Bastard Dentist: The Murder of Angela Craig

0:00 Warning. Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and descriptions of

0:04 violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and we recommend you stop listening

0:09 now. I'm Zevan Odelberg, and this is kind of murdery. In March

0:25 of twenty twenty three, forty three year old Aurora, Colorado resident Angela Craig

0:29 had been married to her dentist husband, James for twenty three years. They

0:33 shared six children. Angela was admitted to the hospital three times that month with

0:38 mysterious symptoms, but doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. Worried

0:42 about continued dizziness and severe headaches, Angela was admitted to the hospital for the

0:47 final time on March fifteenth. Within two hours of her admission to University Hospital

0:52 that day, she suffered a devastating seizure and began a rapid decline for which

0:56 medical staff could find no diagnosable cause. Ultimately on life support, intubated and

1:02 in the intensive care units, medics told the family to prepare for the worst.

1:07 Angela was pronounced braindead three days later on March eighteenth, and then on

1:11 March twenty first, she was taken off of life support. What happened to

1:15 her? We're going to find out. Please do join me as we uncover

1:19 what truths we can and solve what mysteries we may kind of murderies. Bastard

1:25 dentist The Murder of Angela Craig starts now Aurora, Colorado dentist James Tolliver.

1:42 Craig's friends described him as a great guy. His employees called him a motivational

1:47 figure and an excellent boss. His office was adorned with patient satisfaction awards.

1:53 He and his wife, Angela, had been married for twenty three years and

1:56 shared six children. From the outside, there's was a bucolic, so bourbon

2:00 life with all the trappings of upper middle class success. On March fifth,

2:04 twenty twenty three, Angela returned to Aurora after a brief trip to visit her

2:08 sister in Utah. She'd been perfectly healthy before and during the trip. The

2:14 morning after her return, she and James worked out together at home. James

2:17 made a preprotein workout shake for himself and Angela, adding extra protein to Angela's

2:23 because she was feeling sluggish. After the workout, Angela complained of feeling dizzy.

2:29 Her body was moving slowly and she was unable to focus her eyes.

2:32 She sent a text to James complaining that she felt drugged. He texted back,

2:37 responding, given our history, I know that that must be triggering.

2:40 Just for the record, I didn't drug you. I am super worried,

2:44 though you really looked pale before I left, like in your lips. Even

2:47 Angela's symptoms didn't abate, and she was admitted to the hospital, but doctors

2:53 couldn't figure out what was wrong with her, and after being held for observation,

2:55 she was released. Then, on Wednesday, March fifteen, Angela's brother,

3:00 Mark Pray, drove her to the hospital again because he was concerned that

3:05 she was still suffering from severe headaches and dizziness. Her relatives hoped it was

3:09 just a sinus infection, which she had suffered from previously, but her hospitalization

3:15 indicated something more serious was wrong. According to a statement from the Aurora Police

3:19 Department, Angela's condition deteriorated quickly and she was soon placed on a ventilator.

3:23 Not long after that, she was declared medically brain dead and she was taken

3:28 off life support by doctors. At first, Blush this was a horrific family

3:32 tragedy. A beloved wife and mother of six, suddenly cruelly taken away from

3:37 her family. The Craig family's tragedy seemed to be a story to inspire grief,

3:42 sympathy, compassion. One might even expect James to shake his fist at

3:46 the heavens, angry at God for subjecting him and his family to such a

3:51 cruel fate. But seeming does not make it so. This is not just

3:54 a story of tragedy, grief, and cruel fate, although certainly it contains

3:59 all three. You see, James Craig was conspicuously absent after Angela was hospitalized.

4:04 Then just one day after she was taken off life support, he was

4:09 arrested, and that is where the real story begins. Chelsea Norton, thirty

4:15 four, worked for Summerbrook, James Craig's dental practice for a year, leaving

4:18 in January twenty twenty three, just two months before Angela's death. Said Norton,

4:24 We're all just in shock. He was a very good guy, like

4:27 the least likely person for any of this. They were the nicest, sweetest

4:30 family with such cute kids. I've looked back on my memories over the past

4:34 few days to see if there's anything I missed that hinted at anything that would

4:38 explain this, anything at all, But there's nothing. James would give motivational

4:42 speeches and do food for the staff some afternoons. Another former employee, Courtney

4:47 Lyons, who spent four years working with Craig, said that he was the

4:50 most amazing boss. He poured thousands into my education. This is just devastating.

4:56 They seemed like the perfect family. I've never met a better woman or

4:59 mother. And Angela she was the most amazing woman. She was a saint.

5:02 She just found time for everyone and everything. Lyons added that quote.

5:06 All we saw was how he adored her. He spoke so highly of her.

