivered to their dental practice and that there was no medical reason or purpose for it. The nurse reported what James Craig’s business partner had told her to the police, as required by law.
Investigators said that an office manager at the dental practice had told them that Craig had texted her that he was waiting for a package to be delivered and that she should not open it, but she said that another employee had done so.
When the office manager looked inside the box, she saw a circular canister with a potassium cyanide sticker on it and a biohazard warning, authorities said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Neil Vigdor
Photographs by: @insidethetrial
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