Denver7 reporter Colette Bordelon was in court Tuesday and we are summarizing the eleventh day of the trial in this story.
Prosecutors say James Craig was a "man on a mission"
Prosecutors began closing arguments in the trial against James Craig Tuesday morning by showing a black and white picture of Angela Craig on the exhibit screen, with prosecutor Michael Mauro declaring, "Angela Craig is innocent. She had no part in her death. And the only person who says otherwise, is this man."
Mauro said throughout the trial, witnesses for the People have unraveled three different false narratives offered by the suspect: That Angela Craig's death was intentional suicide, that it was a "game of chicken," and that Angela Craig wanted to set her husband up in her death.
Mauro argued James Craig knew the "the jig is up" when his former business partner confronted him about purchasing cyanide, when the family was sealed by investigators, and he knew that law enforcement might find the Clindamycin or the syringe in the hospital — "so he writes the timeline, not knowing what we'll find and what he'll have to explain," the prosecutor said.
Regarding James Craig's "game of chicken" defense, Mauro said that's what he hold his former business partner and his wife, "and then it's said again
in the letter to his daughter from jail: Angela Craig didn't meant to kill herself."
Mauro then said James Craig tried to procure witnesses to come testify in court, under oath, to persuade the jury that Angela Craig wanted not only to set him up, but to gain leverage in divorce proceedings — but that ultimately, "Angela Craig accidentally took that too far."
"These three false narratives cannot all be true, and none of them are," Mauro said, adding the jury would have to believe that James Craig "is a reluctant participant" and that he wanted to do it, but that Angela Craig was "hellbent" on taking her own life.
Mauro argued 16 hours is how long James Craig would have given his wife before deciding he would help her kill himself, with his options being either death or divorce.
The prosecutor then laid out three possible motives for why he believed James Craig killed his wife:
1. He wanted out of his marriage — Mauro argued James was tired of getting caught in affairs, of repeating the cycle, but didn't want to get a divorce.
2. Money — Prosecutors said James Craig told one of his romantic partners that he wasn't happy, but he was stuck, and he couldn't get a divorce right now.
3. Image — James Craig didn't want to be the guy who left the mother of his six children to go out and chase other women. Mauro said he believed that the suspect thought it would be much better to be the grieving widower and chase sympathy than the alternative option.
Mauro argued that his defense attorneys were using speculative doubt, not reasonable doubt, to convince the jury he was innocent.
"If there was more new evidence, if they had looked under one other rock that investigators didn't," perhaps the jury would be convinced that the prosecution's argument isn't as strong, but Mauro said not witnesses testified that Angela Craig was suicidal, "because that's not true, that's not the reality."
Mauro then walked the jury through the counts Jame Craig was charged with, except for first-degree murder (Count 1):
- Count 2: Solicitation to commit tampering with physical evidence — That's the deep fake video letter of Angela Craig, claiming that she asked James Craig to order chemicals.
- Count 3: Solicitation to commit tampering with physical evidence — That's asking a fellow inmate to plant fake journal entries in either his garage or truck, which would later make their way to prosecutors or the defense team.
- Count 4: Solicitation to commit first-degree perjury — That's asking another inmate to find multiple, attractive women to come in and give false testimony about Angela Craig setting him up
- Count 5: Solicitation to commit first-degree murder — That's asking Nathanial Harris, another inmate, to arrange to have Bobbi Olson (the lead investigator in the case) killed.
- Count 6: Solicitation to commit first-degree perjury — Asking Harris' ex-wife to help sell James Craig's story by coming into court and "dupe" a jury into believing he was not guilty of the crime.
A seventh count — assisted suicide — is what the jury could find him guilty of if they acquit him on the first-degree murder charge, Mauro said.
Mauro then argued that the defense presenting Angela Craig's journal as evidence in the trial didn't accomplish what they hoped for.
"What it shows is that Angela Craig was an incredibly thoughtful, resilient, and hopeful person — because this guy has been doing this stuff to her apparently since 2009," Mauro said.
He argued that Angela Craig was ready to leave her husband after Christmas 2022, "but what does James Craig do? He talks her into staying," arguing Jame Craig didn't want to suffer the financial and reputational consequences of a divorce.
Mauro argued James Craig's former business partner's announcement that James would have to take a pay cut and work more hours created a situation in James where he felt frustrated, stuck, trapped, hopeless — words he used to describe his marriage to Carrie Hageseth, one of his romantic partners.
"James Craig said he would purge Angela Craig — how would he purge her? By injecting her with something untraceable."
Mauro said after meeting another romantic partner at a work conference in Las Vegas, James Craig comes back home "and gets back to work on his problem" by ordering the arsenic, by searching how to make murder look like a heart attack and make Angela Craig's death look like an accident, "not 'how to talk my wife out of suicide.'"
Mauro argued in court that after ordering the arsenic and preparing his wife a shake laced with the toxin, he goes back to work and starts doing more Google searches about how to commit the murder.
