Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - GLAM YOGA TEACHER ON TRIAL NOW IN LOVE MURDER

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

A jury has been set and opening arguments will be presented today in the murder trial of Kaitlyn Armstrong. The yoga instructor is accused of killing professional cyclist Moriah "Mo" Wilson. Wilson was in Austin to tackle the “Gravel Locos” race in Hico. As luck would have it, Wilson has friends in the area, so instead of booking a hotel, bunks down with her friend. The friend already has plans for the evening, but that’s OK. Wilson has plans of her own. She tells her friend that she’s meeting up with a guy she dated briefly, to go swimming, grab a meal, and catch up.   Wilson's friend was also Kaitlyn Armstrong's boyfriend. During a brief period when Armstrong and Colin Strickland were separated, he and Wilson dated. It made Armstrong angry, to the point that she confronted Wilson, telling her not to contact Strickland.  When Mo Wilson’s friend returns home from her dinner plans, she finds Wilson unresponsive inside the home. There’s blood everywhere and her friend is in the bathroom, lodged between the toilet and the wall. 911 is called. Police arrived to find Wilson had been shot multiple times, with a 9mm weapon, and it doesn’t appear the shooting was random. As the Austin Police Department investigates, they reach out to neighbors, asking for surveillance video. A neighbor’s camera, pointed at the driveway of the home where Wilson was staying, caught a Black Jeep Grand Cherokee driving past the house just one minute after Wilson went inside. In the meantime, police reach out to Colin Strickland, who agrees to an interview at his home. When the police arrived, they see a Black Jeep Grand Cherokee in the driveway... the same one seen in the surveillance video. It belongs to Strickland’s girlfriend, Kaitlyn Armstrong.   Police begin to look at Kaitlyn Armstrong as a suspect.  An anonymous caller tells police Armstrong said she wanted to kill Wilson and even bought a gun.  On May 12, Kaitlin Armstrong was brought in for questioning but APD wasn’t able to get probable cause until May 17. When Armstrong spoke with homicide detectives, she couldn’t explain why her SUV was in the area the night Mo Wilson was murdered. Police release Armstrong. When officers try to talk to Armstrong again, she is nowhere to be found. Three days later, a video is released of Armstrong in Austin's airport. Investigators say she flew from Austin to Houston and then on to New York. Surveillance footage shows Kaitlin Armstrong flying into New York's La Guardia airport on May 14. On May 18, the day after a murder warrant was issued for Armstrong, someone dropped her off at New Jersey's Newark airport, but there’s no record of her taking a flight. US Marshalls tracked Armstrong to Costa Rica. She had used a family member's passport to get there. She had dyed her hair and had plastic surgery to change her appearance. After a 43-day manhunt, Kaitlyn Armstrong is taken into custody.  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Alan Bennett – Former Assistant District Attorney, Partner at Gunter, Bennett, and Anthes, gbafirm.com Dr. Bethany Marshall – Psychoanalyst (Beverly Hills); Twitter: @DrBethanyLive/ Instagram & TikTok: drbethanymarshall Irv Brandt – Senior Inspector, US Marshals Service International Investigations Branch; Chief Inspector, DOJ Office of International Affairs, US Embassy Kingston, Jamaica; Author: “SOLO SHOT: CURSE OF THE BLUE STONE” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON IN JANUARY; ALSO “FLYING SOLO: Top of the World;” Twitter: @JackSoloAuthor Joe Scott Morgan – Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, “Blood Beneath My Feet,” and Host: “Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan;” Twitter: @JoScottForensic  Tony Plohetski - Investigative Reporter, Austin American-Statesman and KVUE; Twitter: @tplohetski See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The so-called glam yoga teacher is in court. The trial of Caitlin Armstrong starting now, and I mean right now. Can the yoga teacher now charged with murder of her love rival, a world-class, class, beautiful female Viking star. But can Caitlin Armstrong charm the jury the way he she has charmed so many others including her own jailers? She tricked them into taking her to a fake medical appointment where she then escaped and it ain't the first time. Remember her hiding out in Costa Rica after she got a makeover, including a nose job to somehow elude authorities? Well,

the U.S. Marshals were on to that. Finally in a court of law. And you know who's getting lost in the sauce seemingly out shined by her glam Mo Mariah a young girl in her 20s wants nothing more than to ride her bike and get one trophy after the next after the next after the next her parents so proud this girl Mariah Wilson, a world-class dirt bike champion, gunned down, chased through a house, cornered in a bathroom, and shot multiple times. Why? According to prosecutors, because she dared to have a meal with Caitlin Armstrong's cheating boyfriend. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Crime Stories and Sirius XM 111. Oh, yes, there's 12 in the box. That means the jury has been selected, and I guarantee you that at this very minute, they are eyeballing the so-called glam yoga instructor, Caitlin Armstrong.

