A dentist accused of fatally poisoning his wife with a tainted protein shake allegedly asked their daughter to help cover his tracks, according to new testimony.
James Toliver Craig, a former dentist from Aurora, Colorado, is on trial for murder after the 2023 death of his wife, Angela Craig. Authorities believe Craig, 47, poisoned Angela, 43, by mixing a combination of cyanide and tetrahydrozoline into her protein shakes. The chemical is commonly found in eyedrops and nasal spray, and cyanide, according to Mount Sinai poison information.
Now, prosecutors allege that Craig asked the couple’s teenage daughter to create a deepfake video that would show her mother asking for the chemicals, in an apparent attempt to stage her death as a suicide, CBS News reported.
Now 20 years old, the daughter, whose name was withheld, testified on Thursday that her father wrote her a detailed letter outlining how to create the deepfake and what should be included in the video.
The letter began, “I love you … I’m sorry to even have to ask you for this help,” with Craig instructing his daughter to use a prepaid Visa gift card to purchase a “cheap laptop” and install a private network and dark web browser.
According to the letter, Craig allegedly instructed that the video should look like it was filmed in the weeks leading up to Angela’s death, and should include deepfake footage of her asking her husband to order the chemicals.
The letter also instructed Craig’s daughter to save the video on thumb drives and plant them in one of her mother’s bags. The letter also allegedly instructed to send a copy to investigators as a false tip before destroying the laptop.
According to the daughter, her father wrote that he had selected her, the second of the couple’s six children, to help him because she is “stoic and pragmatic” like her mother.
Craig was arrested in March 2023, days after his wife Angela was taken off of life support. At the time of her death, she had experienced weeks of dizziness and headaches, ABC News reported.
In the two weeks leading up to her death, Angela visited the emergency room three times with unexplained symptoms. The daughter was reportedly often the person to drive her to the hospital.
According to Aurora Police, Craig had been systematically poisoning his wife. After his wife was hospitalized for the final time, Craig allegedly served Angela a pill he had injected with cyanide. Her condition rapidly deteriorated, and she was placed on a ventilator but died after experiencing a seizure on March 18, 2023.
Investigators later discovered that Craig had been exchanging “intimate” and “sexually explicit” messages with an orthodontist from Austin, Texas, according to an arrest warrant first obtained by the Daily Beast.
The warrant also cited repeated searches in Craig’s browser history, including “How to make murder look like a heart attack” and “Is arsenic detectable in autopsy?”
During Thursday’s testimony, the Craig’s daughter said her father had attempted to prevent police from ordering an autopsy, even though she had pushed for one because she feared her mother’s mystery illness could be hereditary.
Two days before Angela Craig’s death, Craig ordered a canister of potassium cyanide to his office, claiming he needed the deadly chemical because he was performing a “craniofacial reconstruction surgery,” the warrant reports.
According to Angela’s sister, whose statement to police was included in the arrest warrant, Craig had a history of multiple affairs. She even accused him of drugging his wife once before, roughly five years before her death.
Angela’s sister also told police that her brother-in-law was experiencing serious financial troubles. Just days before dying, she claims Angela told her James had “lost $2,000 in gambling and run the dental practice into the ground.”
Craig’s business partner later corroborated that claim, telling police the dentist had already filed for bankruptcy once, a few years before the murder, and was close to doing so again.
Beyond asking his daughter to create the deepfake, prosecutors allege Craig also attempted to cover up his wife’s murder by spreading rumors to friends that she was suicidal.
The Craigs’ daughter strongly denied that characterization of her mother on Thursday, telling prosecutors that her mother “struggled like anyone else,” but doubted she would end her life. Before her illness, Craig’s daughter said her mother was active, healthy, and “making plans.”
