The Colorado dentist on trial for fatally poisoning his wife admitted to drugging her four years before her murder, the victim’s best friend testified on Monday.
Nikki Harmon, whose husband had known defendant James Craig since his teens and at one point worked for him, choked back tears and struggled to speak as she took the stand feet from her former friend.
Craig, 47, is charged with first-degree murder in connection with the 2023 death of his 43,-year-old wife, Angela, the mother of his six children.
Prosecutors allege he tainted her shakes and poisoned her with arsenic, cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, a chemical found in eyedrops, amidst financial struggles and a new affair.
Harmon told the court on Monday that Craig and his wife – ‘Jim and Angie’ – came to the Harmons’ home in 2019 to share shocking information.
‘He told us that he had been dealing with sexual addiction for along time and that it had gotten to appoint where he was going to, or had thought about, killing himself,’ Harmon said.
‘And he told us that, one night, he was planning to inject himself with something to kill himself and drugged Angie to make sure that she didn’t wake up and stop him.’
Angela, Harmon said, ‘told us that she was going to stay in the marriage and … she was going to help him work through it.
‘And so he was attending group counselling and therapy.’
Harmon testified that her relationship with her best friend cooled after the conversation – and that Angela seemed mad, texting that Harmon hadn’t been there for her when she needed her.
Harmon felt that Angela was upset and ‘taking it out on me – and I was okay with that.’
Despite the fact that they were no longer as close, Angela texted Harmon on March 9, 2023 and asked her to come check her blood sugar; Harmon’s daughter is diabetic, she said.
Angela was watching cartoons on the couch with her two youngest when Harmon arrived and ‘looked like she hadn’t slept well … she just really looked like she was very sick.’
The mother of six told Harmon ‘that she hadn’t been able to get off the couch for several days, that she wasn’t able to keep any food down, that she was super tired.’
Angela’s teenage daughter took her to the hospital later in the day, where she was admitted and remained for days, Harmon said. She texted her friend throughout the hospitalization, and Angela seemed to have no idea what was causing her mystery illness, Harmon testified.
Harmon was also texting Craig – who at first proffered coronavirus and diabetes as possibilities before texter her that he had ‘no idea’ what was wrong with his wife.
Six days after Angela texted Harmon, she was admitted to the hospital, initially conversant with relatively stable vitals, but she suffered a severe crash later in the day, Dr Peter Sottile testified on Monday.
‘What was reported to me was that the husband had been in the room with Angela and came out and reported she was having arm pain and looked uncomfortable and in distress,’ he told the court.
She was unresponsive, hypotensive, with low blood pressure and low oxygenation, he said – and doctors soon determined she had severe swelling in the brain that was ‘not compatible with survival.’
‘It’s unusual for a 40-something woman … to walk into the ER with some type of vague complaints and, all of a sudden, essentially die in front of you,’ he testified.
Dr Sottile and other providers went to share the distressing news with Craig and the others supporting him as they waited near the ICU, he said.
Craig sent the others out of the room and was informed that ‘his wife was likely brain dead’ – to which the dentist’s response was ‘unusual,’ the doctor told the court.
‘His words were to the effect of, “That’s unfortunate” – it was a very lacklustre, for lack of a better word … response to hearing that your wife, who had been healthy, was now likely dead.
‘He went on to say that this was “bitter.”
When asked if he wanted doctors to continue interventions, Dr Sottile said, Craig’s ‘response was that we should stop – that she would want us to stop.’
Around the same time doctors were sharing devastating information with Craig, the dentist’s long-time friend, Dr Ryan Redfearn, was informing hospital staff that he’d discovered cyanide had been delivered to Craig’s office, Redfearn testified on Friday.
That information was later passed to Sottile and the medical team, the toxicology team was called in and Angela was given the cyanide antidote, Dr Sottile said Monday.
But the brain swelling remained ‘not likely reversible.’