00:00:00
Tonight on Dateline. My friend is laying on the bathroom floor and there's blood everywhere.
00:00:09
She sees that Mariah is covered in blood. One deceased female inside of an apartment.
00:00:15
And it's on you to figure it out. Yes. I am here with the fabulous Mo Wilson. You are like ready.
00:00:22
I'm ready. She's a pro cyclist. Everybody liked her. What about the man she was going to see that night?
00:00:29
Also a professional cyclist. He's the last person she saw. There had been a previous short romantic history.
00:00:37
His girlfriend didn't know that he went out with Mariah the night before. Did you consider them both to be persons of interest?
00:00:44
Yes. The only problem is we can't find her. She's gone. It's a really good place for people to hide out.
00:00:51
And tons of people do. I was like, wow, this took an unexpected turn. Someone had escaped from jail.
00:00:58
Yes. I'm thinking something big is going on. A champion cyclist murdered at an international mystery.
00:01:06
Who hated Mariah so much that they wanted her dead? I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.
00:01:21
Here's Keith Morrison with The Night Time Stopped. It was too late for all their frantic haste.
00:01:38
The young woman lying on the bathroom floor in the tiny above the garage apartment was
00:01:44
long beyond saving. The other one, the one who called 911, who tried and tried CPR, was a mess.
00:01:55
Nothing she could do. Whoever shot her friend had made quite sure of the result.
00:02:06
This was murder. It was just before 10 p.m., May 11, 2022, Austin, Texas. What's her name?
00:02:15
Her name is Mariah, M-O-R-I-A-H, Wilson. She's here for bike race this weekend. This is Mariah Wilson, the winner of round one of the 2022 Lifetime Grand Prix.
00:02:37
It had been a little like a fairy tale. Mariah, Moe, sweet, kind, hardworking. On a fast and furious ride to the top of her sport, gravel racing.
00:02:50
Moe Wilson coming through. On the cusp of something that felt monumental. Moe has bridged that gap.
00:02:58
Until what happened in that little apartment on a hot spring night shocked the gravel racing world.
00:03:06
One of the detectives was very big into bike racing. And she actually called me.
00:03:12
She asked me, she said, wait, is this for real? I said, yeah. She was like, this is huge.
00:03:18
Oh, yes, big and awful. how to comprehend the murder of Mo Wilson, the seething resentments before it,
00:03:26
the crazy events that followed it, the suspect determined to escape justice twice.
00:03:32
All of it so very strange. Tonight, the whole story, video and sound of that terrible night,
00:03:41
an inside account of the investigation and the hunt for the killer. but that night may 11th it was baffling it was also austin police detective richard spitler's
00:03:57
first case as lead investigator i was definitely nervous the only information that i had gotten
00:04:03
was there was one deceased female inside of an apartment and multiple shell casings on scene
00:04:10
and we don't have any suspect information and it's on you to figure it out yes Who did this and why?
00:04:18
Was it robbery? Mariah's $12,000 bike was missing, but... These home invasion robberies, you know, you're looking at phones being stolen, computers, money, any jewelry.
00:04:31
And none of that was taken? It was just the bike. And it wasn't lost for long. 432, I located the bike.
00:04:38
They found it about a block away, dumped in some bamboo. So all night, they searched for clues and for security video that may or may not have existed.
00:04:54
And especially for witnesses, like, of course, the friend who called 911. Her name is Caitlin Cash.
00:05:03
Did you swab her for gunshot residue? We did. I believe that we also did a swab for her DNA as well.
00:05:11
Because again, at this point, it's an open investigation. It's very active. We don't know who did this, and we only know that there's one person that is currently involved in this investigation, and that's Caitlin Cash.
00:05:26
But she didn't seem like much of a suspect. How broken up did she seem about it?
00:05:31
Extremely. She was definitely in shock and very upset. She was trying her best to hold it together.
00:05:37
Caitlin told Detective Spittler she'd gone out for the evening. And when she returned, she walks inside and she recalled seeing Mariah's legs sticking
00:05:50
out from the bathroom. And she said she really didn think anything about it at the time She said normally whenever Mariah goes out on long rides that she would lay down on that bathroom floor because that it a tile floor
00:06:05
So it feels a lot cooler. So she walks in, you know, tries to say hi to Mariah. Mariah doesn't respond.
00:06:13
Then Caitlin got closer. She goes into the bathroom and she sees that Mariah is covered in blood and unresponsive.
00:06:21
She immediately calls 911. Caitlin, are you with her now? Yes, I'm with her now.
00:06:26
They take her through the steps of how to conduct CPR. Just pump hard and fast and then count out loud so I can count with you.
00:06:33
Correct. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Good. Now in an interview room late into the night,
00:06:42
Caitlin tried to think of anything that might help. She told the detective Mariah didn't live in Austin.
00:06:48
She was only staying in town for that race on the weekend and staying at Caitlin's place.
00:06:52
She also told the detective she had an app for the lock on her door, and it showed the exact time Mariah locked up and left earlier that evening, 5.55 p.m.,
00:07:05
and the time Mariah returned, 8.36 p.m. And was it locked again after that or not?
00:07:13
So we don't have any indication to show that it was ever locked back. So perhaps the killer just walked in the front door.
00:07:21
Caitlin also showed the detective her last text from Mariah at 5.05. I think I'm going to go swimming with Colin.
00:07:30
Colin was Colin Strickland, a cycling friend, also famous in gravel racing circles, who happened to live in Austin.
00:07:40
What did she tell you about the man she was going to see that night, Colin Strickland?
00:07:44
So she had described Colin as being also a professional cyclist. She didn't know too much about him other than that they had dated previously.
00:07:55
What did you think when you heard that? Well, now I definitely want to know more about Colin.
00:07:59
I'll be right back. Of course they did. How about you guys? There's already a history with Mo.
00:08:05
I feel like that would definitely raise some emotions. An excellent question. One of many in places near and very far.
00:08:14
The only problem is that we can't find her. She's gone. in shifting shapes and slippery names.
00:08:21
It just blew our mind. It was incredible. And oh, the deadly web we weave. And first we practice to deceive.
00:08:30
Afterwards, my brain just went, oh, and I was like, wow, that was by everything.
00:08:33
I'm here with the fabulous Mo Wilson. You are, like, ready. I'm ready. You're ready.
00:08:51
I'm so excited to be here. To anyone close to Mariah, it was no surprise she grew up to be a champion athlete.
00:08:58
Mo, super duper congratulations, and I hope you can just really soak up this win.
00:09:02
Thank you so much. Charming, unassuming Mariah could talk with great enthusiasm about equipment, strategy, or unusual God-given endurance.
00:09:12
Remember you told me that you liked those climbs. I'll be thinking about that when I'm suffering.
00:09:18
My dad was a ski racer. A few weeks before Mariah's death, she spoke with her friend Christopher Strickland for his podcast about growing up in rural Vermont and a family of skiers.
00:09:31
I was on skis before I could basically walk. I really liked downhill skiing, or like speed skiing,
00:09:38
and I really wanted to try to make the USP team for downhill. But then I had some knee injuries.
00:09:44
That is when Mariah found another sport to conquer, a mashup of road and mountain biking called gravel racing.
00:09:53
Gravel can be fast. But it is all Mariah Wilson as she is snaking through into the finish.
00:10:00
The course is long, some 100-plus miles. An incredible ride, as Mariah Wilson knows exactly where to go.
00:10:07
And the terrain is difficult, said Christopher. Some regions of the country are a little bit more sandy with their gravel,
00:10:14
and some are a lot more chunky. Some of the rocks are really sharp. It just depends.
00:10:19
None of that stopped Mariah. Moe Wilson coming through. All of a sudden, everybody knew her.
