48 Hours - Capturing Moriah Wilson’s Killer

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

A promising young athlete is murdered. Her suspected killer disappears and an international manhunt by U.S. Marshals begins. “48 Hours” contributor Jonathan Vigliotti reports.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. Here with the fabulous Mo Wilson. You are like ready. I'm ready. I'm so excited to be here.

It feels like the first big race of the year. So yeah, I'm ready to to be here. It feels like the first big race of the year. So yeah, I'm ready to kick it off. I'm still getting better. I'm still learning. It's an exciting time. There's still so much for me to learn. Her name was Mariah, but everybody called her Mo. My name is Pilar Melendez and I am a senior reporter with the Daily Beast. My name is Pilar Melendez and I am a senior reporter with The Daily Beast. Funny and friendly and smart and driven, Mo was a rising star. She graduated from Dartmouth in engineering.

Everyone thought she was about to make her big break in cycling. I have always relied on other people to push myself. What happened to Mo was a tragedy. They found Mo inside the residence. It was a pretty grisly scene. She had been shot multiple times. At first, detectives thought it was a robbery. You're looking into this possibility of a robbery or a burglary but parallel to that there is this name Colin Strickland sure my name is Colin Strickland I am a bicycle racer

Colin Strickland was a top biker and he was also friends with Mo. I mean Colin, you know, he was an interesting character. He had a lot of like, you know, cool qualities about him. Motorcycles, professional athlete. I mean Colin had dated like a few girls in the cycling scene. You know, girlfriends here and there, but you know, pretty standard stuff. Colin's relationship with Mo like was, like they were both bike racers. They had like a romantic relationship. There had definitely been something romantic between them.

Colin said they had broken up. The situation was complicated. There was another woman in Colin's life. Her name was Caitlin Armstrong. Caitlin, you know, first impressions, she was really nice, globe-hopping around the world, was really interested in yoga. Like, very attractive person, both inside and out. At least the Caitlyn I initially knew. Homicide detectives were very interested in talking

to Caitlyn Armstrong. He's starting to get the sense that there could be some jealousy to it. She has a gun. Few things like that start to paint a picture of like it could definitely be her. We were still trying to figure out if they're going to have enough information to sit down and scratch out a warrant. At this point she kind of disappears. No one knows where she is.

Caitlin Armstrong vanished, seemingly in the thin air, sparking what would become an international manhunt, first leading authorities across the United States, and then eventually here, to the beaches of Costa Rica. Along the way, she used multiple identities and changed her appearance, even getting plastic surgery. How smart was Caitlin Armstrong? She did some pretty intelligent things. The thing that people don't know is

you don't have to be just smarter than one, two, three, or four of us because there's a team of 20-plus people. You have to be smarter than a lot of people to get away with it. It almost worked. It almost worked. Hello! Hello, I'm here with the fabulous Mo Wilson. You are like ready. I'm ready. Yeah, ready in March of 2022. Up and coming pro gravel bike racer, 25 year old Anna Mariah Wilson, known as Mo to some appeared on the-ride show, an online program about cycling. So excited to be here. Feels like the first big race of the year. So yeah, I'm ready to kick it off. Just two months later, Mariah was found murdered. The news shocking the cycling community. I don't think anybody could really believe it at first. You know,

why would anybody want to hurt or harm or kill this lovely, talented young woman? Lisa Gosselin-Lynn is the editor of Vermont Sports Magazine and Vermont Ski and Ride Magazine. She's also a CBS News consultant. Mariah Wilson right there coming in. Lynn had been following Mariah Wilson's career for many months before her tragic death. It is all Mariah Wilson right there coming in. Lynn had been following Mariah Wilson's career for many months before her tragic death. It is all Mariah Wilson as she is snaking through into the finish. Mariah was pretty much winning every race that she entered. Mariah Wilson, the winner of round one. Winning or finishing in the top two. And the races that she entered were top tier.

