DENVER: Just days before she died after suffering symptoms that mystified her doctors, Angela Craig confronted her husband, James, in their suburban Denver kitchen over his lack of support.
In that 2023 argument captured on home surveillance video, she accused him of suggesting to hospital staff that she was suicidal, court documents show.
Prosecutors say James Craig caused the ailments that ultimately killed his wife by poisoning her protein shakes and trying to make it look as if she killed herself. His trial on murder and other charges is set to begin Monday with the questioning of potential jurors.
Angela Craig, 43, died in March 2023 during her third trip to the hospital that month. Toxicology tests later determined she died of poisoning from cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, an ingredient that is found in over-the-counter eye drops.
The couple were married 23 years and had six children.
Craig has pleaded not guilty to charges including first-degree murder, solicitation to commit murder and solicitation to commit perjury.
Police say Craig tried to fabricate evidence to make it appear his wife killed herself
The 47-year-old dentist allegedly bought arsenic online around the time his wife began to experience symptoms like dizziness and headaches for which doctors could find no cause, prosecutors say.
At the time of his arrest, police said Craig was trying to start a new life amid financial troubles and appeared to be having an affair with a fellow dentist. Prosecutors said he had affairs with two other women, but they have not detailed a motive in his wife’s death.
Craig’s attorneys have argued police were biased against him and claimed testing of his wife’s shake containers did not turn up signs of poison. They’ve questioned the reliability of a jail inmate who said Craig offered him $20,000 to kill the case’s lead investigator, an alleged plot for which Craig is also on trial.
To avoid being held accountable, prosecutors said, Craig tried to fabricate evidence to make it appear his wife killed herself.
He tried to get another fellow inmate to plant fraudulent letters at Craig’s home to make it look like his wife was suicidal, prosecutors said. Then, in the weeks before Craig had been set to stand trial in November, prosecutors said he also sent letters to the ex-wife of the inmate he allegedly tried to get to kill the investigator, offering her $20,000 for each person she could find to falsely testify that his wife planned to die by suicide, they said.
Previous Craig attorneys withdraw from case
As jury selection was about to begin, his lawyer at the time, Harvey Steinberg, asked to withdraw, citing a rule allowing lawyers to step down if a client persists in actions considered criminal or that they disagree with.
Another attorney for Craig, Robert Werking, later argued that investigators did not look into whether Craig wrote the letters or check them against his handwriting. Werking also said that the inmate and his ex-wife were prosecuted for forgery for their roles in an alleged fraud ring in 2005, suggesting they could not be trusted.
Werking withdrew from the case himself this month after being charged with arson of his own home, leaving his wife and law partner, Lisa Fine Moses, to defend Craig. Werking’s attorney, David Beller, said he was getting mental health treatment and asked the public to show him grace.
Moses did not immediately return telephone and email messages seeking comment.
Prosecutors plan to show video of couple’s argument
Over the objections of the defense, prosecutors plan to show the video of the argument in the kitchen to jurors.
“It’s your fault they treated me like I was a suicide risk, like I did it to myself, and like nothing I said could be believed,” Angela Craig told her husband after her first trip to the hospital.
Prosecutors convinced the judge jurors should see the video because they said it disproves potential claims that Angela Craig poisoned herself — possibly while trying to dissuade him from divorcing her — or to frame him and gain an advantage over him if they did divorce.
“Her mental state is anger and frustration, not suicidality or desperation to keep the defendant in the marriage,” Senior Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Mauro wrote in a recent court filing.
One of Angela Craig’s siblings, Mark Pray, said last year that James Craig not only orchestrated the “torment and demise” of his sister but had shown disregard for others, including their children.
An online search
Prosecutors say James Craig searched online for answers to questions such as “how to make murder look like a heart attack” and “is arsenic detectable in an autopsy?”
After Craig’s initial attempts to kill his wife failed, prosecutors allege, he ordered a rush shipment of potassium cyanide, supposedly for surgery. The shipment was accidentally discovered by an employee at his dental practice in the Denver suburb of Aurora on March 13, 2023. The employee reported it to the office manager two days later when Angela Craig returned to the hospital for a third and final time.
Craig’s business partner, Ryan Redfearn, told a nurse treating Angela Craig that he was concerned she could have been poisoned with the cyanide. The nurse reported that to police, who began their investigation the same day.
Angela Craig died days later.