Take a listen to this. Detective Richard Spiller, Austin PD. On May 11th, 2022, at approximately 9.56 p.m., Austin police officers responded to a check welfare urgent call at 1708 Maple Avenue in Austin. Upon their arrival, they found the resident of 1708 Maple Avenue performing CPR on a female. That female was Anna Wilson. Despite the life-saving efforts, Anna Wilson was pronounced deceased at 10.10 p.m. The preliminary investigation revealed that Anna Wilson, a cyclist, was visiting Austin and staying with her friend on her way to the Dallas area for Just simply minding her own business. With me, joining us live from the courthouse, Tony Plohetsky, investigative reporter with the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE.

Tony, it's great to be talking to you. Tell me this scuttlebutt in the courthouse. Well, opening statements, as you mentioned, begin any minute now. And Nancy, the big question going into those opening statements is that this could likely be the first time we hear any kind of defense that is lodged by Kaitlyn Armstrong's defense attorneys. What will they say? How will they defend her against what police and prosecutors have described as this mountain of evidence. So really, all ears and all eyes are going to be on her voluminous, might I add, defense team this morning. You know, I've seen her just recently, and she does not look the same way she did at the time.

But she's still a beautiful woman. You know how hard it is to get a conviction on a female in this country? Because when you see, not me, but many jurors, when they see a woman sitting at the council table accused of a crime, they think, oh, she reminds me of my mom. My mom could never do anything like this. Or she reminds me of my little sister. Or she reminds me of my little sister. Or she reminds me of my very first girlfriend in high school. Alan Bennett joining me, a high profile

lawyer, now partner at Gunter, Bennett and Anthus. Hey, Alan, thank you for being with us. Right or wrong. It's much harder to get a conviction, much less for murder on a woman. I think you're correct, Ms. Grace. In fact, I think we have all been somewhat aware of that ever since Lizzie Borden walked out of the courtroom a free woman years and years ago. That was before my time, I think, but go ahead. Mine too, but maybe not by a whole lot. Guys, he's talking about Lizzie Borden. Took an ax, gave her parents how many whacks? 40. 40. Thank you, Jackie, the legal scholar over here in the corner. Yes, you're right. But you know, the Lizzie Borden escaping justice kind of escaped my mind.

Why is it so hard to get a conviction on a woman? I've gotten them. Don't worry about that. But it is harder. I think you're right, Ms. Grace. And again, I'm not sure that I quite myself understand the psychological or implications of all that or what the mindset is of jurors. But you are right. I think women and I hate to sound sexist, but I think women and other members of society enjoy a certain presumption of innocence, maybe in our minds above and beyond the standard presumption of innocence that we all enjoy. Well, you're right. But just so you know, Alan Bennett, when somebody says, no offense, that means they're about to offend. And when you say not to be sexist, that means you are about to be sexist. But I'm sitting here agreeing with you in the sense that it's harder to get a conviction on a woman. You got this one right here.

Caitlin Armstrong, the so-called glam yoga instructor, also called the killer yoga instructor. She's pretty. And she can be very, very charming and come across very meek and mild. Okay, Dr. Bethany joining me, Dr. Bethany Marshall, who is a renowned psychoanalyst, joining us out of Beverly Hills. Dr. Bethany, thank you for making time between all of your clients that are complaining and whining about the prices there on Rodeo Drive. You know that spells rodeo, right? That said, go ahead. Hit me.

You know, I think certain people are in a protected class in our society. Women, especially beautiful women, white women, are in a protected class. Old white men are in a protected class. Old white men are in a protected class. Look, we look at politics. They're older white men. I mean, we agree societally that some people are special and privileged and that we're not going to punish them for anything. And then there are other people that are punished endlessly.

