Tonight on Dateline, I hear a female scream and two gunshots.

A heartbreaking case. And now, for the first time, the full story.

My friend is laying on the bathroom floor, and there's blood everywhere.

Everybody just loved Mo.

I am here with the fabulous Mo Wilson. You are, like, ready. I'm ready.

Exclusive new video and the inside details you haven't heard.

To Betty yesterday afternoon. Afternoon.

He's the last person she saw. There had been a previous short romantic history.

His girlfriend didn't know that he went out with Mariah the night before.

Did you consider them both to be persons of interest?

Yes.

The only problem is she's gone.

It's a really good place for people to hide out.

She asked about Abe nose job.

This could be the person that we're looking for.

I see a call that an inmate has escaped. Dumb struggle who hated Mariah so much that they wanted her dead.

She was a champion cyclist, but even she couldn't outrace her killer. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Keith Morrison. With the night time stopped, it was too late.

Austin police.

For all their frantic haste, the young woman lying on the bathroom floor in the tiny above the garage apartment was long beyond saving. The other one, the one who called 911, who tried and tried CPR. It was a mess. Nothing she could do. Whoever shot her friend had made quite sure of the result. This was murder. It was just before 10:00 p.m. May 11, 2022. Austin, Texas.

What's her name?

Her name is Mariah. M o r I a h. Wilson. She's here for a bike race this weekend. This is Mariah Wilson, the winner of round one of the 2022 lifetime Grand Prix.

It had been a little like a fairy tale. Mariah, Mo. Sweet, kind, hardworking, on a fast and furious ride to the top of her sport, gravel racing. Mo Wilson, coming through on the cusp of something that felt monumental.

Mo has bridged that gap until.

What happened in that little apartment on a hot spring night shocked the gravel racing world.

One of the detectives was very big into bike racing, and she actually called me. She asked me, she said, wait, is this for real? I said, yeah. She was like, this is huge.

Oh, yeah, it's big and awful. How to comprehend the murder of Mo Wilson, the seething resentments before it, the crazy events that followed it. The suspect determined to escape justice twice. All of it's so very strange.

The last thing Mo did tonight for.

The first time, the whole story, new video and sound of that terrible night, an inside account of the investigation and the never before told tales of the hunt for the killer. But that night, May 11, it was baffling. It was also Austin police detective Richard Spitler's first case as lead investigator.

I was definitely nervous. The only information that I had gotten was there was one deceased female inside of an apartment and multiple shell casings on scene. And we don't have any suspect information.

And it's on you to figure it out. Yes. Who did this, and why? 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.

None of that was taken.

It was just the bike.

And it wasn't lost for long. 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, and especially for witnesses like, of course, the friend who'd called 911. Her name is Caitlin Cash. Did you swap her for gunshot residue?

We did, and I believe that we also did a swab for her DNA as well, because, again, at this point, you know, 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.

But she didn't seem like much of a suspect. How broken up did she seem about it?

Extremely. She was definitely in shock and very upset. She was trying her best to hold it together.

Caitlin told Detective Spitler she'd gone out for the evening, and when she returned.

She walks inside, and she recalled seeing Mariah's legs sticking out from the bathroom. And she said she really didn't 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 it's a tile floor, so it feels a lot cooler. So she walks in, you know, tries to say hi to Mariah. Mariah doesn't respond.

Then Caitlin got closer.

She goes into the bathroom, and she sees that Mariah is covered in blood and unresponsive. She immediately calls 911.

Katelyn, are you with her now?

Yes, I'm with her now.

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.

123456.

Good.

Now, in an interview room late into the night, Caitlin tried to think of anything that might help. She told the detective Mariah didn't live in Austin. She was only staying in town for that race on the weekend and staying at Caitlin's place. 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. 05:55 p.m. And the time Mariah returned. 08:36 p.m. And was it locked again after that or not?

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. Caitlin also showed the detective her last text from Mariah at 05:05 I think I'm gonna go swimming with Colin. Colin was Colin Strickland, a cycling friend also famous in gravel racing circles who happened to live in Austin. What did she tell you about the man she was gonna see that night? Colin Strickland.

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.

What'd you think when you heard that?

Well, now I definitely want to know more about Colin. I'll be right back.

Oh, of course they did.

It's about you guys. There's already a history with Mo. I feel like that would definitely raise some emotions.

An excellent question, one of many in places near and very far.

The only problem is that we can't find her.

She's gone in shifting shapes and slippery names.

It just blew our mind.

It was incredible.

And, oh, the deadly web we weave, and first we practice to deceive.

Afterwards, my brain just went, whoa. And I was like, whoa. That was by everything.

I am here with the fabulous Mo Wilson. You are, like, ready. I'm ready.

I'm ready.

So excited to be here.

To anyone close to Mariah, it was no surprise she grew up to be a champion athlete.

Mo super duper. Congratulations, and I hope you can just really soak up this win. Thank you so much.

Charming, unassuming. Mariah could talk with great enthusiasm about equipment, strategy, her unusual God given endurance.

Remember, you told me this, that you like those climbs. I'll be thinking about that when I'm suffering.

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 in a family of skiers.

I was on skis before I could basically walk.

I really liked downhill skiing or, like, speed skiing, and I really wanted to.

Try to make the US ski team for downhill. But then I had some knee injuries.

