Episode 375

Angela Craig falls seriously ill without warning, leaving doctors puzzled. Soon, investigators start to find troubling evidence connected to her husband, Jim Craig. Their discoveries make friends and family rethink what they believed about the couple. As the investigation continues, the case only gets more unusual. Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  And in a relationship that had gotten to a point where it was kind of like a game of chicken as far as, "Oh, you won't do this." "Oh, yes, I will." "No, you won't." It'd become probably fairly toxic.

• 0:35Mike Boudet?

  If you've ever wanted a t-shirt, or a hat, or some other shit from our store, now would be a really, really, really good time to get it. In fact, it's probably your last chance. And if you buy something now, you're probably gonna get a little bit of a benefit, because we're trying to get rid of all this shit in the garage, all this stuff, this merch that I don't want. So we're giving out free extra shit when you order anything while supplies last.

• 1:27Mike Boudet?

  So head on over to our store. You can find the link on the top of the page at swordandscale.com. And if you order anything, we're gonna throw in a bunch of extra free shit in your size and send it to you also. So get cracking, as they say.

• 2:26Speaker 03

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of 5-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 3:04Mike Boudet?

  Jim Craig arrives home to find it surrounded by police.

• 3:09Speaker 04

  Say, Brian, we got the husband right here.

• 3:12Mike Boudet?

  After a day like today, it's the last thing he needs. With his six kids, most of his wife Angie's nine siblings, and members of his church, he and his family were gathering to grieve.

• 3:28Speaker 04

  So we've been directed by our detectives that nobody's allowed back inside the house.

• 3:32Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 3:33Speaker 04

  So it's basically a death investigation right now.

• 3:36Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 3:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:40Mike Boudet?

  It's just after 11:00 PM. And that day had been emotionally exhausting for everyone. Over nine days, Angie went from suddenly ill to critically sick, and then suffered a seizure and was declared brain dead.

• 3:55Speaker 05

  Okay, so go back in at all some?

• 3:59Speaker 04

  Well, we got the dogs out. We let them out. But other than that, nobody else can go inside.

• 4:04Speaker 05

  How long that goes on?

• 4:05Speaker 04

  I don't know how long it'll be. So we got our detectives coming out, so...

• 4:11Mike Boudet?

  The police were seizing the house as part of the investigation into Angie's death. No one could enter until further notice. After suffering a tragic loss, the family now had nowhere to stay. They huddled together in the chilly Colorado night and tried to decide where everyone should go. Most of them came from out of town as soon as Angie's condition worsened. They were staying in borrowed apartments and hotel rooms. Angie had six kids who needed a place to grieve. While the police would later make sure everyone had a place to stay, at the time, they had other things on their minds.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, hey, this is me. So I'm down at the Robertson's address, and I have the husband here. You guys need him?

• 5:01Speaker 06

  I would assume. I'm still on the way to the office to get the briefing, but the brief briefing that I did get, yeah, he'll need him to come to headquarters, if he will.

• 5:11Speaker 04

  Okay, I think he's willing to. Do you want me to just send him up there? Because there's only two of us sitting on the house here. Send him up.

• 5:20Speaker 07

  Yeah, I think the officer's gonna... Are you... Yeah, you're Jim, right? Yeah, the other officer's gonna have some information for you. It sounds like you're gonna have to... It's like you go to headquarters and talk to detectives, yeah.

• 5:31Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 5:32Speaker 07

  We'll give you the address. These officers are gonna give you the address.

• 5:37Speaker 05

  So I have some information that I think you guys are looking for.

• 5:40Speaker 07

  Well, just wait for the detectives.

• 5:41Speaker 05

  I know, but I'm saying if I get down there, I'm not gonna wanna answer any questions. I'm gonna probably lawyer up. They still want me to go?

• 5:47Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 5:48Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 5:49Mike Boudet?

  The police had only been informed of Angie's mystery illness after she coded. Hospital staff had also reported that Angie's husband wanted to terminate her care. To hospital staff, Jim seemed oddly okay with taking her off life support. Eager even. In other words, the police already suspected him. Then for him to spontaneously say, "I have some information I think you guys are looking for, and I'm probably gonna lawyer up," that didn't make him look any less suspicious. Put it to you that way.

• 6:26Speaker 07

  So you don't wanna go down there right now?

• 6:27Speaker 05

  I don't want to, no.

• 6:28Speaker 07

  Okay. Okay. Can you just hang tight one second?

• 6:30Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  And then Brian, did he tell you that he made a spontaneous statement to me that he was gonna lawyer up?

• 6:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 6:41Speaker 04

  Because it's happened to you.

• 6:42Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 6:43Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 6:44Mike Boudet?

  Jim waited to hear back from detectives en route. He had information, but he wanted a lawyer. He paced around and made odd small talk about how, at first, he thought the gathering at his home was for a vigil. Eventually, he stood awkwardly nearby, hands in pockets, staring at the ground like a dork. He stood in the front porch of his large home on a nice subdivision of Aurora, but he couldn't go inside.

• 7:17Speaker 07

  I already told him that you're not allowed to talk to anybody right now.

• 7:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, I am very interested in talking.

• 7:23Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 7:23Speaker 05

  I'm very interested in talking.

• 7:24Speaker 07

  But just not right now, right?

• 7:25Speaker 05

  Right.

• 7:26Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 7:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:27Speaker 07

  Okay. So you're free to go.

• 7:29Speaker 05

  Okay. Would you know when we'll be able to get back in our house?

• 7:32Speaker 07

  No idea. I'm sorry. I really don't.

• 7:34Speaker 05

  What... Can you tell me what the... Like, what to what end? I mean, I don't get it, no.

• 7:39Speaker 04

  It's a death investigation right now.

• 7:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, okay.

• 7:41Speaker 04

  So they gotta protect all the crime scene.

• 7:43Speaker 07

  Yeah. Just in case, you know, this is... There is... It is a crime scene. I don't know.

• 7:49Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 7:49Speaker 07

  Anyway, right now, we can't tell anybody. Yeah, I mean, you're free to go. You know, you're not under arrest or anything like that, so they'll be... They'll be in touch with you.

• 7:58Mike Boudet?

  Over the next few days, the detectives did get in touch with Jim. And they didn't hide the fact that the investigation seemed to be solely focused on him. They seized his phone, his computers, his home surveillance system. They even seized computers from his dental practice. In that time, he grieved the loss of his wife. After three days in the ICU, they took her off life support. They crafted the obligatory Facebook announcement. They planned the funeral. It was difficult to bear. Jim would often leave his kids with his extended family for long periods of time.

• 8:39Mike Boudet?

  But after those few days, the lead detective had called Jim and told him he could come pick up his phone. They didn't seem to need it anymore. After the kids went to bed, Jim's brother drove him down to the police station to get it.

• 8:54Speaker 04

  Oh, how are you? Okay, how are you doing? Yeah.

• 9:00Speaker 04

  Hi.

• 9:03Speaker 04

  All right, Bob. You are under arrest.

• 9:05Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 9:05Speaker 04

  Okay? First degree murder.

• 9:15Mike Boudet?

  Jim was met in the parking lot by both detectives and several patrol officers. It was a ruse. Before Jim even realized what was going on, they had his hands behind his back. His brother had no idea what was happening.

• 9:30Speaker 04

  For you and the family, I mean, obviously, this is shocking. From our standpoint, he's responsible for Angie's death. Okay? No doubt in our mind. Okay? It's hard to wrap your mind around that, and I understand, especially for these poor kids.