People in lower socioeconomic lives, they are punished endlessly for crimes. Can we get back to murder? Can we get back to someone chasing Mariah Moe Wilson, just 25 years old? That's not that much older than my twins. They're about to turn 16. Chasing her through the house, cornering her in a bathroom where there's no escape and shooting her multiple times. That's what we're talking about. You know what? I've got a very old and endearing saying. We never curse around the children ever, but we do allow this one bit of wisdom. Screw her and the horse she rode in on chasing a 25 year old girl through the house, trapping her in the bathroom and shooting her multiple times because she had what lunch with Caitlin

Armstrong's cheating boyfriend. Now cheating in the sense that he went out to lunch with an old flame. Nobody said they had sex. Nobody said they slept together. Nothing like that. But he did lie to Caitlin Armstrong about where he was, and she found out she didn't take it out on him. She murdered Mo. Mariah Wilson, how proud do you think her parents were of her? Their baby girl was a world-class dirt bike competitor. She competed all around the world, and she won. And now this.

Okay, isn't it true? Joe Scott Morgan. With me, Joe Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University. And when I say professor of forensics, you ought to see their world-class criminal justice program they've got going on at Jacksonville State University. Author of Blood Beneath My Feet, star of a hit series, Body Bags. Joe Scott hit me with the evidence to, hey, with all this, she's beautiful. She's going to escape justice. She had a nose job. She bleaches her hair. Don't care. I don't care how beautiful she is. I care about the bullet ridden body of Mo, 25 years old. What facts

support my theory? The fact that with Armstrong, they found the weapon that she actually owns. It's a Sig Sauer, Nancy, nine millimeter pistol. They actually found it in her home after she had retreated from this event initially. But here's going to be the biggest tell here. They did recover, we know at least, and this will probably be revealed at trial, but we know that they recovered casings, the spent casings, out of the semi-automatic weapon. Hey, emphasis on plural, casings. Yeah, casings. She shot multiple times. And this is the thing about it.

You kind of led into this just a few moments ago, Nancy. This poor young lady was actually cornered in a bathroom. How old is your son? He is 22. Think about it. Getting chased through a house and your son cowering in a bathroom. You know, the last place you try to lock the door, but that doesn't protect you. She gets in with a gun. Can you even imagine? Go ahead. She's trapped in this environment. There's nowhere to go. I mean, all you got to do is look at your own bathroom at home. If you do have a window, it's probably not big enough to get out of. But, you know, when you've got somebody bearing down on you who, you know, by her own admission and action, she's an athlete as well.

Certainly not at the level of Mo, but, you know, and then she comes armed and at this point in time she's leaving behind these casings that eject out of this weapon multiple and they'll be able to do kind of a generalized match through ballistics on the casings themselves they leave little marks the housing of this weapon leaves little marks on the side that's all You mean the extraction mark when you shoot a gun, the casing jumps out of the gun, but it leaves a mark on it. And that's how they got the perp, the alleged perp in Delphi. He cycled a bullet through the gun. He never fired it.

He racked a slide. Yeah, he racked a slide back and ejected that live round. And that one ejection mark on the casing matches up to his gun in his home. Now, that's the Delphi case. And what a lot of people don't know, ballistics are like a fingerprint, Joe Scott Morgan, as you well know. I've done it myself at the crime lab. You get your known bullet, which would be the bullet out of Mariah's body or the bullet that went through her body. It's lying on the bathroom floor.

Maybe it's lodged in the wall. Carefully, you get it out with pliers or tweezers. You take it to the crime lab. You get what you believe is your murder weapon. You put a bullet in it. You shoot it into a tub of water or, you know, a bunch of pillows, whatever your crime lab uses to absorb the bullet. You get that bullet out.

You put them beside each other under a microscope and it is as clear as a bell. It's called striation marks. As that bullet hurtles down the barrel of a gun, the inside of that gun is like a fingerprint. The way that the metal dried and cooled down when the gun was made, there's only one gun with those little bubbles and markings inside, and those little irregularities leave only one of a kind striation or markings etched on the bullet as it hurtls through so quickly. So you get the two bullets and you turn them around and look and you'll see the same wiggles and grooves on both bullets and it, bam, is a match and that's your murder weapon. That's how they do it.