That is when Mariah found another sport to conquer a mashup of road and mountain biking called gravel racing. Gravel can be fast, but it is.

All Mariah Wilson as she is snaking through into the finish.

The course is long, some 100 plus.

Miles, an incredible ride, as Mariah Wilson.

Knows exactly where to go. And the terrain is difficult, said Christopher.

Some regions of the country are a little bit more sandy with their gravel, and some are a lot more chunky. Some of the rocks are really sharp. It just depends.

None of that stopped Mariah.

Mo Wilson coming through.

All of a sudden, everybody knew her.

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. Her thing was, she wanted to make a list of things that she thought would improve her capabilities, not necessarily her results, but she just wanted to check those things off. And if that results in a win.

She was happy here. She was crossing the finish line of a race called Sea otter in Monterey, California, a month before she died.

This is Mariah Wilson, the winner of round one.

She was getting all sorts of congratulations. Everybody just loved moving.

What investigators were having a hard time figuring out was who didn't and why.

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 within.

Hours of the murder, police canvassing the area found this security video of an suv in the vicinity of the crime scene.

It showed that I had a large bike rack and a luggage rack on the roof. That car was shown to drive past right around 837. So 1 minute after Mariah entered into the apartment.

1 minute couldn't be a coincidence, surely. The vehicle had to be connected to the murder somehow. The detective sent a surveillance team to Colin Strickland's house. He was the guy Mariah was with the previous evening, so certainly a person of interest. Quickly, the surveillance officers called in.

They tell me, hey, there is a black suv out here. There's a bike rack on the back that looks like this is the same car that was on that camera.

So, Colin, is that your first name?

He's in the garage. I asked him if he knew who Mariah Wilson. Well, not Mariah Wilson, because her name is actually Anna. Mariah Wilson. Do you know Anna Moe? Yeah. Everybody calls her Mo. He said, no, I don't know who that is. And I'm thinking, oh, this is. This is a big red flag. Now, you were sure, I know that you were just out with her last night. Last night is Wilson Rider. She's a gravel rider. Yes. I do. So I told him she was killed last night.

How did he react to that?

He was surprised, you know, kind of shocked. He was being investigated as a homicide. And I asked him, you know, hey, what. What happened last night? We went to be Betty yesterday afternoon and then a burger, and I dropped her at her apartment.

She's been staying at 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. But now the detective knew about the jeep parked in Collins driveway and that it looked just like the one on surveillance video.

Of course, at that time, I'm thinking, I have this jeep on camera now. I really think that you're lying to me. I think you're distancing yourself from this car. You don't want to be associated with this car because you know what happened.

So Spitler asked Colin to come downtown, which he did, and on the face of it, seemed cooperative.

Then we went down to the motorcycle. She got the helmet, and we rode to deep Eddie. We went swimming for about 30 minutes to 40 minutes, pretty short.

He asked Colin about his relationship with Mariah. Just friends, said Colin. But Caitlin Cash had told the detectives that Colin and Mariah had dated briefly. Did he agree that this had once.

Been a romance with Mariah? Yes.

It was a brief fling six months earlier, said Colin, happened during a break with his longtime girlfriend.

I mean, honestly, it was kind of just like an interruption.

Blip long over, said Cullen. He was back with his regular girlfriend, now a real estate agent and yoga teacher named Caitlin Armstrong. 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. She thought that he was with someone.

Else, or so Colin believed. He also believed he was keeping any and all phone or text contact with Mariah a secret from his girlfriend. He didn't call Mariah by her correct name in his telephone, did he?

No. No, he did not. So he actually renamed her contact to Christine Wall. I have it saved as a different name just because I am a. I gotcha. His name is Christine, pretty much. I feel the right to have a friendship with this person, of course, without having, like, constant strife. He did that because he knew his girlfriend Caitlin had gone through his phone in the past. He didn't want to start ANy issues, any drama.

Drama which the detective read as jealousy.

He described her as just being just a regular jealous girlfriend.

A regular jealous girlfriend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just.

Yeah.

Colin was in the interview room for over 6 hours. He was talking, but the detective felt something was off.

Some of the stuff, you know, he was really open and willing to tell me about, but it just seemed like he was still hiding something.

Of course, Fitler had to ask Colin about the jeep.

Who drives that jeep? He said, well, that's my girlfriend's jeep. That's Caitlin's jeep. Said, well, do you ever drive that jeep? And he described it as it being a girly car. He refused to drive it. What's wrong with it? It's just a Barbie car. Oh, really? 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. He could have just as easily been doing so.

Exactly.

One of them had to be involved in this. Colin or Caitlin or maybe did you consider them both to be persons of interest at some point?

Yes.

Hey, guys, Willie Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday sit down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with Larry David to talk about the bittersweet end of his iconic series, curb your enthusiasm and why on earth he decided to cast me on his show in this final season. You can get our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts.

He would lie his way into their dreams.

He was looking for James Bond girls.

How fun would that be to be.

A blonde girl, then twist them into a nightmare?

This guy has done this before. He'll do it again.

Until a group of women banded together to put him behind bars and keep.

Him there, you have to participate fiercely, fiercely, in what happens next.

I'm Keith Morrison, and this is murder in the Hollywood Hills, an all new podcast from Dateline.

All episodes of murder in the Hollywood Hills are available now. To listen ad free, subscribe to DATElINe Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or datelinepremium.com dot.