00:10:25
Everybody knew her, yeah. Did she let this go to her head? Mo is one of the most humble people that you could ever talk to.
00:10:34
Her thing was she wanted to make a list of things that she thought would improve her capabilities.
00:10:40
Not necessarily her results, but she just wanted to check those things off. And if that results in a win, she was happy.
00:10:48
Here she was crossing the finish line of a race called Sea Otter in Monterey, California, a month before she died.
00:10:55
This is Mariah Wilson, the winner of round one. She was getting all sorts of congratulations.
00:11:03
Everybody just loved Moe. What investigators were having a hard time figuring out was who didn't and why.
00:11:15
Everything from the scene is saying that this is something very personal. And so who personally hated Mariah so much that they wanted her dead?
00:11:25
Within hours of the murder, police canvassing the area found this security video of an SUV in the vicinity of the crime scene.
00:11:34
It showed that it had a large bike rack and a luggage rack on the roof. That car was shown to drive past right around 837.
00:11:42
So one minute after Mariah entered into the apartment. One minute couldn't be a coincidence.
00:11:51
surely. The vehicle had to be connected to the murder somehow The detective sent a surveillance team to Colin Strickland house He was the guy Mariah was with the previous evening so certainly a person of interest
00:12:06
Quickly, the surveillance officers called in. They tell me, hey, there is a black SUV out here.
00:12:12
There's a bike rack on the back. It looks like this is the same car that was on that camera.
00:12:19
So? Hey, is Colin? Yes. He's in the garage. I asked him if he knew who Mariah Wilson.
00:12:30
Well, not Mariah Wilson, because her her name is actually Anna Mariah Wilson. Do you know Anna?
00:12:38
Moe. Yeah. Everybody calls her Moe. He said, no, I don't know who that is. And I'm thinking, oh, this is this is a big red flag now.
00:12:48
You were sure. I know that you were just out with her last night. Last name is Wilson.
00:12:54
Rider, she's a gravel rider. Yes, I do. So I told him she was killed last night.
00:13:01
How did he react to that? He was surprised, kind of shocked. He was being investigated as a homicide.
00:13:10
And I asked him, hey, what happened last night? We went to D-Betty yesterday afternoon.
00:13:20
and then they started there. And I dropped her at her apartment with the apartment she's been staying at.
00:13:31
Deep Eddie is a local swimming pool where Colin said they went to swim. He said he took her on the back of his motorcycle.
00:13:39
But now the detective knew about the Jeep parked in Colin's driveway and that it looked just like the one on surveillance video.
00:13:48
Of course, at that time, I'm thinking, I have this Jeep on camera. Now I really think that you're lying to me.
00:13:54
I think you're distancing yourself from this car. You don't want to be associated with this car because you know what happened.
00:14:02
So Spittler asked Colin to come downtown, which he did. And on the face of it seemed cooperative.
00:14:11
Then we went down to the motorcycle. She got put on the helmet that we rode to Dee Betty.
00:14:16
We went swimming for about 30 minutes to 40 minutes, pretty short. He asked Colin about his relationship with Mariah.
00:14:26
Just friends, said Colin. But Caitlin Cash had told the detectives that Colin and Mariah had dated briefly.
00:14:35
Did he agree that this had once been a romance with Mariah? Yes. It was a brief fling six months earlier, said Colin.
00:14:43
happened during a break with his longtime girlfriend. I mean, honestly, it was kind of just like an interruption blip.
00:14:51
Long over, said Colin, he was back with his regular girlfriend now. A real estate agent and yoga teacher named Caitlin Armstrong.
00:14:59
He admitted he did not tell Caitlin about his little outing with Mariah. She didn't know that he went out with Mariah the night before.
00:15:09
She thought that he was with someone else. where so colin believed he also believed he was keeping any and all phone or text contact with
00:15:18
mariah a secret from his girlfriend he didn't call mariah by her correct name and his telephone
00:15:25
did he no no he did not so he actually renamed uh her contact to christine wall i haven't saved
00:15:36
was a different name just because i am i gotcha his name is christine pretty much i i feel the
00:15:43
right to have a friendship with this person of course without having like constant strife he did
00:15:51
that because he knew his girlfriend caitlin had gone through his phone in the past he didn't want
00:15:57
start, any issues, any drama. Drama? Which the detective read as jealousy. He described her as
00:16:06
just being just a regular jealous girlfriend. A regular jealous girlfriend. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, just,
00:16:13
yeah. Colin was in the interview room for over six hours. He was talking, but the detective felt
00:16:20
something was off. Some of the stuff, you know, he was really open and willing to tell me about,
00:16:26
But it just seemed like he was still hiding something. Of course, Spittler had to ask Colin about the Jeep.
00:16:34
Who drives that Jeep? He said, well, that's my girlfriend's Jeep. That's Caitlin's Jeep.
00:16:38
He said, well, do you ever drive that Jeep? And he described it as it being a girly car.
00:16:45
He refused to drive it. What's wrong with it? It's just a Barbie car. Oh, really?
00:16:49
I like manuals and diesels and things that are hard to drive. Although, given his guarded behavior, you don't know whether he was driving the car or not.
00:16:58
He could have just as easily been doing so. Exactly. One of them had to be involved in this.
00:17:04
Colin or Caitlin or maybe? Did you consider them both to be persons of interest at some point?
00:17:10
Yes. My name is Colin Strickland. I'm a bicycle racer based in Austin, Texas. Colin's out. There's your top five leaders back out on the road.
00:17:32
Like Mariah Wilson, Colin Strickland was a gravel racing champion. At 35, he'd been at it for much longer than she.
00:17:39
The weather's perfect in my book. Looks breezy and warm. Colin and Mariah met in the fall of 2021 at a race.
00:17:49
felt a spark, perhaps, and certainly recognized something special in each other.
00:17:55
But now half a year later he was in an interview room at the Austin Police Department answering questions about Mariah murder And though he seemed helpful at first when the questioning shifted to more about his girlfriend Caitlin
00:18:10
Spitler thought Colin went into protective mode, suddenly didn't seem to know much at all.
00:18:15
I would ask him, okay, well, you know, where does she work? I don't know where she works.
00:18:19
y'all y'all have been together for a few years and you don't know where she works you know so
00:18:26
it kind of seemed like he just he didn't really know much about caitlin's personal life or wasn't
00:18:32
going to tell you one or the other or wasn't going to tell me mariah was shot so spitler had to ask
00:18:39
did he own a gun there's two pistols he said that there's actually two firearms inside the house
00:18:46
One of them for Caitlin, said Colin, to protect herself. She's been in a couple of situations where she's felt vulnerable, locked in.
00:18:56
He had mentioned that Caitlin had been involved in an incident with a homeless person,
00:19:03
so she wanted a way to be able to defend herself. By December of 21, after his fling with Mariah, Colin was back with Caitlin.
00:19:13
And together they went to a gun store and bought one for him, one for her. So was he a suspect or not?
00:19:23
As Colin left the interview, Spitler still wasn't sure. Colin, though, was worried enough that he found himself an attorney.
00:19:30
He's male. He's physically strong and capable. He's the last person she saw. There had been a previous short romantic history.
00:19:41
Former prosecutor turned defense counsel, Claire Carter, understood his concern.
00:19:45
That meets all the criteria for who's the suspect until you dig deeper and understand everything he said about the night was true.
00:19:59
Claire Carter could see Colin wasn't familiar with how murder investigations work.
00:20:05
Colin mostly seemed confused to me. He seemed interested in telling the things that he knew, but he did not think he had very much pertinent information.
00:20:17
He thought that his information started and stopped when he dropped Mariah off. Based on the questions police were asking, he said, they seemed to be focusing more on Caitlin than on him.
00:20:30
He did not believe that Caitlin was behind this, but he did believe that the police thought she was.
