A Texas orthodontist, Dr. Karin Cain, has taken the stand against her former long-distance boyfriend, who is being tried for poisoning his wife—revealing that they shared over 4,000 messages over 18 days.
The revelation follows the arrest of Dr. James Toliver Craig, 47, in March this year, before his wife’s funeral, while he was spending the night at Cain’s hotel.
Highlights
- Craig told Cain he loved her just three days after meeting, sending 4,000 texts in 18 days.
- He was arrested in Cain’s hotel room, days after his wife died from cyanide poisoning.
- Cain claims she missed all the red flags and only grew suspicious in hindsight.
Craig has since been charged with first-degree m*rder.
Craig made Cain relax by telling her he was going through a divorce
Image credits: Karin Forsman
According to Cain, she met Craig at a dental conference in Las Vegas in February 2023. They bumped into each other while waiting for a shuttle and started chatting.
They would share two dinners and get physical before their business trips were over.
“This was the first man I had a one-on-one convo [...] in 30 years,” she told the jury on July 22.
“He was honest and vulnerable,” she recalled, and went on to talk about how the Colorado doctor mirrored her marital status by telling her that he was going through a divorce.
Cain, a mother of two grown-up children, had just finished terminating a marriage of 27 years.
Craig’s deception would prove successful as it made Cain, by her own admission, “relax.”
While the two parted ways after the conference, their communication only intensified
Image credits: Aurora Police Dept
Cain further noted that they had indeed become intimate during the working visit to Las Vegas, but that it did not go beyond making out.
She admitted to thinking that things were going too fast between them and pulled back.
“I told him that I wouldn’t sleep with anyone unless he was my ‘forever person.’” Craig accepted this explanation, saying it was “reasonable.”
The conference ended, and the two returned to their respective homes. However, their communication only intensified.
Craig told Cain that he loved her on day three of messaging
Over the following 18 days they exchanged 4,000 texts in which Cain claims Craig “said things that made [her] feel great.”
On day three of their communication he claimed that he was in love with her.
Image credits: Angela Craig
“I’ve fallen in love with you so deeply that the list of attributes has become endless,” he wrote.
He also told Cain, “I know I can be all right without you. But I don’t want to be’.”
He would double down on his claims in late February again, saying: “Soñar conmigo, my eternal love. May Heaven let us bloom together forever,” he wrote.
The messages went beyond mere promises and declarations of love
The messages also ventured into s*xually explicit territory with Craig one day writing: “I’m going to try to get through this day without being too turned on the whole time.
“Yes, some texts became s*xting,” Cain admitted, and even went as far as talking about marriage.
Image credits: Karin Forsman
“I could see myself asking you to marry me,” Craig wrote one day, and Cain responded “I could see myself saying yes.”
Cain claims she was never suspicious of Craig
Conversation steered toward Craig’s home and his interactions with his wife Angela, whom he was supposedly divorcing.
He relayed her qualms to Cain one day about his restaurant bill “big enough to cover two people.”
“I don’t think she understands what it means to be getting divorced.” Cain claims that this revelation disturbed her and she responded with “Maybe she’s not on the same page as you.”
“This is scary. I didn’t want to be part of breaking up a marriage,” she wrote in another message.
“I didn’t tell her anything about you,” Craig later claimed.
Image credits: Angela Craig
In response to a question by the prosecutor about whether she had become suspicious, Cain replied:
“No. Not even in the days or weeks after. Now I do. But at the time? I missed it all.”
Craig told Cian his wife had accused him of dr*gging her
Somewhere in the 4,000 exchanges, Craig told Cain that Angela was su**dal and “tried to take her life before.”
Then on March 6 this year, he told Cain that his wife had accused him of trying to dr*g her.
“I would never dr*g you. Just for the record,” he added, a promise that Cain claimed to have believed with “whole heart.”
Cain and Craig arranged to see each other again, and she booked a flight to Colorado on March 16. The arrangement was postponed after Angela fell sick.
Cain visited shortly after Craig’s wife, Angela, passed away
Image credits: Angela Craig
On March 15, Craig messaged Cain, writing “Crash. Intubated. No brain activity,” to which she replied “No words. I love you.”
Craig later asked, “Worst case scenario, what if they decide I helped her?” and Cain, based on her understanding of his wife’s suddenly deteriorating health, told him:
“You were at work both times she went to the ER.”
Cain showed up on the 16th, and the two followed a sneaky plan that included a hike, a stopover at a sushi spot, and a few nights together at a hotel.
Craig took time away during Cain’s stay to pick a burial site for his late wife, the New York Post reported.
Image credits: Karin Forsman
Then on March 19, at 2 A.M., the police knocked on Cain’s hotel door, found Craig there, and arrested him.
His crime: dosing his wife’s protein shakes with lethal concentrations of cyanide and tetrahydrozoline.
Even after being locked up, he continued to write Cain
Craig continued writing Cain from jail.
“Karin, you have ruined me — ruined me in all the best ways,” one of his letters read. “I d*e a new d*ath every day I cannot be near you.”
Cain admitted responding to him twice before telling him not to contact her anymore and handed his correspondence over to the police.
He pretended to be a spiritual man and hired an escort in Vegas
Image credits: DDS
Little did Cain know, Craig had hired a pr*stitute at some point in Vegas—an allegation by the police that flew in the face of her impression of him as a spiritual father whom she claims to have heard praying with his kids during a phone call one day.
On another occasion, Craig had met up with Carrie Hageseth, a Lyft driver and single mother, for a transactional tryst.
During a dinner with Hageseth, he talked about the movie The Purge and how if such a scenario had been real and he was allowed to end anyone’s life, he would choose his wife.
Hageseth claimed that Craig said that one could inject a person with lethal poison and not face consequences.
One netizen sees a lesson in this story: "Don't marry a dentist"
