Transcript of 21 Days to Murder

A 20-year-old soldier goes missing from a US Army base. How can she go missing on a military base?

That's too ridiculous.

What would come to light is horrifying and ignites a movement that sparks a reckoning in the US military. Listen to Vanished: What Happened to Vanessa, a new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

There's something weird going on here, though. You are working on a case about a murder that hasn't happened yet. How it started before the murder trial of the season.

A seemingly healthy female that was brought into the ER that was potentially now brain dead. It's like we entered the twilight zone. There's an investigation going on right now.

It's prime student. The package comes right to this desk, but it's like a Pandora's box because When it's opened, it sets off a chain of events. It changes everything.

And the house of cards come crashing down.

Including on this woman who's speaking out only to 2020. And so in the space of about 24 hours, you go from being complete strangers to basically being a couple.

I didn't know a lot about this guy, right?

The gates of hell had just been opened in front of you. Yeah. University Hospital, Aurora, Colorado. What you're seeing are the last moments of Angela Craig. She's a healthy mother of 6: 00, and she's being rushed into the emergency room with these mysterious symptoms. In only hours, she's going to crash with very few clues as to why.

It just gives goosebumps you in your goosebumps. It hits you in your core. She doesn't look herself, and it breaks your heart knowing that these are her final hours, these are her final minutes.

And so you're watching the slow motion murder happen in real-time, and you have to try to stop it.

Yes.

Family, friends, and authorities at this point are just desperately trying to piece together what has happened here.

I'm going to tell you something that's going to sound really insane. Maybe I watch any crime shows, and maybe I I didn't even say this. Threw a homicide unit, and I was wondering if you have a minute to speak with me.

What is the motive? Is it money?

Was it somebody snapping? Spur of the moment?

Do you have any idea of what you were actually getting into here?

There was no way of knowing because it just kept changing. It kept getting more stunning, more crazy.

It begins 21 days earlier. Over the course of those 21 days, trust will be broken, lies will be told, and it will end with Angela Craig's murder. It's February of 2023, and James Craig is heading home after presenting at this high-profile dental convention in Las Vegas, while his wife, Angela, is about to visit her older sister in Utah. Now, Angela is from this very tight-knit family. She's the youngest of 10 siblings and incredibly close to all of them. And what should have been a pleasant break from the Craig's routine will set off a stunning chain of events. James and Angela Craig have been married for 23 years.

They've got six kids ranging in age from 8 to 23, and the younger four still live at home.

And the Craigs have lots of close friends they've made over the years, including their neighbors who moved from South Africa, and they became like family.

From the beginning, we really just We just love them. We always made the joke, if something happened to us, we're moving in the basement with them because we always felt like they had our back.

James and Angela live in Aurora, Colorado, which is just outside of Denver.

Aurora is basically a suburb of Denver. You cross one street, you're going from Denver to Aurora. It's the third largest city in Colorado.

The Craig's house is part of this community of pretty big homes. It's a really lovely neighborhood with a lot of wealth.

On the whole street, everyone knew that house. They just opened the garage. It's like a train station all day.

Just people coming and going, grabbing a bite to eat, leaving, hanging out. Mostly kids.

Yeah, just all the street kids. We were always there.

James and Angela have a relationship that many people admire. They even post photos together on their joint Facebook account. And friends say that his sense of humor and her quick wit were just this perfect blend.

A lot of people looked up to their marriage, and they made it seem fun, raising six kids together in a crazy house. Jim and Ang were very affectionate with each in a way that I actually thought was really cute. Public displays of affection at that age, that long into a marriage, I thought actually was very refreshing.

James and Angela are very active in the Mormon Church.

They attend church. They pray together as a family. They study their scriptures together as a family. They actually serve in their local congregation. And James Craig was the elders quorum President. And that's a big deal. You're making sure that men are taken care of, that their families are taken care of. It's a big responsibility and a very respected leadership position.

Besides faith, Angela's other true calling is motherhood.

Her whole life revolved around her kids, 100%.

She had six children that she was caring for. She sounds like a super mom.

She definitely did. I always looked up to her by If I needed some mom advice, I would reach out to her. She was very witty and comments even to the kids. I think one of her biggest sayings was, I love your stinking guts. She just said that all the time.

While Angela runs the home, James Craig is the provider. Now, James is actually Dr. James Craig, and he runs Summerbrook Dental Group, a practice he's owned for 17 years and which he promotes online.

My approach to dentistry begins with sincerely listening to the patient and wanting to find out more about where they're coming from and what they're looking for and what they want.

I also have a very strong philosophy that a happy team makes happy patients.

Jim Craig was my dentist for the better part of a decade and did his advertising when I was a radio newsman. I remember talking about trying to convince a radio audience, If you need a dentist, go see my friend, my dentist, Dr. Jim Craig. He's excellent. For a dentist, he has a great smile. It's his best calling card, right? When he smiled, it was his whole body that smiled. I mean, he leaned in for it. He giggled a lot. He just was very charismatic. He could get you to like him in two seconds. He really was a positive guy.

On Summerbrook Dental's Facebook page, the team would post snippets of the levity of daily life at the practice. It was always front and center, including when James dressed up as the tooth fairy.

And here's the tooth fairy.

There you go.

Hi. I thought you needed a tooth extraction.

I'm here to do the work. In 2022, Dr. James Craig partners with Dr. Ryan Redfern, his longtime friend and fellow dentist, who he'd gone to dental school with.

Jim was extremely busy, had a lot of irons in the fire, but seemed to handle them very well. I thought that he was one of the smartest people I've ever met.

And fellow dentists are drawn to work at the practice because he's on the cutting edge of dental technology.

I couldn't believe all the cool stuff that he was doing at the office, all the exciting technology, things that really were a dream for a newer dentist.

And it's pretty financially lucrative as well.

He had a very large house. He was going on these lavish vacations with his family. I was like, Wow, this guy has been very successful financially for a very long time.

James Craig is heading home to Angela and his kids from this dental convention in Las Vegas.

It was just another convention that he went to so many of them that he just, I'm going to go train here, and I'm going to go teach here. I'm going to go speak here.

But this convention is different. A countdown begins. Angela has 21 days left to live. And someone who attends that convention will unknowingly hold some of the clues as to what happens to Angela.

It's pretty terrible.

James and Angela Craig together again in their million-dollar home. Remember, he'd been at that dental convention in Las Vegas. She was visiting family in Utah. Now it's back to their routine recorded on their security cameras. What do you see in the video?

They're being a loving couple, normal husband and wife, normal mom and dad to their kids that are running around the house. They're doing dishes. They're making protein drinks. They drink a lot of protein drinks in that family. That was like a thing for them. Everybody's mixing up protein drinks.