00:20:39
Across town at Austin PD, they were still sorting out what and who they were looking at.
00:20:46
It was all hands on deck as detectives tried to track down any and all leads. Any time anyone tells us anything of what they did, we are always going to do what we can to either verify it or disprove it.
00:21:01
Detective Jonathan Riley and his team were very much focused on Colin and busy fact-checking everything he told Detective Spittler.
00:21:09
As he's letting us know, yes, we went here to Kohlberger. We're sending people out there to not just take his word for it.
00:21:16
We went there. We actually found the video of him with Moe there. And there they were, Mariah in blue, Colin with the yellow hat,
00:21:26
sharing a meal of burgers and beers. And here, at 8.10, they walked out, presumably to head back to Mariah's friend's apartment.
00:21:36
Sure enough, a camera across the street caught Colin and Mariah riding away on his motorcycle, just as he had told them.
00:21:44
So he wasn't driving the Jeep. A lot of the things that Colin had said, you know, they were corroborated.
00:21:51
But at the same time, I still felt that Colin knew more than what he was telling me.
00:22:00
Investigators suspected that what he was holding back involved Caitlin. So not only now are we looking at him, we start looking into Caitlin.
00:22:10
We find that there is a warrant out. It was for theft of service for a Botox treatment.
00:22:17
We decided that we're going to go ahead and arrest Caitlin for that warrant. Time to talk to the girlfriend.
00:22:23
I'm going to chat with you real quick and I'm going to get through this really fast, okay?
00:22:26
Thank you. Okay. I remember driving into Martha and seeing a girl on one of Colin's bikes.
00:22:46
because they're custom painted, right? And I was like, oh, that's funny. That must be Colin's girlfriend.
00:22:52
Journalist Gravel Cycler and friend of Colin's, James Stout, on meeting the woman Austin police
00:22:58
now considered a person of interest in a murder investigation, Caitlin Armstrong.
00:23:03
She seemed perfectly personable. She was nice. They seemed very happy together. Colin and Caitlin were also business partners
00:23:11
and a company that renovated mid-century trailers. He did the precise renovations,
00:23:16
she handled the money. These are antique-style push-knob with dimmers for the LED lighting.
00:23:24
James Stout saw in Caitlin a woman who could get things done. She struck me as the sort of person
00:23:29
who would want something and go get it. Colin's a very determined person. She's a very determined person.
00:23:34
And I was like, holy s***, they're like the Power Rangers, you know, when they come together
00:23:37
and make a big Power Ranger. The question for police, was she determined enough to kill?
00:23:44
Still have handcuffs on and everything? Let's get those off for now. So the day after Mariah was murdered,
00:23:51
before Colin was even done with his police interview, Kaitlyn Armstrong was brought to a room down the hall,
00:23:58
arrested for that misdemeanor for skipping out on a Botox bill. All right, so I'm Detective Connor.
00:24:05
And so my partner is actually talking to Colin right now. So I wanted to come in here and start chatting with you and everything
00:24:13
so you don't have to wait super long. Of course, Austin Detective Katie Connor didn't want to talk about Botox.
00:24:19
She wanted to talk about a murder. But before her interview got going, another detective realized there had been a mistake.
00:24:29
um well good news um so that's what they're just knocking on the door is apparently that warrant
00:24:39
the date of birth was wrong so it had your name but if the date of birth is wrong so it's to a
00:24:44
different person so that's not you're not under arrest okay i know it's a little crazy um yeah
00:24:51
so you're they just came to my house and put me in handcuffs for no reason so there was a warrant
00:24:55
Caitlin was free to go. But for some reason, she didn't. So the detective kept asking questions.
00:25:04
Did you hear about what's happened over the past 24 hours? Colin walked in the house and said one of the women in the cycling community passed away.
00:25:11
Yes. It sounds like, you know, Colin's been maybe talking to this girl for a little bit
00:25:17
and kind of threw your name in there. If Detective Connor was trying to get a rise out of Caitlin Armstrong,
00:25:23
it didn't seem to work. It sounds like there are some issues between you and this girl, and I think that there's probably a lot more to it that you could help explain.
00:25:36
There's maybe some explanations for a lot of things that happen, and I think it would be very beneficial to get that side of the story so that we can clear it up.
00:25:46
I'm not sure exactly what you mean or what information you'd like. It sounds like maybe he went out with this girl the other day.
00:25:52
And maybe it sounds like from what he's saying that you were a little upset about it.
00:25:57
I, that is not accurate. Caitlin was right. Colin hadn't actually told the police that she'd been upset.
00:26:06
Well, how could she be? He hadn't told Caitlin about meeting up with Mariah. But the question was perhaps more a tactic to elicit a response.
00:26:15
And Caitlin did respond this way. I would like to leave, I think. You would like to leave?
00:26:21
Yeah. But she didn't. That's completely your choice, but understand if you do, then we only have one side of the story to go on.
00:26:29
And from what we're hearing from Colin, you know, it's one side and I think it would be very beneficial to get the other side of it
00:26:38
and kind of explain a little bit more of what's going on actually. Well, I just am uncertain as to even what you mean or what he could have said,
00:26:49
because I didn't have any idea that he saw or went out with this girl recently. While Caitlin was in the interview room, not giving up much of anything,
00:27:01
other detectives were at the house she shared with Colin. The homicide detectives obtained a search warrant for her and Colin's residence,
00:27:09
and they executed that the same afternoon. These are photos police took. The garage full of bikes, mostly columns.
00:27:20
The yoga mat on the kitchen counter, Caitlin's. There were passports and money from other countries.
00:27:27
Caitlin had studied yoga in Bali in Mexico. The detectives photographed and seized their electronics
00:27:33
to see what stories they would tell. And high up in the bedroom closet, that they found those his and hers handguns.
00:27:42
Police took those, too, for ballistics testing. Of course, there was that Jeep in the driveway.
00:27:49
The biggest thing of all. She was confronted about her Jeep being in the neighborhood,
00:27:55
about it being on camera. Your vehicle was seen next to her house, and we needed to talk about that, okay?
00:28:04
But did Caitlin explain why her Jeep appeared on video right outside the murder scene?
00:28:11
No, she did not. I think if I were in that position and I'm being told that my vehicle is connected in some way to a crime,
00:28:20
I would want to offer some explanation. And she just sits there with almost no reaction.
00:28:26
Well, almost. As detectives couldn't help but notice, she kept nodding her head.
00:28:32
kind of indicating, okay, yeah, you have my Jeep on camera. It was the oddest thing, actually, to watch that video, wasn't it?
00:28:39
To watch her in that interview, and she's giving visual cues that don't match any of the audio,
00:28:46
and it's odd. It's just strange. Yes. Finally, Caitlin had really had enough. I would like to leave if I'm free to leave.
00:28:54
Okay. Okay. Is there any explanation as far as why the vehicle would be over there?
00:29:01
I would like to leave if I'm free to leave. Okay. They did not have enough evidence to hold her.
00:29:08
Okay. Come on. Oh, how they would wish they had. She wants us to raise. And she wants you to do your best.
00:29:31
On May 14, 2022, just three days after Mariah Wilson was murdered, Grabo Locos, the race she had come to town for, went on without her.
00:29:42
But it wasn't easy for anyone. I've been in contact with her parents, and they basically said,
00:29:48
We want you all to do what Mo wants you all to do. She wants you to race And they did though gloom clung to the event Colin Strickland was not there
00:30:06
Colin had bigger concerns, like the fact he was a person of interest in a murder investigation.
00:30:11
He believed he'd been forthright, honest. And investigators thought otherwise. Always seeming to hide something.
00:30:18
Yes, always. Colin and his attorney thought they should clarify things. I did not have any idea what the officers were actually interested in talking to Colin about.