My name is Colin Strickland.

I'm a bicycle racer based in Austin, Texas.

Collins out.

There's your top five leaders back out on the road.

Like Mariah Wilson, Colin Strickland was a gravel racing champion. At 35, he'd been at it for much longer than she.

The weather's perfect in my book. Looks breezy and warm.

Colin and Mariah met in the fall of 2021 at a race, felt a spark, perhaps, and certainly recognized something special in each other. But now, half a year later, he was in an interview room at the Austin Police Department answering questions about Mariah's murder.

Murder.

And though he seemed helpful at first, when the questioning shifted to more about his girlfriend, Caitlin Spitler, thought Colin went into protective mode suddenly didn't seem to know much at all.

I would ask him, okay, well, you know, where does she work? I don't know where she works. Y'all have been together for a few years and you don't know where she works? You know, so it kind of seemed like he didn't really know much about Caitlin's personal life or wasn't going to.

Tell you one or the other or.

Wasn'T going to tell me.

Mariah was shot. So Spitler had to ask, did he own a gun?

There's two pistols. He said that there's actually two firearms inside the house.

One of them for Caitlin, said, Colin, to protect herself.

She's been in a couple of situations where she's felt vulnerable, Rocky. He had mentioned that Caitlin had been involved in an incident with a homeless person, 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. And together they went to a gun store and bought one for him, one for her. So was he a suspect or not? As Colin left the interview, Spitler still wasn't sure. Colin, though, was worried enough that he found himself an attorney.

He's male, he's physically strong and capable. He's the last person she saw. There had been a previous short romantic history.

Former prosecutor turned defense counsel Claire Carter understood his concern.

That meets all the criteria for who's the suspect until you dig deeper and understand everything he said about the night was true.

Claire Carter could see Colin wasn't familiar with how murder investigations work.

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. 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.

He did not believe that Caitlin was behind this, but he did believe that the police thought she was across town.

At Austin PD, they were still sorting out what and who they were looking at. It was all hands on deck as detectives tried to track down any and all leads.

Anytime anyone tells us anything of what they did, we are always going to do what we can to either verify it or disprove it.

Detective Jonathan Riley and his team were very much focused on Colin and busy fact checking everything he told him.

Detective Spitler, as he's letting us know, yes, we went here to pull Burger. We're sending people out there to not just take his word for it. We went there. We actually found the video of him with Mo there.

And there they were, Mariah in blue, Collin with the yellow hat, sharing a meal of burgers and beers. And here at 810, they walked out, presumably to head back to Mariah's friend's apartment. Sure enough, a camera across the street caught Colin and Mariah riding away on his motorcycle, just as he had told them. So he wasn't driving the jeep.

A lot of the things that Colin had said, you know, they were corroborated, but at the same time, I still felt that Colin knew more than what he was telling me.

Investigators suspected that what he was holding back involved Caitlin.

So not only now are we looking at him, we start looking into Caitlin. We find that there is a warrant out.

It was for theft of service for a Botox treatment.

We decided that we're gonna go ahead and arrest Caitlin for that warrant.

Dying to talk to the girlfriend.

I'm gonna chat with you real quick, and I'm gonna get through this really fast. Okay.

Here.

Okay.

I remember driving into Martha and seeing a girl on one of Colin's bikes because they're custom painted, right? And I was like, oh, that's funny.

That must be Colin's girlfriend, journalist, gravel cycler, and friend of Colin's, James Stout. On meeting the woman Austin police now considered a person of interest in a murder investigation. Caitlin Armstrong. She seemed perfectly personable. She was nice.

They seemed very happy together.

Colin and Caitlin were also business partners in a company that renovated mid century trailers. He did the precise renovations. She handled the money.

These are antique style push knob with dimmers for the led lighting.

James Stout saw in Caitlyn a woman who could get things done.

She struck me as the sort of person who would want something and go get it. Colin's a very determined person, and she's a very determined person. And I was like, holy. They're like the Power Rangers, you know, when they come together and make a big power Ranger.

The question for police, was she determined enough to kill?

Still have handcuffs on and everything. Let's get those off for now.

So the day after Mariah was murdered, before Colin was even done with his police interview, Caitlin Armstrong was brought to a room down the hall, arrested for that misdemeanor warrant for skipping out on a Botox bill.

All right, so I'm Detective Connor, 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 so you don't have to wait. Super long.

Of course. Austin Detective Katie Connor didn't want to talk about Botox. She wanted to talk about a murder. But before her interview got going, another detective realized there had been a mistake.

Well, good news. So that's what they were just knocking on the door is apparently that warrant. The date of birth was wrong, so it had your name. But the date of birth is wrong, so it's to a different person. So that's not. You're not under arrest. Okay, I know it's a little crazy. Yeah. So you're. They just came to my house and put me in handcuffs for no reason. So there was a warrant.

Caitlyn was free to go, but for some reason she didn't. So the detective kept asking questions.

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. Yes. It sounds like, you know, Colin's been maybe talking to this girl for a little bit and kind of threw your name in there.

If Detective Connor was trying to get a rise out of Caitlin Armstrong, 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. 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. I'm not sure exactly what you mean or what information you got. It sounds like maybe he went out with this girl the other day. And maybe it sounds like, from what he's saying, that you were a little upset about it. That is not accurate.