What is not seen on camera the calendar of a crime. Precious time is ticking away. From 21 days to murder, Angela Craig now has just 12 days to live. Can you describe the last days of Angela's life?

It begins on the morning of March sixth. Angela woke up. She did a really hard workout on her bike. She rode her indoor bicycle, was very athletic, always drinking her protein shakes or workout smoothies. And she starts to feel sick. She's not sure what's happening. She doesn't feel like herself. At some point in the morning, Angela texts James Craig and says, I worked out, I drank the smoothie, and I'm not feeling well. I'm feeling dizzy. I'm feeling off. Caitlin, the office manager, he came up to her and said, I just got a call from Angie. She's not feeling well. Her blood pressure, she's saying that her blood pressure is high.

Dr. Craig, still in his scrubs, races home and rushes Angela to the hospital.

The symptoms are severe headaches. She's got nausea. She can't focus. Extremely sick.

Even after a battery of tests, Angela and her doctors are baffled. So this is not just a personal medical mystery. Medical professionals also couldn't figure it out.

Correct. She was confused about what was happening to her. Medical professionals were confused about what was happening to her.

Doctors finally diagnose fatigue and elevated blood sugar, and Angela is released.

And she is desperately searching for why she is so sick. She was searching. I believe we were presented with 40 different searches from her phone alone that were all related to dizziness, being light-headed, feeling very heavy.

When did you first learn that she had been feeling ill?

He texted me, telling me that Angela's having this weird medical thingy. He called it. I thought, Well, it's just probably a virus. There was no indication of the seriousness of it.

The next day, there's Angela. You can see she's supported by one of her daughters on her way to an urgent care. Then just days after that, another emergency. There's Angela, again, slumped on the counter as her daughter calls 911.

911, what's the address to the emergency?

I'm at home with my mom right now.

She's been feeling a little sick for the past couple of days. She's throwing up a lot, and she's worried that she's going to crash and pass out.

She was thinking she could make it to the car so she could get to the hospital. Earlier that day, and this is hard to watch, after passing out, Angela crawling on hands and knees.

She's so, so sick. She's so sick. Once again, she goes to the ER, desperate for answers. This time, she is admitted because her symptoms are so much worse. She's feeling horrible, and no one can figure out what What the hell is going on with her? Somebody knew. Someone knew. Angela ends up being in the hospital for five days, and James is coming over every evening after work and taking care of the children. He's bringing her food.

Angela Craig is strong, though, and she recovers enough to be released. She's looking forward to a return to normal life with her husband and kids, never knowing that now she has only four days to live. She thanks him at one point for taking such good care of her.

Thank you for essentially carving out time for me. I know that you're holding the fort down at home and doing all these other things, but I really appreciate it.

Angela Craig has just three days to live.

And then boom, sick again, and new symptoms and different symptoms.

And in the vein of trying to care for her, Jim Craig is saying, Why don't we give you clindamycin?

Yeah, So originally, they potentially thought that she had a sinus infection. And so as a dentist, he can prescribe antibiotics. Clindamia sent a medication meant to treat sinus infections, among other things, and something that James Craig had prescribed to his wife with Angela Craig.

Dr. Craig reminds Angela's brother, Mark Pray, to give Angela her medicine.

He gives her two of those capsules in the morning, and around 20 minutes later, Angela Craig is saying she can't hold herself up anymore. So Mark Pray, Angela's brother, rushes her to the hospital. She ends up going to University Hospital and checking in and never checking out. By 2: 00 that afternoon, Angela has deteriorated. Her organs are failing. She's put on life support. She is intubated. It's one of their daughters just called, and she was just crying. And she just said, The doctors are saying that my mom's not going to make it.

And I was like, What?

What do you mean?

And people start to wonder, how did things go so wrong? Because there's nothing more contagious than a bad case of suspicion.

You're getting ready to accuse somebody.

The moment you say something, Pandora's box is opened. Welcome to Only Only Murders in the Building.

The official podcast. Join me, Michael Ceeero Creighton, as we go behind the scenes with some of the amazing actors, writers, and crew from Season 5. The audience should never stop suspecting anything. How can you not be funny crawling around on a I'm coughing. No, that's true. Catch Only Murders in the Building official podcast. Now, streaming. Wherever you get your podcasts and watch Only Murders in the Building, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

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Angela Craig is running out of time. She's dying right before her doctor's eyes, and the cause of her illness is still unknown until one extraordinary day. This day, this March 15th day.

It's like we entered the twilight zone. Yeah, that's a weird day. It's a crazy day.

James Craig alerts their business partners and their longtime friends, Ryan and Michelle Redfern.

When he She basically conveyed that she was not looking good, I said, Would you like us to come to the hospital?

Not looking good as in she might die?

She might die, yes.

Michelle, when you're driving to the hospital, you get a call from Jackie Calderon, who is the operations manager.

She called and she said that she had Kaitlyn on the phone, and Kaitlyn was pretty upset that she had opened a package on Monday. She I said what was in the package.

This is Dr. Craig's office. We got access to where he actually practice dentistry. Offices like this, they get a lot of packages. On March 13th, 2023, a package comes right to this desk, but it's like a Pandora's box because when it's opened, it sets off a chain of events. It changes everything.

The package itself out of the box, it was about this big, and it was like a thick foil, and it was sealed shut.

Office manager Kaitlyn Romero will later tell detectives that while his wife is fighting for her life, Dr. Craig is anxiously awaiting a special delivery.

He said, I'm going to have a personal package delivered to the office. He had asked me multiple times about it during the wait, did my package come in?

Dr. Craig's package does come in, but an employee opens it, and Kaitlyn Romero takes a look and says, I saw that it said, Potassium cyanide? Okay.

And so I closed the box back up. I gave it to him.

Two days later, she tells her boss about it. Operations manager, Jackie Calderone.

I called Jackie, called her own. I called Jackie and I told her, I'm going to tell you something that's going to sound really insane. And I said, No. Are you sure it wasn't potassium chloride? Was he ordering salt? She goes, No, it was potassium cyanide. She goes, I didn't know what that was. The The next day, I looked it up. He was looking at the side effects from that, and that was everything that his wife was going through. All the symptoms match exactly what's wrong with Angie.

And so Jackie and Kaitlyn get on a call immediately with Michelle and Ryan Redfer.

And she said it was potassium cyanide, and my gut dropped.

Is there any medical need in dentistry for potassium cyanide?

Absolutely not. It's poison. It's poison. And he goes, Kaitlyn, are you sure that is what you saw? And she said, When I said, Well, I'm going to tell somebody, I have to.

Is there a thought in your mind right now that if you don't intervene quickly enough, that Angela could die?