You're absolutely right, Nancy. And that weapon is going to be unique to her in the sense that there could have been five, 10 other weapons that were made exactly like that on that particular day at that factory. But however she has treated that weapon in life, how many times it's been fired, what type of ammunition makes those markings unique to that weapon. The one thing that we will not have in this case is going to be any gunshot residue on her. Remember, there was a big lapse of time. So that's kind of to their deficit, I think. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on. Hold on. When you shoot a gun, a fine mist expels a gunshot powder. And it's so fine, you really don't even see it. Like in the cartoon, you see a puff of

smoke come up. You don't see it in real life. But as many people compare, it's so fine, you really don't even see it. Like in the cartoon, you see a puff of smoke come up. You don't see it in real life. But as many people compare, it's like taking a powder puff and going poof, and the powder dissolves in the air. It's just that fine or finer. And when a person's hand that has just fired a gun, they don't even know it. But their hand to about 36 inches, their arm, maybe even on their clothes, can have that very fine gunshot residue on them. And what Joe Scott is saying in regular people talk is that all you have to do is this and you get rid of it just like baby powder. Wash your hands, rub them on something.

It's gone. And they didn't get to Caitlin Armstrong in time to do a sufficient GSR gunshot residue test. So, yeah, we're screwed on that. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I want to understand the facts that show that Mariah was chased through the house. Hey, Tony Plohetsky. Yeah. The crime scene is a friend's home. Mariah was staying at a friend's home while she was there competing.

Tell me about that neighborhood. What do we know about that house? Yeah, so it's a house in East Austin, a well-known gentrified area of our city. Nancy is where many young people live in our city. And I think one thing that is also so signature to this case and this investigation is that Caitlin Armstrong's Jeep SUV, in addition to the ballistics testing and results that we've been talking about, police and prosecutors first got on to Caitlin Armstrong as a suspect because they saw her Jeep SUV stalking that area around the exact same time. You are so right, Tony Plohetsky. You know, for a lot of us, you see one Jeep go by, you've seen them all. Take a listen to Erica D, as in Delta, from Crime Online. As the Austin Police Department investigate, they reach out to neighbors asking for surveillance video. A neighbor's camera pointed at the driveway of the home where Wilson was staying showed a black Jeep Grand Cherokee drive past the house

just one minute after Wilson went inside. In the meantime, police reach out to Colin Strickland, who agrees to an interview at his home. When police arrive, they see a black Jeep Grand Cherokee in the driveway. The same one seen in the surveillance video. The same one in the surveillance video. Now listen to our cut. 153B brother. It's the Austin Police Department detective Richard Spiller. Our investigation shows that before her death, Wilson was in the company of Colin Strickland. The preliminary investigation revealed that Colin dropped Wilson off at 1708 Maple Avenue at approximately 836 PM. Investigators obtained ring camera video from the neighborhood

that captured a vehicle at 1708 Maple Avenue within two minutes of the time Colin dropped off Wilson. It was later discovered that vehicle was registered to Colin's girlfriend, Caitlin Armstrong. Yeah, you know what? I love the DMV. They're so, Department of Motor Vehicles, they're so maligned. They're so mistreated. They always get a bad rap. You know what? DMV has helped me solve so many cases. And guess what? It also helped solve the Idaho force flight because Brian Koberger was driving around in his white Elantra. And the moment white Elantra was put out there, two campus cops start digging through all the white Elantras that are registered to where he was going to school and they find his name, his apartment number. They go by, they see that tag number. They immediately log it back to Brian Koberger. They find out everything

they can about him. And that's how the case really got cracked open at the get go. Tell me about it, Tony Blahetsky. What does the surveillance video show? And then to you, Bethany Marshall, because I got a whopper for you. Go ahead, Tony. Tell me about the black vehicle circling the crime scene. Yes. So it was around that same time, around 830 at night. And the way it happened is that police, as they. OK, wait a minute. 830. Mariah and the Armstrong boyfriend, Colin Strickland, they were home by 830. Yeah, it was it was an early an early night. I mean, they had gone swimming at at a pool, a well-known municipal pool here in Austin called Deep Eddy.