00:30:30
Was it to get information from him as a suspect or was it to get information from him as a witness?
00:30:37
So six days after the murder, Colin voluntarily returned to the police station, this time with his attorney,
00:30:44
and offered to answer whatever questions the detectives asked. He felt the police had already established a narrative, which was that his girlfriend may have murdered Mariah Wilson.
00:30:57
He wanted to make sure that the ideas and thoughts that came to him were also considered.
00:31:03
Colin's assumption was correct. That's exactly what police suspected, that his girlfriend Caitlin murdered Mariah.
00:31:11
But they also wondered, was Colin involved somehow? Colin may have been told by Caitlin what happened and that he was trying to cover for her.
00:31:21
Was he? The detectives asked Colin if Caitlin ever said she wanted to hurt Mariah.
00:31:27
And Colin said, no, not physically. They asked, did Caitlin ever contact Mariah?
00:31:33
Yes, Colin admitted she did. It was when he and Caitlin were taking their break and he was seeing Mariah.
00:31:41
Basically saying, I'm with Colin, you know, I don't know what you're thinking, that you're with Colin.
00:31:48
You know, Colin's supposed to be my boyfriend, things like that. That sure sounded like jealousy to investigators.
00:31:56
Again, Colin continued to say it couldn't be Caitlin. So he told me that, you know, she was nice, she was loving, she was friendly, you know, a lot of very positive things about her.
00:32:09
Wouldn't hurt her fly, that sort of thing. Exactly. Detective Spitler asked point blank if he thought Caitlin killed Mariah.
00:32:17
Colin replied, I cannot fathom it. He said she was one of the least volatile women he had ever dated.
00:32:25
After almost three hours, the conversation wound down and Colin was swabbed for his DNA and he left.
00:32:32
And I think Detective Spitler was happy to have the opportunity to ask him more questions because
00:32:38
the difference in what the police had learned by May 17th and what they had known on May 12th
00:32:45
was vast. That was because tips had come in. One came from a friend of Mariah's. She said
00:32:53
Caitlin called Mariah, telling her to stay away from calling. Mariah blocked her number.
00:33:02
Another tipster told how she ran into Caitlin at a party. Mariah was also there.
00:33:08
Caitlin stopped someone at that party and said, I can't believe she's here. I'm so mad right now.
00:33:15
You know, I want to kill her. People say things you don't really mean it literally.
00:33:22
But then Caitlin said it again. She said, no, I really want to kill her. And then she mentioned something about either that she had recently purchased a firearm or that she was planning on purchasing a firearm.
00:33:33
That kind of evidence, how useful is that if you're trying to put together a murder case?
00:33:37
It's a lot. It shows motive. Motive, of course, isn't enough to make an arrest. Nor are words overheard at parties.
00:33:46
Investigators needed hard evidence. And within hours of that second interview with Colin, they had some.
00:33:53
They found more videos. One captured a Jeep Caitlin's make of car driving past what would soon be the murder scene.
00:34:00
it was not at all a coincidence to detectives. Then came the clincher. Ballistics were back and the two guns seized from Colin at Caitlin's house.
00:34:11
We were able to determine that the bullets that were fired came from Caitlin Armstrong's gun.
00:34:18
With what degree of certainty? It's a very, very high probability. Between those videos, the tips about her anger at Mariah,
00:34:28
and most incriminating, the ballistics. Their only suspect was Caitlin Armstrong.
00:34:34
They believed she acted alone. Spritler got an arrest warrant. The only problem is that we can't find her.
00:34:44
She's gone. Caitlin Armstrong was in the wind. Where was she? Caitlin Armstrong, prime suspect in the murder of Mo Wilson,
00:35:09
had pulled off like some Vegas magician a total disappearing act. And since no one had a clue where to find her,
00:35:17
the order came down. Do what you have to. It's kind of all hands on deck. It's a real team effort.
00:35:24
Detective Jonathan Riley wore two hats. One with the Austin PD. The other is a member of Austin's Lone Star Fugitive Task Force,
00:35:34
which is run by the U.S. Marshals. They handle arrests for big cases in the region, like Caitlin Armstrong's.
00:35:41
Their agents fanned out across Austin. We have a lot of addresses that we're going to get eyes on and check to see if we see her.
00:35:51
They didn't. She wasn't at home. She wasn with friends she wasn at any of the places she was known to frequent And so the hunt went public Now to a developing story tonight U Marshals are searching for a woman in Texas
00:36:05
accused of shooting and killing an up-and-coming cyclist. The search spread out.
00:36:11
Kateman grew up in Michigan, raised by a single mom. She was the middle child and looked after her younger sister, Christine,
00:36:18
before leaving for college and after to travel and study yoga and wind up in Austin.
00:36:24
So, had she run back to Michigan? The marshals called her family. Caitlin wasn't there.
00:36:32
Colin told them he hadn't seen her since the morning of May 13th, two days after the murder, when they went for coffee.
00:36:39
Caitlin had made the suggestion that possibly their house was bugged now, and she didn't want to talk about anything in the house.
00:36:48
On the advice of his new attorney, Claire Carter, Colin stayed away from Caitlin after that.
00:36:53
So it made the recommendation that they stay separately until more was revealed about who the suspect was
00:37:02
and what the facts were around this murder. So Colin steered clear of their place.
00:37:08
He told the police he had no idea where Caitlin was, and there was no use tracing her cell phone.
00:37:14
We had Caitlin's cell phone at that time, so we couldn't track her. Police had taken her phone when they served the warrant at Colin and Caitlin's house.
00:37:23
But if they couldn't track her, surely they could track her Jeep and find her that way.
00:37:30
We had no hits through our license plate scanners showing that her car had been seen anywhere.
00:37:39
No one knew where she was. What made it worse? They discovered they didn't have to let Caitlin walk out of the police station after that Botox bilking arrest.
00:37:50
Armstrong was mistakenly released from custody on the misdemeanor warrant. They'd thought her date of birth was wrong on the warrant.
00:37:57
It turned out it wasn't. So now they had to admit she'd slipped out of their hands.
00:38:02
And it had been six days since Caitlin walked out of the interview room. She'd had lots of time to skip town to who knew where.
00:38:12
So I know that she has a passport. I know that she travels to Mexico. It wasn't long before the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force discovered video from May 14th, just three days after Mariah was murdered.
00:38:24
Two days after Caitlin walked out of the police department. And there she was at the Austin airport, a mask obscuring her face, a yoga mat on her back.
00:38:34
Well, now that we have that information that, you know, we know that she went up to New York.
00:38:38
We're checking her passport. You know, it's been flagged. Why New York? She does have family in New York. She has a sister.
00:38:45
that lives there. Her sister, Christine, who looked a lot like her. Caitlin could no longer
00:38:52
travel on her own passport. But what if she got hold of her sister's passport and used that to
00:38:58
fly out of the country? Maybe. The task force asked Homeland Security to run a search on any
00:39:05
recent travel by Christine Armstrong. It only took minutes. Christine Armstrong, or someone
00:39:11
using her passport had been busy. I was like, wow, this took an unexpected turn.
00:39:18
But how far did she go? And how in heaven's name could they ever track her down?
00:39:24
At this point, it's kind of like, I'm a rookie all over again. Oh, there was a trail.
00:39:31
Long, weird, exotic, and only partial. This just got a whole lot more interesting and a lot more difficult.
00:39:40
The hunt for Caitlin to bring her back to actually face justice would not be quick or easy.
00:39:47
If we don't find her in five days, we're not going to find her. But the only thing they knew for sure was the name of the country she flew to.
00:39:56
One woman calling herself who knew what, who knew where in Costa Rica. Oh, one good clue to guide them.
00:40:06
I don't know of any other cases that I've ever worked where the person that's on the run has a yoga mat with them.