I felt like she was alive and fighting for her life.

And time is of the essence. And time is of the essence.

Ryan had to make a couple of really quick decisions here. He had to decide whether this information was important enough to tell the hospital. And he also had to face the really hard realization that his business partner and friend may be the reason that Angela is in the hospital fighting for her life. You're getting ready to accuse somebody... Of killing their wife.

The moment you say something to an official at the hospital Pandora's box is opened. Pandora's box is opened.

Nothing's ever the same, whether it's true or not. Hoping you're wrong, but knowing that regardless, life just changed.

Jim was our friend.

I liked him. He was a great guy. He was funny. And we were going to lose both of them.

And the first person Ryan sees at the hospital, James Craig.

And all of a sudden, I heard my name, and I look up, and it's Jim. And we embrace. And he cries. I cry with him.

And he said, It doesn't look good. She might die tonight, is what he said to me. Inside the hospital, in a dark hallway, Ryan flags down a nurse.

I said, I received some news on the way to the hospital here that I just got 30 minutes ago, and I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I don't even know how to say this.

I'm not saying he did or didn't, but it's possible that she is a victim of potassium cyanide poisoning. And what happens?

I went back out to the waiting room.

As if nothing happened? As if nothing happened. And Jim is right there.

And Jim's right there. Yeah. At that point, we're seeing security running down the hall. They're entering the ICU. Security is now in the waiting room. You're beginning to see... The hospital's response. People are running around. Ryan says, I think it's time for us to leave. They walked out to their car. They both went into Michelle's car, and Jim called Ryan right away. Jim calls. Ryan, I've heard some disturbing I said, Yeah, Jim. I said, Yeah. I said, You had a package delivered to the office.

What was in the package, Jim?

He was like, Well, if you have to know, it was a ring for Angie. I said, No, Jim. It wasn't a ring. I said, What do you need potassium cyanide for, Jim? And he was just like, Well, Ryan, what have you done? Oh, Ryan, what have you done? And then he immediately said, I bought it. Yeah.

And I thought- He said, Yeah, I bought it.

And- Now there's no doubt. At the end, near the end, I said, Jen, stop talking and get a lawyer. Stop talking and get a lawyer. You're going to need one. So the hospital calls. Yeah, their forensic nursing staff calls us. Aurora police detectives are at University Hospital, and the house of cards come crashing down.

Now, a pair of Aurora detectives is on the case. They're armed with search warrants, and they are determined to get to the bottom of what's killing Angela Craig. In the case of Angela Craig, there was a time for doctors. Now, it's a time for detectives. In the five years you've been doing homicide, you've probably seen shootings, probably stabbing. Oh, yes. How about poisoning?

No, this is our first poisoning. We get to the Aurora police station. And we're there for hours.

Hours, hours, and hours.

We finally released about 04: 00 AM. About 04: 00 AM.

After a few hours of sleep, Michelle and Ryan Redfern wake up to a text message from their good friend, James Crank. You wake up to this text. He's reading it to me. I'm reading it to her. I am very, very mad at you.

For now, what you thought was responsible has become reckless and so, so destructive.

It still angers you to read this It does.

And so I'm asking if there was ever any love in your heart for me, please don't make this any worse by talking to any officers or anyone else about this. My response was, forward to Bobby Joe Olson. Immediately.

That's what I did. Strange as it sounds, Angela Craig's death investigation is well underway, even though she is still alive, although the end is near.

There's an investigation going on I know. So it's a crime scene.

Family and friends gather at the Craig home.

It was a cold evening, and I remember it had just started snowing, and we pulled up there, and there was a lot of police activity.

We're supposed to come out here and sit on this address and not let anybody else in. Officers allow the family dogs to leave.

You guys want to take the dogs or something? That's fine. You can take the dogs. Okay.

Come on, Then Dr. Craig arrives. Say, Brian, we got the husband right here. Craig? Jim Craig.

Okay, so she's just- Craig is last name. We've been directed by our detectives that nobody's allowed back inside the house.

Okay.

It's basically a death investigation right now. Wow. Yeah. Okay.

Detectives send word that they'd like Dr. Craig to come down to headquarters.

We'd like to go to headquarters and talk to the detectives. Tonight? Yeah. Okay. If I get down there, I'm not going to want to answer any questions. I'm going to probably lawyer up. So you don't want to go down there right now? I don't want to, no. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so you're free to go.

At this point, Detectives Bobby Olson and Molly Harris are working round the clock.

We did not go home. I mean, this was, again, sleeping under a desk, taking a 15-minute naps, like power naps, and waking up and going.

Next morning, it's time for an unscheduled dentist appointment with Dr. Craig, who's staying at a friend's house.

It's freezing out here.

Yeah.

I'm Detective Olson. This is Detective Groff. Okay. I guess we're coming to, I guess, talk to you or see if you want to talk to us. Okay. Is that something you're interested in? No. Okay. And that's fine. So we have a search warrant, basically, for your cell phone, Angela's cell phone, your wallet, and/or your laptop.

Okay.

That was our first interaction, March 16th at about 8: 30 in the morning.

What did you make of him?

He was scared out of his mind.

Am I a suspect in something right now then.

So here's where we're at.

There are questions. Yeah.

And I have answers. Based on what we've heard. Yeah. Well, my understanding is you wanted to talk to an attorney before you talked to us. Yeah. Perfectly within your rights, and I totally get it. But we do have those questions. So until they're answered, it's hard to say yes or no to what you just asked me. Am I a suspect or not? Well, I guess it depends.

And the next stop is a search of the Craig family home. All right, so this is the house. And do you have any idea what you're looking for?

We still don't, right? All we know is the potassium cyanide was delivered to the dental office.

Visitors to the Craig family home are greeted with that inscription Welcome to our Happily Ever After.

We did find some medications related to Angela Craig. We did find numerous powders, if you will, but we were really looking for any and everything without the knowledge of what exactly the consistency was of those potential poisons.

Yeah, we didn't even know what a cyanide looked like. They don't find a smoking gun, but still, their suspicion begins to throb like a toothache when investigators find a text message, Dr. Craig sent Angela when she first got sick.

This is very early on in her illness, and she's telling him, I feel drugged. And his response is, Well, given our history, I can see how that would be triggering. Just for the record, I didn't drug you.

So he has a history of drugging her?

As far as we know, in 2018, he sedated Angela without her knowledge or consent. And he says he did so because he wanted to take his own life and he didn't want her to interfere.

Vivian Fondimarva and her daughters, Jessica and Tama, say they got a glimpse of something strange when they went to comfort the Craig family. Dr. Craig was leading everyone in a prayer.

