DENVER (CNN) – Angela Craig was complaining of severe headaches and dizziness. She had been to the hospital three times in 10 days, yet doctors in Colorado couldn’t explain what was causing her illness.
“I feel drugged,” she texted her husband, James Craig, during her first hospitalization.She told him the only thing she consumed that morning was her protein shake, according to court records.
Three hours into her third hospital visit, the mother of six began seizing and was transferred unresponsive to the hospitalS intensive care unit. Three days later, on March 18, 2023, 43-year-old Craig was declared brain dead, court records show.
More than two years after her death, her dentist husband is due to stand trial for her murder. Jury selection began Thursday.
A probable cause affidavit containing more than 50 pages of evidence investigators compiled against James Craig includes witness accounts, screenshots of text messages and computer search histories, and the discovery of a secret email account used to order a multitude of poisons and carry out an affair with another woman.
Between angela Craig’s death and the start of her husband’s trial, the defendant has cycled through a carousel of lawyers – including one who withdrew due to Craig’s alleged actions and another accused of setting fire to his own home – and the dentist himself has been accused of plotting a jailhouse murder against the case’s lead investigator.
Craig has pleaded not guilty to six felony charges, including first-degree murder, solicitation to commit first-degree murder, solicitation to commit tampering with physical evidence, and solicitation to commit perjury.
He faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of murder.
Investigators tipped off by Craig’s dental partner
James Craig’s dental partner, Ryan Redfearn, was the first person to sound the alarm to authorities that Angela could have been poisoned, according to the affidavit.
While he was en route to the hospital the day of Angela’s final hospitalization, a colleague called Redfearn saying an office manager had seen a package of potassium cyanide delivered for craig to the office days prior, the affidavit says.
When he arrived, Redfearn alerted a nurse about the package, telling her ther would be no medical reason for a dentist’s office to need potassium cyanide. The nurse subsequently contacted law enforcement, according to the document.
Craig called his colleague later that night asking if he had spoken with the medical staff. Redfearn said he had and that he knew about the package, the affidavit says.
Craig allegedly tried to fabricate a story before eventually admitting to ordering the potassium cyanide,but said his wife had asked him to buy it – purportedly the first of several unsubstantiated claims that she was suffering from suicidal ideations.
By that point in the conversation, Redfearn had only one more thing to tell his colleague, the affidavit says: “Stop talking and get a lawyer.”
Michelle Redfearn,ryan Redfearn’s wife,has previously declined CNN’s requests for comment,saying the couple expects to be called to testify at trial.
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A carousel of lawyers
Since his arrest, Craig has cycled through a litany of lawyers in the case, at times causing court delays.
He initially hired a team of three attorneys to defend him against the charges. In may 2024, Craig replaced them with well-known Denver attorney Harvey Steinberg.
But November 21, 2024, the day jury selection for the rescheduled trial was set to begin, Steinberg abruptly requested to withdraw from the case, citing two rules of professional conduct, according to prosecutors.
The first states, “The client persists in a course of action involving the lawyer’s services that the lawyer reasonably believes is criminal or fraudulent,” and the second says, “The client insists upon taking action that the lawyer considers repugnant or with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement.”
Steinberg has not responded to requests for comment.
Craig’s next attorneys, Lisa Moses and Robert Werking, were appointed for him by the court and the trial was rescheduled for July.
But one of those lawyers, Werking, soon found himself in legal trouble: On June 14, he was cited for a misdemeanor weapons violation, court records show. Then on June 29, he was arrested for felony fourth-degree arson at his home, according to Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson John Bartmann. When deputies responded to the house fire, Werking was sitting on the porch, Bartmann said.
Last week, werking filed a motion to withdraw from Craig’s case, which was granted on July 2,
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