"And then Angela Craig is searching her symptoms," Mauro said. "If you believe James Craig, that's all an act. Angela is deceiving whoever may come across her phone."
Mauro reminded the jury James Craig then went to work, anxious to get oleander and emailing the supplier to make sure it would arrive that morning.
"Remember, if you believe James Craig, he was a reluctant participant," Mauro said. "Is this a man a reluctant part of a super secret suicide pact, or a "man on a mission"?
Mauro then recalled how James Craig told the oleander supplier how disappointed he was his order hadn't shipped.
"This is not a reluctant person," Mauro said, arguing James Craig planned her murder over a course of 10 days — something that was repeatedly said throughout closing arguments.
Mauro walked through several more instances in which James Craig was "a man on a mission" by purchasing 12 bottles of eye drops, email suppliers about his oleander shipment, sending more than a dozen texts to employees about a cyanide package he was expected to receive at his office — all the while telling Angela Craig he loved her and was excited to have her home again. At the same time, James Craig was texting one of his romantic partners, Mauro said.
"There are so many false statements by this defendant, it's tough to keep track," Mauro said, adding that to believe James Craig, "you have to believe that Angela Craig kept an incredibly dark secret — left no evidence whatsoever of this secret, acted completely out of character, deceived everyone. You'd have to believe that suddenly she went 180 degrees from her nature, that Angela Craig was ready, willing, and able to die a slow and painful death... ready to abandon her children."
In closing statements, Mauro said James Craig's false narratives were the result of wanting out of his marriage but not wanting to get a divorce, "and into his lap falls a suddenly and inexplicably suicidal Angela Craig — he must be very lucky, in addition to being very convincing."
In all, Mauro said, James Craig "spent 10 days killing Angela Craig."
"Angela Craig was innocent," he said. "James Craig is guilty."
Defense says James Craig deserves better from "broken perceptions" of law enforcement
Following a short break, the defense then laid out their closing arguments before the jury, which lasted for about an hour.
Defense attorney Lisa Moses began closing arguments by arguing that the Craig marriage was "a broken" one, despite 23 years of being together.
"There was love in the relationship. Was it perfect? Was it broken? Absolutely. But there was love," Moses said as she began her argument.
Moses argued James Craig "wanted to be better, (he) had anxiety, addiction, and you heard about a man who was completely broken when he was arrested and sitting in jail," claiming the prosecution's motive was two-fold — financial and romantic.
The defense argued that prosecutors believed James Craig murdered his wife because he wanted the payout money from Angela Craig's life insurance policy, while at the same time, he wanted to be with other women after losing interest in his wife.
"The prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that this guy was a pretty crappy husband, he cheated on his wife, constantly," Moses said, "but this idea that somehow this was some sort of motive cannot be, when the cheating is nothing new for James Craig," she added, referencing witness testimony from the lead detective in the case, Bobbi Olson, who said Jame Craig's demeanor is that o a flirty guy.
Moses said that after 20-some years of Jame Craig cheating on Angela Craig, "he broke her, he broke her heart, her soul."
The defense then presented several of the entries in Angela Craig's journal in which she talked about feeling lost and lone, abused and unwanted, and like she failed her husband.
Moses argued that the prosecution's argument that James Craig wanted out of the marriage doesn't hold up because after Angela Craig finds out her husband is in Montana with another woman, James "rushes home.... tail between his legs runs home."
"We talked at the beginning about the word "manipulative" — her daughter testified about parental guilt... is this spousal guilt? Is this an example of that type of dynamic?" Moses asked.
The defense then argued that extensive gaps in the surveillance footage obtained by law enforcement do not show what is going between the two in those missing moments.
Moses said nobody saw anything unusual with James Craig while he was at the hospital, nor after he sent pictures to Angela Craig's family after she crashed, and said there was a "rewriting of history" since prosecutors brought witnesses who testified that those things were unusual or weird.
She said behind closed doors, the couple argued and law enforcement "had blinders on — they didn't want to look at other possibilities or options," Moses said.
James Craig "deserves better," Moses said. "We all deserve better. You deserve better than lenses, blinders, and broken perceptions" from law enforcement, she added.
Moses expanded on this argument by recalling testimony from
Dr. Kelly Lear, the elected coroner and forensic pathologist for the Arapahoe County Coroner's Office who testified last week.
The defense said the coroner relied on what law enforcement gave her as evidence, and looked at the case "with blinders" before asking the jury to "take the lense off of their narrative, take off the blinders."
Moses said that if James Craig really gave his wife a toxin through an IV at the hospital that ended up killing her, "why walk out and say, 'Her arm hurts?' Why not just sit there and let the buzzers go off and go, 'Oh my goodness!... Why give anyone the heads up?"
The defense then argued the reason James Craig was searching for things like cyanide or eye drops and their toxicity, "was to maybe understand what Angela Craig was doing to herself? Was it to understand what was happening?"