• 9:46Speaker 04

  But, you know, we would obviously take him into custody this quick if we were not sure in our minds from our investigation that he's responsible for her death. Okay?

• 9:56Speaker 05

  Okay. So in this case, then, do...

• 9:59Speaker 04

  Are we just supposed to proceed through the funeral without him?

• 10:02Speaker 07

  Yes, he's not gonna be able to get out of jail.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  I mean, if you guys- Will he be able to attend the funeral?

• 10:06Speaker 07

  No, no, no. And I think if you really sit back and wrap your mind around it, I don't think he should be at the funeral when he's the one that caused the funeral to happen.

• 10:19Speaker 04

  He's still innocent until proven guilty.

• 10:22Speaker 07

  It's true, it's true. But I just wanna give you a heads up that that's, that's why we're here and that's why he's got a warrant for his arrest. That's why he's in custody.

• 10:30Mike Boudet?

  Whatever detectives had learned in those few days, they believed it strongly enough to ask a judge for a murder warrant almost immediately after Angie's death.

• 10:41Speaker 05

  I was never really getting my phone back, was I?

• 10:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, it's done, it's downloaded. I literally, I had to bring it back to the lab.

• 10:48Speaker 05

  But-

• 10:48Speaker 06

  Because we have all the information.

• 10:49Speaker 05

  That's not why I was coming here tonight, though, was it?

• 10:51Mike Boudet?

  Nope.

• 10:52Speaker 06

  Tonight, no.

• 10:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:55Speaker 05

  I thought that's why I was coming.

• 10:56Speaker 06

  Right. So, um, now you're here, so they do have an arrest warrant for the murder of Angela.

• 11:05Speaker 05

  My gosh.

• 11:06Mike Boudet?

  My gosh? Everyone grieves in their own way, I guess. Everyone reacts differently to bad news, but responding "my gosh" to the news that you've been charged with murder kinda undersells the surprise a little bit.

• 11:23Speaker 06

  So, I know that, you know, you've expressed a few times that you have the answers and wanna tell us. Um, I just wanna give you that opportunity to tell us what you know. And if you have insight on kinda what happened, or, I mean, I know you've talked to DHS, Department of Human Services, um, and you've kind of alluded when I've talked to you. Um, I, I just wanted to just give you the opportunity.

• 11:53Speaker 05

  I really want that. I, I haven't had my phone, so I haven't been able to talk to the attorney that I reached out to. Because, as you can imagine, this is terrifying for me. And you both seem very nice and like you're on my side, but I know how this works and I don't wanna incriminate myself or say anything stupid, or... There are answers, there are answers, and this makes a lot of sense once those answers come out, but I don't know how to navigate this, I've never done this before. And I'm scared to death.

• 12:21Speaker 06

  That's understandable.

• 12:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:23Mike Boudet?

  Jim again dangles the idea of having all the answers. His wife died suddenly and mysteriously. What answers could he possibly have that he can't just share?

• 12:35Speaker 05

  What happens if, right now, I say, "I just really need an attorney with me," and I can't talk to you, then what happens next?

• 12:42Speaker 06

  Then, uniformed officers here will just take you down to the jail.

• 12:46Speaker 05

  It's okay. And then what happens if I talk to you and tell you everything I know? Then what?

• 12:56Speaker 06

  I, I mean, I-

• 12:57Speaker 05

  I still go to jail and I wait for thirty to sixty days to see if I-

• 13:00Speaker 06

  Um, well, I don't know, I mean, but you have a warrant, so you're going to go to jail today. I can't, I can't change that. Um, is, do you have something to say and maybe I can verify it? And that'll clear you and take away all the evidence that I have? But, but again, nothing will change the fact that you're gonna go to jail today.

• 13:21Mike Boudet?

  Even the detectives seemed confused by Jim. What a confusing, odd, awkward character he seems to be. His voice is low and raspy, as if he's been crying for days, or as if he's playing the Kevin Spacey character in Seven. He didn't behave like a typical murder suspect. He was polite, but frightened, agreeable, but creepy. At times, he seemed almost naive about what was going on. But then he'd say something that suggested he understood far more than he was letting on. He said he wanted to cooperate and tell them everything, but he couldn't.

• 14:03Mike Boudet?

  Yet he kept letting little bits of his story slip out. He just couldn't shut that yapper, you know? Some of y'all have that same problem.

• 14:12Speaker 05

  I have all of the answers that you need, but I, I can't, I can't talk, I can't. The one attorney that I've talked to has said, "Don't say anything because you could just incriminate yourself," and I'm totally naive and I don't know what I'm doing. And make you both seem very nice, but I know that your job is to help me away.

• 14:31Speaker 06

  Well, that's, our job is to figure out what happened. Our point is not to put you away, it's to put the person away that caused this to your wife. And that, that's, that's where I-

• 14:44Speaker 05

  What if that person is my wife?

• 14:46Speaker 06

  We don't have that information, though.

• 14:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:49Mike Boudet?

  What an interesting hypothetical question. What if the person responsible for my wife's death was my wife? Huh? What, what, what? Philosophy! Jim kept saying he had all the answers, but every time detectives gave him an opportunity to provide them, he stopped short. He seemed desperate to know what they knew without telling them what he knew.

• 15:17Speaker 05

  Oh, this is horrible. Detective Olson, what would you do if you were my decision?

• 15:26Speaker 06

  I, I, I feel for you, I really do.

• 15:29Speaker 05

  I trust you.

• 15:30Speaker 06

  So-

• 15:31Speaker 05

  What would you do?

• 15:32Speaker 06

  And I can't give you your advice and I can't tell you what to do? Yeah, I mean, it's really just getting down to the truth.

• 15:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I don't wanna incriminate myself, you know? I'm really being careful because I know how this looks. I knew exactly how this was gonna look. Has the toxicology report come back?

• 15:54Speaker 06

  Um, for, for what?

• 16:00Speaker 05

  For Angela, I know they were running tox on her.

• 16:03Speaker 06

  I, I mean, there's a ton of toxicology, I mean, because they just don't know what happened. They don't know what caused any of this, so-

• 16:11Mike Boudet?

  Toxicology? Angie had spent nine days suffering from a mysterious illness doctors couldn't identify. Why was Jim already talking about toxins?

• 16:24Speaker 05

  So then, what, what grounds did you arrest me under then?

• 16:29Speaker 06

  Again, I'm gonna default to kinda what Detective Ferris said. I mean, we have a lot of questions, as I'm sure you do. Um, and I can't, I can't, so it's kind of, when we get into talking about the actual specifics of the case, um, that really can't occur until we're either gonna talk or we're not.

• 16:51Speaker 05

  I would like to contact the attorney that I was thinking of using, and I reached out to him and then you guys took my phone and I don't know if they've tried to reach back out to me or not. And, um, and there's, there's basically a, uh, straight-up written, "Here's everything that happened from my iPhone that I wrote the night before you took my phone." I wanted to sit down and figure out the timeline so that I could remember exactly what happened and when. I mean, that's all there, but there's, and so I don't, I don't, I don't know, I don't know, I'm so sorry. I don't know, Detective Olson.

• 17:25Speaker 06

  No, you don't have to be sorry. I mean, this is a scary situation.

• 17:29Speaker 05

  And I didn't, I didn't do this. And I don't know how to exonerate myself. I don't know what to do. I'm scared to death, I don't know what to do. I want desperately to talk to you because I trust you, but what happens if, what happens if you guys just put me on? You know, what happens if you're not really on my side? Or I could say something that makes me look horrible and then some district attorney with an axe to grind puts me away? I don't want that.

