Colorado dentist accused of killing wife amid affairs, as murder trial centers on marital betrayal

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Opening statements in the murder trial of Colorado dentist Dr. James Craig featured dueling portrayals of a marriage unraveling under the weight of betrayal and religious ideals.

James Toliver Craig, 47, is charged with first-degree murder after deliberation in the March 2023 death of his wife, Angela Craig, a 43-year-old mother of six. Her cause of death was determined to be lethal doses of cyanide and tetrahydrozoline.

Prosecutors cast Craig’s extramarital affairs as the motive for allegedly poisoning his wife, Angela, while the defense painted the couple’s relationship as a long-standing dynamic known and endured by both parties.

“This is not about a marriage. This is about murder,” declared Senior Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Mauro in his opening remarks to the jury Tuesday. “He went into that room and murdered her. Deliberately and intentionally.”

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The prosecution alleged that the 47-year-old father of six was motivated to kill by a desire to be with another woman, Texas orthodontist Dr. Karin Cain. Mauro explained that Craig had met Cain at a Las Vegas dental conference weeks before Angela Craig fell ill. 

Craig, prosecutors say, had lied to Cain, saying that he was getting divorced and had moved out of the family’s home. With his lover’s visit approaching swiftly, prosecutors allege that Craig was running out of options.

“He’s got nine days to solve this problem. He’s got nine days to be the man he promised to be,” Mauro told the jury Tuesday. 

Prosecutors said this manipulation extended to other women and platforms. Craig allegedly used the website Seeking.com, advertising himself as “Jim and Waffles” and claiming a net worth of $10 million in search of “sugar babies.”

“Yes, you hear about all these. Other women,” Mauro said. “He’s had a lot of affairs. He’s been caught. He’s been busted sometime in November 2022.”

But the defense argued that the case is not as clear-cut as prosecutors claim. 

“We’re not disputing that Angela had poison in her system. We’re not disputing that she died,” said defense attorney Ashley Whitham. “The real question is how—and that question, the prosecution can only answer with speculation and assumption.” 

Whitham described Craig as a “broken man” caught in a failing marriage but not a murderer. She emphasized that Craig was present and attentive during Angela’s multiple hospital visits. 

“He was a doting husband,” she said. “Their relationship was complicated, yes, but loving.”

Whitham pushed back against the state’s timeline and its assertion of a clear motive, arguing that Craig’s history of extramarital affairs extended throughout his marriage and was not unique to Dr. Cain. 

“Karin Cain was just like the others. This wasn’t some new obsession,” she said. 

Whitham said that the Craigs were devout members of the Church of the Latter-day Saints and that Angela was resolute in staying in her marriage.

Defense attorney Kelly Hyman outlined the strategic battlegrounds she expects to see in the courtroom as Craig’s murder trial unfolds.

Craig’s defense, led by Lisa Fine Moses, has already pursued two cornerstone motions, a motion to suppress electronic evidence and a motion to dismiss the charges, that set the tone for the weeks of courtroom wrangling ahead.

“Evidence is key to any case and a key motion that is filed in criminal cases are Motions to Suppress evidence and a Motion to Dismiss the charges,” Hyman explained to Fox News Digital.

A motion to suppress evidence is a request to exclude evidence that can be made by a defendant in a criminal case.

“A defendant does this because the defense believes that the evidence in question was obtained illegally or constitutionally in violation of a defendant’s rights,” she said.

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Central to the prosecutor’s case against the Aurora, Colorado, dentist is Craig’s alleged use of a work computer.

A suspected secret email account was not found on his phone, laptop or Angela’s phone — it was only accessed on the clinic computer in dental exam room No. 9, authorities said in court documents, obtained by Fox News Digital.

Investigators say that, in the weeks before his wife’s hospitalization and death, Craig used a dental-office computer to search for “undetectable poisons” and how to obtain them — later purchasing arsenic and cyanide by mail — as well as “how many grams of pure arsenic will kill a human” and “is arsenic detectable in an autopsy?”

Alongside these online searches, investigators alleged that Craig made YouTube queries such as “how to make poison” and “Top 5 Undetectable Poisons That Show No Signs of Foul Play.”

“The defense argued that the searches went ‘beyond the scope’ of the search warrant,” Hyman said. “However, a judge has already denied motions to suppress electronic evidence.”

“That being said, it is likely defense counsel will continue to challenge the admissibility of various evidence gathered by the prosecution, such as voice messages between Craig and his alleged mistress.”

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Beyond those fundamental motions, Hyman warned that the battle over forensic evidence could prove pivotal. 

She said it’s likely the court will hold “gatekeeping” hearings, under Colorado’s version of the Daubert standard, in which the judge decides whether scientific evidence, such as toxicology reports and digital forensics, is reliable enough to let the jury see it.

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“Chain-of-custody documentation and lab accreditation standards here in Colorado,” she said, “will be scrutinized at every turn.”

Hyman also discussed how pretrial publicity might impact plea negotiations. Prosecutors, she suggested, often harden their stance to avoid appearing weak in the court of public opinion — even as defendants leverage the threat of venue changes or jury sequestration to force more favorable terms. 

“In situations like this,” she explained, “the real pressure point comes when both sides realize the jury pool may already be tainted by media coverage.”

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Fox News Digital has reached out to Lisa Fine Moses for comment.