5:11 Yes, Angela Craig was a mother of six and the apparently beloved wife

5:14 of a popular pillar of the community, or so it seemed, but the

5:17 private reality of James and Angela Craig's lives was sharply at odds with appearances.

5:24 As she lay dying in the hospital, Angela revealed some of the horrible truth

5:28 to her sister. As I mentioned, when Angela fell ill after her workout

5:31 on March fifth, she texted James that she felt drugged, and he replied

5:36 just for the record, I didn't drug you. I'm super worried, though,

5:39 etc. Angela's sister told police Craig had multiple affairs with several women,

5:45 and he told Angela that he'd been addicted to pornography since he was a teenager,

5:48 and he drugged Angela approximately five to six years ago. At that time,

5:54 Angela suspected James had drugged her and confronted him. He admitted that yes,

5:58 he had drugged her, but only because he planned to take his own

6:00 life with an injection pack of a cocktail of deadly drugs, and he didn't

6:04 want his wife to be able to save him. Still in love with her

6:09 husband and not wanting to break up their family, Angela accepted james explanation,

6:13 worrying for his mental and physical health. But by March of twenty twenty three,

6:17 it seemed clear that while James may have been planning to take a life

6:20 for years, that life was never his own. In the days following Angela's

6:27 death, a deeply disturbing picture emerged of the life lived by the devoted wife

6:30 and mother who committed herself to her marriage despite doubts and despite her husband's numerous

6:35 infidelities. Self confessed porn addiction and worry in gambling habit that ran alongside him

6:42 quote running his company into the ground. According to reports, the twenty three

6:46 year marriage between James and Angela Craig had been on the rocks for years,

6:50 which, given the laundry list of bright red flags I just described, is

6:55 hardly surprising. But a marriage that was struggling to survive Craig's ravenous appetites for

7:00 sex and gambling was only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The way the

7:04 cops tell it, the walls were closing in hard on doctor James Craig.

7:10 For starters, the Colorado dentist was a degenerate gambler. He lost big on

7:14 his betting action, and he lost big on cryptocurrency speculation. According to The

7:18 New York Post, Craig had ratcheted up his personal debt to the tune of

7:23 two million dollars while his dental business was losing around one hundred and seventy thousand

7:27 a year. He went bankrupt in July of twenty twenty two, and an

7:30 old college buddy bought his dental practice, Ryan Redfern. The college buddy stated

7:36 that in January, James confided in him, telling him that he and Angela

7:41 were having marital problems. Ryan described James as a risk taker and found out

7:46 that he had filed for bankruptcy in twenty twenty one and was on the verge

7:49 of bankruptcy again in twenty twenty two, which he ultimately went through, and

7:54 that's when Redfern bought the dental business from him. Ultimately, it was Redfern

7:58 who pointed the finger at James Craig after learning Angela's symptoms matched a case of

8:03 poisoning. If all of this wasn't bad enough, James Craig was walking a

8:07 tightrope by leading a double life, one in staid Suburbia with his wife and

8:11 six kids, the other allegedly with a mistress on the side, a leggy

8:16 Texas orthodonist named Karen Kane forty nine, a mother of two grown children who

8:22 is now divorced from her husband Jason. Text messages exchanged between the couple and

8:26 That's James Craig and Karen Kane show Craig apparently feigning concern for his wife even

8:31 as she lay hospitalized, frightened and dying suffering through the symptoms of the poison

8:35 He himself gave her. While Angela's health rapidly deteriorated, James left her in

8:41 the hospital to deal with mystified doctors on her own while he flew his mistress

8:46 in from Texas, rushing from his wife's hospital bed to hers while telling Angela

8:52 how much he quote wished he could stay longer unte as for orthodonist Karen Kane.

8:58 While a La dying, she sent James sympathetic emails about Angela's struggles.

9:05 Of course, she could have just told him in person, since instead of

9:07 staying in the hospital by Angela's bedside, James was with Karen having sex.

9:13 Detective Bobby Olsen said in an affidavit quote, it appears James was flying this

9:18 woman into Denver while his wife and the mother of his children was dying in

9:22 the hospital. Investigators added that they found intimate and sexually explicit emails with Karen

9:28 and one more thing, just in case you were worried that James Craig might

9:31 have a redeeming quality or even two. In the fall of twenty twenty two,

9:37 James had three life insurance policies taken out on Angela's behalf. So what

9:41 exactly did James Craig due to Angela. According to the charging documents, it

9:46 was in his office in a darkened exam room that Craig researched and purchased poison

9:52 online and to his office address that he had a package containing potassium cyanide delivered

9:58 on March thirteen. An earlier delivery of arsenic was found to have been made

10:03 to his home on March fourth. In other words, when the arsenic sent

10:07 to his house didn't do the job, he had cyanide sent to his workplace.

