Bastard Dentist: The Murder of Angela Craig

0:00 Warning. Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and we recommend you stop listening now. I'm Zevan Odelberg, and this is kind of murdery. In March of twenty twenty three, forty three year old Aurora, Colorado resident Angela Craig had been married to her dentist husband, James for twenty three years. They shared six children. Angela was admitted to the hospital three times that month with mysterious symptoms, but doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with her.

0:41 Worried about continued dizziness and severe headaches, Angela was admitted to the hospital for the final time on March fifteenth. Within two hours of her admission to University Hospital that day, she suffered a devastating seizure and began a rapid decline for which medical staff could find no diagnosable cause. Ultimately on life support, intubated and in the intensive care units, medics told the family to prepare for the worst. Angela was pronounced braindead three days later on March eighteenth, and then on March twenty first, she was taken off of life support.

1:14 What happened to her? We're going to find out. Please do join me as we uncover what truths we can and solve what mysteries we may kind of murderies. Bastard dentist The Murder of Angela Craig starts now Aurora, Colorado dentist James Tolliver. Craig's friends described him as a great guy. His employees called him a motivational figure and an excellent boss. His office was adorned with patient satisfaction awards. He and his wife, Angela, had been married for twenty three years and shared six children.

1:57 From the outside, there's was a bucolic, so bourbon life with all the trappings of upper middle class success. On March fifth, twenty twenty three, Angela returned to Aurora after a brief trip to visit her sister in Utah. She'd been perfectly healthy before and during the trip. The morning after her return, she and James worked out together at home. James made a preprotein workout shake for himself and Angela, adding extra protein to Angela's 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. She sent a text to James complaining that she felt drugged. He texted back, responding, given our history, I know that that must be triggering. Just for the record, I didn't drug you. I am super worried, though you really looked pale before I left, like in your lips. Even Angela's symptoms didn't abate, and she was admitted to the hospital, but doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with her, and after being held for observation, she was released.

2:56 Then, on Wednesday, March fifteen, Angela's brother, Mark Pray, drove her to the hospital again because he was concerned that she was still suffering from severe headaches and dizziness. Her relatives hoped it was just a sinus infection, which she had suffered from previously, but her hospitalization indicated something more serious was wrong. According to a statement from the Aurora Police Department, Angela's condition deteriorated quickly and she was soon placed on a ventilator. Not long after that, she was declared medically brain dead and she was taken off life support by doctors.

3:30 At first, Blush this was a horrific family tragedy. A beloved wife and mother of six, suddenly cruelly taken away from her family. The Craig family's tragedy seemed to be a story to inspire grief, sympathy, compassion. One might even expect James to shake his fist at the heavens, angry at God for subjecting him and his family to such a cruel fate. But seeming does not make it so. This is not just a story of tragedy, grief, and cruel fate, although certainly it contains 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 arrested, and that is where the real story begins. Chelsea Norton, thirty four, worked for Summerbrook, James Craig's dental practice for a year, leaving in January twenty twenty three, just two months before Angela's death. Said Norton, We're all just in shock. He was a very good guy, like the least likely person for any of this. They were the nicest, sweetest family with such cute kids. I've looked back on my memories over the past few days to see if there's anything I missed that hinted at anything that would explain this, anything at all, But there's nothing.

4:41 James would give motivational speeches and do food for the staff some afternoons. Another former employee, Courtney Lyons, who spent four years working with Craig, said that he was the most amazing boss. He poured thousands into my education. This is just devastating. They seemed like the perfect family. I've never met a better woman or mother. And Angela she was the most amazing woman. She was a saint. She just found time for everyone and everything. Lyons added that quote. All we saw was how he adored her.

5:08 He spoke so highly of her. Yes, Angela Craig was a mother of six and the apparently beloved wife of a popular pillar of the community, or so it seemed, but the private reality of James and Angela Craig's lives was sharply at odds with appearances. As she lay dying in the hospital, Angela revealed some of the horrible truth to her sister. As I mentioned, when Angela fell ill after her workout on March fifth, she texted James that she felt drugged, and he replied just for the record, I didn't drug you.

5:38 I'm super worried, though, etc. Angela's sister told police Craig had multiple affairs with several women, and he told Angela that he'd been addicted to pornography since he was a teenager, and he drugged Angela approximately five to six years ago. At that time, Angela suspected James had drugged her and confronted him. He admitted that yes, he had drugged her, but only because he planned to take his own life with an injection pack of a cocktail of deadly drugs, and he didn't want his wife to be able to save him.

6:07 Still in love with her husband and not wanting to break up their family, Angela accepted james explanation, worrying for his mental and physical health. But by March of twenty twenty three, it seemed clear that while James may have been planning to take a life for years, that life was never his own. In the days following Angela's death, a deeply disturbing picture emerged of the life lived by the devoted wife and mother who committed herself to her marriage despite doubts and despite her husband's numerous infidelities.

6:36 Self confessed porn addiction and worry in gambling habit that ran alongside him quote running his company into the ground. According to reports, the twenty three year marriage between James and Angela Craig had been on the rocks for years, which, given the laundry list of bright red flags I just described, is hardly surprising. But a marriage that was struggling to survive Craig's ravenous appetites for sex and gambling was only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The way the 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 his betting action, and he lost big on cryptocurrency speculation. According to The New York Post, Craig had ratcheted up his personal debt to the tune of two million dollars while his dental business was losing around one hundred and seventy thousand a year. He went bankrupt in July of twenty twenty two, and an old college buddy bought his dental practice, Ryan Redfern. The college buddy stated that in January, James confided in him, telling him that he and Angela were having marital problems.