Caitlin was right. Colin hadn't actually told the police that she'd been upset. 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. And Caitlin did respond this way.

I would like to leave. I think you'd like to leave.

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. 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 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, because I didn't have any idea. Exactly. And that's what he saw or went out with this girl. Okay. Recently?

Well, Caitlin was in the interview room, not giving up much of anything. Other detectives were at the house she shared with Colin.

The homicide detectives obtained a search warrant for her and Colin's residence, and they executed that the same afternoon.

These are photos police took. The garage full of bikes, mostly columns. The yoga mat on the kitchen counter, Caitlin's. There were passports and money from other countries. Caitlin had studied yoga in Bali, in Mexico. The detectives photographed and seized their electronics to see what stories they would tell. And high up in the bedroom closet, they found those. His and hers handguns. Police took those, too, for ballistics testing. Of course. There was that jeep in the driveway. The biggest thing of all, she was.

Confronted about her jeep being in the neighborhood, about it being on camera.

Your vehicle was seen next to her house, and we needed to talk about that.

Okay, but did Caitlin explain why her jeep appeared on video right outside the murder scene? No, she did not.

I think if. If I were in that position and I'm being told that my vehicle is connected in some way to a crime, I would want to offer some explanation. And she just sits there with almost no reaction.

Well, almost. As detectives couldn't help but notice, she kept nodding her head, kind of indicating.

Okay, yeah, you have my jeep on camera.

It was the oddest thing, actually, to watch that video, wasn't it? To watch her in that interview. And she's giving visual cues that don't match any of the audio. 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. Okay. Okay. Is there any explanation as far as why the vehicle would be over there? I would like to leave if I'm free to leave. Okay.

Why did she stay as long as she did?

I think she was trying to find out, like, what exactly the detectives knew about what happened, just so that she can figure out what she's going to do next.

Are they planning on driving me back? Yeah. Let me go check on how we're going to get you back.

But the detectives had sized up Caitlin, too. Now, she clearly was their prime suspect, even though they did not have enough evidence to hold her.

Okay, come on.

Oh, how they would wish they had.

She wants us to race, and she wants you to do your best.

On May 14, 2022, just three days after Mariah Wilson was murdered, gravel locos. The race she had come to town for went on without her. But it wasn't easy for anyone.

I've been in contact with her parents, and they basically said, we want you all to do what mo wants you all to do. She wants you to race.

And they did, though. Glued clung to the event.

Nice work, you guys.

Colin Strickland was not there. Colin had bigger concerns, like the fact he was a person of interest in a murder investigation. He believed he'd been forthright, honest. The investigators thought otherwise. Always seeming to hide something.

Yes, always.

Gollum 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. Was it to get information from him as a suspect, or was it to get information from him as a witness?

So six days after the murder, Colin voluntarily returned to the police station, this time with his attorney, 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. He wanted to make sure that the ideas and thoughts that came to him were also considered.

Collins assumption was correct. That's exactly what police suspected, that his girlfriend, Caitlin, murdered Mariah. 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.

Was he? The detectives asked Colin if Caitlin ever said she wanted to hurt Mariah. And Colin said, no, not physically. They asked, did Caitlin ever contact Mariah? Yes. Colin admitted she did. It was when he and Caitlin were taking their break and he was seeing.

Mariah, basically saying, I'm with Colin. You know, I don't know what you're thinking that you're with Colin. You know, Colin's supposed to be my boyfriend, things like that.

That sure sounded like jealousy to investigators. 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.

Wouldn't hurt a fly, that sort of thing.

Exactly.

Detective Spitler asked point blank if he thought Caitlin killed Mariah. And Colin replied, I cannot fathom it. He said she was one of the least volatile women he had ever dated. After almost 3 hours, the conversation wound down and Colin was swabbed for his DNA and he left.

And I think Detective Spitler was happy to have the opportunity to ask him more questions because the difference in what the police had learned by May 17 and what they had known on May 12 was vast.

That was because tips had come in. One came from a friend of Mariah's. She said Caitlin called Mariah, telling her to stay away from Colin. Mariah blocked her number. Another tipster told how she ran into Caitlin at a party. Mariah was also there.

Caitlin stopped someone at that party and said, I can't believe she's here. I'm so mad right now. You know, I want to kill her. People say things. You don't really mean it literally. But then Caitlin said it again. She said, no, like, 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.

That kind of evidence, how useful is that? If you're trying to put together a murder case?

It's a lot. It shows motive.

Motive, of course, isn't enough to make an arrest, nor are words overheard at parties. Investigators needed hard evidence, and within hours of that second interview with Colin, they had some. They found more videos. One captured a jeep, Caitlin's make of car, driving past what would soon be the murder scene. 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.

We were able to determine that the bullets that were fired came from Caitlin Armstrong's gun.

With what degree of certainty?

It's a very, very high probability.

Between those videos, the tips about her anger at Mariah, and most incriminating, the ballistics, their only suspect was Caitlin Armstrong. They believed she acted alone. Spitler got an arrest warrant.

The only problem is that we can't find her. She's gone.

Caitlin Armstrong was in the wind.

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Are you ready for what's coming. Where was she? Caitlin Armstrong, prime suspect in the murder of Mo Wilson, had pulled off like some Vegas magician, a total disappearing act. And since no one had a clue where to find her, the order came down. Do what you have to.