10:11 The later delivery raised concerns when a staff member who had not got the

10:16 message not to open the package that Craig had described as a personal package,

10:20 opened it and could think of no medical reason for the purchase. The staff

10:24 member googled the chemical compound potassium cyanide, labeled a biohazard, and realized how

10:31 closely the symptoms of cyanide poisoning mirrored those suffered by Angela. It was Craig's

10:35 business partner, Redfern, who reported the concerns to a nurse at University Hospital,

10:41 and a nurse in turn informed law enforcement, setting the investigation in motion.

10:46 The Major Crimes Homicide Unit of the Aurora Police department wasted no time in

10:50 investigating the suspicious death, and soon it was revealed that as suspected, Angela

10:58 had been poisoned to death. Police alleged that Craig bought arsenic and cyanide then

11:03 secretly put these poisons in Angela's protein shakes. According to his arrest affidavit,

11:09 text messages between James and Angela show that she was complaining about her head feeling

11:13 funny and dizzy, and that she even shared as we know, that she

11:16 felt drugged. According to CNN, in the weeks before his wife's death,

11:20 James used a computer at his dental practice to do multiple searches for quote undetectable

11:26 poisons. He also searched to find out quote how many grams of pure arsenic

11:31 will kill a human. He searched YouTube for how to make poison and quote

11:37 top five undetectable poisons that show no signs of foul play. His arrest affidavit

11:43 revealed that he also opened a new email account to order arsenic online. Tragically,

11:48 although Angela had been suspicious in the weeks before her death, the poisoning

11:52 hadn't been identified in her earlier hospital visits. After Angela survived the arsenic poisoning.

11:58 In early March, Craig put a rush order in for the potassium cyanide

12:03 that an employee at his dental office discovered. During the investigation, authorities were

12:07 able to intercept Craig's alleged order of oleandron. Oleandron contains chemicals that can slow

12:13 the heart rate down and lead to death when consumed. The Aurora Police Department's

12:18 Homicide Division Chief Mark Hildebrand had this to say. When the suspicious details of

12:24 this case first came to light, our team of officers and homicide detectives tirelessly

12:28 worked to uncover the truth behind the victim's sudden illness and death. It was

12:33 quickly discovered that this was, in fact, a heinous, complex and calculated

12:37 murder. I am very proud of our Major Crimes Homicide Unit's hard work in

12:41 solving this case and pursuing justice for the victim. James Craig is currently in

12:46 jail on a ten million dollar cash only bail, awaiting trial for first degree

12:52 murder. I didn't know about this cash only bail thing, but apparently if

12:56 your crime is heinous enough, usually you won't even be granted bail. But

13:01 if you are, you may be granted cash only bail, which means you're

13:05 not allowed to take a loan and must produce one hundred percent of the bail

13:09 in cash. To my knowledge, as of yet, James Craig has not

13:13 produced ten million dollars in cash, and so he waits in jail where he

13:18 most likely, even undoubtedly belongs. Okay, wow, so James Craig is

13:24 the absolute worst. And you know, I'd assume you have to be a

13:28 pretty smart guy to graduate from dental school. But one has to wonder.

13:33 Google searches like top five undetectable poisons that show no signs of foul play demonstrate

13:39 that James Craig concocted what was supposed to be a fool proof plan to get

13:43 away with his wife's murder. But let's look at a few of the things

13:46 that he did that would seem to suggest that, at least subconsciously, he

13:50 had no intention whatsoever of getting away with it. Number one, he googled

13:56 top five undetectable poisons that show no sign of foul play, didn't bother to

14:01 delete his search history, and then went and poisoned his wife. Number two,

14:05 he chose a poison that couldn't easily be ordered or obtained except by someone

14:11 with a medical or dental license, and then he had its ship to his

14:13 dental office where it could be opened by anyone who worked there, and it

14:18 was number three. One might assume, and likely correctly, that part of

14:24 James Craig's motivation for poisoning Angelo when he did was so that he could be

14:28 with his mistress, Karen Kane, And he flew his mistress into town during

14:33 the three days his wife was dying in the hospital, and kept skipping out

14:37 of the hospital early to go bang the mistress. Even without all of this,

14:41 every cop, every true crimer, knows that when a woman is killed,

14:46 nine times out of ten, it's the husband or the boyfriend. And

14:48 don't forget he tried to kill Angelo with the same poison five years earlier.

14:54 So basically what I'm saying is, why could cock an elaborate plan if you're

14:58 then going to not cover or any of your tracks and behave in the most

15:01 suspicious way possible. As obviously guilty as all the evidence and his own actions

15:07 make him look, he didn't need any plan at all. He'd hardly look

15:11 any guiltier if he'd shot Angela and Broad Daylight at noon on a Wednesday in

15:16 front of the Aurora Police station and a boy scout troop with a film crew.

15:20 I'm Zevan Odelberg, and this has been kind of murdery