First place, Mo Wilson. Mariah had the potential to be one of the top bike racers definitely in the country and probably in the world. Mo, phenomenal race. Remarkably, Lynn says that Mariah was new to the pro cycling world. Her first passion had been downhill ski racing, a love shared by her close-knit family. She was born into a family of really great athletes. Her father, Eric, had been on the U.S. ski team,

and Mariah's aunt actually was a two-time Olympic Nordic ski racer. And it's no surprise that Mariah was drawn to outdoor endurance sports. She was raised in northern Vermont next to Kingdom Trails, a mecca for skiers and mountain bikers. And that was her playground. Mariah attended Burke Mountain Academy, an elite ski school that produced Olympic greats like two-time gold medalist Michaela Schifrin. Mariah had hoped to make the U.S. ski team, but knee injuries eventually ended her skiing career. That's when she switched sports. She had used cycling as a way for rehabbing and kind of building back her strength. What was fascinating to me was she then went on to Dartmouth. She got an engineering degree.

And after doing that, she went to her mother and said, hey, mom, I think I want to be a professional cyclist. And Mariah told the podcast We Got to Hang Out that she wanted to do much more than just win races. How can I inspire people? How can I give back to the cycling community? How can I bring more people into the sport? How can I make back to the cycling community? How can I bring more people into the sport? How can I make it more inclusive? Like I want to find meaning and purpose in cycling that

goes like far beyond the result. Mariah eventually moved to San Francisco where she focused on cycling and quickly rose to the top of the sport. Mariah was forging her own path. She knew what she wanted to do and she was working hard to pursue it. On May 10th, 2022, just one week before her 26th birthday, Mariah arrived in Austin, Texas to prepare for the Gravel Locos bike race, a race she was favored to win. Mariah stayed with a close friend in this Austin apartment. But the next evening, just before 10 p.m., the friend returned home and discovered Mariah, who had been shot multiple times. She called 911.

She's laying on the bathroom floor and there's blood everywhere. Mariah's friend tried CPR, but it was too late. It sounded like it started off near the door and went backwards like she was trying to get away or there was some sort of struggle. Austin police officers Mark McLeod and Jonathan Riley worked the case from the beginning. Whoever shot her at that point stood over top of her and shot her at least once. Investigators wondered who could have murdered this promising young athlete. As they canvassed the immediate area, police discovered a possible clue. Mariah's expensive racing bicycle had been discarded in the bushes.

So at that point, okay, is this a burglary, a robbery gone wrong? Mariah's expensive racing bicycle had been discarded in the bushes. So at that point, okay, is this a burglary, a robbery gone wrong? But that theory was quickly dismissed because there was no sign of a break-in. Then police learned that just hours before Mariah was found murdered, at around 8.30 p.m., she had been dropped off by another professional bike racer named Colin Strickland. So obviously the focus would be, who's this Colin Strickland? Colin Strickland was a very good gravel racer. He was at the top echelon.

Colin Strickland, who was 35, was considered a pioneer in the sport. He had won some of the most prestigious races and was sponsored by the industry's top brands like Red Bull. My name is Colin Strickland. I am a bicycle racer and general entertainer. In 2020, he appeared in an online video called Wahoo Frontiers about his long and successful career. Pretty early on, I looked up to Collin up in the scene. Please w tolly. Chris Tolly is fri They met on the racetrack to beat. He loved to kind

around bike racing, kind He was really passionate said, although his friend had been popular with women, he eventually became serious with a woman named Caitlin Armstrong. However, in a social media post after the crime, Strickland wrote that about six months before Mariah's murder, during a short breakup with Armstrong, he did have a brief romantic relationship with Mariah that spanned a week or so.

He said that it ended and their relationship had turned into a platonic and professional one. He just wanted to be friends with someone who was going to do great things in cycling. The day after Mariah's murder, police visited and spoke to Colin Strickland at his home. My personal take was he was being very cooperative, being very forthcoming. Obviously, he was in shock. Being very transparent. Very transparent, yeah. And investigators say when he agreed to go down to the police station to be interviewed,

he didn't seem to hold back when telling them about the day he spent with Mariah, a day that would end up being her last. That day in May, it was hot in the 80s, and this story started with a swim right here. It's a famous old outdoor pool, and Colin Strickland told detectives he took the victim, Mo Wilson, on the back of his motorcycle here to cool off. They went swimming, then they got food. motorcycle here to cool off. They went swimming, then they got food. Mariah and Strickland are seen here on the restaurant's security camera. I know he's being transparent at this point during this questioning, but what he's saying is starting to sound a lot like a date. Oh yeah, 100%. Investigators had a lot of questions, and their prior visit to Strickland's home had raised even more.