He was basically yelling, and he was so red in the face and just so just animated about it. And he was just screaming that he will see Angela in heaven again and all sins are forgiven. It It wasn't a prayer about her, but it was just about his salvation, and that it doesn't matter what sins we've done, he will still make it into heaven, and he'll be with her again. He was demanding his salvation.

He was demanding his salvation.

I think that's when we saw a Jim that we never knew. We walked away in absolute shock.

And then the end of 21 horrible days. The clock stops. The deaf investor investigation now has a death. Angela Craig is gone. When is Angela officially pronounced dead?

March 18th. Family members had told us that he had called them and said that he did not want an autopsy performed because if they couldn't figure out what had happened to her when she was alive, he did not want them poking and prodding when she was dead. Fortunately, James didn't get to make that decision.

This is a investigation, and there is going to be an autopsy. Now, what that autopsy and the investigation turn up next is enough to turn your stomach. Arsenec, potassium cyanide, their drugs out of some dime store novel or murder mystery from 100 plus years ago. But proving Dr. Craig is the poisoner, that's another matter. Detectives bidge on endless hours of Craig family security video. What will they find? Fx presents The Lowdown. What I've uncovered is insane.

Starring Ethan Hawk. Behind Every Great Fortune is a great crime. And from the co-creator of Reservation Dubs, Sterlin Harjo. Hidden tunnels, kinky sex stuff. I don't know how it all connects, but till I do, I just keep laughing. Fx's The Lowdown. Premiere September 23rd on FX.

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Okay, so we're talking about a medical Plaza. This is not just a standalone dental clinic.

No, that's correct. And then they're up on that third floor Do you see the-I do.

I see the dental chairs and the apparatus. The dental office of Dr. James Craig in Aurora, Colorado. Seans of cavities, root canals, countless cleanings. Really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you.

And now, a search for evidence in Angela Craig's unexpected illness and untimely death.

You have a seat. There you go. The office manager, Kaitlyn Romero, who really is one of the major heroes of this whole story, because without her, there's a chance that this goes undetected. I know that there's been some concerning observations that you guys had in the practice itself as it relates to James. She told us about how on March sixth in the evening, she was locking up. She thought she was the only employee there.

We got exclusive access to the dental office at the very center of this case, and so we can show you exactly what Kaitlyn Romero saw that night. Right here, she noticed in exam room number 9, Dr. James Craig sitting at a computer here.

He was sitting in there, and he was sitting in the dark. The light was off, and he was on the computer in there.

This was really unusual because typically, Dr. Craig did not stay late, and if he were working on a computer, it would be on a laptop in his office.

And he said that he had gotten his wife home and situated, and it had been a stressful day, and he just needed a break, which is why he came back to the office.

What was he doing there in exam room number 9? One of the first searches that he does is how to make murder look like a heart attack. There are hundreds of searches about poisons, and he read a lot of news articles about other poisonings.

Cyanide, oleander, arsenic, tetrahydrosaline, an ingredient commonly found in drops. He's trying to cover his tracks. He doesn't think anybody's ever going to look at exam room number 9's computer.

Also on that computer, according to police, evidence of a poison shopping spree. The arsenic is in the mail And the arsenic is in the mail, and it's captured on home security video. This is the moment he goes to pick up the arsenic.

The arsenic gets delivered, yes, at 149, and we see the post office truck driving past, and then you see him exit the house at 151. He's at the mailbox getting it out of there. Then he buys a lot of Vizine, a lot of eye drops. We're talking 19 bottles in two days.

Plenty of poison. The question is how to get his wife to ingest it. Now, authorities watched this home security video. That's how he did it. They say James Craig spiked his wife's shakes and smoothies.

Now, we do get a couple of images images on the home surveillance of James Craig doing suspicious things. You see him in and out of the refrigerator with Angela's shaker bottles, and you see him preparing the drinks that she then later is consuming. So it's probable that he's administering arsenic on March sixth in her protein shake. When Angela went into the hospital on March ninth, she had an elevated level of arsenic in her blood, enough to make you feel sick, to make you feel dizzy, enough to make you feel like you've been drugged. And so he's giving Vizine to her, probably also in her drinks, because her bottle on the bedside table that we collected and had analyzed, it has tetrahydrosaline in it.

Prosecutors also point to this hospital video of James Craig arriving on March 15th with food and a drink heading right to Angela's bedside.

My job as the forensic pathologist is to speak for the decedent and to tell their last story. They can't speak for themselves. I have to be that person that brings to light what has happened to them.

Dr. Kelly Lear says what happened to Angela Craig was murder.

Her cause of death was cyanide and tetrahydraxoline poisoning. Her Her manner of death was homicide.

How many separate occasions do you believe that James Craig poisoned Angela?

It was throughout those 10 days, from March sixth through March 15th. He never stopped poisoning her.

The night after Angela Craig is pronounced dead, detectives lure her husband to police headquarters with a ruse.

I had called him and told him I was going to give him his phone back. How are you doing?

That's well, thank you.

Hi. Hi, Bob. You are under arrest. Okay. Okay. First three murder. He didn't seem surprised. Calm and collected and really no fight or dispute of why he was there. I didn't expect this.

Sorry, God. Inside the police station, detectives tell the accused murderer he's got two options. Talk or take the fifth.

We're going to take your cups off here I'm sorry. I just wanted to see. So I do have an arrest warrant for the murder of Angela. My gosh. I just want to give you that opportunity to tell us so you know. As you can imagine, this is terrifying for me. And you both seem very nice and like you're on my side, but I know how this works.

I don't want to incriminate myself or say anything stupid or I don't know how to navigate this.

I've never done this before. And I'm scared to death. That's understandable.

Yeah.

I can tell you I did not kill my wife.

This is where it's really unusual because Craig asks the detectives who had just arrested him for advice.

Oh, this is a horrible Detailable.

What would you do if you were in that position?

I feel for you. I really do.

Trust you.

So. What would you do? I can't give you legal advice, and I can't tell you what to do.

At this point, the dentist who'd spent years Telling patients to open wide, he decides to keep his mouth shut.

Oh, my gosh. I have all the answers that you need, but I can't talk. I can't.

The next sound you hear. We gave. That marks the beginning of the end of James Craig's career as a dentist and the start of his new calling as a defendant. That's a morsel. Thank you. Thank you. Police now begin to rewind the last 21 days in the life of James Craig. You're talking about a case with poison, infidelity, betrayal, Vegas.

How did you meet him? I had a dental meeting in Las Vegas.

And rest assured, what happened in Vegas is not going to stay in Vegas.

It just kept going. The deceit, manipulation, shock value of this case kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and it was shocking.

I'm going to take a leap here and say that this is probably the first time that you've ever seen a protein shaker as a murder weapon. Yes.