00:40:14
So we felt like that was a really big piece of her. The problem, one among many, there are lots of yoga studios in Costa Rica.
00:40:25
There was also a hurricane on the way. Probably going to turn into a category one.
00:40:31
And the quarry had no intention of being found. The Prime Suspect The Prime Suspect in the murder of Mariah Wilson,
00:40:53
Caitlin Armstrong, had vanished. But it didn't take long for the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force
00:41:00
to get a lead and a copy of a one-way plane ticket. Christine Armstrong had traveled from Newark to San Jose, Costa Rica on the 18th on a one-way flight.
00:41:13
I said this has just become a bigger case. And though the name on the ticket was Christie, Deputy U.S. Marshal Amir Perez was all but sure.
00:41:23
It had to be Caitlin on that flight. But we couldn't confirm it 100%. We had other deputies in New York go and find the sister.
00:41:33
That part was easy. Christine was at home in upstate New York, definitely hadn't left the country.
00:41:40
Told the deputy she didn't know the whereabouts of her passport. So they asked her what she knew about Caitlin's travel plans.
00:41:49
So her sister said that Caitlin had come to visit her and that she went to go and drop her off at the airport because she was going to fly back to Austin Clearly Caitlin had not flown back to Austin
00:42:05
But why Costa Rica? First, I think the most important question is, like, what's her tie to Costa Rica?
00:42:12
And there really wasn't one, said U.S. Marshal Damien Fernandez. Not in the usual sense, anyway.
00:42:19
She had no known past there. They weren't aware of any family or friends in Costa Rica.
00:42:26
The only time that we can think of is yoga, because Costa Rica is a big, I think if it's not the first, it's the second most tourist visited place for yoga.
00:42:36
Caitlin, the yoga instructor. She'd even been spotted on camera toting her yoga mat through the airport as she made her escape.
00:42:46
Still, it wasn't much to go on. They needed help on the ground. And we knew for certain that she had traveled into Costa Rica.
00:42:55
Jose Araya is a criminal investigator with the Diplomatic Security Service at the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica.
00:43:01
His team found security camera footage of Caitlin arriving at the airport in San Jose.
00:43:07
They also learned she told immigration agents the name of the hotel where she'd be staying.
00:43:13
About six police agents, three patrol cars, and myself, and proceeded to just rush to the hotel in downtown San Jose
00:43:22
to see if she was there, to see if Caitlin was there. No luck. She'd made a reservation, but never showed.
00:43:32
Investigators tracked her online activity, which led them to places she may have visited.
00:43:39
And we're doing old-fashioned police work. were by foot visiting different sites that we thought maybe she was at.
00:43:50
The Costa Rican government was helping too. They had their own investigation going there as to why she was actually in their country
00:43:57
using another person's passport. Meanwhile, the marshals needed some detailed photos of their suspect.
00:44:04
But when they hunted around online... She was always smiling in all her photos. When you are walking around in life, you're not smiling like that, right?
00:44:13
You're going to have your serious face, your walk-around face, not the smile face.
00:44:17
So we made it a point to find a photo of her not smiling. But where else to look?
00:44:26
No one was even sure she was still in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is a very small country.
00:44:32
It's very easy to travel from one border to the other within four, six hours. and it's also very easy to illegally enter either our neighbor Nicaragua or Panama without inspection.
00:44:47
Then the marshals back in the U.S. got a promising tip. They learned that an American tourist recently returned from vacation in Costa Rica
00:44:56
had met a woman in a yoga class who just might be Caitlin Armstrong. Obviously, this is someone who we're going to want to talk to to gain whatever information we can about her, their interaction.
00:45:10
So the marshals called the guy. Said, hey, we're the United States Marshal Service.
00:45:15
We're wondering if we could talk to you. And without missing a beat, he interrupted and said, not interested.
00:45:21
We called him back and he just blew us off again. And finally, on the third call, we just as soon as he picked up, we're like, wait, wait, wait, please don't hang up.
00:45:30
Just Google Caitlin Armstrong's picture, they pleaded. And sure enough, said the guy, she looked familiar.
00:45:40
He's like, I remember I did have lunch with a woman, but her hair was a little bit more brown,
00:45:47
and she went by the name Beth. Beth, not Caitlin. He said he and this so-called Beth
00:45:55
met in a popular beach town called Hako. One of the things that she told them was that she was interested in yoga.
00:46:03
He told them he had suggested she check out a place called Santa Teresa Beach, about five hours away.
00:46:10
He told her that, you know, that's a really big yoga community and she should go look at that.
00:46:16
By this time, Caitlin had been in the wind for four weeks. But now is something to go on.
00:46:23
Vague though it was, Marshal's Perez and Fernandez boarded a plane to Costa Rica
00:46:28
with a plan to head to Santa Teresa, where she might or might not be hiding out.
00:46:36
We looked at each other and we said, this is going to be a lot more difficult than we anticipated.
00:46:53
Caitlin Armstrong was now a wanted woman in two countries, the United States and Costa Rica,
00:47:01
which is where Deputy U.S. Marshals Amir Perez and Damien Fernandez landed, to join up with Jose Araya's team and Costa Rican law enforcement,
00:47:10
all of them on the hunt now for Caitlin Armstrong. She's been there already a month, so she's probably pretty comfortable now
00:47:20
and she has an idea as to where she's going and what she's doing. They already knew she wasn't going by the name Caitlin in Costa Rica.
00:47:28
She was using different aliases, many different aliases. She was Beth or sometimes Ari or Allison.
00:47:37
She'd been booking herself into different hostels in different locations, in different names,
00:47:42
and then simply not showing up. And honestly, I can't tell you whether it was to throw us off or not.
00:47:49
Their first stop was Hako, where Jose Araya and his team had already obtained security
00:47:55
video from the local police. Once we were able to analyze video, we had confirmed that Katelyn had indeed been in Hakko.
00:48:06
Hakko is where she had lunch with that American tourist and took a few yoga classes.
00:48:12
And we talked to the yoga instructors there just to see if they remembered her. And they said yes, they did remember her. But she had apparently left town.
00:48:23
That American tourist had told the marshals he'd recommended she visit Santa Teresa for yoga.
00:48:29
They knew Caitlin had purchased a new phone before she left Austin. And sure enough, they found evidence tracking that phone to Santa Teresa.
00:48:40
Could she be there? Maybe. They gave themselves a deadline. If we don't find her in five days, we're not going to find her.
00:48:52
It takes several hours to get from Haco to Santa Teresa. a long drive and a ferry ride,
00:48:59
to a beach town whose residents perhaps enjoy the isolation. Like, for example, Teal Akerson,
00:49:10
a true local raised in Santa Teresa by American parents. When I was a kid, there wasn't a road here,
00:49:18
and big people came by boats, and there was a cattle trail, and you could come with a bicycle or a horse or a motorbike sometimes.
00:49:26
And then they opened the road up, and then everyone wanted a slice of paradise. A particular kind of paradise for a particular sort of person.
00:49:36
There's nature and the ocean, and people are looking for silence. They get to come to Costa Rica and surf, and then also get to do their yoga.
00:49:46
Or just get lost, said Teal. It's a really good place for people to hide out, and tons of people do.
00:49:54
When the marshals arrived in Santa Teresa, they could see that if Caitlin was here,
00:50:01
she just might have found herself the perfect place to disappear. I remember speaking to people at the embassy about, this is who we're looking for.
00:50:10
She's slender, she's tall, she's blonde, you know, she stands out. And they told us, she's not going to stand out in Santa Teresa.
00:50:18
You're going to see a lot of women that fit that description. Indeed, there were Caitlin doppelgangers everywhere.
00:50:26
So the marshal settled in, kept a sharp eye out, and tried to look inconspicuous.
00:50:33
When you go and you've got to look like everybody else here, you've got to look like a tourist.
