ARAPAHOE COUNTY, Colo. (Scripps News Denver/Court TV) — The woman who had an affair with a Colorado dentist accused of poisoning his wife’s protein shakes testified at his murder trial Tuesday.
Dr. Karin Cain, an orthodontist from Texas, testified that she met James Craig at an annual continuing education course in Las Vegas in February 2023.
James Craig talks with his family from his seat before opening arguments in his murder trial, as he is accused of killing his wife, at the Arapahoe District Court, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Centennial, Colo. (Stephen Swofford via Denver Gazette, Pool)
James is facing multiple charges, including first-degree murder, for the death of 43-year-old Angela Craig. Her cause of death was determined to be lethal doses of cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, a decongestant found in over-the-counter eyedrops.
MORE | CO v. James Craig: Poisoned Shake Murder Trial
With her divorce finalized in January 2024, Cain testified she was separated from her husband when she first met James at the conference, and the two struck up a conversation about the hardships of divorce. It just so happened that Cain and James met while waiting in line for a bus that was taking the group to dinner.
“That was the thing that drew me to him. The conversations were very deep, and honest, and vulnerable,” she said, adding she ended up spending some time with James over the course of the conference in Las Vegas, in which they became physically intimate “to some degree.”
“We talked a lot about faith… that was one of our primary connections, I would say,” Cain said. “That came up right away.”
James allegedly told Cain that he and Angela were nearing the end of their divorce, and they had also informed the children about it.
“He was just this amazing father, the way that he talked with them and handled their emotions… it was the same way he had dealt with me; he had this incredible gift of making people feel so understood,” Cain said, adding her attraction toward James “felt right… he was very honest and vulnerable.”
Cain said she and James shared a ride to the airport, where they had a goodbye kiss before she flew back home.
She started getting texts from James from a new number shortly after they parted ways, and she was under the impression he used the other phone number because he didn’t want his young daughters to be “snooping” on his phone.
The prosecution then presented some of the texts to the court.
In one of them, Cain thanked James for accepting her and all of her “complex needs.”
“You don’t seem that complex to me… it seems to me that what you need is to emotionally connect, to be vulnerable, and to be loved where you are,” James replied. “If that’s what you need, I will try to be the man for you.”
In another, James tells Cain: “I feel a great need for repentance, after the last two nights, but also for not being honest for you about how I really felt.”
Cain explained that the conversation was related to one she had with James about the boundaries they had set after they had shared a kiss in Vegas, which she thought was too much, too quickly.
In another text, James discusses Angela, and prosecutors asked Cain if he had often talked about Angela to her.
“Not in our early conversations, but once she started to have episodes and go to the emergency room, it came up a lot more,” Cain said, adding it wasn’t something they discussed a whole lot.
She testified that she wanted to know why James was no longer in a relationship with Angela, as an attempt to gauge if something about James would be problematic for herself in the future. James replied in a text, in part, that Angela “wasn’t giving her whole self to me.”
Cain explained that she believed she was embarking on a new relationship with James at this point, having recently been divorced from a marriage that had lasted nearly 30 years.
“I don’t just casually connect with people. It was something, I felt like, it had the potential to be a long-term relationship,” she said.
In another text from February 26, 2023, James tells Cain: “I know I can be alright without you, but Karin, I don’t want to be.”
She testified that James told her he stayed at an apartment close to the house he shared with Angela so he could “swap” with her to take care of their girls. When asked by prosecutors if she believed him at the time, Cain said she did.
Another text from the same day from James to Cain reads, “The problem is that I might be completely in love with you after three days, and that’s nuts.”
Cain did not reciprocate with that text, but stated that it made her feel great “because that’s what she was looking for.”
She said she was being truthful with him at that point, and she presumed he was being truthful with her.
In a separate text exchange from February 26, 2023, they discuss her coming to Colorado to see James.
The message said, in part, “… Do me a favor though and don’t book one [a ticket] just yet. I’m so deep into you at this point that if you were here I might not be able to hold the boundary we agreed to…”
Cain testified she was “willing to come as soon as I could, though.”