Nancy, from that pool up the hill, there was a restaurant that they went to. They grabbed a couple of burgers and then and then they called it a night. So there's no sleeping around, shacking up at a motel, nothing like that. No clubbing, no drinking. They go swimming, they get a burger, and he drops her off and she gets murdered over that? We know through video and the use of DMV video, police say that they were able to rule out Colin Strickland as a suspect because he did exactly what he told police he did. He dropped Mo Wilson off. I don't even know if I would call this cheating. Dr. Bething, that's another thing for me to ask you because as I've always said my whole life, I will have lunch or dance with anybody.

Don't care. I would not classify this necessarily as cheating, although he did lie to Caitlin Armstrong about it. I don't even know if this rises to cheating. But go ahead, Tony Plahetsky. I've got to set the table for Dr. Bethany. And trust me, she only uses silver and fine china. So give me all the facts. So they pretty quickly dismiss Colin Strickland as a suspect. And then they see the police within 24 hours are knocking on every neighbor's door.

And one of the neighbors says, hey, I've got this ring camera video. They are able to distinguish some unique characteristics of this Jeep SUV, including, by the way, a bicycle rack on the back. And then another neighbor suggests that he saw someone leaving the home around the time of the murder and possibly pushing a bike. And that bike was later found kind of hidden in some bushes. So the police formed this theory that whoever killed Mariah Wilson then meant to do something with the bike, either in an act of vengeance or to possibly even make it look like some sort of burglary. Wow. That's a lot of information, Tony Plohetsky.

Guys, Tony Plohetsky joining me at the courthouse right now, investigative reporter Austin American-Statesman, also with KVUE, and dare I I suggest a longtime friend and colleague. Okay, Dr. Bethany and Irv Brandt, renowned U.S. Marshal, traveled all over the world catching criminals. Irv, I'm getting to you. You know where I'm going. Dr. Bethany, really? Mariah is dead over this? Well, you know, one of the criteria for borderline sociopathic personality, which... Oh, here you go....is rage in response to perceived slights and injuries. Perceived slight injuries. I'm just writing this down. Go ahead. Perceived slights and injury. You see that all over the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, that women, especially

with personality disorders, respond to perceived slights and injuries negatively. And in this case, obviously, she has pathological jealousy. It reminds me of those chimps that are fawned over by their owners, and then one more person comes onto the property and they get their face ripped off by the chimp. It's a very primitive, primitive anger. And I think that people who have borderline personality, they bring everyone down around them. We don't really know that her boyfriend was a cheater, but now in the press, everyone's calling him a cheater. So this is what they do. It's like a cancer that spreads outwards. I'm thinking about her running through the house after Wilson, running away from the security guards, jumping over a fence. This woman puts enormous energy into herself, into getting away, into committing crimes. She's very, very active.

And I also see this by patients who are borderline. All they think about is revenge, jealousy. They create a mess everywhere they go. And the particular type of mess they create is like huge temper tantrums. They groom people. They groom their neighbors and their friends by being really sweet and loving. That's what I'm afraid she's going to do with the jury. So they will have. Good point. They'll think there's no way this woman could have done that.

They may even think, hey, maybe Mariah was the aggressor. But that's not what the facts and evidence are going to show. Because there's hard evidence, forensic evidence, that Mariah did not fight back. She couldn't fight back. She was unarmed. I believe, and I'm not sure about this, that there may have been a silencer involved because none of the neighbors heard gunshots. But I want you to hear how innocent it was on Mariah's part anyway. Take a listen to our cut A.

Anna Wilson is better known by her middle name, Mariah. In racing circles, it's Mo. Wilson is an up-and-coming gravel and mountain bike racer, and she's in Austin to tackle the gravel locos race in Hico. As luck would have it, Wilson has friends in the area, so instead of booking a hotel, she bunks down with her friend. The friend already had plans for the evening, but that's okay. Wilson has plans of her own. She tells her friend that she's meeting up with a guy she dated briefly for dinner and an evening of catching up. But when the friend gets

home, Mariah is not there to open the door. Listen, our cut B. When Mo Wilson's friend returns home from her dinner plans, she finds Wilson unresponsive inside the home. There's blood everywhere and her friend is in the bathroom lodged between the toilet and the wall. 911 is called. Police arrive to find Wilson has been shot multiple times with a 9mm weapon, and it doesn't appear the shooting is random. I want to talk about that issue because it's very, very significant to me. Joseph Scott Morgan, a professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University. It's significant to me that Mariah Moe is lodged between the toilet and the wall. That little spot, you know, a lot of homes, they put the commode off so it doesn't take any extra room off by the wall.