00:50:39
We walked around a lot, up and down the beach, maybe 10 miles a day, something like that.
00:50:47
while a female member of their team haunted yoga classes. She would do a morning and then an afternoon,
00:50:55
and then she did another one where, like, just a meditation. But no sign of Caitlin there.
00:51:02
Perez and the others even attended a surf contest, though their eyes were not on the water.
00:51:08
We're sitting there looking at the crowd, trying to get a closer view, looking kind of, kind of creepish.
00:51:15
Still, no luck. So then they tried telling townsfolk they were with the U.S. Embassy
00:51:21
and they were looking for a missing tourist. Her family's very concerned and there was a monetary reward.
00:51:29
But Nada couldn't find anyone who had seen her. Perez and Fernandez had given themselves five days,
00:51:39
but they had blown past their deadline. I was really frustrated as far as actually laying eyes on her or getting a good idea of her location.
00:51:49
At that point, we were done. Nearly desperate now, they came up with what felt like one last-ditch idea.
00:51:57
They joined a Facebook group dedicated to all things Santa Teresa. If you lost your wallet, if you wanted to rent a place, if you wanted to sell a place.
00:52:07
Caitlin was a yoga instructor, so if she was in town, she might be looking for a job teaching yoga.
00:52:16
And that's where we started creating those, saying that we belong to this hostel and that we were looking for a yoga instructor.
00:52:24
But luck was just not going to be on their side, it seemed. Now, word a storm was rolling in.
00:52:32
We were told it was probably going to turn into a Category 1 hurricane. And if it's bad, I mean, people don't come out of their houses, they don't come out of hostels,
00:52:43
and everybody stays shut in because it's raining outside. There was actually a shelter-in-place announcement that was being put out,
00:52:48
because it was supposed to be really, really bad. Not to mention... I was feeling really, really sick.
00:52:55
A week of fruit-searching, and then COVID, and then a looming hurricane, Would anything go right?
00:53:04
And then... Somebody replied to the ad. It just might be who they were looking for.
00:53:27
Frustrated, exhausted, and sick. Amir Perez and Damien Fernandez went back to the Costa Rican capital to regroup
00:53:35
after a fruitless week of searching for the fugitive Caitlin Armstrong. And then, a bite.
00:53:45
Someone responded to the ad they posted for a yoga instructor in Santa Teresa. This person could be the person that we're looking for.
00:53:54
Could be because the message came in from a number investigators believed might be Caitlin They set a time and place to meet with a job seeker but when they arrived for the meeting another message same person
00:54:08
said they needed to reschedule. She said because of where I'm staying, the owner of the place asked me to look after the place because his uncle is sick.
00:54:21
A place like that, where a guest would be left in charge? That sounded like Don John's, one of the cheapest places in town.
00:54:31
And so we decided to go there. And I saw two people sitting there on the patio, a male and a female.
00:54:39
I noticed that the female sitting there kind of resembled Armstrong. And so I thought to myself, well, how can I get close enough to make that confirmation?
00:54:49
I said, hola, que tal? Perez decided to play Mexican tourist, speaking only in Spanish.
00:54:54
I asked various questions about how is it, how is it, how are the rooms, how are the rooms, how are the clean?
00:55:02
You know, just questions that you would ask at a hotel. What they came up with was that they could talk to me through Google Translate,
00:55:12
and so I got close enough to see her phone when she would show it to me. Perez took a good close look at the woman.
00:55:19
Her hair was darker and shorter than photos he'd seen of Caitlin. And there was a bandage across her nose.
00:55:27
But the eyes, the unsmiling eyes detectives had gone out of their way to find in photos of Caitlin, that was her.
00:55:37
No doubt about it. I said, OK, well, I'll be back. So I walked out the door and back to the vehicle where Damien was sitting.
00:55:48
As I see him come out, he's got this big old smirk in his face, and I'm like, okay, jackpot.
00:55:52
We found her. I walked in, I said, 100%, that's her, she's in there. And I'm like, okay, what's next?
00:55:58
What came next was a call to the local police, who soon showed up at Don John's.
00:56:03
They're talking to her, and finally the question comes up. What's her name? And she says one of the aliases that we knew, which is Ari Martin.
00:56:12
And the policia turistica guy turns and looks at me, and I nod at him. That was their cue.
00:56:20
The local police arrested Ari and brought her in for questioning. And that is when the marshals got to sit down with her.
00:56:28
And I'm like, all right, no gangs. What's her name? And she looked at me for the longest time.
00:56:36
She took a big pause, maybe for a minute. And then she told me, Caitlin, all right, what's her last name? Armstrong.
00:56:44
And I asked her, I said, well, what happened to your nose? I said, why do you have a bandage on your nose?
00:56:48
And she said she had gotten hit with a surfboard. Surfing accident? Fernandez didn't buy it.
00:56:55
I was convinced she had work done. And sure enough, when they returned to the hostel and searched her belongings,
00:57:02
they found receipts for plastic surgery, work done by this doctor, Jorge Badia. He knew his patient,
00:57:12
not as Caitlin, but as Allison Page. And she behaved totally normal, like a very shy, maybe
00:57:20
patient. Allison requested a nose job and brow lifts. Not unusual, he said, for tourists to see
00:57:28
him for those kinds of procedures. What was a little strange, though, was how she hid her face
00:57:33
on surgery day. She had like a hat, a hoodie, and also she had a mask over her face so that we can
00:57:40
only see her eyes. Dr. Badia met with Allison about five days after the surgery to remove her
00:57:47
cast and stitches, and that was the last he saw of her. It turned out Caitlin was off having surgery
00:57:54
in San Jose while investigators were busy searching for her in Santa Teresa. We realized
00:58:01
man, all that time that we spent walking up and down the beach, looking at hostels, looking at all these different
00:58:06
places, she wasn't even there. But she had been in Santa Teresa before they got there and made a big impression.
00:58:15
Especially on one surfer dude. And you've already met him. Santa Teresa local Teal
00:58:22
Akerson. He knew Caitlin as Ari. She did yoga, I did yoga, we ended up talking and she had just
00:58:32
gone through a heavy breakup she told me and then I had gone through a breakup and we were
00:58:37
both kind of getting along and talking and sharing. Talking and sharing, activities that can sometimes
00:58:46
lead to much more. But not, said Teal, for him and Ari. We went on probably like
00:58:51
about four dates or something like that. We never kissed, never hooked up. It wasn't like that.
00:58:57
She made it clear that she had been traumatized and I was okay with being a friend and hanging out
00:59:05
and I could understand. For Teal, the news about who Ari really was came crashing down like a rogue wave.
00:59:16
Afterwards, my brain just went, whoa, and I was like, whoa, that was why everything lined me about everything in her name.
00:59:24
And it was just my luck. A wipeout for Teal, yes. But such is life, said this surf instructor and beach philosopher.
00:59:36
Well, it was a bummer. I need another bummer story. We were just people. We're God's lost children.
00:59:44
Everyone's on their life. trip trying to figure it out. And no matter how wise you are, how smart, how enlightened you are,
00:59:53
how much yoga you know you still just one of those people on that ride Caitlin ride was over this leg of it at least The marshals raced to get out of town with their suspect before the approaching storm could delay their travel
01:00:09
and they accompanied Kaitlin on a flight back to Texas. The search for Kaitlin Armstrong has been a month-and-a-half-long saga.
01:00:17
She's now back in Texas. Back home, Kaitlin sat behind bars. bail set at 3.5 million but case closed oh no not at all what if i told you that about 98 percent
01:00:34
of what you just said is either completely incorrect or mostly i'd love to hear your explanation
01:00:52
Some people, some rare people, though driven to achieve, though uniquely successful and celebrated,
01:01:01
remain deeply humble, uncomfortable in the limelight. Such a one was Mariah Wilson.
