‘Mike was beloved’: Colleagues remember prosecutor found dead at Government Center
Friendly, kind, beloved, sweet, gregarious, emotional, passionate.
Columbus attorneys who dealt with prosecutor Michael Eugene Craig chose those words when asked to describe the assistant district attorney who died by suicide Wednesday afternoon in his office in the east wing of the Columbus Government Center.
The government complex downtown briefly went on lockdown after reports of gunfire around 1:30 p.m., when police and deputies swarmed the facility in response to reports of a possible active shooter, before finding Craig dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The death is now under investigation by the Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office, which is responsible for securing the building and has jurisdiction over it. Columbus police will assist.
Those who knew Craig were shocked to hear the popular and usually upbeat prosecutor had taken his own life.
“Mike stood out in the office as our cheerleader,” District Attorney Julia Slater wrote in an email Thursday. “If someone did something good, Mike was the first to praise them. And he did so very publicly. He often sent emails to the entire office praising the hard work and skill of those around him. Mike was extremely positive and always in a good mood.”
Other attorneys also remembered Craig fondly.
“Mike was beloved,” said one colleague, who asked not to be named, still rattled Wednesday by what had just happened. “Professionally, he was beloved … a sweet, sweet man, and passionate about prosecuting.”
“He was a great guy, gregarious, a wonderful colleague,” said former prosecutor Pete Temesgen, who’s now in private practice.
The job can turn people cynical about crime and justice. “He was never like that. He was never cynical,” Temesgen said. “He was always sweet, kind to victims, to opposing counsel, and to defendants.”
Attorney Mark Shelnutt, also a former prosecutor now in private practice, remembered when Craig joined the district attorney’s office.
“He was always easy to work with, and kind in his dealings,” said Shelnutt, who had moved on by the time Craig became an assistant district attorney. “He was like that from the very beginning, when he first came to the office.”
Shelnutt said Craig was attentive, in plea negotiations, even if he wouldn’t agree: “Mike was always a tough but fair prosecutor, willing to sit and listen to what you said about your client.”
‘Hollywood’
Robert Wadkins Jr., who sometimes faced Craig in court, said the ADA was committed to representing the interests of crime victims.
“He was always very friendly, happy to work with you,” Wadkins said. “But he was a very passionate advocate for his victims…. He was uniquely frustrating in how much he believed in his cases.”
Wadkins emphasized that, adding: “He kind of did that almost to a fault. He would get really into his cases…. To say he would get worked up is an understatement.”
He recalled his surprise when, while examining crime-scene evidence from a 1985 triple-murder cold case, he saw police had collected a newspaper that had a photo of Mike Craig, with an article about his getting a role in a TV soap opera. Wadkins thought it was “Days of Our Lives.”
Wadkins’ father, Robert Wadkins Sr., represented the defendant in that cold case, which came to trial in 2011.
“He started in soap operas for a while,” the senior Wadkins said of Craig. “We used to call him ‘Hollywood,’ sometimes.”
Slater said the law was Craig’s third career: Besides acting, he’d also worked as an Alaskan fisherman.
Robert Wadkins Sr. recalled how passionate Craig could be, at one point breaking into tears in front of a jury.
When Wadkins told jurors that attorneys were not supposed to get emotional in court, Craig countered, “I am emotional! I am emotional about this! It breaks my heart!”
Rapid Resolution program
Craig later moved from working major felonies to the district attorney’s “Rapid Resolution” program designed to resolve minor cases quickly through plea negotiations, to prevent backlogs that choke the court system. That program has offices in the east wing, apart from the district attorney’s main office in the Government Center tower.
The junior Wadkins said he didn’t see Craig as often, after that transfer.
“He was just kind of in that little world, and would kind of peek out sometimes,” Wadkins said.
Slater said Craig started as an administrative assistant in the DA’s office in 1995, while he took classes to earn a bachelor’s degree from Columbus State University.
After graduating from the Mississippi School of Law in 1998, he worked as an investigator for the district attorney here before passing the bar in 2001, when he was sworn in as a prosecutor, Slater wrote in her email.
Craig graduated high school in Phenix City in 1978, when every senior in the class had a quote under a portrait in the yearbook.
The one under his read, “Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.”
Call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 if you or someone you know is in distress. The free, confidential service is available 24/7.
Editor’s note: Reporter Tim Chitwood and Michael Craig were high school classmates.
This story was originally published October 15, 2020 at 6:50 AM.