Marriages only end in two ways: death or divorce. Or murder.

In the trial that just wrapped. They proved beyond a reasonable doubt that this guy was a pretty crappy husband.

He cheated on his wife constantly. There's always another woman.

And this one is talking exclusively to 2020. So he invited you to his house in the hours after his wife had died? Yeah.

She has no idea what she's getting herself into. Probably one of the more insidious, horrible things that I have ever seen in this business.

How common is it for you to have a case in which the person facing murder charges tries to put a hit out on the lead detective?

I was a sitting duck.

We're about to see deep fake videos, murder for hire, a secret sugar daddy. It can't get any worse.

That manipulation is just in movies.

Investigators have just made a shocking arrest in the murder of Colorado mother of six, Angela Craig. It's her devoted dentist husband, James.

There are answers.

There are answers, and this makes a lot of sense once those answers come out. Dr. James Craig had seemed to be the very picture of success. A business owner with a thriving dental practice who's a loving father.

Looking back, there was just nothing that would indicate there were any problems. A father of six children and an Aurora dentist is accused accused of poisoning his wife. You can see a lot about a person through their eyes.

A lot.

He looked dead in his eyes in the mug shot. It's a shot of full exposure without hope. It looked like he had been crying, but it didn't look like he had been crying because he just lost his wife. It looked like he'd been crying because he got caught. The Aurora dentist accused of poisoning and killing his wife was in court this morning.

James Craig is formally charged with first-degree murder. He pleads not guilty, but he's accused of poisoning Angela, lacing her protein shakes.

The poisoning aspect to this was so unique. We were seeing this story play out all over the country. I think the fact of who the Crags were lent a great deal into this national interest. The fact that a dentist, it's a profession that you believe you can trust.

The arrest warrant is 52 pages, and it's got a lot of the evidence that police have collected so far, including photos and text messages.

You read page after page after page. You're going, there's no way that somebody could be so cool.

On a page 36, there is this huge revelation. Right there is a name, Dr. Karen Cain. She's an orthodontist from Texas. Was this an aha moment in the case?

It was definitely an additional person that we needed to find.

When Detective Search, James Craig's email account, which they say he used to order poisons, they find this trove of what they say are steamy emails with a fellow dental professional, Dr. Karen Cain. The correspondence seems to indicate that the two had just met about three weeks earlier, but their relationship seems to have gotten very serious very quickly.

It seems like you do these types of stories, news long enough. There's always another woman.

Now, Dr. Karen Cain is speaking for the first time to us in this exclusive interview. I first met her back in 2023, only months after James Craig was arrested. Back then, she was still sifting through the wreckage. Karen Cain has a very different story to tell about what was unfolding those last 21 days of Angela Craig's life. And we start at the very beginning. And this is where Karen first meets James Craig at that dental convention in Vegas, where he was speaking. When was the first time that you saw James?

Standing in line to get on this shuttle bus to take us to our corporate dinner that the meeting was putting on. We just started talking, ended up sitting next to each other on this shuttle ride over to dinner. And he was like, Can I sit with you at dinner and finish this conversation?

At this point, Karen is in the process of finalizing divorce. She'd been married for 27 years, two grown kids out of the house. Her husband had moved out just over a year before, and she says she'd made peace with her new life living alone. But that's when she meets James Craig. First impression.

I mean, there's not an immediate physical attraction. Sweet eyes, great smile, just easy. So easy to talk to.

Okay, so initial reaction, is this friend vibe or is this, this could be something more than friend.

Definitely friend vibe.

Karen says in those initial conversations that they're connecting because there's so much common ground. She says that James opens his heart up to her, that he's also going through a painful divorce. He tells her that he and his wife of 23 years just split at the end of last year. What did he tell you about his life, his marriage, his children?

He told me he had six kids and that he had filed for a divorce in 2022, that they hadn't been living together. He had an apartment, and that he was staying at the apartment, but they would trade, and he would do kid duty.

Karen says their connection was also spiritual. They're both deeply connected to their faith.

There's somebody who's going through the same struggle I'm going through and leans on the Lord the way I would and just seems super easy to talk to. So we We spent this Thursday evening getting to know each other, and then we texted until 4: 00 AM that night.

What are you texting about until 4: 00 AM? What are you texting about until 4: 00 AM?

At that point, it was just compliments. Then the next day, we spent pretty much the day together.

She knew she was falling fast, but she was still wary. And so in the space of about 24 hours, you go from being complete strangers to basically being a couple.

Well, at least having the semblance knowing a lot about each other.

Still, she told him she had boundaries, and she says their relationship wasn't consummated. What was the goodbye like?

It was nice. We kissed, and he left, and then my flight got delayed. And so he came back and got another kiss, and then I actually left.

You come back to Texas, he goes to Colorado, and it continues.

So we're FaceTiming, and I don't think I went to bed before 2: 00 in the morning any night over the next two weeks.

A few nights, she says, he even put in an earbud and he'd let Karen listen as he did Bible study with his children before putting them to bed. So you were a fly on the wall in his family. He took you right in there.

In my mind, I didn't know a lot about this guy, right? And so I was like, well, if I can see him through his kid's eyes, then that's going to be my most true look into who he really is.

Well, that and the 4,000 text messages authorities say they exchanged over 21 days. And within a number of days already, they were using the L word love. How big was the rush you were feeling during this time? Texting and talking and FaceTiming.

Great. Like a drug, almost. Yeah. There was a lot of just feeling like so connected.

He says he even composes a song in her honor.

She saw him standing there.

It's called enough, and it's a sad ballad with lyrics that say her life was bleak and bad until she met him. But after she meets him, she finally knows she's enough.

And she finally feels Like enough.

The two decide they want to meet again in person, with Karen booking a ticket to Colorado the following week, March eighth. Now, remember, James Craig has told Karen he's living apart from his wife, and he's in the end stages of his divorce. But just before the trip, James tells Karen that Angela is in the hospital. Nobody knows what's wrong, and he's going to have to watch the kids. Karen reschedules her trip for a week later, March 16th.

When she first went, he was like, They can't find anything wrong with her. They've done all this testing. So really, it was all so mysterious.

Karen says that James Craig told her he suspects that Angela might be harming herself.

He would talk with a frustration. Like, I can't believe she's doing this.

Nonetheless, Karen still heads to Colorado, but this trip will go nothing like she's planned.

Hi, Karen? Yes. I'm Sergeant Lawinecker with the Aurora Homicide Unit, taking Jim into custody for homicide.

Angela Craig is in critical condition, and Karen Cain feels that it's not the right time to visit, but James Craig urges her to come anyway.