She then argued that there are images of Angela Craig laying in bed with laptops, and questioned why law enforcement never searched those for evidence in the case.
"Why? What were they so afraid of that they couldn't actually look at all of these things?" Moses asked.
The defense argued prosecutors wanted the jury to believe certain things James Craig said while disbelieving other statements.
"They don't get to pick and choose based upon what they want, based upon their blinders, based upon their perception," Moses said.
Showing a photo of the Clindamycin bottle found in Angela's room with the words "Never Tested," Moses said it was "un-be-lievable" that prosecutors believed she was poisoned and that James Craig was the culprit, but never bothered to test the contents of that bottle.
Arguing that their client is innocent, the defense then argued that the bottle shakers in the Craig home were not designated to certain people, so "you don't know who put the tetrahydrozoline in that cup. You don't."
The defense then argued that no one can tell jurors when or how the cyanide or tetrahydrozoline was ingested, adding: "You don't get to guess in this. You don't get to speculate," and argued that prosecutors "have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt how and when" those toxins were were ingested.
The defense then argued James Craig made some "really horrible, awful decisions out of desperation and fear" while in jail, which Moses argued the prosecution wanted to portray as an admission of guilt.
She then asked the jury if they trusted the testimony from one of James Craig's former inmates beyond a reasonable doubt.
Responding to an argument made by prosecutors earlier, Moses said the burden to prove someone's guilty always rests on the prosecution.
"It is not a vague or speculative doubt — it is a doubt that would cause a reasonable person to hesitate," Moses said, as she reference the defense's claim that law enforcement didn't do a good job in their investigation to begin with.
She then asked jurors to consider what they were relying on as they deliberated:
"When you're back there and looking at the instructions — are you relying on speculation? Do you wish you had more from the defense?"
In closing, Moses then asked jurors to "look at the evidence they've provided you and the evidence they have not provided you... and find him not guilty of the murder of Angela Craig."
"He deserves to be found guilty"
In their rebuttal, prosecutor Ryan Brackley opened his argument by recalling how prosecutor Mauro asked jurors to protect James Craig's right to the presumption of innocence, saying they have never asked the jury to take away that right.
"He deserves a fair trial — his lawyers worked hard," Brackley said. "Now, he deserves to be found guilty."
Reiterating that James Craig is guilt of first-degree murder, "what separates this from second degree murder is intent and deliberation."
"James Craig researched not only where to buy those poisons, but how much was needed to kill Angela Craig."
Arguing that "nobody wants to believe" James Craig or his reasoning for murdering his wife could be so simple, Brackley said detectives went back to both his home and his dentist's office to search for evidence a second time.
"When they searched the home for the first time, they didn't yet know about the Clindamycin, they read that iPhone manifesto the next morning," Brackley said.
Brackley, mentioning the seventh count — assisted suicide — said that other than James Craig's statements, "there is not one shred of evidence was suicidal."
"There's no evidence Angela Craig asked him to order the poisons, no evidence she asked him to research the poisons, no evidence she knowingly ingested poison," Brackley said.
Prosecutors said Angela spent the last 10 days of her life trying to figure out why she was sick, adding James Craig "went into great detail" instructing his daughter on how to make it look like her mother did all of this herself.
"James Craig never said in any letters or the iPhone note that there is real evidence that Angela Craig wanted to kill herself — didn't show where to find it — instead he tried to manufacture it," Brackley said.
Brackley argued what Mauro reiterated over and over earlier in the day — jurors would have to believe Angela made everything up; the texts to family, the Google searches for the poisons to absolve her husband of any guilt.
"You'd have to believe that this woman, who spent the last 10 days fighting for her life, was also spending the last 10 days of her life in this drama that she made up with James Craig," Brackley said. "Why would she do that? What's her motive to do that? So James Craig can go and be with another woman?"
Brackley then went on to note several examples of Angela Craig fighting for her life, including searching for an emergency room on Colfax Avenue as she's on her way to the hospital one last time.
He also talked about a text Angela had sent James, which showed how she was trying to fight for her marriage, despite his infidelities.
"Your healing and happiness, this marriage, is more important than my day. You are more important than my day," the text read, as Brackley explained this was sent at the same time James Craig had already ordered poison and was already talking with Dr. Cain, one of his many romantic partners.
Angela Craig, prosecutors said, never broke her spirit to have hope for James Craig.
"Angela Craig was not broken, her spirit was not broken, we all have issues and struggles, it's hard to raise kids when your husband spends 20 years cheating on you," Brackley said. "But how do you get from there, to suicide?"
He then added, "You know who didn't fight for Angela Craig? — Him," Brackley said, as he pointed at the suspect who was hanging his head at that moment.
The jury was excused and jury deliberations began shortly before 1 p.m.
Jury deliberations began early Tuesday afternoon after both the prosecution and defense delivered their closing arguments in the trial against the Aurora dentist charged in his wife's murder.
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@Niner -- sorry, no live stream video of closing arguments as expected.
