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(NEW YORK) — The woman who was dating a Colorado dentist at the time he was allegedly poisoning his wife to death spoke exclusively to ABC News about the case and maintains she had no idea James Craig had lied to her about his marital status during their dates.

Karin Cain told ABC News Chief National Correspondent Matt Gutman that she doesn’t believe she was the motive behind Angela Craig’s alleged poisoning because there was “no planning a future together” with James Craig. In fact, they had only been dating for three weeks and she said James Craig told her that he and his wife were not together.

“If I had known what was true, I would not have been with this person,” Cain told ABC News.

Cain, who lives in Texas, said she is still trying to get her head around the entire case.

James Toliver Craig, 45, who is charged with first-degree murder, was arrested in March after his wife and the mother of his children died of apparent arsenic poisoning.

He’s set to appear at a preliminary hearing on Wednesday.

Angela Craig, 43, was hospitalized three times over the span of 10 days. On March 15, when she was admitted to the hospital for the last time, she was put on a ventilator. Soon after, she was declared medically brain dead and taken off life support, officials said.

Angela Craig’s sister told police that James Craig had multiple affairs with other women, according to the affidavit.

Cain said she met James Craig at a dentist conference in February. Cain was in the process of divorcing her husband and said that she and Craig spent time talking and texting and connecting.

Cain claimed Craig told her he was also deep in a divorce process with his wife, along with other things that weren’t true.

“He told me…they hadn’t been living together. He had an apartment,” she said.

The two kept in contact after the conference ended.

Authorities allege that the dentist poisoned his wife’s protein shakes.

In the weeks before Angela Craig died, James Craig allegedly used a computer at his dental practice to create a new email address and make online searches including: “How many grams of pure arsenic will kill a human” and “Is arsenic detectable in autopsy,” according to the affidavit. He allegedly bought arsenic online on Feb. 23 and the shipment was delivered to his home on March 4, according to the affidavit.

Two days later, Angela Craig texted her husband saying she was dizzy and felt “drugged,” the affidavit said. James Craig responded: “Given our history I know that must be triggering. Just for the record, I didn’t drug you. I am super worried though.”

Angela Craig’s sister told investigators that her sister had disclosed to her several years earlier that she’d been drugged, allegedly by her husband.

When James Craig asked his wife if she’d eaten anything, she replied that she had her protein shake, according to the affidavit. Angela Craig was hospitalized for the first time and then treated and released.

While Angela Craig was hospitalized again from March 9 to March 14, James Craig allegedly ordered the highly lethal chemical compound potassium cyanide, which was delivered to his dental practice on March 13, according to the affidavit.

On March 15, when Angela Craig was hospitalized for the final time, one of James Craig’s business partners told a nurse about the potassium cyanide delivery and how there was no need for it at their dental practice, prompting the nurse to contact police, according to the affidavit.

Cain claimed that she visited James Craig in Colorado around the time Angela Craig was hospitalized. During one of two dinners they had together, Cain said he looked stressed and anxious.

“It wasn’t until the media started reporting on it that I realized the timeline was so tight, that it was two days after we had left that meeting,” she said.

Cain said she never consummated the relationship and said she feels remorse for the victims and the family.

“I can’t even imagine the loss of a family member and then to consider that it could be at the hands of someone that had been in the family for 25 years,” she said.

ABC News’ Mola Lenghi, Jenn Leong and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.

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(BIRMINGHAM, Ala.) — Two firefighters have been shot inside a Birmingham, Alabama, fire station in what police say may be a targeted attack.

Both firefighters were hospitalized in serious condition after the shooting, which took place at about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Birmingham police told reporters.

The suspect and motive are unknown, police said, adding that it’s “extremely unusual for someone to come target one of our fire stations.”

About three firefighters were at the station at the time, authorities said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(NEW YORK) — Flood-ravaged areas in the northeastern United States could see even more rainfall on Thursday as communities try to recover from a historic deluge.

A severe weather system moving through the Plains and the Midwest is forecast to reach the Northeast by Thursday evening with scattered storms. That means potentially more rain from New York to Vermont, areas where the ground is already so saturated that it won’t take much to cause more flooding.

