Protection portrays sufferer as ‘manipulative’ in Colorado dentist’s homicide trial

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As prosecutors tried to color a Colorado dentist as a calculated killer who poisoned his spouse to pursue a brand new romantic life, the protection took a dramatically completely different route by portraying his spouse of 23 years as emotionally manipulative and mentally unstable.

Dr. James Toliver Craig , 47, is charged with first-degree homicide within the March 2023 demise of his spouse, Angela Craig, a 43-year-old mom of six. Her reason for demise was decided to be deadly doses of cyanide and tetrahydrozoline.

In opening statements Tuesday in Colorado, protection legal professional Ashley Whitham acknowledged the couple’s rocky 23-year marriage however described Angela not as a sufferer of betrayal, however as somebody who was emotionally damaged, deeply personal and at instances manipulative.

"You are going to hear her personal daughter describe her that she was additionally manipulating phrases," Whitham revealed to jurors Tuesday. "Once more, that if she wished to attempt to get one thing, she could be manipulative."

COLORADO DENTIST'S ALLEGED INTERNET SEARCH HISTORY TAKES CENTER STAGE AS MURDER TRIAL BEGINS

<source media="(min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1023px)" srcset="https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/07/672/378/dentist-james-craig-murder-trial-opening-statement-001.jpg?ve=1&tl=1, https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/07/1344/756/dentist-james-craig-murder-trial-opening-statement-001.jpg?ve=1&tl=1 2x" height="378" width="672"><source media="(min-width: 1024px) and (max-width: 1279px)" srcset="https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/07/931/523/dentist-james-craig-murder-trial-opening-statement-001.jpg?ve=1&tl=1, https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/07/1862/1046/dentist-james-craig-murder-trial-opening-statement-001.jpg?ve=1&tl=1 2x" height="523" width="931"> James Craig tears up throughout opening arguments in his homicide trial in Arapahoe District Courtroom Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Centennial, Colo. Craig is accused of murdering his spouse. (Stephen Swofford/Denver Gazette through Pool)

The Colorado couple's marital strife was laid naked in Tuesday's opening remarks. Prosecutors pointed to his relationship with a Texas orthodontist, Dr. Karin Cain, because the motivation for the homicide. Cain has not returned Fox Information Digital's requests for remark. The protection stated the 47-year-old husband had extramarital affairs all through the couple's marriage.

"Karin Cain was identical to the others. This wasn’t some new obsession," Whitham stated.

Together with a collection of affairs, Craig additionally allegedly used the web site Looking for.com, promoting himself as "Jim and Waffles" and claiming a internet price of $10 million seeking "sugar infants."

Whitham described Angela as an "extraordinarily personal" stay-at-home mother of six who, attributable to her deeply held Mormon religion, was reluctant to share the couple’s marital points. She claimed Angela was remoted and somebody who was "not about to inform individuals about her marital struggles" and who was "damaged."

Defense attorney Kelly Hyman delved into the dueling methods because the high-stakes homicide trial kicks off. She famous that the protection's technique to solid Angela as manipulative and unstable performs into their goals to create cheap doubt and reframe the context.

"By doing so, the defendant implies that [he] wasn’t accountable," she defined to Fox Information Digital. "That would go to the heaty of the protection that Angela killed herself and that it was suicide."

<source media="(min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1023px)" srcset="https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/07/672/378/dentist-james-craig-murder-trial-opening-statement-003.jpg?ve=1&tl=1, https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/07/1344/756/dentist-james-craig-murder-trial-opening-statement-003.jpg?ve=1&tl=1 2x" height="378" width="672"><source media="(min-width: 1024px) and (max-width: 1279px)" srcset="https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/07/931/523/dentist-james-craig-murder-trial-opening-statement-003.jpg?ve=1&tl=1, https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/07/1862/1046/dentist-james-craig-murder-trial-opening-statement-003.jpg?ve=1&tl=1 2x" height="523" width="931"> Ryan Brackley, a lawyer for the prosecution, delivers his opening arguments in the course of the homicide trial of James Craig in Arapahoe District Courtroom Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Centennial, Colo. (Stephen Swofford/Denver Gazette through Pool)

<source media="(min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1023px)" srcset="https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/07/672/378/dentist-james-craig-murder-trial-opening-statement-002.jpg?ve=1&tl=1, https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/07/1344/756/dentist-james-craig-murder-trial-opening-statement-002.jpg?ve=1&tl=1 2x" height="378" width="672"><source media="(min-width: 1024px) and (max-width: 1279px)" srcset="https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/07/931/523/dentist-james-craig-murder-trial-opening-statement-002.jpg?ve=1&tl=1, https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/07/1862/1046/dentist-james-craig-murder-trial-opening-statement-002.jpg?ve=1&tl=1 2x" height="523" width="931"> Ashley Whitham, a lawyer for the protection, delivers her opening arguments throughout a homicide trial for James Craig in Arapahoe District Courtroom Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Centennial, Colo. (Stephen Swofford/Denver Gazette through Pool)

Whereas prosecutors argued Tuesday that Craig’s alleged Google searches, chemical orders and romantic messages to his alleged mistress quantity to premeditation, Hyman warned that speculative interpretation of digital proof isn’t all the time a slam dunk.

"A approach to do that is to problem admissibility and the reliability of the digital proof. This may be carried out on cross-examination or by means of a protection witness to counter the digital forensic and timeline reconstruction," she stated.

The protection argued Tuesday that investigators operated with "tunnel imaginative and prescient" and failed to analyze different leads. The protection stated Angela’s private laptop computer was by no means seized or searched regardless of prosecutors displaying photos of her utilizing it from her hospital mattress to analysis signs.

SMALL-TOWN DENTIST FACING TRIAL FOR ALLEGEDLY POISONING WIFE'S PROTEIN SHAKE AMID SECRET AFFAIR

"The protection may argue that the unexamined laptop computer might comprise info supporting an alternative theory of occasions or probably pointing to a different particular person and/or a special timeline," Hyman stated. "This omission might counsel an incomplete and/or biased investigation."

Hyman additionally famous that the absence of direct bodily proof, resembling cyanide residue on containers or packaging, may work to the protection’s benefit.

"The absence of direct bodily proof like poison residue on the protein shake containers or the sufferer's physique presents a key argument for the protection to make use of," she stated.

Colorado dentist James Craig is accused of fatally poisoning his spouse and the mom of his six children, Angela Craig. (Fb)

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Investigators alleged in court docket paperwork obtained by Fox Information Digital that, within the weeks earlier than his spouse’s hospitalization and demise, Craig used a dental workplace laptop to seek for "undetectable poisons" and how you can receive them, later buying arsenic and cyanide by mail, "what number of grams of pure arsenic will kill a human" and "is arsenic detectable in an post-mortem?"

Alongside these on-line searches, investigators alleged Craig made YouTube queries resembling "how you can make poison" and "High 5 Undetectable Poisons That Present No Indicators of Foul Play."