Colorado dentist accused of poisoning his wife’s protein shakes going on trial for murder
https://arab.news/vvk5c
Colorado dentist accused of poisoning his wife’s protein shakes going on trial for murder
- After his initial attempts to kill her failed, prosecutors allege he ordered a rush shipment of potassium cyanide, saying it was needed for a surgery
- Craig’s attorneys have argued that testing of his wife’s shake containers did not turn up signs of at least one poison blamed for killing her
Italian cooking and its rituals get UN designation as world heritage
- UNESCO added the rituals surrounding Italian food preparation and consumption to its list of the world’s traditional practices and expressions
ROME: Italian food is known and loved around the world for its fresh ingredients and palate-pleasing tastes, but on Wednesday, the UN’s cultural agency gave foodies another reason to celebrate their pizza, pasta and tiramisu by listing Italian cooking as part of the world’s “intangible” cultural heritage.
UNESCO added the rituals surrounding Italian food preparation and consumption to its list of the world’s traditional practices and expressions. It’s a designation celebrated alongside the more well-known UNESCO list of world heritage sites, on which Italy is well represented with locations like the Rome’s Colosseum and the ancient city of Pompeii.
The citation didn’t mention specific dishes, recipes or regional specialties, but highlighted the cultural importance Italians place on the rituals of cooking and eating: the Sunday family lunch, the tradition of grandmothers teaching grandchildren how to fold tortellini dough just so, even the act of coming together to share a meal.
“Cooking is a gesture of love, a way in which we tell something about ourselves to others and how we take care of others,” said Pier Luigi Petrillo, a member of the Italian UNESCO campaign and professor of comparative law at Rome’s La Sapienza University.
“This tradition of being at the table, of stopping for a while at lunch, a bit longer at dinner, and even longer for big occasions, it’s not very common around the world,” he said.
Premier Giorgia Meloni celebrated the designation, which she said honored Italians and their national identity.
“Because for us Italians, cuisine is not just food or a collection of recipes. It is much more: it is culture, tradition, work, wealth,” she said in a statement.
It’s by no means the first time a country’s cuisine has been recognized as a cultural expression: In 2010, UNESCO listed the “gastrnomic meal of the French” as part of the world’s intangible heritage, highlighting the French custom of celebrating important moments with food.
Other national cuisines and cultural practices surrounding them have also been added in recent years: the “cider culture” of Spain’s Asturian region, the Ceebu Jen culinary tradition of Senegal, the traditional way of making cheese in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
UNESCO meets every year to consider adding new cultural practices or expressions onto its lists of so-called “intangible heritage.” There are three types: One is a representative list, another is a list of practices that are in “urgent” need of safeguarding and the third is a list of good safeguarding practices.
This year, the committee meeting in New Delhi considered 53 nominations for the representative list, which already had 788 items. Other nominees included the Swiss yodelling, the handloom weaving technique used to make Bangladesh’s Tangail sarees, and Chile’s family circuses.
In its submission, Italy emphasized the “sustainability and biocultural diversity” of its food. Its campaign noted how Italy’s simple cuisine valued seasonality, fresh produce and limiting waste, while its variety highlighted its regional culinary differences and influences from migrants and others.
“For me, Italian cuisine is the best, top of the range. Number one. Nothing comes close,” said Francesco Lenzi, a pasta maker at Rome’s Osteria da Fortunata restaurant, near the Piazza Navona. “There are people who say ‘No, spaghetti comes from China.’ Okay, fine, but here we have turned noodles into a global phenomenon. Today, wherever you go in the world, everyone knows the word spaghetti. Everyone knows pizza.”
Lenzi credited his passion to his grandmother, the “queen of this big house by the sea” in Camogli, a small village on the Ligurian coast where he grew up. “I remember that on Sundays she would make ravioli with a rolling pin.”
“This stayed with me for many years,” he said in the restaurant’s kitchen.
Mirella Pozzoli, a tourist visiting Rome’s Pantheon from the Lombardy region in northern Italy, said the mere act of dining together was special to Italians:
“Sitting at the table with family or friends is something that we Italians cherish and care about deeply. It’s a tradition of conviviality that you won’t find anywhere else in the world.”
Italy already has 13 other cultural items on the UNESCO intangible list, including Sicilian puppet theater, Cremona’s violin craftsmanship and the practice moving of livestock along seasonal migratory routes known as transhumance.
Italy appeared in two previous food-related listings: a 2013 citation for the “Mediterranean diet” that included Italy and half a dozen other countries, and the 2017 recognition of Naples’ pizza makers.
Petrillo, the Italian campaign member, said after 2017, the number of accredited schools to train Neapolitan pizza makers increased by more than 400 percent.
“After the UNESCO recognition, there were significant economic effects, both on tourism and and the sales of products and on education and training,” he said.