Now, this is what I was asking earlier, and I want to give you my hypothesis. Blood was, quote, everywhere. Blood everywhere. And Mariah was wedged down as far as she could get between the commode and the wall, which means because the blood is everywhere, she was shot. And then she kept trying to get away and finally wedged down between that commode and the wall to protect herself. And that's where she died. That's what I'm talking about, that she was chased because all the blood isn't right there, a pool of blood where her body was. It was elsewhere, which tells me a chase was on. on yeah you just follow the path that the blue

blood leaves and here here's one other thing i think a lot of folks out there believe that if you're shot you're automatically going to go down uh and of course that's anatomically dependent it depends on where you're injured you know the impact of that injury and here here's another layer of fear that kind of plays into what Mo's last moments were, Nancy, is that if we go with this idea that she was chased and she wound up, you know, wedged in this tiny little environment, she's trying to go to that last point of retreat where she can put distance between herself, she would have had an awareness. Oh my God, I'm being shot. Adrenaline's pumping. She's pumping blood. And so when she gets in there, heightened fear, and this individual literally advances on her and executes her in this

environment. It's not just one shot, two shot. and this is more of a Bethany comment, but the fact that she shot so many times, and we don't have the exact number at this point in time, but the fact that she shot so many times, this goes to either wanting to finish the job at that moment in time or just like when we see a stabbing where you've got overkill, Nancy. You've got a lot of hate. You've got a lot of anger going forward to this. Hey, and I'm going to circle back.

Hey, to you, Alan Bennett, a high profile lawyer, former prosecutor with Gunter, Bennett and Anthus joining us from this jurisdiction. Alan Bennett, I want to hear everything about this courthouse, everything you know about the judge that you can repeat on air. But I want to circle back to you about flight and about the multiple gunshots, because man, I would hammer that with this jury. A lot of people think, oh, uh, Caitlin Armstrong was mad. She was angry. So she pulled a gun and just shot. Oh, H-E-L-L-N-O. Premeditation in that jurisdiction of Austin can be formed in the blink of an eye, the twinkling of a moment, the time it takes you to pull a gun and raise it and pull the trigger. The fact that Mariah Wilson Moe was shot multiple times is time enough, more than enough to form premeditation intent to act under the law, much less if my theory is true,

where Mariah was actually chased to the house. That's more time. You've got her circling the house with bringing a gun with her showing intent all that time. She could have just kept on driving, but no, she went in and gunned down Mariah out of anger over a hamburger. Really? They had a hamburger together so she gets the death penalty? Uh-uh. Yeah, no, I don't care how glamorous she is. She can go straight to supper with Satan for all I care. So we're talking about what's going to be, and it's happening right now, by the way, the opening statements are happening. Now catch this. The police actually had, had Caitlin Armstrong in their grasp. They did not arrest her on suspicion of murder. They let her go because of a technicality and a previous warrant where she did not pay for Botox and she got away, she left without paying, and there was a warrant on her for that. They could have grabbed her

right then on that warrant, but no, they let her go and she took off. But I want you to hear this. I want you to hear our cut 154. This is Detective Richard Spiller from Austin PD. The Austin Police Department's TAC Tail Unit located Cullen at his residence, and he agreed to an interview. Members of the Tack and Tail Unit located Armstrong, and she was arrested for a misdemeanor warrant issued out of Travis County. Armstrong was transported to the main police station and interviewed. Armstrong was questioned about her vehicle being in the area as pictured on the Ring camera. However, she would not confirm or deny being in the area of the murder and quickly terminated the interview.

Nothing raises my suspicion more than someone that can't say, oh, no, that's not my car. It doesn't have a world peace sticker on the back or it doesn't have a little dent in the fender. Or in my case, it doesn't have a Halloween skeleton strapped to the top you should be able to look at a car and say oh that's not my car because it doesn't have whatever but she saw the video of that car her car going around and around the soon-to-be murder scene she said huh huh what and left and they let her go even though she had a misdemeanor warrant on her for failure to pay for, of course, Botox treatments. I love that part.

