Dateline: True Crime Weekly
An alleged "murder dentist" in Colorado. Hawaii husband takes the stand at his second murder trial. And Keith talks about his latest podcast series.
Thu, 20 Feb 2025
A dentist already facing murder charges for allegedly poisoning his wife is back in court. This time he's accused of plotting to murder four other people from behind bars. In Honolulu, a man accused of murdering his wife's acupuncturist ex-lover takes the stand in his own defense. More from the courtroom ahead of the trials of Karen Read and Bryan Kohberger. Plus, Keith Morrison talks about the unusual clue that broke the case wide open in his latest podcast series, "Murder in the Moonlight."
Chapter 1: What recent crime news is highlighted in this episode?
OK, Tim, so prosecutors are saying that these letters were part of Craig's plan to fabricate evidence. But I'm curious, through all of this, did James Craig have any sort of visible reaction as prosecutors were talking through all of this new evidence?
Well, at one point, Blaine, during the preliminary hearing, he had been referred to as, quote unquote, the murder dentist. And I did see him flinch at that point.
Craig is now on his third defense team. What did his lawyers have to say at the hearing?
The new attorney said there wasn't any testing or verification of the handwriting in those letters to tie it back to Craig. But the judge ultimately decided that the prosecution had the evidence that they needed for the burden for the charges to be brought to trial.
And what's notable, this is not the first time that Craig has been accused of interfering with his case from jail, right? Prosecutors say that he has allegedly asked other inmates to help him fabricate evidence twice before this incident.
Yes, it's really unusual. Last May, a detective said at a hearing that James Craig had asked a fellow inmate to help place letters at his house that would seem to have been written by Angela, stating that she was suicidal. James allegedly promised the inmate free dental work or to post bail in exchange for help.
The defense said the inmate had glaring credibility issues, including an active arrest warrant when he contacted police.
Then, last September, a detective testified that James had sent a letter to a man who had been in jail with him, asking him to help him find women who would be willing to testify that they had had an affair with him, and that when Angela learned about the affairs, she asked the women to help her frame James for a crime.
So it seems, Tim, that we know a lot about the prosecution's case from evidence that they've talked about in documents or in hearings in court. What do we know about what James Craig's defense is going to look like?
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Chapter 2: What are the charges against the Colorado dentist?
The minister called and they said, do you remember my dad being killed? Never in a million years would you think that you'd see your parents' house taped off, the farm taped off by that yellow tape.
Investigators focused early on somebody close to the victim who was a bit of a ne'er-do-well. And he and a cousin of his were pinned for the crime. Then the question was, did they do it or didn't they do it? In fact, one of them confessed. So that kind of made it look pretty obvious that they did. But things developed from there. I don't want to give away too much, you know.
No, but that's one heck of a tease. You know, a couple of things about this podcast stand out. We get to see two very different sides of an investigation. There's some really great detective work that happens. And then there's some not so great detective work that happens. And so investigators figure out pretty quickly that there were two people in the house that night. How did they even do that?
One of the titles that we thought we might choose for our story, we didn't in the end, but we were thinking about it, was Bloodshadow. And the reason was a rifle was fired at one of the victims. It created a blood spatter, which traveled across a hallway and hit a wall.
But on the wall was a person shaped where there was no blood spatter, which indicated that there was somebody else involved in addition to the main shooter.
Interesting. Wow. How's that for highlighting some detective work? So the story starts in Murdoch, Nebraska, but it doesn't stay there. It ends up being a multi-state investigation involving several law enforcement agencies, right?
It was a crime that was solved until it wasn't solved. It was wrapped up quite neatly in a bow and then suddenly, oh, maybe not. This was a story in which there is, and it doesn't happen that often, but I like to point it out when it does. You're familiar with the term MacGuffin, which is that kind of small, apparently insignificant thing that eventually turns a tail on its head.
This story has a... It has a pure MacGuffin. It's just quite an interesting one. You know, somebody found a gold ring in a place where it didn't belong in an otherwise scrupulously clean kitchen and nobody could figure out who it belonged to. So whose was it and where did it come from? Then you go on a long and winding pathway to find the truth.
So we've got some sound from an upcoming episode. It features an unsuspecting woman in Buffalo, New York, who was running a jewelry manufacturing business. Police asked for her help in tracking down who might have bought the ring just in case it was one of the killers.
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