I'll go ahead and come, and I'll just sit in the hotel until you're able to spend some time, and then I can be there to just be a break and help carry some of this weight.

Karen says James has told her that Angela is not likely to recover. He also tells her that police have blocked his entry into his own home as they investigate. His house is taped off by police. They've had a search warrant. Do you think at some point, maybe I shouldn't take this trip?

I knew the police were looking, and I knew they were going to find that she had somehow hurt herself. Karen gets on a plane from Texas and lands in Denver. She has no idea what she's getting herself into. No idea.

When you were in Colorado with him, did he ask you to come meet his family and be there?

He offered at one point that I could come. There would be a lot of people in the house. I would just be his friend from Austin and yada, yada. And I was like, No. That seems like a pretty sacred space and time that doesn't need to involve me. We had two dinners. It was pretty much the only time I saw him while I was there.

Did he seem distracted in those dinners?

I would just be like, Are you okay Why? Are you really okay? Tell me.

Did he seem sad? Did he seem distraught? Did you talk about Angela at all?

We talked about how he was doing, how the kids were doing, but not a lot really specifically about Angela in that moment. He at no point seemed stressed or anxious. He didn't seem heavy-hearted. He seemed pretty at ease.

He might have appeared at ease to Karen, but police are narrowing in on their suspect, and they've been pouring over his communications on his phone and email. And so you realize during the search of these emails that he's having this steamy romance with this woman named Karen Caine, and she's in town right now. Yes. How do you track her down?

The night he was arrested, he had a hotel key on him, and lo and behold, at that hotel is Karen Caine. And so officers went to the hotel and asked if he had a room or if Karen had a room and made a contact with her in the hotel room.

The officers did? Yes.

Our sergeant did.

It sounds like the truth came knocking on your hotel room door at 2: 00 AM.

At 2: 00 AM. Hi, Karen. Yes. I'm Sergeant Lawinecker with the Rora Homicide Unit. We've taken Jim into custody for homicide, and I was wondering if you have a minute to speak with me.

Can you walk me through what happened?

When I opened the door and saw police there, I just went right into almost like robotic mode of like, All right, I'm just going to brace myself for whatever's happening in this moment. We We are aware of yours and Jim's relationship, and he's been taken into custody for killing his wife.

What are they telling you?

We just want you to know that we've arrested him for first-degree murder of his wife. What did he tell you he's been going on with his wife? Just that he said he told her in November that he wanted a divorce. They told the kids together in December. He filed in January, early February. I'm worried that she might hurt herself. We've had a history with that. Has he taught you at all about poisons? Just told me that she had gotten some stuff in the past from his work. It was about 10 minutes, maybe, that they were in there. They told me there's lots of evidence against him in this.

But the information Karen is learning only gets worse. Okay, so here's basically where we're at. He's never told her he wants a divorce.

He's never told her. There's no talk of him moving out with the kids. She has no idea anything about a divorce. He's purchased poisons, and she's now dead because of poisons. So a lot of the things he's told you, assuming you've told me the truth, are all nonsense. There's no history of suicide by her. There's no anything.

So are you concerned at this point that you might be a target of the investigation? No. Are you concerned that this investigation is going to go anywhere at this point? No. You think this is just totally bogus? Yeah.

All right, ma'am. Take care of yourself.

When did you first speak to Karen yourselves?

On the morning of the 20th, I had called her, and then I met her again at the hotel. I'm H. O. Karen. Hi, I'm Karen. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. It was apparent when we met her that she had no idea that he was doing this. He had lied to her. He had told her that he was living in an apartment. He would have a week with the kids at the house, and then she would stay at the apartment and they would flip. He's very savvy when he speaks, and she believed him, and he 100% manipulated her as well. She knew nothing.

A stunned Karen leaves Colorado to go home to Texas as she starts to process the past 48 hours. And when she reads the arrest affidavit, it's almost impossible for her to comprehend because she learns that within days of meeting her, James has allegedly researched potassium cyanide and buying other deadly poisons. What was that like?

That's real dissociative for me. I don't have any headspace of my reality where that fits. That's all stuff of a novel and movie. I went back and I reread all our messages and replayed it all. And I don't feel like I missed red flags. I mean, you don't know you're being lied to until you know.

Right? He's just so good at spinning these tails.

All the plates spinning all the right ways.

And as detectives dig further into James Craig's past, they're going to uncover other women. They're also going to learn that the murder plot may have started before Karen Caine even entered the picture.

At first, I thought he was just joking. Yeah. But then they got darker and darker. And I still can't believe it. To this day, I can't believe it. You've seen the headlines. Heard the debates. The three-point ball has created a monotonous rhythm to the game.

Has the three-pointer ruined basketball? And how did we get here?

The rise of the three-point shot can be partially traced to an eccentric Kansas genius named Martin Manley, whose story didn't turn out quite the way he imagined. I decided I wanted to have one of the most organized goodbyes in history.

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Unless canceled, and 526 Terms of Lie. When James Craig is arrested, the whole world learns about Karen Cain. Could she be a possible motive behind the murder of his wife? And as investigators dig deeper into his digital world, they discover something else. Actually, they discover someone else.

He told me that he was a very well-known dentist and that he was very involved in his church, that he had six kids.

Kari Heggaseth meets James Craig through a dating website called Seeking. Com. And authorities would later determine James Craig has carried on sexual relationships with at least three women he met on the site over the past several years.

This app was set up to arrange sugar dating relationships. So some a relationship where you benefit in some format from that connection. So on this app, James Craig had a number of women who he would support financially in some ways or other means as well.

And James Craig's profile name on the site is Jim and Waffles, both really nice to wake up to, he writes. He also says he's worth about $10 million. Kari Hégésethe is this mother of three who met James Craig after she got out of what she describes as this troubled relationship. And in comes James, and she says he's showering her with all these expensive gifts. She says he even pays her attorney's retainer in her custody battle, and he buys her daughter an almost $9,000 car. He had also said Cary, an original song like he did for Karen Cain. Yours is much more upbeat.

But I only think of you.

It's called, I don't want to be All Right Without You.

Carrie Heggaseth is an important witness in the case because he is arguably the most honest with her about how he feels about the state of his marriage.

Detectives find a series of potentially damning text messages in which James is asking for help dealing with his problem. The problem he's talking about is his wife, Angela.

He describes it over and over to her as a problem and as a situation. And he's about needing a solution to his problem. And he talks about feeling stuck and hopeless and helpless. He started telling me, Well, I don't know how to leave her because of the finances. He just said, Our finances are very entertangled, and it would be almost impossible to separate them.

