AURORA, COLORADO: A Colorado dentist, who is accused of murdering his wife by secretly lacing her protein shakes with potassium cyanide, allegedly wrote love letters to his girlfriend from prison. James Toliver Craig, 45, was arrested on the first-degree murder charge after his 43-year-old wife, Angela died on March 18 following her third hospitalization in a month for an array of alarming and deteriorating symptoms.
Dr. Kelly Lear of the Arapahoe County Coroner's Office testified that tests of Angela's blood indicated she had an arsenic level of 68 at approximately 11.50 am on March 15 but that level had climbed to 330 shortly after 8.20 pm. That would be “consistent with her receiving additional cyanide exposure in that time period,” Lear testified on Wednesday, July 12, according to Independent. In her report, the doctor listed that Angela’s cause of death was acute “cyanide and tetrahydrozoline poisoning; the manner of death is homicide.” During the preliminary hearing, Aurora Police Detective Bobbi Olson also noted that Craig researched different types of poison in the weeks leading to his wife’s death.
'How to make murder look like a heart attack'
In the weeks preceding Angela's final hospitalization, Craig searched for incidents like "how to make the murder look like a heart attack," "is arsenic detectable in an autopsy," and "how many grams of pure arsenic will kill a human," according to a search warrant obtained for a computer in the exam room at his dental office. The prosecutor told the court that on March 6, the disgraced dentist conducted a Google search for “how the chemical in eyedrops attacks your body if swallowed and can potentially kill you.” Further in the hearing, Detective Olson presented a variety of evidence that supported the allegations that Craig slowly poisoned his wife with potassium cyanide.
Prosecutors previously alleged that before poisoning his wife, Craig was enjoying an extramarital affair with Texas orthodontist Karin Cain, who is named in the charging documents. Now, Olsen revealed that following his imprisonment, the disgraced dentist has continued to write letters to Cain from prison in which he professed his love for her. However, the orthodontist painted a different picture of the situation and told the court that Craig lied to her about the state of his marriage. Cain also noted that she met him at a dentist conference only three weeks before his wife’s death. “I don’t like the label,” she said, adding “If I had known what was true, I would not have been with this person.”
'There’s no way I’m a motive'
Cain also refuted the allegations that she played a part in Craig’s alleged murderous motive, saying they had never planned a future together. “There’s no way I’m a motive. There’s been no planning a future together,” she said. Cain continued by noting that when she first met Craig, he lied to her by claiming his marriage was over and that he did not live in the same home as his wife. At the time, Cain was also in the middle of divorcing her husband of three decades. She said that although she was "not looking for love," they connected because of their allegedly similar circumstances and mutual affection for their kids.
After spending three days together at the conference, they exchanged messages constantly and Cain felt “so connected” to her new companion. She had intended to travel to Colorado to see him, but the trip was canceled. The second planned trip came in March when she said Craig told her his wife was ill. They went for dinner twice, she said, where she noted his behavior seemed odd. “He at no point seemed stressed or anxious,” she said, adding “I mean really I had to drag it out of him like, ‘Are you sure you’re ok?’” Cain now claims that the person she thought she was falling in love had lied to her. “I didn’t willingly have a relationship with somebody who was in a marriage,” she said.
