The Colorado dentist accused of fatally poisoning his wife admitted in writing to filling her antibiotic capsules with cyanide and bringing a poison-filled syringe to her hospital room, his murder trial heard on Monday.
Craig, now 47, made the sensational confessions in an iPhone note he wrote on his device in the hours after he was confronted by a longtime friend about a suspicious order of cyanide to his workplace – and in the hours after doctors told Craig his wife was essentially brain dead.
Craig is charged with first-degree murder in connection with the March 2023 death of his wife, Angela, 43, the mother of his six children.
Prosecutors argue the dentist poisoned her with cyanide, arsenic and tetrahydrozoline, a chemical found in eyedrops, amidst mounting financial troubles and extramarital affairs, particularly a budding romance with a Texas orthodontist.
The defense contends Angela was suicidal and ‘manipulative’ – and jurors heard portions of Craig’s iPhone note explanation read out in court Monday by Aurora Det. Bobbi Jo Olson, whose testimony was continuing from Friday.
Police had cordoned off Craig’s home and denied the dentist access by the time he typed the four-page ‘timeline’ into his iPhone in the early hours of March 16, 2023.
The trial has heard from witnesses how, on March 15, Craig’s longtime friend and business partner, Ryan Redfearn, told hospital staff Craig had ordered a ‘personal package’ of potassium cyanide to the dental practice. That set off a police investigation.
Craig and his children stayed overnight with friends – and Craig apparently authored the note within the same timeframe.
In it, he wrote that his wife, Angela, had become suicidal after he asked for a divorce, the court heard – and that he was helping her die by poisoning.
Angela was taken off life support on March 18. Craig was arrested the following day.
When first confronted about cyanide by his friend Dr Ryan Redfearn – who also alerted the hospital, ultimately prompting a police investigation – Craig insisted Angela had asked him to order poisons in a game of ‘chicken.’
There was no mention of any game of ‘chicken’ in the iPhone note, Olson testified on Monday.
Craig did, however, continue insisting that Angela had wanted to take her own life – and that he’d helped her.
‘She told me she intended to drink eyedrops again and then do the cyanide,’ Craig wrote in the iPhone note. ‘She asked me to put it in a capsule and then, as a backup plan, have a syringe with potassium cyanide dissolved in water.’
He wrote: ‘I got her Clyndamycin [an antibiotic she was taking for sinus trouble] prescription and filled two capsules with 300mg each of potassium cyanide … she asked me to do something like a dozen capsules.’
Angela’s brother and sister-in-law, who’d driven from Utah to help with the couple’s children as she grew sicker with mystery symptoms, last week that Craig repeatedly checked to make sure they’d given her Clyndamycin.
Olson also read out a text from Craig to his wife saying that the hospital had ‘said yeah’ to the prescription – despite his iPhone note claiming she’d asked for the pills herself.
According to Craig’s timeline, he’d returned home from a dental conference in late February to ask for a divorce after meeting his new orthodontist paramour – but Angela refused and ‘said she was just going to end her life.’
That’s when they both began researching poisons, he insisted – though no such searches were found on Angela’s phone, Olson testified. Instead, trial testimony and exhibits have shown Angela made desperate searches for her symptoms while trying to figure out what was making her so sick.
Her friends and family have also testified that she loved life, loved being a mother and was in no way suicidal.
Craig also claimed in the note that, when briefly alone with Angela in her hospital room on March 15 – after nearly 10 days of her illness, during which she’d repeatedly complained to loved ones that she didn’t know why doctors couldn’t find a cause – ‘she asked me to help her finish the job.
‘I told her that I would not administer any of her poisons, but I could give her the syringe that she had asked me to prepare,’ Olson read out in Craig’s own words. ‘I gave her the syringe and turned my back; the next thing I knew, she was saying that her arm hurt, and I turned around and saw the empty syringe’ next to her IV port.
Craig wrote that he put the syringe in his pocket and informed nurses.
‘That must’ve done the trick, because I don’t think she ever regained consciousness,’ Craig wrote.
Olson testified that, according to hospital surveillance footage, Craig was only in the room with Angela for 60 seconds during this alleged interaction.
Against repeated defense objections, Deputy District Attorney Michael Mauro on Monday asked Olson to confirm that Craig’s iPhone note contradicted other explanations he’d given about Angela’s death.
The dentist has alternately claimed that Angela was playing a game of ‘chicken;’ that she miscalculated her poison dosage; and that she’d been trying to frame him.
None of these scenarios appeared in his iPhone note, Olson told the court.
The trial also heard on Monday how the Clindamycin prescription bottle vanished from the house after Craig was allowed back in – before investigators could test its contents.
Craig’s defense team argues that Angela was suicidal and ‘manipulative.’
Defense attorney Lisa Fine Moses, during cross-examination of Olson, began by highlighting the publicity surrounding the case – implying inmates who testified against Craig had gleaned information from the news or internet.
She also queried why police hadn’t seized Angela’s laptop, devices, medications and other items during their search of the Craig residence.
Moses also pointed out that, while Craig was the beneficiary of life insurance policies totaling $4million in the event of Angela’s death, she would have equally benefited if the dentist died.
The defense lawyer – whose husband had also been representing Craig, before he was arrested for arson earlier this month and removed himself from the case – read out portions from Angela’s journal from 2009 and 2018, when the mother of six discovered past affairs, expressing hopelessness and sadness.
The trial has heard how Angela discovered another affair in the months before her murder – but believed her marriage was ‘on the mend.’
Moses also showed clips from home surveillance in which the couple appeared ‘loving toward each other’ – which Mauro pointed out on redirect were taken both before and after Craig claims he told Angela he wanted a divorce … allegedly sparking her suicidality.
Both prosecution and the defense rested following Olson’s testimony.
Closing arguments are scheduled for Tuesday morning.