Despite those appearances, James Craig has had a really rocky past few years financially. He'd been through two bankruptcies in in 2020. He paid off one of them, and he partnered up with Ryan Redfern. That arrangement was helping him service the other bankruptcy, but times were still pretty tough for him. Ryan Redfern says he sits James down to tell him things need to change if he's going to keep his practice afloat.

Ryan Redfern says, You're going to have to take a big pay cut, and you're going to have to work more hours, take less time off. That's just two days after he's telling Cary Huggison, I can't get divorced. The financial leash is tightening.

January 2023, two months before Angela Craig's death, and he text Cary something that she says stops her cold in her tracks.

He made it sound like if he couldn't figure this out, that he was suicidal. She tells him, You have so much to live for. And his response to her is the most telling statement we get from James Craig in the entire case. And he says, I'm not suicidal. I'm just stuck. I'm not happy, but I can't get divorced right now. And that's on January 14th, 2023. He's saying it clearly that he cannot get divorced. But I still did not think that he was really talking about hurting Angela.

But then, Kerry as his tone begins to change, and he seems to proposition her.

Well, I remember thinking, this is really dark, and there's no way I'm getting involved. So I tried to lighten it up and make it more of a joke, just to get out of the conversation. Hey, there's a lot of homeless people that live by your work. Why don't you talk to them about one of your problem because they have nothing to lose. So he ends up getting frustrated, it seems, and says, Well, maybe that is actually my only option is to hit up a homeless person. And then he goes on to try to reel me into it, even though I'm not engaging, and says, I could pay handsomely. I made $60,000 last month, and I know you need help. I would love to help you. And that was like, whoa. It just made it so real, I guess.

Within weeks, she says she stopped answering his texts. And then about a month later, she sees an article online, and it has James Craig's mug shot.

I immediately just started crying. I was like, Oh, my God. He did it. Oh, my God. I just couldn't believe it.

Carrie admits she feels guilty for not calling the police, but they eventually track her down, and she tells her story.

I think you said it just like that. I have this problem. Marriages only end in two ways. Death or divorce. And he is giving Cary Hegeset the impression that it's financial, that he doesn't want to suffer those financial consequences of divorce.

Before this case can go to trial, there will be even more astounding allegations against James Craig, this time from behind bars.

The first thing he does is probably one of the more insidious, horrible things that I have ever seen in this business. Over the course of the roughly two years that this case really unfolded, we first saw James Craig as this jovial appearing father. Very big smile in all the pictures. You can tell he's a dentist. His teeth were very prominent in all of those pictures. Turning dental care into a positive experience. You've done it a lot. How do you do it?

Oh, man. Well, when patients come to our practice, the first thing that we go over with them is you don't have to be afraid.

As the court process really unfolds, you start We're seeing him appear looking more scruffy, ragged. To see him go down Hill, physically looking has definitely stuck with me. I don't know if he's trying to look the part.

But it'll be more than two years before this case goes to trial. And during this time, James Craig somehow, astonishingly, manages to rack up even more serious charges from behind bars. And one of the plots he's accused of hatching involves his own teenage daughter.

The first thing he does is probably one of the more insidious, horrible things that I have ever seen in this business. James Craig's daughter says he called her and said, Hey, you need to come bail out this inmate. He's going to have some information for you. The daughter does as she was asked. At some point, she realizes, Maybe I shouldn't be doing this. She calls her older brother and her uncle. They rush over there. The inmate hands the daughter a letter, and she reads that letter. And in that letter, it's essentially a step-by-step instruction guide for James Craig's daughter on how to build a deep fake or an AI video of her mother, essentially depicting that she had wanted these poisons, that she was suicidal, that she did this to herself. He really wanted the metadata on that video to be connected to February 27th, 2023. That's the day of that initial arsenic being ordered as well.

So he's asking his own daughter to commit a felony to help him in his case. Yes.

Without batting an eye, 18 years old, recently turned 18 years old. She had her 18th birthday while Angela was still in the hospital.

And how do you find out about this?

She, through the family attorney, gets it to the authorities. She was absolutely not going to do any of the very detailed step-by-step instructions that her father had provided her. Bringing your daughter into it and potentially having your daughter culpable in a crime, having your daughter bond out an inmate that you don't know. I mean, all the things. There's so many things that are wrong with that. It was mind-blowing.

And shockingly, this is not the only crime that he's alleged to have cooked up from inside jail. Other inmates claim James is soliciting them to lie on his behalf. And as payment, these inmates say he's offering them money, even dental work. And then another inmate comes forward to authorities. I'm just like this dude.

It's like the movies, man. He had a fellow cellmate named Nathaniel Harris, and James Craig and Mr. Harris would spend a lot of time together. James Craig started to say really nasty things about the lead Detective, Bobby Joe Wilson. So from these conversations, James Craig offered Nathaniel Harris an opportunity to make some money. You mentioned that he offered money to a ton of people? What was the deal then? A female named Bobby Olson, I think was her last name. I don't know.

I think it was Bobby Olson.

That's who he wanted to kill? Yeah.

Police say he allegedly offers Nathaniel Harris $20,000 to kill the lead detective on this case, Bobby Joe Olson, effectively putting a bounty on her head.

Then the cellmate says that James Craig gave him a letter as well. In that letter, it refers to Detective Bobby Joe Olson as the world's dirtiest detective, says that she's out to get him.

He called you the worst dirtiest detective in the world?

Yes.

Who he said deserved to die? Yes. That Is that scary?

Yes. We do this job knowing the possibility of being injured or killed in the line of duty. However, I was nothing but pleasant to Jim Craig every time I talked to him. I had broken my ankle, and so I was in a cast at that time. I was a sitting duck.

Well, and your family could have become collateral damage as well. That must have been probably the most torturous part of it.

Absolutely. Being in law enforcement, right? I feel I can handle my own, right? But my family is a different story. They didn't sign up for this job, and that I felt guilty for putting them in this situation.

Five additional charges are brought against James, including solicitation to commit murder in the first degree. He pleads not guilty to all charges.

I have never seen a defendant rack up five more charges in their time incarcerated.

It's been really Two and a half years since Angela's death, and it's time for trial. The Red Ferns, the Detectives, and Karen Caine will all be taking the stand. When you locked eyes on him, was anything rekindled? Did you see the man who you'd fallen in love with? So in a case where nothing is ordinary, brace your sofa even more new revelations on the stand.

That absolutely broke my heart. I'm sure everyone else's heart in that courtroom. The court is going to call 23CR 664. The report will note at this time that the parties are present. We are in the presence of the jury. Jury.

Two years after the death of Angela Craig and her husband faces a judge and jury in Arapajo County, Colorado.

Ladies and gentlemen, at the jury, you have been selected as the jurors to try the case of the people of the state of Colorado versus Dr. James Craig.