On the night of Mariah's murder, police discovered an important clue on video from a neighbor's security camera. The video was taken just one minute after Mariah was dropped off. There's a video from a ring doorbell camera that clearly shows a black SUV with a bike rack. Can't see the license plate because of the bike rack on it. So it was obviously like, we need to focus on this. And a vehicle that fit that description was outside Strickland's house. Who was driving the black Jeep SUV with the bike rack? The answer would lead directly to another woman. an eyewitness account that doesn't quite make sense. A sister testified against a brother.

A lack of physical evidence. Crosley Green has lived more than half his life behind bars for a crime he says he didn't commit. Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove, the Trouble Case Against Crosley Green, early and ad-free with a 48-hour plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing the best idea yet. A brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bold risk takers who brought them to life. Like, did you

know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or, Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala? From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans, discover the surprising stories of the most viral products. Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's just the best idea yet. the day after mariah wilson's murder investigators quickly had an answer to who could have been driving that black jeep that was seen on security cameras shortly before her death investigators had

spotted a similar looking jeep in colin strickland's driveway when they spoke to him. They see a black Jeep with the bike rack on the back of it. So at that point, we run the license plate and it comes back that it's registered to Caitlin Armstrong. Caitlin Armstrong, Colin Strickland's girlfriend. Chris Talley says he knew her very well. You know, we connected pretty early on. Caitlin and I became friends. They were both from the Midwest.

So we kind of had a similar, like, upbringing. And so I think that kind of, you know, helped us become, like, even better friends. She'd come over to parties I would have. Armstrong had a background in finance and loved yoga. She had a really strong, you know, kind of, you know, love for travel, love, you know, she'd spent time pretty much, you know, globe hopping around the world, really, you know, kind of interesting person. Armstrong got certified as a yoga instructor in Bali. After she met Colin Strickland in 2019, she also started getting into cycling.

He was very willing to kind of show her, you know, what his passions were and how passionate he was for cycling and, you know, get her involved with it. And she also became, you know, kind of addicted to cycling along with Colin. Armstrong even started racing on an amateur level. At the end of the day, like,

I feel like they had a pretty like normal relationship. They both ride bikes together. They would, you know, do fun stuff. And, you know, do fun stuff. And, you know, then 2020 happened and the pandemic started. So everyone was kind of, you know, forced with, you know, close quarters with their significant others. The couple eventually moved in together. The moment I saw the relationship become more serious is, you know, they talked about that they purchased a house recently together, which I thought, you know, was a

pretty big indication that it's a serious relationship. They also started a business together, restoring classic trailers. I think she was helping with the finance side of things. Colin was doing a lot of the operations. Their relationship went from just a normal couple to also owning a business together. But things got bumpy in late 2021. The breakup, I personally didn't know like they were split up at the time. Neither of them mentioned anything to me. It was during this time that Colin Strickland and Mariah Wilson had briefly dated. Although Strickland had said they had

broken it off, Mariah seemed confused in the aftermath. Pilar Melendez covered the case for The Daily Beast. Around this time, I think Mo was pretty confused about the status of her relationship with Colin. And she literally wrote, this weekend was strange for me. If you just want to be friends, that's cool. Honestly, my mind has been going in circles. It sounds like someone who's in her early 20s

who just wants to know the status of her relationship with someone that's confusing her. And it seems totally reasonable that she might be confused. Strickland had a lot to say about his relationship with Caitlin Armstrong. He starts to portray her as being the jealous type, even saying things like, I can't keep people in my phone. Like like Mo's not in my phone as Mo.

Strickland told investigators he kept Mariah's phone number under an alias in his contacts. And on that evening after he'd been out with Mariah at the pool, he texted Armstrong that he'd been running an errand and that his phone had died. That was not true. running an errand and that his phone had died. That was not true. Investigators say there were other clues pointing toward Caitlin Armstrong. On the night of the murder, Caitlin Armstrong's phone was not connected to a cell network. Not connected. Correct. So whether she powered it off, whether she put it in airplane mode,

something happened that her phone was not communicating with any cell phone towers. Do you think this was on purpose? Absolutely. In this day and age, if your phone is off and not connected to a network, you're either the victim of a crime or you're probably committing one. A silent phone speaks louder in some cases than actions. Oh, absolutely. Strickland also shared that he had bought handguns for Armstrong and himself for personal security.

He talks about how they purchase guns and that there are these two guns and that she has a gun, they've taken lessons, and that these guns are back at the house. And so a few things like that start to paint a picture of like this could definitely be her. Police worked quickly. That same day, investigators picked Caitlin Armstrong up on an old warrant for failing to pay for a Botox treatment. She's just kind of sitting there and she's not showing very much emotion at all.

What were you doing yesterday? I would like to leave, I think. Typically when we see some interviews going on and if you didn't do it, this is your, like, you're going to be like, you know, not me, not it. I want out of this room. What do you want to know so you don't come back looking for me? And there was none of that. is there any explanation as far as why the vehicle would be over there i would like to leave she was almost completely disinterested in hearing what the detectives had to say so it sounds like this is a big red flag immediately oh absolutely absolutely but investigators had to let armstrong go there was a problem armstrong's birthday did not match the date on the warrant,

so the warrant wasn't valid, and police didn't have enough to charge her with anything else. Two days after that interview, police got an unexpected call. It was from a friend of Caitlin Armstrong. Police say the caller told them that Armstrong was so angry about Strickland's relationship with Mariah that she wanted to kill her. It was yet another indication that they were on the right track. A few days later, an arrest warrant was issued. But when police went looking for Caitlin Armstrong, she was gone. After Caitlin Armstrong vanished, U.S. Marshals got the job of tracking her down.

Plain and simply, the Marshals are manhunters. Chris Godsick hosts and produces a podcast with the u.s marshal service i'm chris god sick and this is chasing evil his podcast tells the stories of some of the u.s marshals biggest cases including the hunt for caitlin armstrong nobody thought caitlin armstrong was gonna run and she surprised them the hunt for Kaitlyn Armstrong. Nobody thought Kaitlyn Armstrong was going to run. And she surprised them all. She disappeared. Kaitlyn Armstrong ran from a murder charge.

But the U.S. Marshals Lone Star Fugitive Task Force had a different plan. So take me through this. Where do you begin when you're looking for somebody that does not want to be found? You know, it depends on the case, honestly. We look for friends., we look for friends. Sometimes we look for family.

One of the things that I did was collect as many photos as I could. Damian Fernandez and Amir Perez are deputy U.S. Marshals. They joined Austin police officers, Jonathan Riley and Mark McLeod on the case. The team based in Texas is known as the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force. With no sign of Caitlin Armstrong, the task force suspected Armstrong may have left town, headed for her sister Christy's place in upstate New York. We were thinking maybe she's driving cross-country. We didn't know.

Their instincts were right. In upstate New York, another deputy marshal managed to track down Armstrong's sister. What did the sister say? The sister ultimately said that her sister had come to visit her and stayed with her a couple of days, but that she had dropped her off at the airport in Newark. And last she heard, she was going to board a flight back to Austin, but then called her back later and said that she decided that she was going to drive back. Which made absolute no sense to any of us that you would just drive back.

When the task force checked outbound flights at Newark airport, no reservations had been made in Kaitlyn Armstrong's name. We never got a hit on Kaitlin Armstrong's passport. But the team had a hunch. Because Christy told the deputy marshal in New York that she didn't know where her passport was. So they checked with her contact at Homeland Security. And within minutes of reaching out to him, he got back to me and he's like, yeah, we're showing Christy Armstrong traveled out of Newark, New Jersey International Airport

on a one-way flight to Costa Rica. You knew it. And I said, there's no way that the sister left and we're looking for her and we can't find Caitlin. No, that's Caitlin. The marshal suspected that Caitlin Armstrong had used her sister's passport to flee. Christy Armstrong later emphasized to authorities she did not give her sister the passport.

She has never been charged with any crime related to this case. And this is where Caitlin Armstrong landed. Costa Rica, gem of Central America. Home to mountains, tropical rainforests, and white sand beaches. As far as the eye can see. But she didn't spend much time here in San Jose. Shortly after arriving, Caitlin Armstrong disappeared again. And she had a huge lead on the U.S. Marshals.

Marshals Amir Perez and Damian Fernandez arrived in Costa Rica a month after Armstrong. This is you guys now on the hunt. How intense is it once you touch down in Costa Rica? What happens? You're on a timeline. I hear timeline and I hear the pressure's on. Pressure's on. I know we were sitting in the plane and we were talking.

What's the game plan? Although they would have help from the Costa Rican authorities and U.S. State Department officers on the ground, they knew finding Armstrong was going to be a big challenge. We had other intelligence indicating that she was staying in hostels in Costa Rica. And I don't know if you know anything about Costa Rica, but Costa Rica has a lot of hostels. A lot. An unbelievable amount of hostels. A lot of hostels. A lot. An unbelievable amount of hostels. The marshals wouldn't tell us exactly how their intelligence gathering worked,

but their team back in the States had managed to track down the phone number for an American businessman they believed had connected with Caitlin Armstrong at some point. We didn't know what city he was in, so we decided, hey, let's just cold call him. So we call him, and we're all in the conference room. He answers, and we're like, hey, it's the U.S. Marshals. My name is Mark, and he goes, I don't want any click. Just hangs up like it's a telemarketer or a spam call. After three or four call attempts, the businessman finally stayed on the line to answer the marshals' questions. And we actually ended up sending a picture of Caitlin

while we're on the phone with him. He looks at it and he goes, yes, but she doesn't look like that and she's not using that name. And did he tell you her new name? He did. It was Beth. This is Beth. Go by Beth.

And the businessman said Armstrong no longer looked like this. She had cut her hair and changed its color. It was brown instead of red. She dyed her hair. The businessman told the marshals he had no idea that the woman who called herself Beth was actually Caitlin Armstrong. But he did tell them where they might find her. He's like, well, I met her at a yoga studio in Hako. This is Hakko, a popular tourist destination known for its nightlife and its beaches,

and the perfect place to hide. It was the marshals' first real tip, so they rushed out here. They canvassed the area, combed through hours of surveillance video, but could not find a single sign of Caitlin Armstrong anywhere. It was a bust. But the marshals have one more solid lead. And that takes them to a beautiful, touristy beach town, a one-street town called Santa Teresa. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own.

She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marcia Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access,

I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informants Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that would still have heard it.

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to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. One month after Kaitlyn Armstrong disappeared, the U.S. Marshals were in hot pursuit of her in another area of Costa Rica. A source had suggested she might have gone to a small village on the Pacific coast. The Marshals took a ferry like this one to reach a remote peninsula. Once there, they drove by car through those mountains to the tiny town of Santa Teresa.

But when they finally arrived, they ran into an unexpected problem. You go to Santa Teresa. Was it easy to identify her there from the other people that were there? I think from the get-go we were told, you're going to be in for a surprise, because a lot of the women in Santa Teresa looked just like Kate, a lot of them. And it turns out that advice was right. The town was full of foreign tourists. Deputy Marshals Fernandez and Perez arrived in Santa Teresa after dark. So we get there and he starts walking down a main strip that's there down the street. There's

only one road on that town. And he sees a girl and he says you know that looks just like her. Well a couple of minutes later, we see another one. And it's late at night, and we're like, oh, man, that's two. And then there's another one. As the marshals tried to find Armstrong, they even had one of their female operatives start going to yoga classes to see if they could spot her. She actually did three different classes for us. And they tapped into local contacts

oh yeah we made friends with people there that would send us pictures oh look i think i saw her at this restaurant yesterday and she's in the back in the background of a photo that i took stuff like that in fact people had seen caitlyn armstrong at local spots in Santa Teresa, but they didn't realize who she was. Armstrong was hiding in plain sight, using different names. She had like multiple names. Yeah, she came in. Beth? It wasn't Beth.

Ari? Ari. Ari. Ari, right. So she came in as Ari. Ari. Ari, right. So she came in as Ari. Greg Haber is an American from the New York area who owns a restaurant called Kook's Smokehouse and Bar here in Santa Teresa. Ari, what did Ari look like? Did she stand out to you? Pretty.

Came in, introduced herself as a yoga teacher, which is basically anybody else down here. Hey, I moved here, teaching yoga down the street, and that was it. What was her general vibe like? She definitely seemed like she was trying to establish down here. Hey, I moved here, teaching yoga down the street. And that was it. What was her general vibe like? She definitely seemed like she was trying to establish roots here. Like, this was going to be her new home. And Haber says one day he noticed something different about her. I saw her on the beach. I walk my dog on the beach every night for sunset.

And you're walking through, and you see the bandage on her face. It's like, oh, what happened? She's like, oh, a surfboard hit me in the face. It's like, well, happens to everybody, right, at least once. So you wouldn't even question that story here. Like, you see people all the time. Turns out that bandage would later prove to be an important part of this story, and one of the reasons the marshals say Armstrong was so hard to find. So you're this close to giving up? Yes.

Finally, they decided on one last tactic. They turned to a local Facebook page. We decided we were going to put an ad out for a yoga instructor and see what would happen. So this is the equivalent of Craigslist? Yes, correct. Right. Pretty much.

A little bit more lively, but yes. And just saying, hey, we're this hostile. We're looking for a yoga instructor as soon as possible. Please contact us at this number. But after almost a week of hunting, even that didn't seem to be working. Sunday we decided we haven't gotten any response back from anything. We're burned. So Sunday we're like, okay, we're done.

None of them have panned out. So we're going back to San Jose. Now back in San Jose, the marshals were getting ready to head home when suddenly... We got a bite. Somebody that identified herself as a yoga instructor and said that wanted to meet with us at a particular hostel and we said this is this is our chance. Deputy Marshals Perez and Fernandez rushed back to Santa Teresa just ahead of a tropical storm. Tourism Police Lieutenant Juan Carlos Solano's team helped the marshals in their search for Caitlin Armstrong. They did surveillance on a hostel called Don John's, where the yoga instructor, the one who answered the online ad, was believed to be. So there is this massive international manhunt,

and of all places in the world, it ends in this very discreet hostel. It was now time for the marshals to make their move. So I walked up and I got in. They decided that Deputy Marshal Perez would approach the woman alone. They didn't want to scare her off. He would pretend to be a tourist and try to get a really good look at her face and i saw two individuals sitting there at a table off to the left as soon as i walked in he says one was a woman she looked like caitlyn but not 100 so i thought well how can i approach her or get close enough where i start

asking questions where she doesn't suspect something. So I decided that I was gonna speak to her in Spanish. So I spoke to her in nothing but Spanish. So you're communicating, she goes to use her phone for Google Translate and then... So I got a little closer because I saw that she was trying to get to Google Translate on her phone and she'd raise it up to me and I got even closer and I noticed that she had a bandage on her nose and possibly her lips were swollen and I saw her eyes. The eyes are the exact same ones that I saw in the picture and this is her 100%. He gets in the car and he's like, that's her, she's in there. Local police moved in to make the actual arrest and soon the marshals discovered why Armstrong had been so hard to find.

She had been getting plastic surgery when they first arrived in Santa Teresa. At the hostel, they found a receipt. The receipt for surgery. Plastic surgery. Plastic surgery. In these side-by-side photos, you can see that Armstrong changed the shape of her nose. The deputy marshal said their female operative, the woman they sent to yoga classes to try to find Armstrong, told them Armstrong's new look would have tricked her.

And she told me, I think if I would have run into her at the yoga studio, I don't think I would have recognized her. Wow. It almost worked. It almost worked. The marshals took Armstrong back to Texas, where she was charged and held in jail. But just weeks before she was due to stand trial for the murder of Mariah Wilson, Caitlin Armstrong escaped again. What do you make of the investigators' undercover operation? Chat now with the 48 Hours team on Facebook and X. Did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder?

Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free with a 48-hour plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. Almost three weeks before her trial, former fugitive Caitlin Armstrong somehow managed to escape from custody. She was at a doctor's appointment and tried to escape as they were walking out. Pilar Melendez from the Daily Beast says Armstrong didn't get far before deputies caught her. It was pretty astonishing that she did that, given the fact that she had tried to escape prosecution prior. This was just more evidence of her guilt. Jose Garza is Travis

County's district attorney. He says his team of prosecutors, Ricky Jones and Guillermo Gonzalez, were more than ready to try the case. When we learned that she had tried to escape, it just added to our confidence level in the facts of this case that we would be able to secure justice for Mariah and her family. On November 1, 2023, Armstrong's trial began. The last thing Mo did on this earth was scream in terror. In opening statements, Jones told the jury about chilling audio from a security camera that captured the last moments of Mariah's life. The old screen will follow by two gunshots.

Caden Armstrong stood over Mo Wilson and put a third shot right in Mo Wilson's heart. Prosecutors said Armstrong had been tracking Mariah Wilson using a sports app. Caitlin, prior to the murder, had been following Mo on a Strava app, which is basically an app that athletes use to track their miles, running, biking. And she knew exactly where she was. And they said that Armstrong, on the night of the murder, was most likely tracking Colin Strickland as well. She did have the ability to monitor his communications.

She had access to all of his passwords, so she had access to his Instagram account. I believe that when Mo sent Colin a text letting him know the address where she was, I believe that Caitlin Armstrong was at home on Colin Strickland's laptop. She saw that message. After murdering Mariah and before leaving the scene, Jones told the jury that Armstrong took Mariah's bike and discarded it in the bushes, just yards away from where her Jeep was parked. Our belief is that she maybe staged it to look like a robbery or something. Or another theory is Mo Wilson's bike is a tool of her trade. It might have been like the bullet shot in the heart.

I'm going to shoot you in the heart. I'm going to throw away your bike. But they said Armstrong made one big mistake. She left her DNA behind on the handlebars and seat of Mariah's bike. And that's not all the evidence prosecutors had against Armstrong. There was that receipt that showed Armstrong had received plastic surgery while hiding out in Costa Rica. Everything she does, it's all consistent with trying to evade the authorities. But when it was the defense's turn, attorney Jeffrey Puryear told the jury there was no direct evidence, including security footage, that actually showed Armstrong was at the scene of the crime.

Not one witness saw Caitlin Armstrong allegedly commit this murder. Then why would Armstrong flee and hide from the authorities? Defense attorney Rick Cofer pointed the finger at Colin Strickland. Was she scared? What do you think? Do you think that she may have been concerned a little bit that her boyfriend had killed someone? Fear results in fight or flight. And it was flight. But Jones said there was a big problem with this theory because Strickland had nothing to do with the murder of Mariah Wilson.

In fact, at the time of the murder, he was actually on the phone speaking with someone. It wasn't Colin Strickland. Armstrong's defense team did not respond to our request for an interview. After a two-week trial, The defendant will please rise. it took the jury around two hours to decide Armstrong's fate. We, the jury, found the defendant, Caitlin Armstrong, guilty of the offensive murder. As a prosecutor, the first row right behind you is the family. And you begin to feel their pain and their desire for a just outcome for their loved ones.

One day after her conviction, Armstrong was sentenced to 90 years behind bars. You may be seated. But before the case came to an end, Judge Brenda Kennedy allowed Caitlin Cash, Mariah's close friend whose apartment she'd been staying at and who had found Mariah's body, to take the stand and speak directly to Armstrong. So many people in this room have lost so much. I'm angry at you, at the utter, utter tragic nature, at the senselessness, at not being able to hear Mo's voice again. I feel deep sadness for the road ahead. Then, it was Mariah's mother's turn. I hate what you did to my beautiful daughter.

It was very selfish and cowardly, that violent act on May 11th. It was cowardly because you never chose to face her woman to woman in a civil conversation. She would have listened. She was an amazing listener. She would have cared about your feelings. But despite the pain, Karen Wilson closed with words of love and optimism because she said that's how Mariah would have wanted it. You killed her earthly body, but her spirit is so very much alive, and you can never change that. Today, in Kingdom Trails in northern Vermont, a place that was sacred to Mariah,

a trail was built in her honor. It's called Mariah's Ascent. Mariah was a Vermonter. She was giving, she was hardworking, she was honest, she was caring, and she came from a wonderful family, and that family really wants that legacy and all of her good qualities to inspire others. by our others. Join me Tuesday for Postmortem from 48 Hours, where we'll dive even deeper into today's episode and answer your questions about the case. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.