The prosecution then presented other texts, spanning from the early morning hours to late at night, over the following days and weeks.
In one sent on February 27 at 5 a.m., James writes: “Unfortunately, I’ve put off writing the list of attributes that endear you to me for so long that I’m afraid it’s too late to do so now… the list of attributes has become practically endless, nevertheless I’ll try.”
An hour later, James texts Cain: “So many things I can’t write now because I’m trying to get through this day without being too turned on the whole time.”
Eventually, Cain said the texts turned into sexting.
In a message from February 27, James writes: “Karin I hope you know that I love you, not because of your brains, or your beauty, or your humility… Sueña conmigo [dream of me, in Spanish] my eternal love, and may heaven let us bloom together forever.”
In another text, dated February 28, 2023, James complains he’s upset because he’s been fighting with Angela all afternoon after she discovered he paid for a meal large enough for two people at a California Pizza Kitchen restaurant in the airport, which is a meal James shared with Cain.
“Oh no, I was afraid I’d be mixed in somehow. Maybe she’s not on the same page as you,” Cain replies.
Over the next few days, James reassured Cain that they were getting a divorce, but Cain testified she didn’t want to be part of the reason why the couple was divorcing.
In another text the same day, James tells Cain: “I don’t really know what to say except that I love you and I want you. I’m not really sure how to handle this situation with Ang right now… it just sucks to fight.”
Another message from James said, in part, “… I love you too. Thank you for being so supportive. I’m glad she’s leaving town tomorrow so we won’t have to interact for a while. Maybe she will decide to stay gone for a long time… it would make my life easier.”
Cain said in court Tuesday that, reading those texts back again, she could see some red flags in her interactions with James, which she did not notice at all when those conversations took place.
In another series of texts, after James had led Cain to believe that he and Angela were not sleeping in the same house, he tells Cain “… I sat on the edge of the bed and she did not make eye contact. I said to her, I really do want to divorce you…”
Cain responds by saying “I’m so sorry, I don’t know, I just wish this wasn’t our reality. I guess I wish we met longer after your divorce… I don’t want to watch her heart break so that mine can find joy. Yuck.”
In another text, Cain expresses that she wants to know more about the status of the separation James was describing.
“I guess I just need more dialogue here to understand. It sounds heartbreaking, but I don’t know really much at all about y’alls relationship,” Cain wrote. “I would love to open up this conversation more when we’re together… for now, I’m glad you got the peace you needed, and I hope she does too.”
Cain testified she was trying to determine where James was in the divorce process because he assured her he was going through that process when they first met.
James also asked about Cain’s ex-husband, saying, “When you get time, I would love to hear more about what you think happened between you and [Cain’s ex-husband]. If he used to adore you and put you on a pedestal, what changed?”
She then testified she had purchased tickets to come to Denver from March 8-10 of 2023, but ended up changing the dates on those tickets, recalling that it probably “had to do with Angela getting sick.” She changed those flights to March 16-20, she said.
Cain said she told James she would not want to be involved in any relationship if infidelity was involved.
“I had a strict line about not being in more than one relationship at a time,” Cain told the jury.
Prosecutors then went over several texts involving Angela and her health woes.
In one of the texts, dated March 6, 2023, James confides in Cain that Angela thinks he did something to her.
“The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong. MRI was clean. Ang is super frustrated, not feeling any better. She still thinks I did this to her… like, there was a drug panel done and it came back negative, what more do you want?” he wrote to Cain. “I do not want to be in a relationship where that’s the default position… Just for the record, I will never drug you, I mean, if that was ever something you were worried about…”
James then told Cain he was going to be angry if he found out Angela was doing this to herself, claiming she had tried to complete suicide two or three times by stealing a sedative from his office. Cain testified that James said he would have to search through the trash to find out what the sedative was, so he could find a reversal medication.
A day later, texts show James telling Cain several times about Angela’s suspicions that she’s been poisoned by him. The texts read as follows from March 7, 2023:
James Craig: “I love you too. I am undergoing an onslaught of how I must have poisoned Ang right now.”