Police want to talk to her, but she is nowhere to be found. And then we find out this. Take a listen to our cut, F as in Frank. Police want to talk to Armstrong again, but she's nowhere to be found. Not only did she disappear, she deleted all her social media accounts. Law enforcement is on the lookout for Armstrong driving her black Jeep Grand Cherokee,

but three days later, video is released of Armstrong in Austin's airport. Investigators say she flew from Austin to Houston and then on to New York. Surveillance footage shows Caitlin Armstrong flying into New York's LaGuardia Airport on May 14th. Then, on May 18th, the day after a murder warrant was issued for Armstrong, someone dropped her off at New Jersey's Newark Airport. But there's no record of her taking a flight. And just like that, she slips through the fingers of authorities and she is gone. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Joining me right now, Irv Brandt, Senior Inspector, U.S. Marshal Service, International Investigations, Chief Inspector, Department of Justice, Office of International Affairs, bestselling author of Solo Shot, Curse of the Blue Stone, and Flying Solo, Top of the World, both on Amazon, which I believe he incorporated all of his world travels hunting down criminals like Caitlin Armstrong to create Solo.

Okay, Jack Solo. Irv Brandt, thank you for being with us. So there is a massive search for Caitlin Armstrong. She slips through their fingers. They got to be very embarrassed. They should be. I mean, she's right there in the police HQ. And because there's a different, I think it was a DOB on the misdemeanor warrant.

They're like, oh, maybe that's not her. Anyway, she escapes. Tell me about how they find her hiding out at a surf hostel in Costa Rica, trying to teach surf yoga with a nose job, changing her appearance. Oops. That's correct, Nancy. She left the United States beyond a fraudulent passport and made her way to that surf resort. You mean we thank her sister's passport. Didn't we find out for sure it was the sister's passport? They look very similar. Go ahead. That's correct. And since she came in under a different name, and she used multiple aliases while she was in Costa Rica,

and she made her way to the surf resort where she changed her hair color. She had cosmetic surgery. She was obviously hiding. She was telling people that she'd met, she'd made up different stories about her life. And when U.S. Marshal Service, along with the Costa Rican police, tracked her down, you know, and took her into custody, she waived her right to deportation hearings and voluntarily returned to the United States, escorted by the United States Marshal Service, and was taken into

custody in Texas, where she was housed until time of trial. Can we talk about her making up stories about her life, traveling under a fake passport, getting as far away from the U.S. as she could, and a place where they speak English. And of course, Costa Rica is a very unique place. You've got the beach at Tamarindo. You have the mountains like Monteverde. You have the volcanic area, which is a whole swath of land there at Arnal Volcanoes. So she could blend in in a very unique way. There are tourists, so she could blend in in that way. She picked a great place to go. There's plenty of people that speak English. And there are areas of Costa Rica that are extremely

remote. For instance, I've hiked there before. If you go hiking in Costa Rica, say around Orinal or in the rainforest area, you can blend in and never be found, Irv Brandt. That's exactly right, Nancy, and that's the reason why she picked it. There's a very large expat community, and what I mean by that is Americans that reside in Costa Rica. And one of the allures of Costa Rica, if you ask them, they'll tell you going off the grid. They just absolutely want to disappear. They don't they don't want to be found.

And I'm not talking about criminals. I'm just talking about people in general, in general. That's correct. And so it's a perfect hiding place for someone who is being hunted by the law. You know what else it is? It's a surfing mecca. Surfers love Costa Rica. They have awesome waves. So she would blend in perfectly there in the surfing and yoga scene. She was hiding out in this hostel and there in the hostel when she was finally found are receipts.