• 17:57Mike Boudet?

  It was a good idea for Jim to contact a lawyer because they were not on his side. They never are. What Jim didn't know was how much of the final weeks of Angie's life detectives had already reconstructed. And while he tried not to speak to the police, pieces of another explanation kept appearing in what he said.

• 18:22Speaker 06

  I'm sorry that we're here in this situation.

• 18:24Speaker 05

  I am too. I'm sorry that I didn't just let her go through with this years ago. Detective Olson, thank you for joining the jury tonight. It really helped that you could come to help.

• 18:37Speaker 06

  I do too.

• 18:38Mike Boudet?

  What a chatty Cathy this guy is. He sounds like Adam Bush. Before police ever arrested him, Jim had already typed out a detailed timeline of the days leading up to Angie's collapse. In the interview, he wanted to know about toxicology. He made a cryptic remark about wishing he'd let her go through with this years ago. And again and again, he insisted there were answers that would eventually make everything make sense. To the police, the story was already clear. They believed they already knew who killed Angie. What they still needed to understand was why.

• 19:34Speaker 07

  Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture, Depamocumab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting, it may be time to try something else. Extenture is an ultra-long-acting prescription-maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extenture is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection, common cold, sinus infection,

• 20:19Speaker 07

  inflammation in the nose, flu or fluke-like symptoms, joint pain or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extenture. Learn more at Extenture.com or call 1-833-393-3678.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of 5-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at OnDeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 21:03Speaker 07

  This is Blue from the UPS Store with a very special holiday announcement for small business owners. We're open! Let's be real, your deadlines don't take holidays. So while the other guys are checking out, the UPS Store is here to pack, ship, print, shred, notarize, and check more things off your list all year long. With over 5,500 locations, there's a Blue near you at the UPS Store. Shredding services are provided by Iron Mountain As Is. Visit the UPSStore.com/shredding for full details. Most locations are independently owned. Products, services, prices, and hours of operation may vary. See store for details.

• 21:45Speaker 00

  Now we take you to Aurora. We're gathering new information on what investigators are calling a heinous, complex, and calculated murder.

• 21:53Speaker 06

  An Aurora dentist and a father of six is in jail tonight.

• 21:57Mike Boudet?

  Crazy, crazy story. Accused of murdering his wife. The only thing more shocking than the sudden death of a loved one is their spouse being arrested in connection. The only thing more shocking than that is the whole country knowing about it. The story of the Aurora dentist plotting to kill his wife made national and eventually international news. Angie's family and even Jim's relatives couldn't believe it. Jim and Angie had been married for more than 20 years. They lived a privileged life. They had all the material things, you know? They also raised six kids, two of whom are now adults. Their oldest son was starting a family of his own.

• 22:42Mike Boudet?

  The Crags seemed happy. Their group of family and friends was tight and had been for years. Jim's best friend from childhood was still his best friend. They had grown up together and even their wives became best friends.

• 22:57Speaker 05

  Angie's Nikki's best friend, has been, always will be. She's the best, she's the greatest friend that Nikki's ever had.

• 23:05Speaker 06

  We went to dental school in the same place and so we lived close to them. We lived like three doors down from Jim and Angie. Red Friends lived on our street. They were at our wedding. We raised 10 kids together, so...

• 23:21Speaker 05

  We'd hang out, we'd hang out a lot. Okay. Yeah, our kids were at their house all the time. Our kids still went to their house.

• 23:26Mike Boudet?

  To Mike and Nikki Harmon, Jim and Angie's relationship was great. They had spent years as each other's best friends. Jim met Angie in college. They got married in December of 1999 when she was only 20, and Jim was 22. Jim was ambitious and charismatic, and Angie loved that. He even started his own business during his first year of dental school.

• 23:52Speaker 06

  He created a business and like actually made some pretty good money. Like, he was doing it out of his little town home dental school, right? And it's like, who has time to do that? He does. He types like 100 words a minute. He has a photographic memory.

• 24:08Mike Boudet?

  Jim made about $100,000 that year before he was sued and had to take his product off the market. After dental school, the friends stayed in touch. Jim graduated in '06 and moved to Aurora, Colorado to start his own practice. When Mike Harmon graduated and was considering moving to Colorado also, Jim offered him a job. They needed health insurance.

• 24:33Speaker 06

  And Jim said, "Well, I'm looking for an associate. I've got group insurance. I'll put her on day one if you want to come work for me." And it was kind of like, "Great." Yeah, I mean, like, that would be an answer to kind of our problems right now. Like, you get a job, you get insurance, like, all the things. So that's what we did. So they worked together for two years, a little over two years. He would help anyone, do whatever, like, really generous.

• 25:09Mike Boudet?

  And life unfolded from there. Between the Crags and the Harmones, the best friends would raise 10 kids together. You couldn't tell where one family started and the other ended. That's how close they were. And the Harmones were witness to their love.

• 25:26Speaker 06

  They entertained all the time. New Year's Eve parties. You know, like, making dinner. He got into cooking for all of them. That was a hobby. That was one of them. Like, he was making crème brûlée and crab legs. And just, you know, like, they went on vacation all the time and all the things.

• 25:42Speaker 05

  And we went on a cruise with them. And Jim was just, he was filming Angie like, "I love you." And he was very over the top with everything.

• 25:52Mike Boudet?

  To anyone looking on, Jim and Angie were deeply in love. They raised a family, enjoyed life, and even worked together. Angie ran the front office and Jim did the dentistry. But behind the facade of a loving couple and happy family, Angie was struggling to keep it all together. Very few people knew about Angie's struggles. One who did was her older sister, Toni. About five years before her death, Angie called her sister one day, a day they normally wouldn't talk.

• 26:25Speaker 06

  And so I was cooking dinner and I pick up the phone. I'm like, "Hello?" You know, I'm like, "Sunday, what are you doing?" You know? And she was crying. And I said, "What's wrong?" And she said, "I should probably start from the beginning." And I'm thinking, "The beginning of what?" I mean, if I could help you understand how much time I'd spent with them. Our kids are the same age. I'm 13 years older than her, but we got married three months apart. We saw each other all the time. And, yeah, my baby was 10 months when she was having her first. And, you know, so I'm thinking... And he was always very nice, very, "You should come and we should this and we love having you."

• 27:09Speaker 06

  And so she said, she told me that he had multiple, kind of, hookups back then. Okay. That's the conversation she and me had, that he'd had a bunch of hookups and said he'd been addicted to porn for 17 years. And then he told her that he'd had an affair or had a fling or whatever with somebody at a dental conference. And that he came home and announced that he'd been having an affair and he was leaving her. And she was distraught, of course, because she'd been trying to hold their family together for all these years. And she was trying to figure out whether she should just leave or try to fight for it

• 27:54Speaker 06

  or see, is he serious?

• 27:57Mike Boudet?

  Angie was deeply religious and highly devoted to her family. She wanted to keep it together at almost any cost. But Jim's multiple affairs were just the tip of the iceberg. Hidden beneath the glossy exterior of their life were more secrets.

• 28:14Speaker 05

  I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is too. And so is Angie. And so he lost membership privileges a couple of years ago for adultery. I didn't know this at the time. And he approached me. Him and Angie came to our house to sort of like tell us what was going on.