In Vermont, some areas had recorded up to 9 inches of rain over a 24-hour period by Tuesday afternoon as small creeks turned into raging rivers that swallowed roads in the worst flooding to hit the Green Mountain State since Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. Swift water rescue teams have rescued more than 100 people across Vermont since Sunday, though no injuries or deaths have been reported so far, according to officials.

The Winooski River, which runs through Vermont’s capital, crested at 21.02 feet in Montpelier on Tuesday, its highest level since 1927. The river gradually receded, reaching below flood stage by Tuesday evening. The Wrightsville Dam, which forms a reservoir just outside Montpelier, was also beginning to recede and was not expected to breach the spillway, officials said.

The Lamoille River, running through northern Vermont, reached its highest level on record of 455.13 feet in the village of Jeffersonville on Tuesday.

President Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency in Vermont, freeing up federal resources.

Meanwhile, at least one person was killed in floodwaters in upstate New York. More than 500 homeowners have reported damage in the Empire State’s hard-hit Orange County so far, according to officials.

The extreme weather began on Sunday, affecting much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions, prompting flash flood alerts in parts of New York. The storm system pushed north on Monday, with the heaviest rainfall hitting Vermont.

The Northeast was expected to get a break from the downpours on Tuesday and Wednesday before more storms strike the region on Thursday, including in New York and Vermont, with potentially another 2 to 4 inches of rain.

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(ANNAPOLIS, Md.) — The Caucus of African American Leaders (CAAL) voted unanimously Tuesday evening to present a reparations resolution to Maryland officials, seeking programs to address the damage of slavery among Black Maryland residents.

“I’m inspired,” said Carl Snowden, the convenor of the caucus, which is composed of Black organizations, elected officials and activists, in a statement to ABC News following the vote. “This is the time to energize, mobilize, and organize people of goodwill to make this happen.”

The resolution will be presented to Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley next week, and then to Gov. Wes Moore and Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman in August.

“What we’re hoping is that those elected officials would agree that this is important,” Snowden said in an interview with ABC News the morning of the vote.

Part of asking them “to look at this issue is they will undoubtedly appoint a committee or commission, which would have the responsibility of looking at the local jurisdictions in the state and determine the best way to move forward,” he added.

Some cities and states are aiming to gain reparations for Black residents, notably California. The state’s reparations task force, held its final meeting last month, placing its recommendations into the hands of the state legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

While reparations are popular among Black people, it’s not among white people, according to the Pew Research Center. Last year it found that 77% of Black Americans support the action, compared to 18% of white Americans.

To gain insight about how the Caucus of African American Leaders should pursue reparations, it held a meeting Monday with Robin Rue Simmons, a former alderman in Evanston, Illinois. She spearheaded a reparations resolution in the city, which became the first in the nation to fund reparations for Black residents — committing $10 million to Black residents targeted by discriminatory policies.

“I didn’t even intend to call the question of reparations in my local government when I became an alderperson,” Simmons said. “I was really running to just change the life circumstances of the Black community, the Black experience — make sure that our neighborhood had the same access to everything, livability, quality of life, and opportunities as the rest of Evanston, which we did not have, although we are highly celebrated for our diversity, equity and inclusion and all of these things.”

Underscoring the need for reparations, Snowden said the harm to African Americans due to racist policies is self-evident.

“It explains why we have this wealth and health gap,” he said. “When you look at the problems that are in the African American community, many of these problems can be traced directly back to slavery.”

“The idea of reparations is not new,” Snowden noted, pointing to how Japanese Americans incarcerated in internment camps during WWII received them. “I’m confident we can do the same thing here in Maryland.”

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(NEW YORK) — A 26-year-old Boulder, Colorado, woman died after falling 500 feet while climbing a ridge at the Rocky Mountain National Park, park officials said Monday.

The woman was doing a free-solo climb at the site on Ypsilon Mountain when she fell on Sunday, according to the National Park Service.