7:42 Ryan described James as a risk taker and found out that he had filed for bankruptcy in twenty twenty one and was on the verge of bankruptcy again in twenty twenty two, which he ultimately went through, and that's when Redfern bought the dental business from him. Ultimately, it was Redfern who pointed the finger at James Craig after learning Angela's symptoms matched a case of poisoning. If all of this wasn't bad enough, James Craig was walking a tightrope by leading a double life, one in staid Suburbia with his wife and six kids, the other allegedly with a mistress on the side, a leggy Texas orthodonist named Karen Kane forty nine, a mother of two grown children who is now divorced from her husband Jason.

8:24 Text messages exchanged between the couple and That's James Craig and Karen Kane show Craig apparently feigning concern for his wife even as she lay hospitalized, frightened and dying suffering through the symptoms of the poison He himself gave her. While Angela's health rapidly deteriorated, James left her in the hospital to deal with mystified doctors on her own while he flew his mistress in from Texas, rushing from his wife's hospital bed to hers while telling Angela 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. Of course, she could have just told him in person, since instead of staying in the hospital by Angela's bedside, James was with Karen having sex. Detective Bobby Olsen said in an affidavit quote, it appears James was flying this woman into Denver while his wife and the mother of his children was dying in the hospital. Investigators added that they found intimate and sexually explicit emails with Karen and one more thing, just in case you were worried that James Craig might have a redeeming quality or even two.

9:34 In the fall of twenty twenty two, James had three life insurance policies taken out on Angela's behalf. So what exactly did James Craig due to Angela. According to the charging documents, it was in his office in a darkened exam room that Craig researched and purchased poison online and to his office address that he had a package containing potassium cyanide delivered on March thirteen. An earlier delivery of arsenic was found to have been made to his home on March fourth. In other words, when the arsenic sent 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 message not to open the package that Craig had described as a personal package, opened it and could think of no medical reason for the purchase. The staff member googled the chemical compound potassium cyanide, labeled a biohazard, and realized how closely the symptoms of cyanide poisoning mirrored those suffered by Angela. It was Craig's business partner, Redfern, who reported the concerns to a nurse at University Hospital, 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 investigating the suspicious death, and soon it was revealed that as suspected, Angela had been poisoned to death. Police alleged that Craig bought arsenic and cyanide then secretly put these poisons in Angela's protein shakes. According to his arrest affidavit, text messages between James and Angela show that she was complaining about her head feeling funny and dizzy, and that she even shared as we know, that she felt drugged.

11:16 According to CNN, in the weeks before his wife's death, James used a computer at his dental practice to do multiple searches for quote undetectable poisons. He also searched to find out quote how many grams of pure arsenic will kill a human. He searched YouTube for how to make poison and quote top five undetectable poisons that show no signs of foul play. His arrest affidavit revealed that he also opened a new email account to order arsenic online. Tragically, although Angela had been suspicious in the weeks before her death, the poisoning hadn't been identified in her earlier hospital visits.

11:55 After Angela survived the arsenic poisoning. In early March, Craig put a rush order in for the potassium cyanide that an employee at his dental office discovered. During the investigation, authorities were able to intercept Craig's alleged order of oleandron. Oleandron contains chemicals that can slow the heart rate down and lead to death when consumed. The Aurora Police Department's Homicide Division Chief Mark Hildebrand had this to say. When the suspicious details of this case first came to light, our team of officers and homicide detectives tirelessly worked to uncover the truth behind the victim's sudden illness and death.

12:32 It was quickly discovered that this was, in fact, a heinous, complex and calculated murder. I am very proud of our Major Crimes Homicide Unit's hard work in solving this case and pursuing justice for the victim. James Craig is currently in jail on a ten million dollar cash only bail, awaiting trial for first degree murder. I didn't know about this cash only bail thing, but apparently if your crime is heinous enough, usually you won't even be granted bail. But if you are, you may be granted cash only bail, which means you're not allowed to take a loan and must produce one hundred percent of the bail in cash.

13:09 To my knowledge, as of yet, James Craig has not produced ten million dollars in cash, and so he waits in jail where he most likely, even undoubtedly belongs. Okay, wow, so James Craig is the absolute worst. And you know, I'd assume you have to be a pretty smart guy to graduate from dental school. But one has to wonder. Google searches like top five undetectable poisons that show no signs of foul play demonstrate that James Craig concocted what was supposed to be a fool proof plan to get away with his wife's murder.

13:44 But let's look at a few of the things that he did that would seem to suggest that, at least subconsciously, he had no intention whatsoever of getting away with it. Number one, he googled top five undetectable poisons that show no sign of foul play, didn't bother to delete his search history, and then went and poisoned his wife. Number two, he chose a poison that couldn't easily be ordered or obtained except by someone with a medical or dental license, and then he had its ship to his dental office where it could be opened by anyone who worked there, and it was number three.

14:19 One might assume, and likely correctly, that part of James Craig's motivation for poisoning Angelo when he did was so that he could be with his mistress, Karen Kane, And he flew his mistress into town during the three days his wife was dying in the hospital, and kept skipping out of the hospital early to go bang the mistress. Even without all of this, every cop, every true crimer, knows that when a woman is killed, nine times out of ten, it's the husband or the boyfriend. And 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 then going to not cover or any of your tracks and behave in the most suspicious way possible. As obviously guilty as all the evidence and his own actions make him look, he didn't need any plan at all. He'd hardly look any guiltier if he'd shot Angela and Broad Daylight at noon on a Wednesday in front of the Aurora Police station and a boy scout troop with a film crew. I'm Zevan Odelberg, and this has been kind of murdery