‘Stop talking and get a lawyer’: Inside the descent of a Colorado dentist accused of fatally poisoning his wife

(CNN) — A smiling James Craig appears online promoting his Colorado dental practice, saying his treatment philosophy “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 love creating an environment where people are surprised at how comfortable they are,” he says in the YouTube video.

A starkly different portrait of the dentist and father of six emerges in an affidavit of probable cause for an arrest warrant accusing him of killing his wife by lacing her protein shakes with poison in 2023.

In the lengthy affidavit, people who knew Craig, 46, described his purported descent: A risk taker with a dental practice that was struggling financially and a tumultuous marriage.

Over more than 50 pages, an Aurora Police Department homicide detective laid out evidence – including witness statements, text messages and computer search histories – revealing what the department’s investigations division chief called “a heinous, complex and calculated murder.”

The affidavit of probable cause said, “James has shown the planning and intent to end his wife’s life by searching for ways to kill someone undetected, providing her poisons that align with her hospitalized symptoms, and working on starting a new life” with another woman.

Craig has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and other charges in the death of his wife, Angela Craig, who was 43.

Investigators uncover alleged plot to kill detective

On what was to be the first week of Craig’s trial, prosecutors and police accused him of plotting the murder of an Aurora detective who investigated the case.

Craig faces two additional felony charges including solicitation to commit first-degree murder, according to a court filing by prosecutors with the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.

The defendant attempted to convince a fellow inmate to commit the murder, according to police and the amended complaint. The document does not disclose the intended target, but Aurora police confirmed to CNN it was one of the detectives who investigated the case.

Neither the complaint nor the police department identified the detective in the alleged murder plot. The 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office has declined to provide more information.

The new charges were filed November 22, one day after Craig’s defense attorney, Harvey Steinberg, withdrew from the case. Court records show Craig has not yet retained a new attorney. His trial is on hold until he gets new legal representation.

The judge in the case approved the request of Craig’s former attorney to leave after a closed-door hearing last month.

CNN has reached out to Steinberg for comment.

In his request, Steinberg cited 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 that “the client insists upon taking action that the lawyer considers repugnant or with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement.”

Jury selection was supposed to begin the day Craig’s attorney withdrew. Craig’s next hearing is scheduled for December 16.

‘A fun puzzle to try to work out’

On March 15, 2023, Angela Craig complained of a severe headache and dizziness, and was later declared medically brain dead at a hospital, Aurora police said. The arrest warrant affidavit stated it was Angela Craig’s third visit to the hospital that month.

“Hospital medical personnel could not find a known medical condition that would have caused Angela’s rapid medical decline,” the affidavit said.

During a March 15, 2023, hospital visit, Craig sent a text message to Michelle Redfearn, the wife of his business partner, Ryan Redfearn, describing Angela’s condition as grave, according to the affidavit. The couple are friends.

James Craig had been texting Michelle Redfearn regularly since Angela’s hospital visit on March 9. She’s a professor with a doctorate in nursing and asked him to keep her updated, the affidavit said. Angela Craig had reported feeling dizzy and weak but doctors could not determine the cause. In the texts, James Craig included detailed information about the medical tests his wife received. He texted two photos of hospital personnel working on his wife in a crowded room.

“If it wasn’t my wife, this would be kind of a fun puzzle to try to work out!” he wrote at one point.

Another text from Craig read: “It’s weird not being able to wake her up.”

Michelle Redfearn told CNN on Friday that the couple declined to comment because they expect to testify at trial.

Her husband, who is also a dentist, told investigators he was business partners with Craig since August 2022, the affidavit said. He acquired Craig’s practice, which was “struggling financially.” The two men attended dental school together and had known each other for more than two decades. Ryan Redfearn described Craig as a “risk taker” who was “on the verge of bankruptcy again” after filing for bankruptcy in 2021, according to the affidavit.

On the day of Angela’s final emergency room visit, Ryan and Michelle Redfearn went to the hospital, where he told a nurse that he suspected his business partner’s wife had been poisoned, the affidavit said. Ryan Redfearn told the nurse James Craig had recently ordered potassium cyanide at their office when “there was no medical reason or purpose” for the lethal substance at the practice, according to the affidavit.

‘Please don’t make this any worse’

Michelle Redfearn told investigators about a call Craig made to her husband after the couple’s hospital visit, according to the affidavit. She overheard the conversation on the car’s speakerphone: Craig said he heard “some disturbing information” and asked if Ryan had said anything to the hospital personnel, the affidavit said.

Ryan Redfearn told Craig he had told the hospital staff about the package delivered to their office. Craig initially said the package contained a ring for Angela but ultimately admitted what was in it. An office manager had opened the parcel and reported its contents to Redfearn, according to the document.

Craig told Redfearn that Angela had asked him to order the substance but “he didn’t think she (Angela) would actually take it.” Redfearn told Craig “to stop talking and get a lawyer,” according to the affidavit.

In a text message to Redfearn, the affidavit said, Craig made an “urgent plea” asking his friend to not speak with law enforcement.

“You are under no obligation to answer their questions … and you will do more damage than good to my family by continuing to insert yourself into this,” Craig wrote, according to a screenshot of the text in the affidavit.

In the lengthy message, Craig accused Redfearn of unleashing a “horrible storm” on his family and pleaded that “if there was ever any love in your heart for me, please don’t make this any worse by talking to any officers,” the affidavit said.

Craig concluded: “Also, please do not respond to this text message until I text you again,” according to the document.

‘I feel drugged’

Investigators also uncovered text messages between Craig and his wife on the morning of March 6, 2023, when she first began to feel ill, according to the affidavit.

“I feel drugged,” she wrote, according to a screenshot in the affidavit.

“Given our history, I know that must be triggering,” he wrote back, the affidavit said. “Just for the record, I didn’t drug you.”

In the weeks before her death, James Craig used a computer at his dental practice to research multiple “undetectable poisons” and make internet searches including “how many grams of pure arsenic will kill a human” and YouTube searches for “how to make poison” and “Top 5 Undetectable Poisons That Show No Signs of Foul Play,” according to the affidavit.

Angela Craig’s sister told investigators the couple’s marriage was tumultuous and she was told by Angela that James Craig had previously drugged her because he was planning to attempt suicide and didn’t want his wife to be able to stop him, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit said Craig told the Department of Human Services that his wife had been suicidal and “had told fellow employees that his marriage was failing, and he was in financial turmoil.” The document said none of the people interviewed by investigators suggested Angela Craig had expressed suicidal thoughts.

After Angela Craig was declared medically brain dead on March 15, her sister told investigators James Craig told her he did not want an autopsy to take place.

“James said he felt if they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her when she was alive he wouldn’t let them poke her more when she was dead,” according to the affidavit.

The Arapahoe County Coroner’s Office found that Angela Craig ingested lethal doses of cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, listing arsenic poisoning as a “significant condition” related to her death, CNN affiliate KUSA reported, citing the autopsy report. She died on March 18, 2023.

The affidavit said Craig at the time had been “communicating with a woman … about what appears to be a sexually intimate relationship.” The document said Craig bought the woman a ticket for a flight to Denver “while his wife and the mother of his children was dying in the hospital.”

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CNN’s Andy Rose, Rebekah Reiss, Raja Razek and Elizabeth Wolfe contributed to this report.