Her 27-year-old hiking partner called park rangers, notifying them of the fall, officials said.

Members of the Rocky Mountain National Park Search and Rescue Team requested a Colorado Air National Guard helicopter to help with removing her hiking partner, who was not hurt, NPS said.

The search and rescue team recovered the woman’s body on Monday morning, where she was flown to the Upper Beaver Meadows part of the park and then transported to the Larimer County Coroner/Medical Examiner’s Office, according to NPS.

The name of the woman will be released once her next of kin are informed, according to officials.

Rocky Mountain National Park covers about 415 square miles, or 265,807 acres of different mountain environments, including meadows to alpine lakes, and has more than 300 miles of hiking trails and areas to view wildlife, according to NPS.

Over four million hikers visit the park every year, making it one of the most visited parks within the National Park System, according to National Parks Conservation Association.

The incident is the second death at Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park in the past week.

A 25-year-old man from Rhode Island died after he fell and was pulled underwater at West Creek Falls in the park on July 2, the National Park Service said in a press release.

“Mountain rivers, streams, and waterfalls are running very cold and very fast this time of year,” NPS said in a statement. “The depth and current of all waterways can be deceivingly deep and swift. Park visitors are reminded to keep back from the banks of streams, rivers and waterfalls.”

In another tragic hiking incident, a 57-year-old woman was on an 8-mile hike in the remote area of Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park on July 2 when she lost consciousness as temperatures reached triple digits.

A park ranger pronounced her dead a day later, according to the National Park Service.

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(MIAMI) — A 6-year-old girl in Miami thwarted her own kidnapping outside her home after she bit the attacker, according to the Miami Police Department.

Police arrested Leonardo Venegas on Saturday in connection to the alleged abduction, an arrest affidavit shows. He was charged with kidnapping and child abuse.

The child was playing with her siblings in the courtyard of their apartment complex in Miami on Thursday when they noticed a white SUV near the apartment, according to the affidavit.

After her siblings went inside, the 6-year-old girl sat on the rear stairway of her apartment when she was suddenly grabbed by the suspect, whom police identified as Leonardo Venegas, the affidavit shows.

Police said Venegas allegedly picked up the child and began to carry her away when she bit him on the arm, resulting in him dropping her. Venegas allegedly slapped the child and ran toward the front of the apartment complex, according to the affidavit.

“I bit him,” the 6-year-old told ABC News Miami affiliate WPLG-TV.

“He picked me up and then he slapped me,” she told the station. “Then he threw me on the floor and started running.”

The 6-year-old ran to the front of the building and told her aunt what happened, according to the affidavit.

Miami police said CCTV footage showed a white Range Rover entering the apartment complex and the suspect walking to the rear of the complex towards the staircase, where the 6-year-old was sitting.

The victim confirmed the man seen in the CCTV footage was the same person who allegedly tried to kidnap her, Miami police said.

Police found the white SUV at an address in Miami and then took Venegas into custody, according to the arrest record.

An attorney for Venegas did not immediately return ABC News’ request for comment.

In a separate incident in Florida from May, a 6-year-old girl in Daytona Beach was almost kidnapped after walking home from church with her mom on Mother’s Day, according to the Daytona Beach Police Department.

The child and her mother were walking home hand-in-hand from Our Lady of Lourdes Church when a woman blocked them from moving any further, according to an incident report obtained by ABC News affiliate WFTV.

The woman then “intentionally grabbed” the 6-year-old, trying to break the grip between her and her mother, the report said. Ultimately unsuccessful, the suspect fled.

In another alleged abduction attempt from March, Jamaal Germany, 30, allegedly tried to kidnap a student standing at a bus stop in Gaithersburg, Maryland while waiting to be picked up by their school bus, according to the Montgomery County Police Department.

Germany is still in custody and his next court appearance is in September, according to the Montgomery County Detention Center. His plea information was not immediately available.

The alleged kidnapping attempt was foiled by a group of kids who came to the victim’s defense, police said.

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(NEW YORK) — Former Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten was released from prison on Tuesday after serving 53 years behind bars, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

According to her attorney, Van Houten is now in a “transitional living facility.”