• 28:34Speaker 06

  The precipice for it, I guess, was not like, "We need to get this off our chest." It actually was more that, within our church, he was going through a council, like a disciplinary council for what has happened. And my husband was going to be sitting on that disciplinary council. So he was like, "Before you show up on Thursday night for this meeting, let me tell you what's been going on." He's like, "It got so bad at one point. I drugged her one night. I was going to kill myself."

• 29:09Speaker 05

  He goes, "I gave Angie this so she could sleep. So she could sleep through the night." He didn't say "drug."

• 29:13Speaker 06

  I was going to inject myself with this. I didn't want her to wake me up because I knew, or wake up because I knew she would try to stop me, you know?

• 29:19Speaker 05

  I wanted to protect Angie.

• 29:21Speaker 06

  I wanted to protect Angie.

• 29:23Mike Boudet?

  Jim's act and his confession to it shattered the image that their best friends had of them. They drifted apart after that. Angie felt alone.

• 29:35Speaker 06

  I think part of it was like, now that you know all our crap,

• 29:40Speaker 06

  it's weird, you know, like.

• 29:43Mike Boudet?

  Angie had confided in her sister Toni, too. Toni started to see through Jim's behavior.

• 29:50Speaker 06

  And then she called me one day and she was mad. And I'm like, of course, nature of life with when someone's cheated on you, right? And she said that he had sedated her. And his reasoning behind that was that he sedated her so that she wouldn't wake up so he could go in their bathroom and kill himself. And she was just angry that he had sedated her and she didn't know that she'd been sedated, she was being sedated. Cause she takes lots of allergy meds and you know, she's got all kinds of, you know, she's had sinus infections, I mean, tons. So it's not unusual for her husband who can prescribe medicine. Yeah. To give her something. Right. But it was a paradigm shift.

• 30:34Speaker 06

  Because now she's not focused on the affair, she's focused on, oh my gosh, he's going to kill himself. And, and I know at the time they were both going to multiple, um, or had begun going to multiple counselors. Right. She was in therapy, um, individual therapy to deal with the effects of his affairs and the years of betrayal. And cause she wanted to keep her family together. And, and then she was in couples therapy with him and then he went to three different therapists, like a sex addiction therapist, uh, individual therapist, like mental health and then couples.

• 31:12Mike Boudet?

  Both Jim and Angie would start going to therapy. And things seemed to be getting better. But soon Jim would have to file for bankruptcy after COVID.

• 31:22Speaker 06

  Because he had done severe damage to his practice. He wasn't going to work for real, he was counseling patients, he was spending money. They spend money like it's going out of style. Um, we thought they were so well off and it's like, oh yeah, like they were working really hard to make it look that way. I think for a while, they were probably okay. Financially, it was probably okay. I think for a long while Angie probably didn't know. Um, but for sure, there came a day where it was like, do we have money?

• 32:03Speaker 06

  We still have like a ton of cars and all kinds of things. I was like, yeah, I don't know what they're doing, but it's not good. Like it's all fake. But I think after a while it became, everyone thinks that we're this thing. Right, like the Keeping Up with the Joneses. Yeah. And they were like, people think that we're happy and people think that we're well off and all the things. And it was like, it's all a house of cards.

• 32:26Mike Boudet?

  They looked like they had money, but didn't really. They looked happy, but Jim admitted to having multiple affairs. They were going to need therapy, together and individually, except Jim still thought they should get divorced.

• 32:43Speaker 06

  So he continued to press. You need to leave me. I'm not good for you. Was in the kitchen and he said, I decided the best thing for you to do is to divorce me. I'm not good for you, I've ruined your life. And I think that will, that is the best. So he didn't flat out say like, I am leaving you, like I filed for divorce. No, he wanted her to leave him. Right. So it was kind of just leave me, I'm not good. Leave me, you need to divorce me. It's the best thing.

• 33:13Mike Boudet?

  Angie tried to fix her marriage to help her husband and maintain her life. Then on December 9th, just three months before her death, she had caught Jim doing something odd.

• 33:25Speaker 06

  So on December 9th at 1:08 PM, that's a Friday, I'm not ready to talk yet, just yet. But I need to reach out because I'm feeling really broken and really alone. I'm leaving Jim. Not until after Christmas, but he's made it impossible to stay. I don't really have a plan yet. Mostly I'm just alternating between crying and numb. I hope you're there for me, or I know you're there for me. And I love you for it. I'll talk when I can. And I miss my mom. So December 10th, how are you holding up? I'm exhausted. I'm hungry and my head hurts and I need a nap. It wasn't what I thought it was. So here's where he shifted the narrative. It wasn't what I thought it was.

• 34:09Speaker 06

  And I'm staying. But it's something and it's a mess and I'll have to call and explain. It's all just so broken and stupid. December 11th, I don't even know what to explain or how to explain what happened. So I'm going to give you the short version. I thought Jim was cheating again. He wasn't. He was lying and talking to other people, mostly women online. But none of it was even emotional, sexual or personal. What it boils down to is Jim needs to finish digging into his broken relationship with his mom. He need, his need for validation from and control over women in whatever way he can get it is strong. And I don't doubt if I hadn't found out, this would have eventually gone the way it did last time.

• 34:54Speaker 06

  He found a website for people who are struggling financially. I need help where they're supposed to be able to find odd jobs for money. But he has really, it has really turned into a site for predators who give money and expect sex. Fancy prostitution. He was giving money and feeling like the best human ever when he didn't demand sex. But he was lying to me and talking to other women frequently. His explanation, it was in order to get them to like him and think he was amazing. And then he moved on to the next person.

• 35:29Mike Boudet?

  Jim was spending money they didn't have, giving it to women he didn't know. Just so he could get that warm, fuzzy feeling. Weird. Time would pass. Angie and Jim would stay together and Jim's new partnership with Ryan Redfern was helping him work his way out of debt. They seemed to be through the rough patch in their marriage. The weekend before her mysterious illness started, Angie spent time with her sister Toni in Utah. They attended Roots Tech, a genealogy convention.

• 36:03Speaker 06

  You guys went and did normal things. It was a normal. Normal. I picked her up, we went downtown, we got dinner, we went to the hotel. My other sister-in-law was waiting for us.

• 36:13Mike Boudet?

  Of course, Toni asked Angie how things were going with Jim.

• 36:18Speaker 06

  And she said, I think it's been good for him to just be there with the kids. It's a good distraction. He's had to, you know, just take through kids. Sounded, I never spoke to him, but it sounded like he was in good spirits. She felt confident. She wasn't overly anxious. She's like, she was leaving all the classes to call. And she didn't come back after. Upset, no. She came back and we'd all sit around and talk and eat all the snacks we brought that we probably shouldn't be eating and. Right. You know, and then we'd go to sleep. Yeah. She'd set her alarm and set her white noise and go to sleep and she was up first, taking a shower and. Okay. Normal, 100% normal.

• 36:53Mike Boudet?

  They had a great weekend and to Toni, it seemed like Angie and Jim were working through their issues, but the next day, Monday, March 6th, the happy, joking, carefree Angie was gone.

• 37:06Speaker 06

  I can't really explain because my brain doesn't want to work. Something feels really weird in my head. And my body is sluggish and Jim's going to take me to the doctor this morning. I said, well, that's not good and a little scary. When are you going in? He took the girls to a friend and he should be home soon. I said, well, what do you think it is? She said, no idea. You going to the ER? You have, do you have an appointment? She said, the ER. I said, keep me posted or I'll check in in a while to see if there's an answer. Are you nervous? She goes, I'm not necessarily nervous. I just don't understand why I went from perfect. Cause she rode her bike like she did every morning. Had a protein shake that she said Jim made for her. And then went to. Went to Not Feeling Well. Yeah. And then she just went to Not Feeling Well.