James Craig on trial for first-degree murder in the poisoning of his wife, Angela, and other crimes. What What do you think was in that smoothie?

It's probable that he's administering arsenic on March sixth in her protein shake. We learned that when Angela went into the hospital on March ninth, she had a very elevated level of arsenic in her blood.

I'm going to take a leap here and say that this is probably the first time that you've ever seen a protein shaker as a murder weapon. Yes.

You see James Craig handling this shaker bottle on the evening of the 14th and then the morning of the 15th.

Remember the antibiotic James Craig prescribed to his wife? That bottle found in her bed died?

The important thing about the clindamycin is it's a capsule that he could take apart, dump out the clindamycin, and repack those with the cyanide. He wrote the script, he picked it up, he modified And then perhaps most sinister of all, he gets her brother, who's there to take care of her, to administer some of this clindamycin to her while he's at work the next morning. On the morning of March 15th, James Crag had told the Prays to make sure they give Angela her dose of clindamycin, that antibiotic. Incessantly texted Mark and his wife saying, remember, Angela gets her meds at 10. Remember, Angela, did you give her meds? Did you give her her meds? Mark Pray didn't think twice about that, and they gave her the dose, and only around 20 minutes later, she was struggling to hold herself up.

Then the evidence jurors may never be able to unsee. For many hours of footage, a single frozen moment.

It's one frame. You have to go frame by frame to see this. It's one frame. When he goes into a bathroom and he walks out of the bathroom, he is holding a syringe. He puts it in his pocket, goes back into Angela's room. This was a sample syringe like the one that we see Jim Craig holding. I believe he had that syringe. It was ready. He had made it, and he 100% screwed it onto one of her IV ports and gave her that final dose of cyanide.

The evidence is in her blood, drawn at University Hospital once when she arrived, and again after she crashes and becomes unresponsive.

The cyanide went up significantly and was consistent with an administration of another dose or exposure to cyanide while she was in the emergency department. The hospital staff, when they got that information, they did try to give Angela the antidote for the potassium cyanide. Unfortunately, it was not reversible. First and foremost, he wanted out of his marriage. He was tired of it.

Prosecutors argued James Craig worried about the appearance and the cost of a divorce, and he saw a chance to collect millions of dollars in life insurance, and he'd also fallen in love with another woman. Prosecutor said that you were one of the motives for James Craig to murder his wife.

I certainly never aligned with that. I don't know if I even now agree with that. I don't feel like I'm the primary impetus of the idea.

When you were sitting in the witness box, did you see the man who you'd fallen in love with? No. Did you feel anger?

No. There's a lot of pity and disgust, just disbelief. When you look at this case, it's actually pretty complicated. The defense strategy in James Craig's case was to really point the finger back at the victim, in this case, Angela Craig, and to say that she could have been suicidal. 23 years of marriage, 20 some years of him cheating on Angela Craig. He broke her heart. He broke her soul. He broke her heart.

According to James Craig and his attorneys, this was basically assisted suicide. Angela wanted to die, and they claimed he was just trying to help.

There is no evidence whatsoever, no credible evidence to support that. The only person who says that is the murderer. The bottom line is when we're looking at, Is this a suicide? There's no evidence of that that I see anywhere. There was love in the relationship.

Craig's attorneys take this argument that there was really no financial motive, that the insurance, that wasn't a recent purchase. And they say there wasn't going to be a divorce, that Craig was a serial cheater, and that Karen Caine, they say, she was just the latest infatuation.

You know what they have proven? Beyond a reasonable doubt. From this table, from these people, you know what they proved? They proved beyond a reasonable doubt that this guy was a pretty crappy husband. He cheated on his wife constantly. Lots of cheating, not a motive. He spent 10 days killing Angela Craig. We could have stopped on day one where were two or day two, or day 10. It kept going. It kept going right until the end. Angela Craig was innocent. James Craig is guilty. With that, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to excuse our jurors to begin their deliberations. Please rise.

And still ahead, anger and eloquence in the courtroom. What James and Angela's children have to say to their own father.

Denver 7 is on verdict watched as the jury deliberates. Please stand for the reading of the verdict. Count one, murder in the first degree. We, the jury, unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt, find the defendant, James Craig, guilty of murder in the first degree. Count, two, guilty.

Count, three. He is found guilty on six counts.

I thought there'd be some closure, and in the end, there was this overwhelming great sadness. Jim was still not who we thought he would be, and Angie was still gone.

And in this moment of profound courage in court, two evangelist children, her oldest son and daughter, deliver a works.

It's hard to lose mom, and three days after that, lose dad, and have to spend the next two and a half years trying to untable whatever he tells you. I was supposed to be able to dress my dad. He was supposed to be my hero, and instead, he'll forever be the villain in my book.

After the verdict, Karen Caine said she thought she'd feel some closure, but instead, she tells me she just feels sadness. In court, she was able to meet and speak briefly with members of Angela's family.

That was definitely the thing I wasn't prepared for. I thought I was going to leave I could even be done and feel just a weight had lifted, but that interaction, sorry. But yeah, I ended up leaving heavier because now I have these people and these faces that, I mean, their lives were affected in way more severe ways than mine was. It breaks my heart that She likely did everything in her power to keep her family alive while she was being tragically manipulated and ultimately killed over it.

Can't help but notice, you're both wearing purple. Purple suit, purple tie. Why?

Angela's favorite The color was purple.

So this is an homage to her?

Absolutely. Tribute to Angela.

You didn't know her. You never met her. But it feels like you know her, doesn't it?

Yes. I think both of us reading through her messages felt like she was just like us. She was doing regular Google searches of planning to sew and start new hobbies, somebody that just had a lot of future left in them.

Angela's big brother, Mark Pray, who had been his little sister advocate throughout the whole court process, speaks to Denver's local ABC affiliate hours after the verdict. And you can tell he's still processing the past two and a half years.

You never get used to having her gone.

The family text messaging that we do instead of her voice isn't there anymore.

And you don't get used to it. It's almost like she took a trip to Europe and we're too poor to go over there. So we'll see her eventually.

Mark Pray, he's a man of deep faith, just like his sister, and he believes he will be reunited with her once again.

Families aren't just for this life, but for the next. And so she's still part of our family, and she's still Angela. I know that she's still there, and we'll see her again. James Craig is serving life without the possibility of parole. The judge said he, quote, on unleashed a path of destruction as wide as a tornado. David, as for Angela's family, they tell us that they're glad to have the court process behind them and that her younger children are now living with extended family members.

That's our program for tonight.

Thanks for watching. I'm Deborah Roberts.

And I'm David Muir from all of us here at 2020 and ABC News. Good night.

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