She was released to parole supervision and “will have a three-year maximum parole term with a parole discharge review occurring after one year,” the department said.

Her release comes after California Gov. Gavin Newsom said last week that he wouldn’t ask the state’s Supreme Court to block her parole.

“Governor Newsom reversed Ms. Van Houten’s parole grant three times since taking office and defended against her challenges of those decisions in court,” Erin Mellon, communications director for the Office of the Governor, said Tuesday.

Mellon continued, “The Governor is disappointed by the Court of Appeal’s decision to release Ms. Van Houten but will not pursue further action as efforts to further appeal are unlikely to succeed. The California Supreme Court accepts appeals in very few cases, and generally does not select cases based on this type of fact-specific determination.”

Van Houten was 19 when she participated in the Aug. 10, 1969, murders of Leno LaBianca, a wealthy grocer, and his wife, Rosemary LaBianca, at their Los Angeles home. The LaBiancas were both stabbed to death and the word “war” was carved on Leno LaBianca’s stomach.

Van Houten told ABC News in 1994 that she and another Manson follower took Rosemary LaBianca into a bedroom and “the sounds of Mr. LaBianca dying came into the bedroom — horrible, guttural sounds. She started calling out to him and yelling for him. And at that moment, for a brief moment, I realized, you know, these are people that love each other.”

She said Manson follower Charles “Tex” Watson handed her a knife.

“He said, ‘Do something,’ because Manson had told him to make sure that all of us got our hands dirty,” Van Houten said. “And I stabbed Mrs. LaBianca in the lower back about 16 times.”

Van Houten did not participate in the “Manson family” murders of actress Sharon Tate and four others, who were killed at another Los Angeles home one night earlier.

While Manson didn’t commit the killings himself, he commanded his followers to do so. Manson died in prison in 2017.

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(NORTH CAROLINA) — A family of four were assaulted after an early-morning robbery in the small North Carolina city of Morganton, according to police.

Officers initially responded to the incident at approximately 4 a.m. Saturday, finding two adults and two children who reported that they had been assaulted by three intruders, according to the Morganton Department of Public Safety.

A Morganton Department of Public Safety representative told ABC News that two of the three intruders were armed, though police are not releasing information on the type of weapons the intruders used.

Investigators said that the intruders duct taped the mouths and hands of the 6- and 7-year-old children and placed them in a closet, according to ABC affiliate WSOC, which reports the mother was also assaulted and the father was “pistol-whipped” by the intruders.

The family, whose identities were not released, told WSOC that they were staying temporarily in the house while their home is under construction.

“The only thing I can say is it was traumatic,” the female adult victim told WSOC. “Looking back now, I don’t know why we are still living. I woke up with an AR-15 pointed to my head, and I watched as they pistol-whipped my husband.”

Unable to locate the perpetrators following the break-in, law enforcement used a reverse 911 call to notify the surrounding area about the dangerous suspects, according to the Morganton Department of Public Safety.

The family told WSOC that the intruders wore ski masks and demanded money, including their Social Security and work checks, while robbing the home.

No arrests have been made in the case. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the Morganton Department of Public Safety at 828-437-1211.

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(NEW YORK) — An orca started a fad in the summer of 1987 when it killed a salmon and returned to the surface with the dead fish draped on top of its head.

For a few pods of killer whales in the Puget Sound area of Washington state, wearing these “dead salmon hats” was “the cool thing to do for that entire summer,” Monika Wieland-Shields, director of the Orca Behavior Institute, told ABC News. It was also one of the first examples of this type of trend-like behavior that humans witnessed spreading among killer whales.

More than three decades later, experts say that a spate of orca encounters with boats near the Iberian Peninsula in recent years could be another one of these orca social trends. What event may have triggered this behavior remains up for debate – one theory by some observers posits that a single orca was previously traumatized in an incident involving a boat, which triggered aggressive behavior that other killer whales have since learned to imitate.