• 37:52Mike Boudet?

  Angie's illness was sudden enough and severe enough for Jim to take her to the emergency room. She would be released that same day with no explanation of her symptoms. The following day, Toni texted to check in on her.

• 38:05Speaker 06

  So she says Tuesday morning, 8:43, I said, okay, spill it. How are things this morning?

• 38:13Speaker 06

  She said, "Bad. Now I'm stuffy and seeing spots." "Honestly, though, I think I'm sick," and this is one of those lovely side effects. See, she goes immediately to some kind of ear infection or something. Inner ear infection and everything that comes with it.

• 38:26Mike Boudet?

  Angie suffered from almost chronic sinus and ear infections. She had severe allergies to all animals. So whenever she felt bad, she would default to that diagnosis. Tony wasn't convinced that an ear infection fit.

• 38:43Speaker 06

  I said, "Someone give me a good remedy for a headache, four ibuprofen and a midol." She's like, "Yeah, I took them about three hours ago, but I think I need sleep for the rest of it." I said, "And food?" So I sent Adam deliver Panera. So I said, she's like, "I'm alone with the babies for an hour or so, and then I can sleep." "I've been slowly snacking." "I also punched myself in the nose trying to wrangle the wrap off my arm yesterday, so that's not helping." "So do you feel like you need some help? Is your dizziness ready, or is your dizziness really bad? Jim just told me you passed out this morning. Be honest, how are you feeling?" She said, "He's such a bum. I did, but that wasn't, that wasn't not long after I woke up."

• 39:24Speaker 06

  "I still felt a lot yesterday, a lot like yesterday. Vision still blurred and stuff, as well as spots in my eyes and a huge headache." "I got up and tried to feed the bird and got dizzy, so I put my hand on the island." "I have no memory of falling. I'm much better now. No spots, no blurriness, just tired." I said, "It's good that you're at least feeling somewhat better." And she said, "I worked, I worked out on Monday, for crying out loud. I was fine until all of a sudden I wasn't."

• 39:52Mike Boudet?

  No diagnosis seemed to fit. Her symptoms came and went, and their severity fluctuated. It didn't make any sense. She hoped she would get better, but then suddenly, she got worse.

• 40:05Speaker 06

  Wednesday, 6:23, "Did you get a nap? Did it help?" "Hi," she didn't respond, which is highly, as you can see, unusual. Wednesday at 6 something? Wednesday at 6:23, I said, "Did you get a nap? Did it help?" "Hi, sorry, yesterday was a rough headache and nausea day." So now this is Thursday? This is Thursday at 6:56 a.m. "Yesterday was a rough headache and nausea day, and I took meds and went to bed as soon as I, as soon as someone big got home." "I'm dizzy and tired, and my muscles don't want to work today, but I'm hoping that will go away." "The headache seems to be gone. I'm drinking a protein drink and lots of liquids this morning."

• 40:43Mike Boudet?

  Angie would go back to the emergency room on Thursday, three days after her symptoms started. As hospital staff started administering tests, they uncovered another more troubling symptom.

• 40:57Speaker 06

  She goes, "I will absolutely admit that my blood pressure's been lower than usual." "But I wonder if it is something to do with how sedentary I've been." "Just now it was 78 over 55, super young nurse." I even hear her, I don't know, they're supposed to say, "I even hear her panicking as she relays the info to the other nurse."

• 41:17Mike Boudet?

  The hospital ended up admitting Angie to observer overnight. They thought it would be just one night, but she was still there through the weekend.

• 41:26Speaker 06

  Sunday. So he texts us at 1:08 a.m.

• 41:33Speaker 06

  "Ange just crashed tonight," that's how he started. "I was sleeping by her in the hospital on a stool next to the bed, and suddenly a couple of nurses came into the room and said that her oxygen saturation was down in the 50s, and they were trying to revive her to get her awake and breathing." "She was super lethargic, difficult to arouse." "They were finally able to get her stabilized on oxygen, and they just came in and took a bunch of blood samples to see if there's an infection in her blood." "And they are also going to check for troponins, troponin levels, which is something I think to do with her heart." "The doctor has ordered an EEG this morning in case she's had a seizure." "I didn't know anything was even wrong. It just seemed like she was snoring really loudly next to me in my inner bed."

• 42:15Speaker 06

  "Anyway, she's stable now, and I hope this message doesn't wake anybody up. Just wanted you all to know."

• 42:22Mike Boudet?

  With yet another sudden symptom, family and friends were starting to get really scared. No one knew what was going on with Angie. All of a sudden, her oxygen levels were low. By Tuesday, her symptoms had improved, and she was discharged from the hospital, still with no diagnosis. She returned home with an oxygen tank and a blood pressure cuff.

• 42:46Speaker 06

  But when I got home, I went in to greet her, and she was sacked out on the bed and looked super tired and pale. She's cold, and she asked me to put my hand on her back and tell her if she was shaking or not. She wasn't, but I guess she felt like she was. So she was having these internal tremors, and she felt like she was shaking outside, but you couldn't feel it, but she could feel it on the inside. And all my research says that's central nervous system damage. And she said, and then she talked to me a little bit about the tremors, and I'm like, "That's really weird." And she goes, "I don't know what it is, but I'm hoping as I get better, it'll just go away." And then Jim says, "Hey, Ange, um, here, take your clindamycin." And I said, "Why is she on clindamycin?"

• 43:32Speaker 06

  And he's like, "Oh, it's for her sinus infection."

• 43:35Mike Boudet?

  Angie made it through the night. But by the next morning, Wednesday, March 15th, nine days after her illness started, she went back to the hospital. She was really dizzy and had trouble standing, in addition to her other symptoms.

• 43:51Mike Boudet?

  Jim was at work, so Angie's brother took her. Jim would arrive later and relay information to the rest of the family.

• 43:59Speaker 06

  "How are things?" "Super lethargic." "Stats?" He sent me a picture. I said, "He said BP is low." "Well, I clearly, I can see that. I know how to read it." And I said, "I see that." I kept going, like, "You guys are so snotty." I said, "I see that. What's the plan? Did she take anything different yesterday when she got home than she has been taking?" He said, "Clindamycin for sinus infection. They don't think that had anything to do with it." And I said, "What are they saying?" "A bunch of nothing. They want physical therapy to evaluate her." "They tried, but she was too ataxic." "They want to keep her overnight and try again tomorrow." The next thing I get, he says, "Hang on, crash."

• 44:44Speaker 06

  And I'm panicked. I'm five minutes from my oldest sister's house. I'm driving. I'm thinking, "Oh, my gosh, I'm gonna die trying to get there, because I'm shaking." Profusely said, "What crashed, Jim? Are they able to bring her back?" "I don't know what's going on. They think seizure." "Are they looking, are they still working on her?" "Lots, intubating her." "Why? Now I know it's really bad, because they're intubating her." "Can't get the tube in. Emergency anesthesia team has paged." "What? Why? She's not maintaining her airway, bagging her." "Cannot get the breathing tube in." "What does the anesthesia team do? Get the tube in? Are they there yet?" I mean, I'm just panicking.