It's kind of all hands on deck. It's a real team effort.

Detective Jonathan Riley wore two hats, one with the Austin PD. The other is a member of Austin's Lone Star fugitive task force, which is run by the US Marshals. They handle arrests for big cases in the region. Like Caitlin Armstrong. 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.

They didn't. She wasn't at home. She wasn't with friends. She wasn't at any of the places she was known to frequent. And so the hunt went public. Now to a developing story. Tonight, us marshals are searching for a woman in Texas accused of shooting, shooting and killing an up and coming cyclist. The search spread out. Caitlyn grew up in Michigan, raised by a single mom. She was the middle child and looked after her younger sister, Christine, before leaving for college and after to travel and study yoga and wind up in Austin. So had she run back to Michigan? The marshals called her family. Caitlin wasn't there. Colin told them he hadn't seen her since the morning of May 13, two days after the murder, when they went for coffee.

Caitlin had made the suggestion that possibly their house was bugged now, and she didn't want to talk about anything in the house.

On the advice of his new attorney, Claire Carter, Collins stayed away from Caitlin after that.

So it made the recommendation that they stay separately until more was revealed about who the suspect was and what the facts were around this murder.

So Collins steered clear of their place. He told the police he had no idea where Caitlin was, and there was no use tracing her cell phone.

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 Cullen and Caitlin's house. But if they couldn't track her, surely they could track her jeep and find her that way.

We had no hits through our license plate scanners showing that her car was had been seen anywhere. No one knew where she was.

What made it worse, they discovered they didn't have to let Kathan walk out of the police station. After that Botox bilking arrest, Armstrong was mistaken.

Released from custody on the misdemeanor warrant.

They thought her date of birth was wrong. On the warrant, it turned out it wasn't. So now they had to admit she slipped out of their hands. 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.

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 14, just three days after Mariah was murdered, 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.

Well, now that we have that information that you know, we know that she went up to New York. 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 that lives there.

Her sister Christine, who looked a lot like her. Caitlin could no longer travel on her own passport. But what if she got hold of her sister's passport and used that to fly out of the country? Maybe. The task force asked homeland security to run a search on any recent travel by Christine Armstrong. It only took minutes. Christine Armstrong, or someone using her passport had been busy.

I was like, wow, this took an unexpected turn.

But how far did she go? And how in heaven's name could they ever track her down at this point?

It's kind of like I'm a rookie all over again.

Oh, there was a trail. Long, weird, exotic, and only partial.

This just got a whole lot more interesting and a lot more difficult.

The hunt for Caitlin, to bring her back, to actually face justice, would not be quick or easy.

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. One woman calling herself who knew what? Who knew where in Costa Rica? Oh, one good to guide them.

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. 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. There was also a hurricane on the way.

Probably gonna turn into a category one.

And their quarry had no intention of being found. The prime suspect in the murder of Mariah Wilson, Caitlin Armstrong, had vanished. But it didn't take long for the Lone Star fugitive task force 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.

I said, this has just become a bigger case.

And though the name on the ticket was Christy, deputy US Marshal Amir Perez was all but sure it had to be Caitlin on that flight.

But we couldn't confirm it. Well, 100%. We had other deputies in New York go and find the sister.

That part was easy. Christine was at home in upstate New York. Definitely hadn't left the country. Told the deputy she didn't know the whereabouts of her passport, so they asked her what she knew about Caitlin's travel plans.

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. But why Costa Rica first?

I think the most important question is, like, what's her tie to Costa Rica?

And there really wasn't one, said us Marshal Damien Fernandez. Not in the usual sense, anyway. She had no known past there. They weren't aware of any family or friends in Costa Rica.

The only tie that we can think of is yoga, because Costa Rica's a big. I think if it's not the first, it's the second most tourist visited place for yoga.

Caitlin, the yoga instructor. She'd even been spotted on camera toting her yoga mat through the airport as she made her escape. Still, it wasn't much to go on. They needed help on the ground.

We knew for certain that she had traveled into Costa Rica.

Jose Araya is a criminal investigator with the diplomatic security service at the US embassy in Costa Rica. His team found security camera footage of Caitlin arriving at the airport in San Jose. They also learned she told immigration agents the name of the hotel where she'd.

Be staying, about six police agents, three patrol cars, and myself, and proceeded to just rush to the hotel in downtown San Jose to see if she was there, to see if Caitlin was there.

No luck. She made a reservation but never showed. Investigators tracked her online activity, which led them to places she may have visited.

And we're doing old fashioned police work. We're on our by foot visiting different sites that we thought maybe she was at.

The costa rican government was helping, too.

They had their own investigation going there as to why she was actually in their country using another person's passport.

Meanwhile, the marshals needed some detailed photos of their suspect. 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? You're gonna have your serious face, your walk around face, not the smile face. So we made it a point to find a photo of her not smiling.

But where else to look? No one was even sure she was still in Costa Rica.

Costa Rica is a very small country. It's very easy to travel from one border to the other within four, 6 hours. And it's also very easy to illegally enter either our neighbor Nicaragua or Panama without inspection.

Then the marshals back in the US got a promising tip. They learned that an american tourist recently returned from vacation in Costa Rica have 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.

So the marshals called.

The guy said, hey, we're the United States Marshals service. We were wondering if we could talk to you. And without missing a beat, he interrupted and said, not interested. 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 were like, wait, wait, wait. Please don't hang up.