James Craig: “She’s absolutely convinced that’s what must be happening to her…”
James Craig: “I need you in my life… someone who understands me… someone who won’t accuse me of ridiculous things…”
James Craig: “Your love is what I’m clinging too… I miss you so much and I want you so badly…
James Craig: “Goodnight, my love.”
On March 9, Cain texts James asking him if he’s okay, knowing Angela was in the hospital:
“I am. I’m doing great. I’m honestly so glad they’re keeping her in the hospital tonight, that way I can have a night where I feel like I don’t have to take care of her. Isn’t that awful?… I would totally take care of you, or any one of my kids… it’s nice to offload that responsibility to someone else even if it’s just for the night,” James Craig texts back.
Then, late at night on March 14, James ends Cain a series of texts, starting with a question:
James Craig: “Can I share something?”
Cain: “Of course.”
James Craig: “Without you feeling animosity toward her, I just need someone who understands.”
Cain: “Of course.”
James Craig: “She accused me of being the reason she’s sick. That because I want to leave her, she’s sick. Am I a bad person?“
Cain: “When did she say that to you?”
James Craig: “She said it tonight. I honestly believe I did give it everything I have. I don’t know if she was delirious or not… Do you really forgive and make someone feel like a pervert for wanting sex?… To feel, “less than” because of how you express yourself… maybe I’ve shared too much, maybe I should retreat, I don’t want to scare you off. I can be so intense, so passionate… Especially when you’re so self-conscious about not being ‘enough’ for me… I love you so much. Say the word and I’m yours.”
Cain also testified that James told her he wrote her a song called “Enough” that he later sent to her.
Prosecutors tried to submit a recording of the song as evidence in court, but the defense objected, saying there’s no relevance for the court to hear the song. The judge agreed, and the song was not played for the jury.
“I’m divorcing a woman … who seems to be trying her hardest to die”
After a short recess, prosecutors continued questioning Cain about the texts she and James exchanged. One of them was dated March 15, and was sent at around 6 a.m.
James Craig: “I am a mess, this is so hard to navigate.”
Cain: “What is happening? Navigating hospital or girls?”
Cain: “Tell me more.”
James Craig: “Feelings. I’m divorcing a woman who is the mother of my children who seems to be trying her hardest to die.”
Cain: “Wow, I am incredibly sorry for you. I think the mystery of it is making it even harder. Praying she makes a full recovery.”
James Craig: “It’s making me feel super guilty, babe.”
Cain: “Guilty because she’s sick? Or guilty because you feel divorced from the emotion you would have had previously?… God guided the timing, it’s out of your hands.”
Later that day, shortly before 3 p.m., James sends Cain another series of texts:
James Craig: “Crash. Intubated. 57/44.”
Cain: “No words. I love you.”
James Craig: “No brain activity. They went to do a CT scan of her head, but she’s too unstable. She’s too unstable to even put on the ventilator…”
Cain: “Is there any hope? Thanks for calling.”
James Craig: “Thanks for answering. They won’t let anyone see her in the ICU… ICU doc just told me she’s gotten worse in the last hour…”
Cain: “I will start praying about how you will talk to the littles. I’m so sorry.”
Not long after, texts show James asked what Cain was doing later that night.
In a conversation on March 15, James asks Cain if she was still planning to come to Denver the following day, on March 16. After a bit of back-and-forth, James added, “But I would still like to have you come. The nature of your visit might change some, but I need you.”
Just before midnight that day, texts appear to show that James told Cain that he would like for her to stay at a nearby hotel since the apartment he had allegedly moved into during his divorce process was going to be used by Angela’s family, who were allegedly coming into town after learning Angela had crashed in the hospital.
“… Whenever I can, I will slip away and see you, but even more importantly, I don’t want to hide you,” James texted her. “Of course, I won’t be able to spend 100% of the time with you that I want to… and at night, after my kids are in bed, I could steal away a couple of hours to be with you…”
He then texted her, saying he just wanted “to grieve with my kids and help them bury their mom,” while discussing the police conducting an investigation at the family home.