• 45:22Speaker 06

  He's like, "Test X-ray to make sure the tube is in. There's 16 people in the room." "BP is low." "How low?" "Systolic 60s." "I'm assuming they're not saying much. Is Mark back?" "No, no, another picture." "What are they doing?" "I don't know, talking frantically a lot." "The doctor stepped out to talk to me, and they called her back in. 57 over 45." "Anything?" "No news." "She came out and said she heard me say the word 'stable.'" "She said she is not stable." "She used the word 'tenuous' and said she's very, very worried, and should be responding right now, but she's not."

• 45:52Mike Boudet?

  Angie took a turn for the worse, and it wasn't looking good at all. Doctors seemed to be really worried about her brain. The news spread through family and friends. There was a rush to get to the hospital.

• 46:09Mike Boudet?

  Ryan Redfern, Jim's boss and friend from dental school, canceled the rest of his appointments that day and went to support Jim.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  But as I'm pulling into the campus, Jackie, our director of operations, calls. And she says, she says, "Dr. Ryan, I have Caitlin on the phone as well. I just wanted to let you know." "Caitlin, can you tell Dr. Ryan what happened on Monday?" And Caitlin is the office manager for Summer Burke Dental for Jim's practice. She said that two Mondays ago, so the first, first Monday, the March 6th date, when Angie initially got sick. So Dr. Jim had to leave the office early, really early in the day, obviously, to go get his wife and take her to the hospital for the first time.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  And Jim came back to the office after being with his wife all day at the hospital, and she's getting admitted. He came back at some point. He was on a computer in one of the operatories in the dark. Which he thought was weird, because he's got an office. Why wasn't he on his office computer? And she walked by and said, "Hey, is there anything I can do for you?" And he said, "No." And then, after she left, like 30 minutes after she left, she said that she got this text message that said, "There's a package that's gonna come. It's personal. Don't open it." The package didn't come. It came on Monday, this Monday, two days ago.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  And Katie, the other, one of the other front desk gals at the office, started to accidentally open the package. And, and soon, like as she was opening it, Kaitlyn realized that that was the package that the Dr. Craig had said, don't open. Kaitlyn said that she did look inside. And what she saw, whatever it was, was labeled potassium cyanide.

• 48:06Mike Boudet?

  Potassium cyanide is highly toxic and is not used for dentistry. It prevents the body from properly using oxygen, which can cause confusion, seizures, loss of consciousness, coma, and even death. Ryan knew this as he arrived at the hospital.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  Jim's actually outside and, and we hug and he cries and we both cry and we go upstairs. Jim gets a phone call from the doc, one of the doctors, I don't know which doctor. And as Jim was on the phone looking out the window, I followed the nurse and gave him what I just learned.

• 48:47Mike Boudet?

  Once the nurse heard about Ryan's suspicions, hospital staff immediately contacted the forensic nurse. They tried to give Angie the antidote, but the damage was already done.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  And so when the doctors came, I was just like, here comes a whole slew of doctors. There was like five of them. I was like, this is not good. And I knew that was going to be bad news. And as soon as the door opened after, you know, 10 minutes, Jim came out and was just bawling. And they basically told him that she's not going to make it.

• 49:18Mike Boudet?

  The forensic nurse, a mandatory reporter, called 911.

• 49:24Speaker 06

  We have a suspected cyanide, potassium cyanide poisoning.

• 49:30Speaker 06

  He does not know we're calling you guys either.

• 49:32Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 49:33Speaker 06

  So we're going to cause a lot of issues. Cause he's wanting, my understanding is to withdraw care on her pretty quickly. And so we're trying to, you know, get you guys involved and try to figure out medical decision and all that. His name is Jim, J I M, last name Craig, C R A I G.

• 49:53Speaker 07

  So he's urgently trying to withdraw care?

• 49:56Speaker 06

  Um, yes, he's trying not to delay it.

• 49:59Mike Boudet?

  Angie was brain dead and unlikely to survive without the machines keeping her breathing. While Jim cried and grieved with his family, Ryan left. A short time later, Jim called him.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  He says, Ryan, I got some disturbing news. And I said, he said, did you say something to somebody? And I said, yeah, I did. And I told him exactly what I said to the nurse. And I said, Jim, what was in the package? I said, did you order a package? He said, kind of paused and he said, yeah, I did. I said, what was in the package? He goes, it was a ring for, it was a ring for Angie. It was going to be a surprise.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  And I said, Jim, that's not what was in the package.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  And he goes, what do you mean? And I was like, the package was opened. And he's like, no, it wasn't. I said, yes, it was, Jim. Jim, I know what's in the package. And he wouldn't admit to what was in the package. And I said, Jim, potassium cyanide was in the package. Why do you have potassium cyanide?

• 51:14Speaker 01

  And I said, why do you need potassium cyanide? And, and he said, he's like, there's a lot of pauses with deep breaths.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  And then he said, he goes,

• 51:32Speaker 01

  I ordered it for her.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  And he basically said that he had ordered the potassium cyanide at her request. I said, why did you order potassium cyanide? It's like, if she wanted to kill herself and commit suicide, then why didn't you

• 51:49Speaker 01

  let her do it her way? Why didn't you guys just get a divorce if it was that bad? You know, I'm asking these questions and he doesn't have any really any answers. He said, I bought it. I didn't think she would. I actually didn't think she would use it.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  He starts saying things like, Ryan, what have you done?

• 52:06Speaker 07

  Ryan, what have you done?

• 52:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:08Speaker 07

  Ryan.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  What have you done? And then he starts saying things like, this is going to come back on me. They're going to think I did this. This looks bad. I said, Jim? I said, yeah, it does. I said, I think you should stop talking to me. I said, I think you need to get a lawyer.

• 52:25Mike Boudet?

  Jim would return home later that night to find it surrounded by police. Detectives believe they understood what Jim did to Angie. In time, they would build a theory for why. But what they could never have known was how far Jim would go to keep them from proving it.

• 52:56Speaker 07

  Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture, Depamocumab ULAa. If your asthma keeps interrupting, it may be time to try something else. Extenture is an ultra-long-acting prescription maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extenture is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor.

• 53:37Speaker 07

  Report if you have a parasitic infection, common cold, sinus infection, inflammation in the nose, flu or fluke-like symptoms, joint pain or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extenture. Learn more at extenture.com or call 1-833-393-3678.

• 53:56Speaker 03

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 54:27Speaker 07

  This is Blue from the UPS Store with a very special holiday announcement for small business owners. We're open! Let's be real, your deadlines don't take holidays. So while the other guys are checking out, the UPS Store is here to pack, ship, print, shred, notarize, and check more things off your list all year long. With over 5,500 locations, there's a Blue near you at the UPS Store. Shredding services are provided by Iron Mountain As Is. Visit theupsstore.com/shredding for full details. Most locations are independently owned. Products, services, prices, and hours of operation may vary. See store for details.

• 55:07Mike Boudet?

  Jim Craig was arrested for the poisoning of his wife, Angie. To most who knew the Craigs, it was unbelievable. To his kids, it was unfathomable.

• 55:19Speaker 06

  She tried really hard to protect him. Her oldest boy might know like this much.

• 55:28Speaker 06

  And you can tell by the way they're reacting to what's happening. They can't believe, they don't believe that he would do that. Their statements are, he loved my mom so much. He would never do this. They have it all wrong. Someone else must have done it.

• 55:46Mike Boudet?

  And when Jim said Angie killed herself, his kids couldn't make any sense of it.

