Dateline: Secrets of Exam Room 9 - Who is James Craig and what do we know about his crimes? Disturbing details of the 2023 incident, revisited 

Dateline: Secrets of Exam Room 9 takes us to the death of Angela Craig in 2023. Angela was a mother of six whose sudden illness shocked her family and her Colorado community.

Her husband, James Craig, once a respected dentist, was soon at the center of an investigation. So, who is James Craig and why was he the focus of Dateline? To put it simply, he is the man now convicted of killing his wife Angela by secretly poisoning her.

Read further to find out more about James Craig.

Dateline: Secrets of Exam Room 9 - Who is James Craig and what do we know about his crimes? Disturbing details of the 2023 incident, revisited

The "respected" dentist hid a secret double life

According to Dateline, James Craig was a picture of stability for years. He ran a dental clinic in Aurora, Colorado, was active in his LDS church, and raised six children with wife Angela.

Friends described them as a busy family always on the go, their home filled with the chatter of kids and sounds of the kitchen. Under the image of a happily-married man, however, was a person leading a darker life.

According to Dateline, the court testimony revealed Craig's secret online activity. Late in February 2023, he set up a Gmail account under the name jimandwaffles from a computer in Exam Room 9 at his practice. Through the account, investigators would later uncover Google searches for poisons like arsenic and cyanide.

He even looked up queries such as: "How to make murder look like a heart attack." According to prosecutors, these searches were not just acts of idle curiosity but part of a carefully laid-out plan.

Detectives Bobbi Olson and Molly Harris from Aurora Police, the only two women in the department's homicide unit, were the ones who pieced the story together. As Harris told Dateline;

"We have to figure out what's going on here."

What they uncovered was a husband using his dental office as a staging ground for murder.

Angela’s unexplained illness and the first suspicions

Angela Craig's health began spiraling in early March 2023. She had been to the hospital multiple times in less than two weeks with headaches, dizziness, and sudden fainting spells. Doctors initially struggled to understand what was wrong.

Dateline correspondent Andrea Canning says;

"It was a medicalymystery about to turn into a full-on police investigation..."

Behind the scenes, red flags were beginning to appear. On March 5, Angela texted her husband after drinking a shake he had made:

"My stomach feels fine, but my head feels funny and dizzy. Very strange."

That same morning, James skipped his office's daily staff huddle, later telling employees it was because Angela wasn't feeling well. Angela's condition grew worse. At one point, her children found her unconscious at home.

According to Dateline, another time, she had to crawl across the floor, unable to stand. Blood tests would later show toxic levels of arsenic in her system. Dr. James Brower, a toxicologist, testified that the amount found could explain her nausea, dizziness, and severe disorientation.

Still, Angela was sent home without clear answers, and James Craig kept playing the part of a worried husband - while continuing his online poison orders.

The role of Exam Room 9 and the deadly purchases

According to Dateline, the 'Exam Room 9' at James Craig's dental practice became infamous in this case. For investigators, it wasn't just another exam room but the place where he carried out online searches and ordered lethal substances.

Court evidence showed he purchased arsenic from Amazon, oleandrin from a bioscience company, and potassium cyanide from Midland Scientific. In one email to the supplier, Craig claimed he needed cyanide for craniofacial surgery research, which was a lie.

Detective Molly Harris testified that search queries found on the exam room computer included "tetrahydrozoline poisoning timeline" and "how long does it take to die from arsenic poisoning." Prosecutors also pointed to purchases of multiple boxes of Visine eye drops, which contained tetrahydrozoline, another poison used in the killing.

James Craig even warned his office manager not to open certain packages arriving at the practice. However, curiosity grew when one of his staff members accidentally saw the words "potassium cyanide" on a shipping slip. The moment was a turning point, leading colleagues to share their suspicions with the police.

The final days of Angela Craig

By mid-March 2023, Angela was fighting for her life. On March 14, just hours after being discharged from the hospital, she fell sick again. Home security footage later shown in court captured James preparing another shake for her the same evening. Within a day, Angela's condition took a fatal turn.

On March 15, her sister unknowingly gave her a capsule filled with potassium cyanide that James had tampered with. Hours later, Angela was rushed to the hospital once more.

Toxicology reports confirmed she had high levels of arsenic, cyanide, and tetrahydrozoline in her blood. Dr. Brower testified that the concentrations of these poisons could only come from deliberate ingestion.

By March 18, Angela was declared brain dead. A day later, James Craig was arrested.

Prosecutor Ryan Brackley said in court that the poisoning had been carried out with chilling calculation, pointing to Craig's affair with another dentist and his mounting financial problems as motives. To Angela's friends and family, the reality was devastating.

Vivienne Van Der Merwe, one of her closest friends, told Dateline:

"It's just a hard thing to wrap your mind around."

The Dateline episode Secrets of Exam Room 9 revisits how a man many saw as a caring father and professional carefully orchestrated his wife's murder. James Craig was found guilty of poisoning Angela with cyanide, arsenic, and eyedrops - all while pretending to care for her.

The story is a reminder that evil can hide in the most ordinary places, even behind the polished smile of a trusted family dentist.

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Also read: Dateline: Secrets of Exam Room 9 - 5 harrowing details about Angela Craig's death, revealed

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