On March 16, Cain arrived in Denver. She saw James the next day, on March 17. Cain testified she recalled driving with James by an apartment complex, which he claimed was the place where he was living and where Angela’s family was staying.
Cain recalled they had a “fairly nice dinner” that night, and James came up to her hotel room where they were physically intimate. A day later, both went to Boulder, had dinner and he came up to her hotel room again.
At about 2 a.m. on March 19, police knocked on her hotel room door to let her know James had been arrested.
In an interview with police, Cain told investigators that the Craigs were going through a divorce, they were living separately, Angela was depressed about it, and they needed to be aware that suicide was a possible cause of her death. Cain testified that she was told all of this information by James.
James Craig wipes his face during opening arguments in his murder trial, as he is accused of killing his wife, at the Arapahoe District Court, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Centennial, Colo. (Stephen Swofford via Denver Gazette, Pool)
In court, prosecutors presented some letters James wrote to Cain after his arrest. She testified that she burned the first two letters she received from him “because I just wanted total separation from that” after having read the arrest affidavit.
When she received more letters, she read them and then sent them to investigators in Colorado. One of those letters, dated April 28, was read in court Tuesday. One letter read, in part:
“My feelings for you remain unchanged, and whether I get out of here on June 2 or whether it’s after trial, it doesn’t change how I feel… and so Karin, I need you to know that I love you… I love you enough to dream of you every night, to long for you every day, and to let you go if that’s what you need… because I don’t know what you want, need, or expect, I will do whatever is in my heart…”
A letter from April 29 reads:
“Karin, you have ruined me. Ruined me in all of the best ways. I don’t think I will ever meet someone like you and fall so hard… I feel like I have lived my whole life in a desert, parched and dehydrated and thirsty, but because that was the only reality I have ever tasted… it’s like I have been introduced to water for the first time… it feels like it’s no longer a luxury to know you, but a necessity… I love you like an oasis in the desert, JT.”
In a letter from May of 2023, James writes:
“How is it that after just a few short days with you… that you would be the one I would spent the rest of my life looking for but never finding again? You are that perfect, that serene, that transcendent… it was just in those moments that I found myself falling in love with you in a way that I have never experienced before… semi-conscious longings like fireflies blinging in and out of the dark… I know instinctively that I am in love with you still.”
In another, dated May 24, 2023, James apologizes for lying to Cain:
“I was not totally honest with you about having a separate apartment. I am so sorry that I didn’t explain all of that to you… there was a time when you said still living at home would be a deal breaker for you, and I panicked…”
“I just miss you so much. Is that crazy to say given our short-ish history? Maybe it is… on one hand I just want you and I remember how the way your mouth fits on mine… If want and need had been all there was, the war inside of me would have gone out quietly already… but I love you, and that leaves me a victim dying on my own battlefield…”
Cain testified that at some point, she wrote back to James and requested he never write to her again.
On cross-examination, the defense questioned Cain as to why she would open up to a stranger at a conference about her divorce. Cain replied that sometimes, it’s just easier to talk to strangers.
Questions then veered toward their time in Las Vegas, and whether she knew that a lot of information James told her was false.
The defense also revealed that while James was in Las Vegas courting Cain, he allegedly “engaged with a prostitute.” Cain was unaware of that claim.
The jury then submitted some questions for Cain, asking her whether James had ever told her he had extramarital affairs from his past, whether she knew why the Craigs were getting divorced, and whether James ever told her that he had allegedly drugged Angela in the past.
Cain replied that originally, James did not tell her the truth about having an affair, but then admitted he lied, and she believed he said he had one emotional and one physical affair. She also said she believed Angela was not still in love with James, or emotionally connected to him, and “he felt kind of alone in the relationship.” She then replied she didn’t know of the allegations that James had previously drugged Angela.
She said that when James admitted to lying about the affairs, she thought it showed “he had grown beyond that, and was being vulnerable,” and liked that he “was coming clean about it.” She said she believed James was genuine and truthful at the time.
Cain was then excused from the stand.
This story was originally published by Scripps News Denver, an E.W. Scripps Company.
