A Colorado man on trial for allegedly killing his wife by poisoning her shakes with cyanide and eye drop chemicals later urged one of his daughters to help fabricate a suicide story using deepfake technology, jurors heard this week.
James Craig, a 47-year-old dentist from Aurora, is accused of first-degree murder for the 2023 death of his wife, Angela Craig.
Prosecutors allege he secretly dosed her with toxic substances over several days before administering a final fatal dose during her last hospital visit.
Angela, 43, died on 18 March 2023, after being taken off life support.
In court testimony on 18 July, the couple’s second-oldest daughter said her father tried to recruit her in an elaborate plot to back his defence narrative.
She told the jury that after his arrest in March 2023, Craig sent her a handwritten letter via another inmate, instructing her to create a fake video of her late mother.
The letter allegedly outlined how to buy a burner laptop using a prepaid debit card, access the dark web, and pay anonymous developers to generate a video showing Angela “confessing” to ordering the poisons herself and ingesting them voluntarily.
He asked her to say she found the video on a thumb drive inside her mother’s bag and to destroy the device after.
According to prosecutor Michael Mauro, who presented it in court, the letter read,
“I love you... I’m sorry to even have to ask you for this help.”
Instead of complying, the 20-year-old daughter took the letter to the police.
Both of the couple’s eldest daughters testified during the trial this week in Centennial, Colorado.
The 21-year-old eldest daughter emotionally described her close bond with her mother, rejecting the suggestion that Angela had been suicidal.
She told jurors,
“She would talk to me about how fun it would be when I had kids of my own and when she could meet them. She was so excited to be a grandma.”
She described Angela as her best friend and said her mother “loved nothing more than being a mum and she was really good at it.”
The younger daughter told the court that her father had also called her from jail, asking her to post bail for an inmate who later handed her the letter.
She added that Craig admitted in the note to having an affair and claimed Angela had asked him to obtain the poisons, but accidentally took too much.
She testified,
“It says specifically that it was unlikely she would have killed herself on purpose, intentionally.”
Prosecutors said Angela Craig had lethal amounts of cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, a chemical found in eye drops, in her body.
Arsenic was also listed as a significant factor in her death.
Arapahoe County Coroner Kelly Lear confirmed in earlier testimony that the toxins were the cause of death.
The court also heard that Amazon records linked to Craig’s email, credit card, and home address showed purchases of arsenic during the time Angela fell ill.
Craig’s business partner, Dr Ryan Redfearn, told the court that a package of arsenic arrived at their workplace while Angela was hospitalised.
Initially, Craig denied it was arsenic but later texted Redfearn, urging him not to alert the police.
During opening statements, Assistant District Attorney Ryan Brackley alleged that Craig’s motive was rooted in a romantic relationship with another dentist and a desire to collect life insurance payouts.
The couple had been married for 23 years and shared six children.
Brackley told the court that Craig gave his wife a final dose of cyanide while visiting her in hospital.
Brackley said,
“He went in that room to murder her, to deliberately and intentionally end her life with a fatal dose of cyanide. She spent the next three days dying.”
Craig faces additional charges beyond first-degree murder, including solicitation to commit murder and perjury.
In November 2024, prosecutors added a charge of murder solicitation after they said Craig tried to convince a fellow inmate to kill the lead detective investigating Angela’s death.
Craig has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
His defence team has not denied the presence of poisons or his affair.
In opening remarks, his attorney suggested Angela may have taken the substances herself and questioned the adequacy of the police investigation.
Meanwhile, another member of Craig’s legal team, Robert Werking, withdrew from the case earlier this month after being arrested on arson charges.
His lawyer told The Denver Post that Werking is now receiving mental health treatment.
The disturbing attempt to use deepfake technology to rewrite the narrative of a real person’s death pushes the boundaries of digital manipulation into darker territory.
It’s no longer just a threat to politics or celebrity reputations—it's now a tool allegedly used to cover up murder.
As deepfakes grow more convincing and accessible, the justice system may soon face its greatest credibility test yet: distinguishing truth from digital lies when lives—and legacies—are on the line.
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