Just Google Caitlin Armstrong's picture. They pleaded. And sure enough, said the guy, she looked familiar.

He's like, I remember I did have lunch with a woman, but her hair was more brown, and she went by the name Beth.

Beth, not Caitlin. He said he and this so called Beth met in a popular beach town called Jaco.

One of the things that she told him was that she was, you know, interested in yoga.

He told them he had suggested she check out a place called Santa Teresa beach, about 5 hours away.

He told her that, you know, that's a really big yoga community, and she should go look at that.

By this time, Caitlin had been in the wind for four weeks. But now was something to go on, vague though it was. Marshals Perez and Fernandez boarded a plane to Costa Rica with a plan to head to Santa Teresa, where she might or might not be hiding out.

We looked at each other and we said, this is going to be a lot more difficult than we anticipated.

Caitlin Armstrong was now a wanted woman in two countries, the United States and Costa Rica, which is where Deputy US marshals Amir Perez and Damian Fernandez landed to join up with Jose arrived team and costa rican law enforcement, all of them on the hunt. Now for Caitlin Armstrong.

She's been there already a month, so she's probably pretty comfortable now, 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.

She was using different aliases, many different aliases.

Beth or sometimes Ari or Alison. She'd been booking herself into different hostels in different locations, in different names, and then simply not showing up.

And honestly, I can't tell you whether it was to throw us off or not.

Their first stop was Jaco, where Jose Araya and his team had already obtained security video from the local police.

Once we were able to analyze the video, we had confirmed that Kaylin had indeed been in Jaco.

Jaco is where she had lunch with that american tourist and took a few yoga classes.

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. That american tourist had told the marshals he'd recommended she visited Santa Teresa for yoga. They knew Caitlin had purchased a new phone before she left Austin. And sure enough, they found evidence tracking that phone to Santa Teresa. 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.

It takes several hours to get from Jaco to Santa Teresa, a long drive and a ferry ride to a beach town whose residents perhaps enjoy the isolation. Like, for example, Teal Akerson, a true local raised in Santa Teresa by american parents.

When I was a kid, there wasn't a road here, and people came by boats, and there was a cattle trail, and you could come with a bicycle or a horse or a motorbike sometimes. And then they opened the road up, and then everyone wanted a slice of.

Paradise, a particular kind of paradise for a particular sort, a person.

There's nature in the ocean, and people are looking for silence. They get to come to Costa rica and surf, and then all also get.

To do their yoga or just get lost, said Teal.

It's a really good place for people to hide out, and tons of people do.

When the marshals arrived in Santa Teresa, they could see that if Caitlin was here, she just might have found herself the perfect place to disappear.

I remember speaking to people at the embassy about, this is who we look for. She's slender, she's tall, she's blonde. You know, she stands out. And they told us, she's not gonna stand out in Santa Teresa. You're gonna see a lot of women that fit that description.

Indeed, there were Caitlin doppelgangers everywhere. So the marshals settled in, kept a sharp eye out, and tried to look.

Inconspicuous when you go in, and you've gotta look like everybody else here, you gotta look like a tourist. We walked around a lot, up and down the beach, maybe 10 miles a day, something like that.

Well, a female member of their team haunted yoga classes.

She would do a morning and then an afternoon, and then she did another one where, like, just a meditation, but.

No sign of caitlyn there. Perez and the others even attended a surf contest, though their eyes were not on the water.

We're sitting there looking at the crowd, trying to get a closer view. Looking kind of. Kind of creepish.

Still no luck. So then they tried telling townsfolk they were with the US embassy and they were looking for a missing tourist.

Her family's very concerned, and there was.

A monetary reward, but Nada couldn't find.

Anyone who had seen her. Perez and Fernandez had given themselves five days, 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. At that point, we were done.

Their hope was dwindling, and so was their team.

Half of our team ended up getting.

Ill. With COVID there were just three investigators left standing. Nearly desperate. Now, they came up with what felt like one last ditch idea. They joined a Facebook group dedicated to all things Santa Teresa.

If you lost your wallet, if you wanted to rent the place, if you wanted to sell a place.

Caitlin was a yoga instructor, so if she was in town, she might be looking for a job teaching yoga.

And that's where we started creating those ads saying that we belong to this hostel and that we were looking for a yoga instructor.

But luck was just not going to be on their side. It seemed. First COVID, now word. A storm was rolling in.

We were told it was probably gonna turn into a category one hurricane. And if it's bad, I mean, people don't come out of their houses, they don't come out of hostels. Everybody stays shut in because it's raining outside.

There was actually a shelter in place announcement that was being put out because it was supposed to be really, really bad.

Really bad. Not to mention I was feeling really, really sick.

A week of fruitless searching, and then. And then a looming hurricane. Would anything go right?

And then somebody replied to the ad.

It just might be who they were looking for. Frustrated, exhausted, and sick, Emir Perez and Damian Fernandez went back to the costa rican capital to regroup after a fruitless week of searching for the fugitive Caitlin Armstrong. And then a bite. Someone responded to the ad they posted for a yoga instructor in Santa tune.

Teresa, this person could be the person that we're looking for.

Could be because the message came in from a number investigators believed might be Caitlin's. They set a time and place to meet with the job seeker. But when they arrived for the meeting, another message. Same person said they needed to reschedule.