At least 15 human-orca incidents were recorded in 2020, the year in which the encounters are believed to have begun, according to a study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science. Many of them included orcas biting or striking the rudders of sailboats. Three boats have sunk and dozens more have been damaged, according to tracking data from the Cruising Association. There have been no fatalities.

The encounters have spawned a blitz of alarming press and internet memes about a budding uprising of orcas supposedly enacting their revenge on humans. Meanwhile, some experts are calling for more nuance in how the public views these massive marine predators.

“There’s something almost Robin Hood-like about thinking that we’ve pushed nature far enough that they’re finally going to fight back. And people really seem to be getting behind that. There just isn’t evidence that that’s what’s happening,” Wieland-Shields said.

Wieland-Shields said she’s not so sure the orcas are aiming to disable the boats, but they may be intrigued by the moving rudder mechanisms and trying to be playful with the push and pull as the captain tries to maintain steering control.

“We’ve done a lot of things to orcas around the world that could have easily inspired that type of revenge response. And never have we triggered that aggression from them toward humans,” she said.

Dr. Lori Marino, a biopsychologist and expert on orca behavior, believes that humans often characterize orcas and other animals as one-dimensional beings when, in reality, they are far more complex.

“We think because we’re human, we’re the most intelligent, we’re the most complex, we’re the most sophisticated, and other animals are more like cartoon versions of themselves. But no, they are full beings with evolutionary histories, brains some of them bigger than ours and more complex,” Marino told ABC News.

“Quite frankly, if they really wanted to take revenge, they would. You know, let’s not fine coat it. If these orcas wanted to kill humans on those boats, they would. Period,” Marino said.

Wieland-Shields also pushes back against this black-and-white view.

“Through the era of Free Willy and Shamu, orcas kind of morphed from killer whales into sea pandas. And now the pendulum is swinging in the other direction, where they’re becoming the killer whales again,” Wieland-Shields said.

But the truth lies “somewhere in between,” Wieland-Shields said.

“This is one of the ocean’s top predators. They deserve our respect, they deserve their space, but they aren’t out to get humans, you know. We can coexist with them, we can observe them, and have awe at what they’re doing, how they’re behaving, without being afraid that our lives are at risk,” Wieland-Shields said.

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(FLORIDA) — Susan Lorincz, the woman charged with manslaughter in the fatal shooting her neighbor Ajike “AJ” Owens on June 2 in Ocala, Florida, pleaded not guilty on Monday, her attorney Amanda Sizemore confirmed to ABC News.

Lorincz waived her right to an arraignment, which was scheduled for Tuesday, according to ABC affiliate in Ocala, Florida WCJB.

Lorincz, who is white, was arrested on June 6 and charged with first-degree manslaughter, which is punishable by up to 30 years in prison if she is convicted, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. She was also charged with culpable negligence, battery and two counts of assault.

According to a June 6 statement from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, Lorincz shot Owens, a Black mother of four, through a door after Owens went to speak with Lorincz about a dispute over Owens’ children playing near Lorincz’s home.

Lorincz was held on $150,000 bond and remains in custody. Court records show Lorcinz’s pretrial hearing is scheduled for Nov. 2, while jury selection in her case is expected to begin on Nov. 13.

Sizemore declined to comment on the charges that her client is facing.

Body camera footage released on July 3 from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office showed seven incidents between Feb. 25, 2022 and April 25 2023 in which Lorincz called sheriff’s deputies to complain about neighborhood children, including Owens’ children, playing near her home.

According to the June 6 statement released by the sheriff’s office, Lorincz claimed she was acting in “self-defense” during her interview, but through the investigation “detectives were able to establish that Lorincz’s actions were not justifiable under Florida law.”

Owens’ family called on prosecutors to upgrade the charges against Lorincz from manslaughter to second-degree murder during a virtual press conference on June 27.

Florida State Attorney William “Bill” Gladson said on June 26 there was insufficient evidence to prove such a charge in court.

“As deplorable as the defendant’s actions were in this case, there is insufficient evidence to prove this specific and required element of second-degree murder,” Gladson said.

ABC News reached out to attorneys representing the Owens family for further comment.

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