• 55:51Speaker 06

  So when she asked me that, it was maybe somebody else did it. What, it was the poison? And we had, I had decided that if the older kids asked me point blank, if they asked me a straight-up question, I was going to answer it straight up. So I asked her, I said, do you really want to know? And she said, I did. And I said, it was cyanide. And she looked at me and she said, what is cyanide used for? I said, nothing medical.

• 56:16Speaker 06

  It's plastics, metal. You have to have a specific license. You can't just have it. But how would he get it?

• 56:25Speaker 06

  I said, he ordered it and had it sent to his office. But why would he do that? What if someone's setting him up? What if someone sent it to his office and it wasn't him? And what if someone else gave it to my mom? And I said, tell me who? You tell me who went off. I'm all over it. Yeah. And she's like, but my dad wouldn't have done it. And then she asked about the suicide and I said, Mira, if your mom was going to commit suicide, she wouldn't take something slowly to put herself in absolute pain and fear for 10 days. That's not how people that are going to commit suicide do that. And she's like, but my dad wouldn't do that to her. He wouldn't do that. And it's hard.

• 57:07Speaker 05

  Because I know why they feel that way. Because the morning my sisters called me, I felt that way. I thought, there's no, there's no way. And then I started to think about all of this.

• 57:18Speaker 06

  I have never felt down. I just, this case, I feel so bad. It is tragic. I hate these kids.

• 57:26Mike Boudet?

  The whole case was so tragic and unbearable that even the detectives struggled to get through the conversation. And Angie's kids were left trying to understand how any of it could be true. The autopsy found that Angie's cause of death was acute cyanide and tetrahydrozoline poisoning, with subacute arsenic poisoning as a significant contributing condition. Jim's search history suggested that he thought about this long and hard. It suggested he planned it. Like a rube, this guy's search history included things like, how many grams of pure arsenic will kill a human? Is arsenic detectable in an autopsy?

• 58:10Mike Boudet?

  And how to make murder look like a heart attack? What an amateur. He also watched videos about deadly poisons and substances that could kill without obvious signs of foul play. It's incredible to me that in 2026, a grown ass adult doesn't know the very basics of information technology. There's a record, people, and you can't delete it. It's called the internet. It's called the cloud. It's a glorious digital cage, and we're already in it. You get it?

• 58:49Mike Boudet?

  Detectives also found that Jim created a new email address, [email protected]. He attached this newly created Amazon account with his seeking.com account. With a new Amazon account, he ordered 99.9999% pure crystalline arsenic, another highly toxic substance. It was delivered on March 4th, two days before Angie became ill. Speaking of the cloud, that Amazon, man, that's a real convenient service, you know? I use it all the time, not for this, though.

• 59:30Mike Boudet?

  His seeking.com account included a tagline, by the way, explaining the name Jim and Waffles. It's because they're both nice to wake up to, he said. You can stop gagging now. Evidence also showed he ordered oleander. It's almost like he was checking off every box. The oleander plant is a poisonous shrub, but it had not yet been delivered, so you didn't get around to using that, too. And of course, there was the potassium cyanide order and delivery, which outed him in the first place. It was delivered just two days before she was declared brain dead.

• 1:00:10Mike Boudet?

  Investigators looked for evidence that James had purchased a product containing tetrahydrozoline. And they found it. They found it. It's pretty easy, actually. It's right there in the history. Digital fingerprints have proven to be much more useful than actual fingerprints, in case you haven't noticed. Over two days, Wednesday, March 8th and Thursday, March 9th, the day Angie was hospitalized the first time, he bought 19 bottles of Visine. You see, the active ingredient in Visine, the chemical that takes the red out of your eyes, is highly toxic if you ingest it.

• 1:00:53Mike Boudet?

  And it'll give you the shits, boy, I'll tell you that, but don't try it, it will kill you. To prosecutors, the combination of poisons helped explain the way Angie's symptoms changed over time. They believe Jim first poisoned her protein shake with arsenic on March 6th. She became sick and almost immediately went to the hospital and was sent home without a diagnosis. Over the next few days, investigators believe tetrahydrozoline was also introduced, which helped explain some of her shifting symptoms. Her condition worsened until she was admitted to the hospital, where she gradually improved.

• 1:01:36Mike Boudet?

  Then, the cyanide arrived on March 13th. Angie was discharged the next day, and within 24 hours, she was back at the hospital in even worse condition. Then, there was the surveillance footage from the hospital. It showed Jim entering the frame with what appeared to be a syringe concealed in his hand. It showed him entering Angie's room and seconds later come out to tell the nurse Angie was complaining about arm pain. She coded within seconds after that. That syringe was never found. Then there was his ongoing affair.

• 1:02:17Mike Boudet?

  He met an orthodontist from Texas at a convention and had been seeing her for weeks. How boringly predictable. It wasn't evidence that he poisoned Angie, but the timing was suspicious. He had, after all, arranged for her to come to Colorado, and she arrived while Angie was on life support.

• 1:02:39Speaker 06

  He at no point seemed stressed or anxious or, I mean, really, I had to drag it out. I'm like, are you sure you're okay? Because he seemed okay. We met on a Thursday and then went home on Saturday. So we spent this Thursday evening getting to know each other. And then we texted until like, you know, 4:00 AM that night. Then the next day, we, you know, spent pretty much the day together. He told me they hadn't been living together. He had an apartment. If I had known what was true, I would not have been with this person.

• 1:03:17Mike Boudet?

  They were in constant communication after they met, but they had only known each other for three weeks.

• 1:03:24Speaker 06

  There's no way I'm motive. There's been no planning a future together.

• 1:03:31Mike Boudet?

  The evidence seemed overwhelming, but there was still something prosecutors could not show the jury. No camera, witness, or physical evidence captured James actually putting poison into something Angie consumed. But before they could go to trial to argue their case, Jim had other plans.

• 1:03:54Speaker 04

  The second daughter told a completely different story about a different episode. She described getting a phone call from the jail from her father, who asked her to come down and bail another inmate out. He told her the inmate was a cousin of hers. She didn't know this person, but she has a big family, and so she said it was believable. She bailed this man out, and he handed her a letter from her father. It asked her to buy a burner laptop and create a deep fake video that would show her now dead mother saying that she got James Craig to order these poisons and that she took them herself. He described how she should use the dark web to make this happen, how she should destroy the laptop afterwards.

• 1:04:37Speaker 04

  Instead of doing any of that, that second daughter took the letter to police.

• 1:04:42Speaker 05

  Craig wanted police to find letters at his house that suggested his wife Angela was suicidal and found out about an affair. Police say that James Craig tried to persuade a former inmate to help him find women who would give false testimony at his murder trial. She said Craig wrote a letter to a former jailmate in April, asking him to find one or two attractive women, people who would be willing to lie to the district attorney and his attorneys.

• 1:05:08Mike Boudet?

  The prosecution also called another former inmate who testified Craig wanted him to find someone to kill the detective in the case and to get pictures of a deputy's son. Jim would eventually face five additional charges for his actions behind bars. Two counts of solicitation to commit tampering with physical evidence, two counts of solicitation to commit first degree perjury, and one count of solicitation to commit first degree murder. And those alleged efforts did not come out of nowhere. Even before his arrest, Jim had been hinting that Angie might have taken her own life. He had written out a detailed timeline, asked about toxicology, and suggested he had answers

• 1:05:53Mike Boudet?

  that would eventually explain everything. Prosecutors would later argue that some of what he did from jail was aimed at making the suicide story look real. As those allegations piled up, several attorneys requested removal as counsel. The repeated changes delayed the case, but eventually the trial did begin.