Chief said, because where I'm staying, the owner of the place asked me to look after the place because his uncle is sick.

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.

And so we decided to go there. And I saw two people sitting there on the patio, the male and a female. 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? I said, hola, quetal.

Perez decided to play mexican tourist, speaking only in Spanish.

I asked various questions about how is it going to be, you know, just questions that you would ask, like at a hotel. What they came up with was that they could talk to me through Google Translate. And so I got close enough to see her phone when she would show it to me.

Robert Perez took a good close look at the woman. Her hair was darker and shorter than photos he'd seen of Caitlin, and there was a bandage across her nose. But the eyes, the unsmiling eyes, detectives had gone out of their way to find in photos of Caitlin. That was her, no doubt about it.

I said, okay, well, I'll be back. So I walked out the door and back to the vehicle where Damien was sitting.

As I see him come out, he's got this big old smirk in his face, and I'm like, okay, jackpot. We found her.

I walked in. I said, 100%, that's her. She's in there.

And I'm like, okay, what's next?

What came next was a call to the local police, who soon showed up at Don John's.

They're talking to her, and finally the question comes up, what's your name? And she says, one of the aliases that we knew, which is Ari Martin, and the police at guy turns and looks at me, and I nod at him.

That was their cue. The local police arrested Ari and brought her in for questioning. And that is when the marshmallow marshalls got to sit down with her.

And I'm like, all right, no games. What's your name? And she looked at me for the longest time. She took a big pause, maybe for a minute, and then she told me, Caitlin, all right, what's your last name? Armstrong.

And I asked her, I said, well, what happened to your nose. I said, why do you have a bandage on your nose? And she said she had gotten hit with a surfboard surfing accident.

Fernandez didn't buy it.

I was convinced she had work done.

And sure enough, when they returned to the hospital and searched her belongings, they found receipts for plastic surgery work done by this doctor, Jorge Badia. He knew his patient not as Caitlin, but as Alison Page.

And she behaved totally normal in, like, a very shy, maybe patient.

Allison requested a nose job and brown lift. Not unusual, he said, for tourists to see him for those kinds of procedures. What was a little strange, though, was how she hid her face on surgery day.

She had, like, a hat, a hoodie.

And also she had a mask over.

Her face, so we can only see her eyes.

Doctor Badea met with Allison about five days after the surgery to remove her cast in stitches, and that was the last he saw of her. It turned out Caitlin was off having surgery in San Jose while investigators were busy searching for her in Santa Teresa.

We realized, man, all that time that we spent walking up and down the beach, looking at hostels, looking at all these different places, she wasn't even there.

But she had been in Santa Teresa before they got there and made a big impression, especially on one surfer dude. And you've already met him. Sat at Theresa, local teal Akerson. He knew Caitlin as Ari.

She did yoga, I did yoga. We ended up talking, and she had just gone through a heavy breakup, she told me. And then I had gone through a breakup, and we were both kind of getting along and talking and sharing, talking.

And sharing activities that can sometimes lead to much more. But not, said Teal, for him and.

Ari, we went on probably, like, about four dates or something like that. We never kissed, never hooked up. It wasn't like that.

She was.

She made it clear that she had been traumatized, and I was okay with being a friend and hanging out. And I could understand for teal, the.

News about who Ari really was came crashing down like a rogue wave.

Afterwards, my brain just went, and I was like, whoa. That was why everything lying to me about everything in her name. And it's just my luck.

A wiper, yes, but such is life, said this surf instructor and beach philosopher.

Well, this is a bummer. I need another bummer story. We're just people. We're God's lost children. Everyone's on their life trip trying to figure it out. And no matter how wise you are, how smart, how enlightened you are, how much yoga you know, you're still just one of those people on that ride.

Caitlin's 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, and they accompanied Caitlin on a flight back to Texas.

The search for Caitlin Armstrong has been a month and a half long saga. She's now back in Texas.

Back home, Caitlin 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% of what you just said is either completely incorrect or mostly incorrect?

I'd love to hear your explanation. Hey, guys, Willie Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday sit down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with Larry David to talk about the bittersweet end of his iconic series, curb your enthusiasm and why on earth he decided to cast me on his show in this final season. You can get our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts.

He would lie his way into their dreams.

He was looking for James Bond girls.

How fun would that be to be.

A Bond girl, then twist them into a nightmare.

This guy has done this before. He'll do it again.

Until a group of women banded together to put him behind bars and keep.

Him there, you have to participate fiercely, fiercely, in what happens next.

I'm Keith Morrison, and this is murder in the Hollywood Hills, an all new podcast from Dateline.

All episodes of Murder in the Hollywood Hills are available now. To listen ad free, subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or datelinepremium.com dot.

Some people, some rare people, though driven to achieve the uniquely successful and celebrated, remain deeply humble, uncomfortable in the limelight. Such a one was Mariah Wilson. Her very private family declined our invitation to speak on camera, but her father wanted us to know about her humility, her kindness, about never wanting things to be all about her.

Great, stoked to be here.

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, 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.

In the spring of 2023, Mariah's mother Karen, father Eric, and brother Matt posted a ride for Mo event to raise money for a local children's organization.

