Accused wife poisoner Dr James Craig asked his hardened former cellmate to help him find assassins to kill a detective and other inmates, the shackled felon told Craig’s murder trial on Wednesday.
Nathaniel Harris, currently incarcerated while awaiting trial on forgery and motor vehicle charges, told jurors he was testifying at the request of his ‘wife,’ Loretta – citing his ‘moral compass’ as another reason.
Harris was housed for months in 2024 with Craig after the dentist’s arrest in connection with the poisoning murder his wife, Angela, 43, who was repeatedly hospitalized with mystery symptoms before her death in March 2023
Prosecutors argue Craig killed her with a lethal mix of cyanide, arsenic and tetrahydrozoline, a chemical found in eyedrops, amidst financial troubles and a budding extramarital romance – and have added other charges stemming from his alleged activities behind bars.
Bald, bearded and covered in tattoos, Harris repeatedly eyeballed Craig from the stand. He told the court how Craig had ‘followed [him] around like a puppy’ in jail, offering a ‘blank check’ for help arranging the hits and with other machinations the dentist was coming up with to clear his name.
Harris also told the court he’d received nothing in exchange for his testimony – and had in fact turned down a probation offer.
Craig spoke ‘in detail’ about Aurora Police Det. Bobbi Jo Olson – ‘that she was out to get him … that she was lying on him, fabricating evidence,’ Harris testified.
Colorado dentist James Craig, 47, is charged with first-degree murder in connection with the March 2023 fatal poisoning of his wife, Angela, the 43-year-old mother of his six children
Jailhouse witnesses testified on Wednesday how Craig asked them to plant evidence – a fake journal of Angela’s in which she professed to be suicide – as well as to kill other inmates and a lead detective on the dentist’s case
Craig also ‘wanted me to get out and take pics of [another officer’s] son getting off the school bus’ for intimidation, Harris testified.
Regarding Olson and other names Craig provided, Harris testified, ‘he wanted me to source out somebody that could find and kill them. ‘
‘Before things got out of hand, I told him I would handle it,’ Harris testified, explaining how he allegedly brushed off Craig. ‘Because he was going to start talking to other people.’
Craig had talked about paying $20,000 or more for help, he said. The dentist also told him about ‘an F150 with $5,000 cash and a .308 sniper rifle,’ Harris testified.
Harris followed none of Craig’s instructions, he said, and also hid within his legal mail a letter Craig had asked him to send his ex, Kasiani Konstantinidis.
Harris repeatedly asked his own lawyer several times to come get the damning letter, with no result, he said.
Felon and former cellmate Nathanial Harris testified on Wednesday that Craig tried to rope his ex into a plot to exonerate him and also asked Harris to find people to kill a detective on his case and other victims
That’s when he ‘took matters into my own hands,’ Harris testified.
He called his current romantic partner, Loretta – described by Harris as his ‘wife,’ though the court heard he’s still legally married to Konstantinidis – and told her to alert the prison to the letter.
Sgt Nicholas Hudson, who works at the Arapahoe County Detention Facility, testified on Wednesday about receiving a phone call from Loretta. He set up a cell search the next day, ostensibly for drugs – not even telling his deputies that the real goal was to find the letter, he said.
Hudson did not initially locate the letter and surreptitiously asked Harris for help. The felon told him where it was and that gave him permission to read it, he added.
The officer read out portions of the letter, intended for Harris’ ex-wife,to the court. It outlined ‘roles’ Craig wanted played by Harris’ ex-wife, her sister and other women they’d recruit.
Konstantinidis, the letter instructed, was to pretend to be ‘a friend of Ang’s … how you met and how far back your friendship goes is up to you.
Prosecutors allege that Craig killed his wife amidst mounting financial troubles and a budding extramarital romance – with Texas orthodontist Karin Cain, who testified through tears on Tuesday bout how the dentist had deceived her and wooed her as his wife lay dying
Angela ‘confided in you that she had used the threat of suicide in the past to try to manipulate me,’ Hudson read. ‘She also told you she was never serious about following through.’
The recipient’s sister was instructed to pretend to be another friend Angela met at a genealogical library – with the letter instructing her to go familiarize herself with the location to seem more believable.
‘The next part is crucial,’ the letter continued. ‘The worst, dirtiest detective in the whole world is on my case. Her name is Bobbi Jo Olson.
‘We have to discredit her.’
The letter’s solution to this was for someone to lie and say they’d reached out to Olson with information favorable to Craig but had been ignored. This ‘role’ player was to feed this story to investigators and/or the media.
The letter also asked for Konstantinidis to find a person to discredit the office manager of his dental practice, Caitlin Romero, who testified earlier in the trial about noticing potassium cyanide in a personal package Craig had delivered to his workplace – and told her not to open.
Romero had googled the symptoms of potassium cyanide, connected it with Angela Craig’s mystery symptoms and raised the alarm with her managers – who soon told authorities.
A detention facility sergeant read out a letter allegedly written by Craig in which he called Aurora Police Det. Bobbi Jo Olson ‘worst, dirtiest detective in the whole world’ – adding: ‘We have to discredit her’
The letter asked for someone to claim they’d heard Romero bragging ‘that she’d set me up in some way’ or to make it ‘sound like she fabricated evidence’ or ‘how she ordered the cyanide that killed Angela.’
Confusingly, the letter wanted this role-player to claim ‘Caitlin said she did what she did because her bosses … pushed her to do it and said they gave her a huge financial incentive to help them.’
Konstantinidis took the stand later on Wednesday and testified during cross examination that it would be ‘very accurate’ to describe her ex as having ‘a reputation for untruthfulness.’
She said she’d been on the phone with Det. Olson when she received the letter in the mail, stopped opening it and left it outside under a mat to be picked up by law enforcement.
Harris, however, was not the first former fellow inmate of Craig’s to testify in the trial – and to claim the dentist solicited help with criminal plots from behind bars.
Kacy Bohannon, who’d also been incarcerated with Craig in 2023, continued testimony he’d started late on Tuesday.
He told jurors how Craig ‘was going to rewrite a journal – it was supposedly [Angela’s] – about committing suicide, about how bad life was … and how she wanted to take her life.
‘So he had asked if I would be able to go and … get into his home and put this into his garage or put it into his pickup truck that was parked in the street,’ Bohannon testified.
Craig ‘said he could get my bond paid … and even throw in dental work,’ Bohannon testified.
The dentist even gave him a rough map of his home – but ‘I walked right back to my cell and tore it up and flushed it,’ Bohannon said.
‘I didn’t want any part of it once I realized what was going on,’ he said.
Bohannan, like Harris, testified that he’d received nothing in exchange for his testimony.
He came forward after his release, he said, because ‘I just had this feeling … almost like sick.
‘I just wasn’t right, that I knew what he told me, and I felt like I needed to reach out and tell someone.’