There was indication that she had had a nose job to change her appearance. So let me go to Alan Bennett. Based on everything you're hearing from Irv Brandt, Alan Bennett, former prosecutor, now civil attorney, many judges, well, the law is in many jurisdictions now that the judge cannot instruct the jury at the end of the trial on flight as indicator of guilt. In other words, when I see a cop pull up behind me on the interstate, I may touch the brakes, but I know flora at 110 MPH try to get away. Why would I? Because I don't have anything to hide right now anyway. But flight, when you do take off at 110 MPH, why? A jury can assume, if argued correctly, that you take flight because you're guilty. Come on. She's traveling under a fake name with her sister's passport, gets a nose job, makes up a whole new life story,

on and on and on to distance herself from the shooting. It's flight. And the state prosecutor can still argue that to the jury. Why would she have gone to Costa Rica and hide out in a hostel where she's sharing a room with five other people in a bunk bed if she didn't have to? Yes, ma'am. I agree. And Texas does honor that doctrine. It is what we refer to as evidence of guilt or evidence of consciousness of guilt. And you're absolutely right. Of course, you expect an innocent person to be jumping someone who does not want to go to court, who does not want to have their day, who does not want to have their trial to clear their good name. And in fact, here in Texas, that should be admissible before the jury to show that Ms.

Armstrong's conduct is conduct from which a jury can infer guilt or certainly show her own consciousness of guilt. Same would also apply to her subsequent attempt to escape custody just a month or so ago. You know, I was just going to bring that up. Irv Brandt, Alan Bennett is right. I can't hear what I can't wait to hear what Dr. Bethany has to say about this. Irv Brandt, you know, in the past couple of weeks, she faked up an illness to get an appointment away from the jail, a doctor's appointment. And they take her to the appointment off site. And of course,

she makes a run for it. And the jailers were in no physical shape to give chase. I can just say that right now. She manages, even in handcuffs, she didn't have on leg restraints, she manages to scale the wall, a big wall. And look, Jackie, what would you say? Five feet tall at least? She scales the wall even in handcuffs. They finally get her. So Irv Brandt, this woman is intent on escaping. Why then? Because it was time for her trial and she thinks she's going to be found guilty. Nancy, you're correct. And I'm sorry, but this is not a funny subject. I don't mean to make light of it.

Mariah's parents aren't listening to your rant snickering. I watched the video of her that went viral of her just torching and erase those deputies while she's in a waist chain and handcuffed to her waist. And she's still. They need to go to desk duty right now. Nancy, I'm not going to make fun of them because it happens in 30 in my 30 years of law enforcement i have had suspects who were in cuffs break away from me and i had to chase them down hey i don't know that i could catch her but i'm not wearing a deputy outfit and a gun on my hip sworn to protect the person. I'm telling you, she's fast. She's fast like a cheetah. But they got her. They got her. And so I'm not going to make fun of them because.

Nobody asked you to. I'm asking you about what that means to you. Well, that shows a consciousness of guilt. And she wants to get away. She doesn't want to go to trial. But what happens now, the unintended consequences of this is she's designated as an escape risk. And that's just not for the right now. This is going to follow her forever. Can we talk about what it means in the here and now? It means this jury can hear about it.

Evidence indicating guilt. Dr. Bethany Marshall, jump in. Throw Irv Brandt a life raft for Pete's sake. It indicates something else. It indicates her ability to plan ahead. Remember in jail, she exercised vigorously. She turned a pen into an object that she could use to loosen the handcuff. This woman plots and plans in an oceanic kind of way. So when it comes to the killing of Wilson, it was not just in the spur of the moment. This woman, Armstrong, thought about it and thought about it and thought about it. There's a lot of careful planning that goes into this.

Maybe if I saw her in my office, I would see her perseverating, obsessing, rageful, in a paranoid state. And you know, this going to Costa Rica is also interesting because she had this $12,000 Jeep she sold. And $12,000 goes a long way in Costa Rica. It doesn't go a long way in the United States if you want to get a nose job and you want to live on the lamb. And I think the other so fascinating thing to me, you know how criminals, men in jail always become ministers or they, you know, they accept the Lord Jesus Christ into their heart. And I'm not making fun of that because I'm a Christian. Do not crank up. Don't tune up about Christ. Okay. But women do the equivalent version by becoming yoga instructors and mystics and spiritual leaders.

They all feel in some grandiose way like they've come to see the light, and they believe it, Nancy. They believe they have a unique and special connection to God. I do not know what that has to do with her taking off in arm restraints. Grandiosity. But somehow you did it, Dr. Bethany. Somehow you cobbled those two together. I can tell you right now, that jury is hearing how many times 25-year-old Mariah Wilson was shot, shot dead until she bled out on the bathroom floor.

We'll bring you the latest. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.