The Colorado dentist accused of killing his wife by poisoning her shakes allegedly put a $20,000 bounty on the head of the lead detective of the case, as well as three other people – calling her ‘the worst, dirtiest detective in the world’.
James Craig’s hit list included two other inmates and a mystery officer in addition to Detective Bobbi Jo Olson of the Aurora Police Department, prosecutors revealed during a preliminary hearing on Valentine’s Day at Arapahoe County District Court – directly adjacent to the facility where Craig has been held since March 2023.
Facing a first-degree murder charge for his wife Angela’s death, Craig tried to recruit fellow inmate Nathanial Harris to be his hitman and Harris’ ex-wife, Kasiani Konstantinidis, 44, to be key players in his masterplan to discredit the prosecution’s case and portray Angela Craig’s death as a suicide.
‘The worst, dirtiest detective in the world is on this case,’ he shared in one letter seized by investigators. ‘Her name is Bobbi Olsen. We have to discredit her.’
‘This defendant hates Detective Olson for all the work she has done on this case,’ prosecutors said Friday.
Sgt Nicholas Hudson, who works at Arapahoe Detention Facility, told the court Friday that a tip came through the general phone line on November 9, 2024 from someone named ‘Loretta’ claiming that Harris, 47 – a cellmate of Craig’s – was in possession of a 20-page letter containing the dentist’s alleged plot.
Detention officers conducted a search and found the letter, and separately spoke with Harris, Hudson told the court.
Harris told the sergeant that Craig wanted to kill four people: Olson; another named officer who remains a mystery to authorities; and two inmates named ‘Roger’ and ‘Tommy.’
Investigators also found letters, signed with Craig’s name, outlining a strategy for Harris’ ex-wife, possibly her sister and several other ‘would-be false witnesses,’
The letters assigned ‘roles’ for each – imploring Kasiani to claim she’d been friends with Angela and personally knew that the mother of six was suicidal.
While Craig has claimed that his wife survived previous attempts, no other friends or family were aware of such alleged instances.
In letters recovered at the jail and from Kasiani, the author offered suggestions for what the false witnesses should say, sharing personal information about Craig, his wife and their children.
To give credence to the backstory, the letter writer acknowledged: ‘I cheated for the first time in 2009 with a patient.’
Arapahoe County Investigator Kalomira Gatchis testified on Friday that letters explained ‘that he had cheated several times, he had a sexual addiction, and that he had numerous affairs with women and that Angela became aware of some of those relationships.’
The letter writer asked for ‘spoofed text messages, phone records and photographic proof to go along with the story he wants her to fabricate,’ the prosecutor alleged – in addition to offering bonuses for ‘additional services.’
Hudson referred to the letters as providing ‘a blank check.’
The plan involved lying to Craig’s attorney and the prosecution, and to lie under oath at the trial.
Craig’s defense questioned whether the letters were actually written or sent by Craig.
Judge Shay Whitaker, however, ruled in favor of the prosecution and allowed the solicitation of first-degree murder and perjury charges to go forward.
The judge said the content contained within the letter – including ‘what beverages her family members do or don’t consume, where they’ve gone on vacation, where she graduated high school … appears to support that this is coming from Dr. Craig, both in volume as well as detail.’
Craig pleaded not guilty on Friday to the two new charges.
A trial date has been set for July 14.
Friday’s charges were just the latest since Craig’s March 2023 arrest.
Aside from the murder charge, all others relate to his time in jail, where he has allegedly tried but failed to mastermind a coverup, using his dental office charm to schmooze fellow inmates.
He allegedly offered cash and even dental services in exchange for planting evidence, framing his wife for suicide, and targeting law enforcement.
In another head scratcher from early last year, Craig was accused of trying to recruit another inmate, William ‘Billy’ Walbon, to procure young, attractive women who would be willing to lie under oath that they were his mistresses.
He wanted these women to say that Angela confronted them and then tried to convince them to frame her husband for her attempted murder, court papers state.
Walbon’s own mother was dragged into this scheme with a promise that Craig would give her a free set of teeth.
Speaking exclusively with DailyMail.com on Wednesday, 57-year-old, denture-wearing Rebecca Waldon she she had her first conversation with the ‘killer dentist’ last spring when her son Billy, 38, phoned from jail and put Craig on the line.
‘Craig told me he’d give me a brand-new set of teeth when he got out,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘He said, ‘I know I’m going to get off this case because I didn’t kill her’.’
Walbon later gave Craig his mom’s address as a point of contact. Craig then mailed her a letter providing them instructions for the scheme. The son gave Craig an old address, so it got kicked back to the jail, where staff intercepted it.
Both of them are now cooperating with the prosecution.
So is former inmate Kacy Bohannan, who is now back home in Englewood, Colorado, where he spoke exclusively with DailyMail.com.
In spring 2023, just months after Craig’s arrest, he allegedly asked Bohannon to plant fake journal entries in either his garage or truck at his home.
Craig wrote the letters himself to appear as though they were written by his deceased wife.
They were meant to show that Angela knew about her husband’s affair and felt suicidal.
Craig allegedly offered to have Bohannon’s bond paid so he could carry out the plan. But Bohannan declined.
‘I was like, how are you going to bond me out when you’re in here for murder?’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘I was like, whatever.’
Craig was also accused of smuggling a letter out of jail with an inmate bonded out by one of his adult daughters. It asked her to make a fake video of Angela asking Craig to get poisons for her.
Police have described Craig’s alleged plot as a ‘heinous, complex and calculated murder.’
The couple had been married for 23 years and had six children together.
Craig started an affair with 49-year-old Texan orthodontist Karin Cain at a dental conference in February 2023.
Prosecutors say that within days, he started researching and buying deadly poisons, wanting to kill Angela so he could start a new life with Cain.
Angela allegedly began feeling unwell after drinking a shake that her husband made her on March 6.
She visited the hospital multiple times over the following week and complained of nausea and dizziness.
On March 15, Angela’s brother took her again to the hospital where she had a seizure and lost brain function. She died March 18.
According to the coroner, she died from cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, the latter a substance found in over-the-counter eye drops.
Craig’s defense attorneys claim that there was no direct evidence showing he had put the fatal dose of poison in his wife’s drink and claimed Craig had been searching online for ways to take his own life.