01:01:09
Her very private family declined our invitation to speak on camera. But her father wanted us to know about her humility,
01:01:18
her kindness about never wanting things to be all about her. Great. I'm stoked to be here.
01:01:24
She was a week from her 26th birthday when she died, had just gone pro, and was planning to return to Vermont, said her father,
01:01:33
to find a way to give back to the community she grew up in. She knew that this place was foundational to her success and joy.
01:01:43
In the spring of 2023, Mariah's mother Karen, father Eric and brother Matt posted a Ride for Moe event
01:01:51
to raise money for a local children's organization. But more than anything, she just loved to ride her bike
01:01:57
in this beautiful place and around the world where she biked. So my hope today is that we can all tap into that spirit
01:02:05
of simply loving to ride. Well, Mariah was being remembered in Vermont. in austin caitlin armstrong was sitting in a jail cell she'd pleaded not guilty but the case against
01:02:21
her was bulking up and one major mystery had been solved the whereabouts of caitlin's jeep
01:02:28
the one that vanished when she left town we learned that the title was transferred from caitlin
01:02:34
to CarMax. They found video of Caitlin driving the Jeep to CarMax two days after the murder,
01:02:43
where she sold it for just over $12,000 and flew off to New York the next day. No doubt the $12,000 helped her pay for flights
01:02:52
and room and board, and that nose job too, perhaps? But that is not why investigators were excited
01:02:59
about finding the car. There was a high probability that it actually kept GPS data.
01:03:07
Indeed, it did. A digital forensics goldmine, in fact. The GPS tracked every turn and every stop the Jeep made
01:03:16
on the night of Mariah's murder. At 6.33 p.m., the Jeep left Caitlin's house, heading downtown,
01:03:23
and then, an hour later, changed direction. And then went over into East Austin.
01:03:28
East Austin, where Mariah's friend Caitlin Cash lived and where Mariah was staying.
01:03:36
Once there, the jeep circled the neighborhood, passing by Caitlin Cash's place over and over again.
01:03:43
Waiting, it seemed, for Mariah and Colin to return. Maybe she wanted some actual proof of her own that Colin and Mariah were together here.
01:03:56
The investigators already knew what happened next. At 8.35, Colin dropped off Mariah at Caitlin Cash's house.
01:04:05
At 8.36, Mariah unlocked the front door. At 8.37, the Jeep was caught on camera slowing down near the house.
01:04:16
But now, new details thanks to the GPS. At 8.41, the Jeep parked down the block in a church parking lot.
01:04:23
and then the GPS stopped. Ignition turned off until 9.17 when the Jeep was driven away.
01:04:34
After the murder, that's whenever that vehicle ended up leaving from the area. A 36-minute gap during which detectives now knew Mariah was murdered.
01:04:47
By then, Detective Spittler had come across yet another piece of security camera video,
01:04:52
this one from the front porch of a nearby home. Like many of the other cameras, this one also captured Caitlin's Jeep driving by again and again.
01:05:03
This particular camera also recorded audio. So Spidler took care of some paperwork,
01:05:10
listening in the background for cars going by, until... Wait, could it be? The horrific sound of a murder in progress.
01:05:22
All of a sudden, I hear a female scream, and then I hear two gunshots, a six-second pause, and one more gunshot.
01:05:34
Have you ever heard a murder in progress like that before? No, no, I had not. I was just in shock.
01:05:43
The sounds were recorded at 9.15, the time they now knew for sure when Mariah Wilson breathed her last.
01:05:52
The investigators were sure the case against Caitlin Armstrong was solid impossible to refute But apparently defense attorney Rick Cofer didn get the message Caitlin Armstrong is not guilty
01:06:05
And if this case goes to trial, she will be found not guilty. We first spoke to attorney Cofer in August 2022.
01:06:13
You become a lawyer in part to work on cases like this. Well, yes. But in this case, it looks like the public seems to have accepted the idea that they've got her dead to rights.
01:06:27
They got her Jeep on ring video. She goes out and sells her car and gets a plane ticket and flies to first see her sister and then down to Costa Rica and gets plastic surgery and dyes her hair brown.
01:06:39
I mean, if she didn't do it, why go to all that trouble? You know, looks really can be deceiving.
01:06:45
What if I told you that about 98% of what you just said is either completely incorrect or mostly incorrect?
01:06:55
I'd love to hear your explanation. Kofor said he had one, starting with motive or the lack of it.
01:07:03
What if I told you that Caitlin Armstrong, in fact, is not a jealous person? No jealousy means no motive, he said.
01:07:12
And why did she run away to Costa Rica? Not because she was a killer, said Kofor, but because she feared her boyfriend Colin was.
01:07:23
Her boyfriend of three and a half years, the person that she has lived with and made a life with,
01:07:31
spent basically all day with homicide detectives being interrogated for murder. And Kate Armstrong is, as you can pretty well imagine, terrified.
01:07:42
She's lived years of her life abroad. It makes perfect sense that when her world is turned upside down, destroyed, she goes to Costa Rica to go do yoga stuff.
01:07:51
Caitlin Armstrong did not kill Miss Wilson. But you can prove that she wasn't in that vicinity. That's what you're saying.
01:07:57
I don't have to prove that. That's not how the system works. I expect this. The government's own evidence will acquit Caitlin Armstrong. They just haven't looked at it.
01:08:07
Certainly a bold defense to counter a mammoth amount of evidence against her. So why did Caitlin Armstrong make the wildest decision imaginable?
01:08:18
What went through your mind when you saw the flurry of prison stripes running down the street?
01:08:37
It was Wednesday, the 11th of October, 2023. Caitlin Armstrong, three weeks to her murder trial, had a doctor's appointment outside the jail.
01:08:48
Her keepers prepared her, walked her out toward a waiting car, and she ran. Ran from the guards, ran from everyone.
01:08:58
For ten desperate minutes. Later it would turn out she had used a pin of some sort to undo her handcuffs.
01:09:05
The prosecutor saw this video as more evidence of her guilt. November 1st, 2023.
01:09:16
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Her trial began. Was there anything you were worried about particularly getting across to the jury?
01:09:24
You always worry until it's over. The case was obviously, by and large, a circumstantial case.
01:09:32
And I think that term circumstantial often gets a bad rap or bad reputation, especially on TV.
01:09:40
Now in real life, Travis County prosecutors Guillermo Gonzalez and Ricky Jones laid out their circumstantial case against Caitlin Armstrong.
01:09:50
On May 11, 2022, at 9.15 p.m. here in Austin, Texas, the last thing Moe did on this earth was scream in terror.
01:10:08
The star witness was Colin Strickland, who did not seem happy to be there. He wanted to help. He just did not enjoy the process at all.
01:10:23
A process that was not on camera, so we can't show you Colin telling the jury about his on-again, off-again relationship with Caitlin.
01:10:32
Certain days it was romance, certain days it was business. It was during one of those off times, he told the jury, when he and Mariah got together.
01:10:40
That was in the fall of 2021. And for just a couple of weeks, when Mariah was visiting Austin,
01:10:47
after Mariah left town, he said he and Caitlin reconciled, which was easy because she never moved out of his house.
01:10:56
At the time of the murder, Colin testified, his relationship with Caitlin was very smooth.
01:11:03
Or so he thought. But... He shared an iPad and a locked laptop. It was connected to Colin's phone.
01:11:11
Meaning that though Colin may have thought he fooled Caitlin by changing Mariah's name
01:11:17
in his phone contacts list, Caitlin could easily see on their shared electronic devices
01:11:22
exactly what Colin was up to. And the prosecutors alleged she was essentially stalking Mariah using an app called Strava,
01:11:31
on which Mariah had been keeping track of her own bike rides. It can be used to track your path,
01:11:38
and at your option you can make that information available to anyone who wants to see it.
01:11:46
Because Mariah was a gravel racing star, her profile was public. And prosecutors told the jury this was of particular interest on the last day of her life,
01:11:56
when she went on an 80-mile trip. bike ride. Her workout started and ended at her friend Caitlin Cash's apartment.
01:12:05
And prosecutors believe that's likely how Caitlin Armstrong knew Mariah was in Austin
01:12:11
and exactly where she was staying. She's viewing Mariah Wilson's profile and activity on Strava
01:12:22
on May the 9th, on May the 10th, and on May the 11th. She's not a fan. She's not a fangirl of Mariah Wilson.
01:12:32
Which is why she would be particularly incensed if she looked at her boyfriend's text messages with Mariah
01:12:39
about making plans to swim. Then there was Caitlin's own cell phone data, or lack thereof.
01:12:47
Her phone stopped pinging at 7.30 p.m. that fateful evening. when Mariah and Colin were still having dinner.
01:12:55
What did that say to you? This is a sophisticated, intelligent person who's aware of the fact that her phone can be later on used to incriminate her.
01:13:05
She knew that she could be tracked. And that's why she turned her phone off, said the prosecutors.
01:13:12
What she didn't know, presumably, is that her Jeep was doing the same thing. It's pretty hard to escape the technology now, isn't it?
01:13:20
It's everywhere. More than 40 witnesses helped tell the prosecution's story. Like the friend who testified that she asked Caitlin what would happen if Colin started dating someone new,
01:13:32
and Caitlin said, I would kill her. And then there was the report of that stay-away-from-my-man phone call,
01:13:38
and the photos of Caitlin's plastic surgery, and the evidence that she'd Googled herself while on the run.
01:13:46
The prosecution even showed video of Caitlin practicing at a gun range. She apparently can hit a target at least 20 or so feet away, which, by the way, is more than enough of a distance to kill Mariah Wilson.
01:13:59
Two to the head, and she was laying on the floor, probably already dead. And for good measure, the defendant walked up to her and put another bullet right in the heart.
01:14:10
A ballistics expert testified that the bullets that were found at the scene were most likely shot from Caitlin Armstrong's gun.
01:14:17
Most likely. Not absolutely certain. So you worry about a defense attorney getting up and saying,
01:14:24
this is all just circumstantial evidence, you can ignore it. Of course. Which is what they did.
01:14:29
And in fact, Caitlin's defense attorney, Rick Cofer, told the jury. There is a lot of sizzle There not much steak Why would you say that They had a lot of steak didn they Circumstantial evidence cases are peculiar When there not an eyewitness when there not a
01:14:47
confession, when there's not video of the actual criminal act, if you think of it like a Jenga tower,
01:14:55
the government is trying to piece together little different logs of evidence, and we're trying to
01:15:02
poke them out. So Rick Kofor went at it, poking out the pieces best he could, starting with that
01:15:08
secondhand account of Caitlin's so-called threatening phone call to Mariah. Caitlin called
01:15:15
Mariah Wilson once in October 2021. Probably it was a phone call, something to the extent of,
01:15:23
by the by, Colin Strickland is a little bit of an ass and I live with him. Is that so unreasonable? Is that insane?
01:15:34
But then there was that new evidence that Caitlin gave the prosecutors just before the trial.
01:15:41
How badly did it hurt you that she tried to escape just before the trial? I think every criminal defense lawyer in America who saw that shook their head and said,
01:15:51
those guys in Austin, they're in a load of trouble. At trial, he explained that Caitlin Armstrong ran from her jailers because she was afraid.
01:16:02
Terrified woman. Fearful woman. Same sort of reason for running to Costa Rica, he told the jury.
01:16:10
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?
01:16:18
or if not that, that whoever killed Mariah Wilson might want to kill Caitlin Armstrong next?
01:16:25
Now, Caitlin Armstrong was a captive audience. If you would pass that verdict to the mail, please.
01:16:32
And she was about to find out that jury's verdict. Detective Richard Spittler waited.
01:16:52
All he could do. And every minute the jury was out seemed an eternity. I just had to tell myself, hey, I've done everything that I possibly can.
01:17:02
And now I just have to put my faith in the judicial process. But your heart's flipping away like crazy.
01:17:09
Yes, yes, yes. But this jury only took 118 minutes. The defendant will please rise What was she thinking We cannot know We the jury find the defendant Caitlin Armstrong
01:17:24
guilty of the offense of murder as alleged in the indictment. Guilty of murder. In Texas, defendants get to decide whether the judge or the jury
01:17:35
will determine their sentence. Caitlin decided this jury still had work to do. And so attorneys from both sides addressed them again.
01:17:46
Kofor asked the jury to consider the possibility that his client could someday find redemption.
01:17:52
If we're not allowed at least the opportunity to atone for our sins, then we cannot grow as a society.
01:18:01
But Prosecutor Gonzalez urged the jury to hold Caitlin fully accountable for her crime.
01:18:06
And I submit to you that without accountability, there cannot be redemption and forgiveness.
01:18:14
This is somebody who thought and had time to calculate and meditate about what she was about to do.
01:18:20
And all of this is because of her action. The jury had a profound decision to make.
01:18:30
They did not hold back. We, the jury, assess her punishment at confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Institutional Division for a period of 90 years.
01:18:42
90 years in prison. But there was one more thing before the bailiff escorted her away.
01:18:51
Mariah's friends and family had said very little since her death, their silence and expression of how deep their pain was.
01:18:59
But now they let it out. Caitlin, I want you to know that I fought for Mo with everything I had that night.
01:19:10
The friend who found Mo on her bathroom floor, Caitlin Cash. They finally let me wash the blood off my hands in the police station bathroom.
01:19:20
And I'll never forget that moment in the bathroom. Watching the sink turn red and wanting to put it back on my hands
01:19:29
because it was the only thing I had left of her. I feel deep sadness for the road ahead
01:19:35
that Mo's family must continue to walk. Mo's mother, Karen. I hate what you did to my beautiful daughter.
01:19:45
It was very selfish and cowardly, that violent act on May 11. 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
01:20:06
She would have cared about your feelings. When you shot Mariah in the heart, you shot me in my heart.
01:20:15
You shot Eric and Matt in their hearts. You shot Mariah's cousins and aunts and uncles
01:20:23
and all the people who loved her pushed their hearts. And then it was time. Ms. Armstrong is now remanded
01:20:34
to the custody of the Travis County Sheriff's Office for beginning of the execution of sentence.
01:20:42
She will, almost certainly, never be free again. Outside the courtroom, Mariah's father, Eric, said,
01:20:51
what Mariah might have said, given the way she was. This sad story is a perfect example
01:20:58
of why integrity and honesty are crucial in our personal relationships and how dishonesty can often lead
01:21:08
to unintended consequences. Selfish manipulation, jealousy, and hatred never lead to positive outcomes.
01:21:18
And the Postscript. Colin Strickland, that celebrated, world-class cyclist, has given up the sport of gravel racing.
01:21:29
Murder makes many victims in many ways. I have personally seen Colin become a much more private person
01:21:37
who has moved more inward with his life. On her friend Christopher's podcast, recorded not long before she died,
01:21:47
Mariah Wilson was posed a light-hearted question by Christopher's co-host. And what an answer she gave.
01:21:53
If you could have a superpower, what would it be? Oh, this is such a good one. Being able to stop time and just hit pause.
01:22:03
You remember that, huh? Yeah, I do. Obviously, that response is way more poignant now than it was.
01:22:08
And it's a great answer either way, because it doesn't want to just be able to savor
01:22:13
some special time in your life or memory. And she recognized that as a special time.
01:22:19
If only she could have stopped time. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.