• 1:06:17Speaker 05

  This case is really about broken people, broken marriage, broken perceptions, broken investigation. You may not like him, you may not think he's a good husband, but that's not what you're here to discuss. This case...

• 1:06:42Speaker 06

  From the very beginning, started with blinders. Okay, so as a defense, we're gonna ask you to remove the blinders from this case and to look at everything. It was over for a long time, right? They had tunnel vision.

• 1:07:00Speaker 06

  It was all about the husband, Dr. Craig, who worked at this dentist's office where cyanide was delivered.

• 1:07:05Speaker 05

  Cheated on his wife constantly.

• 1:07:11Speaker 05

  They did, they proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was not faithful.

• 1:07:18Speaker 05

  That they proved.

• 1:07:21Speaker 05

  But this idea that somehow this was some sort of motive

• 1:07:29Speaker 05

  was nothing new.

• 1:07:31Speaker 06

  She, just like all the rest of the women, that cheating, that wanting her husband to be better, it broke her.

• 1:07:41Mike Boudet?

  The defense argued that the investigation had focused on Jim so much that they never considered any other possibility, like Angie being suicidal, for example. Instead, they thought Jim's affairs were not a motive for him to kill his wife, but an emotional weight on Angie that finally broke her. The prosecution didn't need to prove a motive, but Jim had them all. Of course, he was in dire financial straits, and Angie did have life insurance. Of course, he was having an affair and was dissatisfied with his marriage. But why not just divorce her? Why spend days slowly poisoning her to death?

• 1:08:25Mike Boudet?

  Jim wanted the marriage to end, but he didn't want to be the one to end it. He wanted Angie to divorce him so that he could maintain some semblance of the life he had. He didn't want to be viewed as a bad husband or bad father. The optics of it, you know? So why not just kill instead? He didn't want to expose his financial problems or his affairs. He didn't want his family, his friends, his colleagues to view him differently. He didn't want to lose his standing in the church. There's so many people that are so focused on the optics of something that they never look at their own fucking actions objectively. It happens to everybody, I guess, to some extent. But boy, is it apparent these days.

• 1:09:10Mike Boudet?

  The defense would arrest, calling no witnesses. The jury would deliberate for eight hours over two days before returning with a verdict. Jim was guilty on all charges. At his sentencing, his eldest daughter delivered her impact statement.

• 1:09:29Speaker 05

  I was the second child of my mom and dad. Her oldest daughter, and although I may not have been hers, she was my best friend.

• 1:09:42Speaker 05

  A lot of people keep telling me that my mom is here with me, but I hope more than anything that she's not. I hope she's more so much better. I was supposed to be able to plan my sister's weddings with my mom, even though I loved, there was nothing in the world I wanted to do less than plan weddings.

• 1:10:07Speaker 05

  I was supposed to be able to share with her

• 1:10:11Speaker 05

  the stories, the things happening in my life and the projects that I started and never finished and

• 1:10:21Speaker 05

  I was supposed to be able to trust my dad.

• 1:10:27Speaker 05

  He was supposed to be my hero, and instead he'll forever be the villain in my book.

• 1:10:34Speaker 05

  And it hurts so bad every day, and I miss her so much. And I know there were so many more people that would love to be able to stand up and say a lot about my mom and how wonderful she was, and some people who had even loved to stand up and remind us some of the stupid things she did and said and some of her crazy moments.

• 1:11:01Speaker 05

  But I think I

• 1:11:04Speaker 05

  I speak for everyone when I say that

• 1:11:09Speaker 05

  life and the world will truly never be the same. It will never be as bright as it was when my mom was here with us. I miss her. I want my mom. I want more than anything to go home at the end of the day and just give her a hug and call her and tell her about all the crazy stuff that's happened.

• 1:11:31Speaker 05

  I have to get her advice, whether asked for or not.

• 1:11:36Mike Boudet?

  The loss the six children of Jim and Angie felt is hard to imagine. They didn't just lose their mother, their friend. They lost their father, too. Jim Craig was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Additional time was added to be served consecutively with the other charges. There isn't a single satisfying answer as to why he did it. There were affairs and financial problems. There was a life and reputation he had spent years trying to maintain. Any one of those things might explain part of what happened, but none explain why divorce wasn't enough.

• 1:12:21Mike Boudet?

  One way to understand it is that Jim wanted a way out without losing the life he had built. But when things stopped going the way he wanted, he kept trying to control the outcomes. First, he tried to control his marriage. Then he controlled Angie's illness. Then he tried to control the outcome of the trial. But everything he was trying to preserve, he lost anyway. His wife was dead. His children were left without their mother, and their father was in prison for the rest of his life. They would later file a civil suit against their father, his practice, and the company that supplied the potassium cyanide.

• 1:13:03Mike Boudet?

  When the sentence was announced, there was no applause. There was nothing to celebrate. The trial was over, but life for the Craig children would never be the same. And the clearest contradiction in the entire case had already been captured years earlier inside the Craig home.

• 1:13:28Speaker 07

  Nobody in their right mind would ever think I would kill myself before I killed you.

• 1:13:33Speaker 07

  Nobody. Name one person. It may not be your fault that they didn't do their due diligence for anything like that, but it's your fault they treated me differently. 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.

• 1:13:54Mike Boudet?

  Because I didn't say to her, I'm afraid she did this to herself.

• 1:13:57Speaker 07

  I just said, are you gonna do a drug panel?

• 1:14:01Speaker 07

  I think that's not enough. Neither of us said, neither of us said, I think she did this to herself, or I think she took drugs, or I think that, neither of us said that. And how do you think it would have gone if you actually defended me? Well, I also wanted a drug panel because you were accusing me. I wanted that for me, too. Yeah, well, everything about that whole inaccurate action was 100% selfish and has nothing to do with being there for me. You weren't there for me because you were too concerned about what you were concerned about.

• 1:14:45Mike Boudet?

  Well, the end of the year is both very close and very far away. So we got plenty of time here. We got a lot of more episodes to come until we finally shut the lights down in the studio forever. Yes, I do actually intend to do what I said I was gonna do. I don't know why you would think otherwise. I've never lied to you. I've never said I'm gonna do something and not do it. We are shutting down at the end of the year. That is a fact. And I'll let you know why and all that later on. But for now, we still have a little time together, baby, before you have to go back to your family, you know, and your life and all that.

• 1:15:30Mike Boudet?

  Let's just, let's just enjoy the time we have here. How about that? Thanks, everybody that's stuck around this long. Thanks to everybody that has ever bought a membership. And even if you've just supported us for one month, we so much appreciate all of you. You're all in my heart for all eternity.

• 1:16:02Speaker 07

  Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture, Depamocumab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting, it may be time to try something else. Extenture is an ultra-long-acting prescription maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extenture is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year, just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor.

• 1:16:43Speaker 07

  Report if you have a parasitic infection, common cold, sinus infection, inflammation in the nose, flu or fluke-like symptoms, joint pain or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extenture. Learn more at extenture.com or call 1-833-393-3678.

• 1:17:02Speaker 05

  Monday Night brings one more big matchup to settle into. And when every play matters, the last thing you want to do is step away to figure out dinner. That's where DiGiorno comes in. Get a DiGiorno pizza ready before kickoff, then enjoy restaurant-quality taste fresh from your own oven while you stay locked into every play. Stock up on DiGiorno over the weekend so when Monday night rolls around, the only thing you sweat is the game. Shop now at the link in the episode description. It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno.