48 Hours - Post Mortem | Capturing Moriah Wilson's Killer

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

CBS Correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti and Field Producer Hannah Vair go behind the scenes of reporting on the tragic murder of rising gravel cycling star Moriah Wilson. They’ll discuss the international chase that led a team of US Marshals to a remote beach town in Costa Rica, how plastic surgery almost kept the case unsolved, and the legacy that Moriah Wilson left behind.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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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. Hello and welcome back to another episode of 48 Hours Postmortem. I'm CBS News correspondent Anne-Marie Green, and today we are talking about the episode Capturing Mariah Wilson's Killer. We're going to discuss an international law enforcement hunt, the killer getting plastic surgery to evade the authorities, and not just one, but two escape attempts. All right, so let's get into it. Here with me today is CBS News correspondent Jonathan

Vigliotti and Fields producer Hannah Vare, who reported on this mind-boggling case. Thanks so much for joining us today. Hi, thanks for having us. Thank you for having us, Anne-Marie. I know you probably have a lot to say about this episode, but of course, before we jump in, what we're going to do is just play some of it for the listeners, a bit of a recap of the case. In June 2022, one month after Caitlin Armstrong,

suspected of murdering Mariah Wilson, disappeared, Deputy U.S. Marshals Damian Fernandez and Amir Perez traveled to Costa Rica. They knew finding Armstrong was going to be a challenge. We had 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 source told them Armstrong could be hiding out in the small village of Santa Teresa. But it was challenging because the town was full of tourists, many who look similar to Armstrong. The marshals would later learn that Armstrong had also used

different names and had changed her appearance. She had cut and colored her hair and even had gotten plastic surgery. They hit dead end after dead end. So you're this close to giving up? Yes. So after many intense days of searching for Armstrong with no luck, the marshals decided to try one last tactic, hoping that Armstrong's love of teaching yoga would pay off for them. 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. 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. We haven't gotten any response back from anything. Nothing. We're burned. None of them have panned out.

So the marshals were about to head back to the United States when suddenly they got a break. 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. All right, listeners, told you this was going to be a big one. Jonathan, how did you first learn about this case? I came to learn about this case, I think, like most people did back in May 2022 when it first broke and grabbed all of the international headlines and really came to learn about all of the many layers when we started to dive deep into

this for 48 hours. And, you know, just the manhunt that unfolded from first interstate to then international really was, as you said, mind boggling. And I think it's a really eye opening exploration into the hard work that investigators, in this case, a joint task force, had to engage in just to bring someone like Caitlin Armstrong eventually to justice. Yeah, I want to talk about the motive here investigators believe that caitlin murdered mariah because she was jealous of the relationship that mariah had with colin but they only dated for a really short period of time and then it seems like you know this was a platonic professional relationship. In your experience reporting for 48 Hours, how convincing is this as a motive? Yeah, I thought it was a very compelling motive. Yes, Colin Strickland described it as professional and platonic at one point, but he also did

acknowledge that he was seeing Mariah, he claimed, when he was broken up at the time with his girlfriend, Caitlin Armstrong. So as he's trying to establish these clear boundaries and lines, there were overlaps though. I mean, what sounded like a date that he took the day of the night that Mariah was murdered. They went on a motorcycle to a pool and then out to have a meal. And to me, and I think to a lot of people that will listen to this story, while Colin Strickland tried to separate himself from having a relationship with Mariah, it certainly felt like it could be more. And Colin and Mariah were in this cycling world. So they knew they were going to be seeing each other at a lot of, you know, bike race events and stuff.

But Colin at some point felt he had to change what Mariah's name was in his phone. And Caitlin kind of figured that out. And, you know, he told Caitlin he was running errands, but this is when he was actually hanging out with Mariah the day that she was killed. So he essentially told Caitlin a story that wasn't true of what he was actually doing that day. See, sorry, I got to say this.

Guys need to know this. It is the cover-up that is always worse than the crime. Actually, kind of to what you're saying, when you have to change someone's name in a phone, that says something. Obviously, there was something more going on, maybe not with his relationship with Mariah, but he obviously knew that there was this sensitivity

with Caitlin Armstrong, and obviously that fueled a bigger fire. Was Colin Strickland ever considered a suspect? He was initially, and that's because at the time it was believed he was the last person to have seen Mariah. And it appeared that way. But then when police looked into his phone records, he was on the phone at the time that this murder took place. At that point, though, they still did not know who the suspect was, but it was becoming clear that Colin may not be the focus. So, you know, one of the things I think that made Caitlin

look perhaps more suspicious to police is that she had her cell phone off on the night of the murder. Here's Task Force Officer Jonathan Riley from the show. I just want to play some sound. 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, there's 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. I mean, we live with our cell phones attached to our hip, they're an appendage. So it makes sense that if the phone is not on, is not being tracked by towers, something's going on if you're not literally up in the air flying. And we know that Caitlin Armstrong was not flying at that point. Yeah. It's surprising to me people don't realize even now that whatever you do with your phone, it's going to be discovered. And your digital footsteps can tell a very detailed story of what you're doing. Right. And so it's very telling when that goes silent. Yes. The following day, they pick Caitlin up on an old warrant for something that happened four years earlier, an outstanding payment for Botox. Of all things,

clearly no one was in a rush to pin her down about this payment. But it was fortuitous to a certain degree for police because they were able to bring her in. But the police almost had her in their grasp. But ultimately, they had to let her go because of a clerical error. Her birthday did not match the one on the warrant. That must have been frustrating for investigators, Hannah. Yeah, I definitely think that it was. And the female detective was asking Caitlin, you know, a few questions about this case. And there was no big reaction from her. And

what task force officer McLeod also said is, you know, somebody innocent is going to be sitting here like, you know, what, like you've got the wrong person, like, you know, somebody innocent is going to be sitting here like, you know, what? Like, you've got the wrong person. Like, you know, have some kind of something, a reaction to say. And she was just kind of like, she wasn't showing much emotion there, which they thought was a red flag. Yeah. And this also could have been a triggering moment for Caitlin Armstrong, realizing that she was now truly the focus of this investigation. And in a way, investigators showed their hand here, but because of this clerical error, they weren't able to hold on to her. You know, you can't help but think had they been able to hold on to her just a little bit longer, this international chase may never have happened. So then, of course, as you point out, she goes on the lam,

first to New York and then to Costa Rica, of all places. So when we get back, we're going to discuss the incredible police work that was done by the U.S. Marshals, a Lone Star Fugitive Task Force, and how Caitlin almost got away with murder.

Stay tuned. almost got away with murder. Stay tuned. I'm Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours, and of all the cases I've covered, this is the one that troubles me most. A bizarre and maddening tale involving an eyewitness account that doesn't quite make sense.

A sister testifying 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-hours-plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. 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 reach the age of 10 that would still avert it. It just happens to all of them.

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Welcome back. About a week after Mariah's murder, Caitlin flies to Costa Rica using her sister's passport. Jonathan, you did a roundtable interview with the special task force assigned to this case. I want to hear a clip from how investigators made that discovery. When the task force checked outbound flights at Newark Airport, no reservations had been made in Kaitlin 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. I think it's important to point out that Caitlin's sister,

Christy, has never been charged with anything. She told authorities when they first talked to her that the passport was missing and then later emphasized to authorities that she did not give her sister the passport. Yes. My first thought was, was this all part of Caitlin Armstrong's master plan to go to New York to get this passport to then be able to flee to a place like Costa Rica? I think I'm just trying to get myself into the mindset of Caitlin Armstrong at this point. Yeah. Do we know why she picked Costa Rica? Well, she has the background in yoga and the marshals, when they were like, you know, what is the motive for going to Costa Rica?

It was this yoga connection that it made it all make sense. Costa Rica has become a little bit of a yoga Mecca. I know a lot of people go to Costa Rica to do good yoga on the beach. So in Costa Rica, Caitlin attempts to start a whole new life with a whole new identity. The task force first tracked down an American businessman who they believed had connections to her. But when they sent him a photo of Caitlyn, he tells them that the woman he saw in Costa Rica had short brown hair, which was different from the hair that Caitlyn had in the photo. And he also told them that she was going by a different name. The name was Beth and that he met her at a yoga studio. Was this a big lead for investigators?

I think this was a huge lead for investigators. And from that lead, they really started looking into yoga classes, even sending in a female operative to take some classes, all in an effort to try to spot Armstrong there amongst the other people. Yeah. And this guy that Armstrong had met in Hakko, he's the one that kind of told her about Santa Teresa and said, you know, this place is going to be more your style because you're into yoga. So he suggested that to her and that made perfect sense to the marshals. And, you know, when they didn't find her in Jaco, that was their next destination was Santa Teresa. So 48 Hours doesn't often go to another country to pursue a story. I mean, how do you land as a crew from New York in Costa Rica and start pursuing this story? I mean, do you have help on the ground?

How do you do it? There was four of us from 48 Hours, Jonathan, myself, and two other producers that went down to Costa Rica. But we worked with a local crew, which was awesome because they know the lay of the land the best. They were all from Costa Rica. It offered a very unique perspective. So it's one thing to report from the States on this manhunt. perspective. So it's one thing to report from the States on this manhunt. It's another thing for us to be there on the ground, really tracing the steps that Caitlin Armstrong allegedly took. It was from the perspective of that journey, we really got an idea of just how hard Caitlin Armstrong tried to evade capture. So, you know, after we landed in San Jose, we have to, you know,

do this long trek to get to Santa Teresa. It kind of felt like we're off-roading the way the roads are there. And our crew ended up getting a flat tire in their vehicle. And it happened where we were waiting to get onto the ferry. And so we're in this long line of cars and we have to change this tire before we load the car onto the ferry. So we're taking all of our production stuff out of the trunk to get the extra wheel. And we're just like rushing to get this tire change, just like added to the urgency of everything that was going on. It was crazy, but they did it successfully and we were fine the rest of the trip. That's amazing because that's a nightmare just when you're at home in a place you're familiar with.

Right. So 48 hours in the crew, you actually find someone who interacted with Caitlin. It's Greg Haber. He's a local restaurant owner. Jonathan, you spoke to him and he had some very helpful insight. I want to play a clip from the broadcast. 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. 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.

You know, Greg, in that conversation, we were sitting at the bar that he owns there, a bar and restaurant, drinking a beer. And he described Caitlin Armstrong as like most expats that move to a place like Santa Teresa. Just very comfortable, very at ease, he said. She was very nice when he met her. And you get a really good sense of how she understands the area and how to play that area to her advantages when he talked about the bandage and the story that she told him about a surfboard. He's right. What better excuse can you make for having a bandage on your nose than you went surfing and got hit by a surfboard? She knew where she was. She knew the environment she was in, and she used those strengths to cover up what she was hiding from. And I was struck by the

fact that he said, you know, she seemed like she was kind of dug in, like she was ready to make a whole new life, which made me think to myself, well, she really didn't think she was ever going to be caught. Right. It makes you wonder, like, how comfortable is she at this point? So as it turns out, the bandage would later prove to be a really important part of this story. As marshals learn that Caitlin had gotten plastic surgery while she was in Costa Rica. According to the investigators, they believe she deliberately altered her appearance to avoid being recognized by police. I want to play a clip from U.S. Marshal Damien Fernandez. police. I want to play a clip from U.S. Marshal Damian Fernandez. 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. And it worked in more ways than one, because not only did it change her appearance, but literally as the team was there trying to find her the first time in Santa Teresa, the reason they couldn't find her wasn't because they couldn't recognize her among people there. She literally was not there. She was in another town actually getting that surgery at the time. Yeah, those first few days that they get to Santa Teresa, she's back in San Jose. That's where she gets the plastic surgery. So they like

had just missed each other basically. So the task force was hitting dead ends, right? And almost left. This is like they almost were like, this is the end of the road. But they got a response to that ad that they had put up on Facebook looking for a yoga instructor. And it led them to a hostel where Caitlin was staying. And then they finally arrest her. I want to know hostel where Caitlin was staying and then they finally arrest her. I want to know what that moment was like for them. I mean, it's really an incredible moment if you think about it, because you have these investigators, they're about to call it a

quits. They put out that ad as a last ditch effort. Days went by, they didn't hear anything. They're about to make their way back to the U.S. and then they get a woman saying that she is an instructor of yoga, that she is at this hostel. Come and meet me here. It's like this huge aha moment for the Marshalls. So they had set up this meeting with the yoga instructor, which ended up being Caitlin Armstrong, at a specific time to meet with her. But she contacted them again and said, hey, I can't make the appointment because I'm left in charge of the front desk at the place where I'm staying. And this actually was good for the marshals because they had a very good idea of what hostel she was likely staying at this point.

So they were able to move in and find her working at that front desk. They then move in and you have one of the marshals that goes in pretending to be a tourist so that he could get a closer look. And of course, as he's trying to get this closer look because of the plastic surgery and all the other things that Caitlin Armstrong had done to her appearance. Initially, he didn't even know if it was her until he locked eyes with her eyes. And it was those eyes that eventually gave her away. It was a tremendous moment for them. And obviously the break in this case that they had spent so much time hoping for.

They take her back to Texas. Then, incredibly, just three weeks before her trial, she makes another attempt at escape while being escorted by law enforcement to a doctor's appointment. Prosecutors felt that this was just more evidence of her guilt because why are you running? This is your opportunity to

prove your innocence. What did the defense claim to explain that behavior? The defense said that the police named Caitlin as a suspect too quickly. I think at one point they tried to paint Caitlin as someone who was afraid of Colin Strickland, implying that Colin Strickland was somehow behind the murder of Mariah Wilson, though prosecutors were very quick

to counter that, saying there was no way Colin Strickland was involved in this whatsoever because of his alibi. So as we've seen in many 48 Hours cases, technology is making it easier to solve crimes. In this case, prosecutors claim Caitlin tracked both Mariah's and Colin's

whereabouts. Did the prosecution bring this up at all in making the case that Caitlin was guilty? Yeah, we know Caitlin looked Mariah up on the Strava app, which is something athletes, specifically cyclists, use to track their bike rides. It shows you their route, kind of exactly where they're going. I have it. I'm not an athlete. the day before Mariah was killed. So she was looking at this more than once. And then she also had access at the home where she lived with Colin, you know, to a laptop where his iMessages could come up. Because if you have an iPhone and it's connected to your Mac laptop, your iMessages can show up there as well. And so prosecutors believe that Caitlin saw Mariah text Colin the address of the place that she was staying in Austin while she was in town for that race. Mariah's family did not speak to you guys for the broadcast,

but you did include a really touching statement from her mother that her mother made at sentencing. I was in the courtroom for the verdict and sentencing and was listening to Mariah's mother speak and emotions were really high and you really felt the words that she was speaking. It was really emotional to listen to. I want to play some of that. 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 he 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. For me, listening to that statement, I was able to picture an alternate reality where Caitlin Armstrong shows up and talks to Mariah. Mar listens, and they part ways with a new understanding. And of course, tragically, that is not what happened. This was a brilliant young woman with a whole future ahead of her.

She was very smart. She studied at Dartmouth. She wanted to be an engineer, but she was so driven by her athleticism. She was a skier before she got into biking. And then when she got into biking, she not only rose to the top, she wanted to bring other women up with her and get them into the pro gravel bike racing world. And the career aside, and a great career it was as young as she was, she was described by everyone that knew her as loving and caring and ultimately the unsuspecting victim of what was a very deadly love triangle. It was a really great hour. I kept on thinking I knew how it was going to end and I was wrong at every turn until the very end. You guys did an excellent job. You did an

excellent job at just bringing Mariah to life. Thank you for having us. So be sure to join us next Tuesday for another Postmortem and watch 48 Hours, Saturdays, 10, 9 Central on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. And if you're liking the show, please rate and review 48 Hours on Apple Podcasts and follow 48 Hours wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen ad-free on the Amazon Music & Wondery app

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