But more than anything, she just loved to ride her bike in this beautiful place and around the world where she biked. So my hope today is that we can all tap into that spirit 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 her was bulking up, and one major mystery had been solved. The whereabouts of Caitlin's jeep, the one that vanished when she left town.

We learned that the title was transferred from Caitlin to Carmax.

They found video of Caitlin driving the jeep to Carmax two days after the murder, where she sold it for just over $12,000 and flew off to New York the next day. No doubt the twelve grand helped her pay for flights and room and board. And that knows job, too. Perhaps. But that is not why investigators were excited about finding the car.

There was a high probability that it actually kept GPS data.

Indeed it did. A digital forensics gold mine. In fact, the GPS tracked every turn and every stop the jeep made on the night of Mariah's murder. At 06:33 p.m. The jeep left Kaitlyn's house, heading downtown, and then, an hour later, changed direction.

And then went over into East Austin.

East Austin, where Mariah's friend Caitlin Cash lived and where Mariah was staying. Once there, the jeep circled the neighborhood, passing by Caitlin Cash's place over and over again, 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.

The investigators already knew what happened next. At 835, Colin dropped off Mariah. At Caitlin Cash's house. At 836, Mariah unlocked the front door. At 837, the jeep was caught on camera, slowing down near the house. But now new details, thanks to the GPS. At 841, the jeep parked down the block in a church parking lot. And then the GPS stopped. Ignition turned off until 917, when the jeep was driven away.

After the murder, that's whenever that vehicle ended up leaving from the area.

A 36 minutes gap during which detectives now knew Mariah was murdered. By then, Detective Spitler had come across yet another piece of security security camera video, 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. This particular camera also recorded audio, so Spittler took care of some paperwork, listening in the background for cars going by until. Wait. Could it be the horrific sound of a murder in progress?

All of a sudden, I hear a female scream. And then I hear two gunshots. A six second pause, and one more gunshot.

Have you ever heard a murder in progress like that before? No.

No, I had not. I was just in shock.

The sounds were recorded at 915, the time they now knew for sure. When Mariah Wilson breathed her last, the investigators were sure the case against Caitlin Armstrong was solid, impossible to refute. But apparently, defense attorney Rick Cofer didn't get the message.

Kalin Armstrong is not guilty. And if this case goes to trial, she will be found not guilty.

We first spoke to attorney Cofer in August 2022.

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 debt to rights. They got her jeep on unring 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, dyes her hair brown. I mean, if she didn't do it, why go to all that trouble?

You know, looks really can be deceiving. What if I told you that about 98% of what you just said is either completely incorrect or mostly incorrect?

I'd love to hear your explanation. Cofer said he had one, starting with motive or the lack of it.

What if I told you that Caitlin Armstrong, in fact, is not a jealous person?

No jealousy means no motive, he said. And why did she run away to Costa Rica? Not because she was a killer, said Cofer, but because she feared her boyfriend.

Colin was her boyfriend of three and a half years. The person that she has lived with and made a life with, spent basically all day with homicide detectives being interrogated for murder. And Kate Armstrong is, as you can pretty well imagine, terrified. 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. Caitlin Armstrong did not kill Miss Wilson.

But you can prove that she wasn't in that vicinity. That's what you're saying?

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.

Certainly a bold defense to counter a mammoth amount of evidence against her. So why did Caitlin Armstrong make the wildest decision imaginable? What went through your mind when you saw the flurry of prison stripes running down the street? It was Wednesday, the 11 October 2023. Caitlin Armstrong, three weeks to her murder trial, had a doctor's appointment outside the jail. Her keepers prepared her, walked her out toward a waiting car, and she ran. Ran from the guards, ran from everyone. For ten desperate minutes later, it would turn out she had used a pin of some sort to undo her handcuffs. The prosecutor saw this video as more evidence of her guilt. November 1, 2023.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

Her trial began. Was there anything you were worried about, particularly getting across to the jury? You always worry until it's over.

The case was obviously, by and large, a circumstantial case, and I think that term circumstantial often gets a bad rap or bad reputation, especially on tv.

Now, in real life, Travis county prosecutors Guillermo Gonzalez and Ricky Jones laid out their circumstantial case against Caitlin Armstrong on.

May 11, 2022, at 915 pm here in Austin, Texas.

The last thing mo did on this.

Earth was screaming in terror.

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, 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. Certain days was certain days. It was business. It was during one of those off times, he told the jury when he and Mariah got together. That was in the fall of 2021 and for just a couple of weeks when Mariah was visiting Austin after Mariah left town, he said he and Caitlin reconciled, which was easy because she never moved out of his house at the time of the murder, Colin testified his relationship with Caitlin was very smooth, or so he thought. But he shared an iPad and a.

Laptop that was connected to Colin's phone.

Meaning that though Colin may have thought he fooled Caitlin by changing Mariah's name in his phone contacts list, Caitlin could easily see on their shared electronic devices exactly what Colin was up to. And the prosecutors alleged she was essentially stalking Mariah using an app called Strava, on which Mariah had been keeping track of her own bike rides.

It can be used to track your path, and at your option, you can make that information available to anyone who wants to see it.

Because Mariah was a gravel racing star, her profile was public, and prosecutors told the jury this was a particular interest on the last day of her life, when she went on an 80 miles bike ride. Her workout started and ended at her friend Caitlin Cash's apartment, and prosecutors believe that's likely how Caitlin Armstrong knew Mariah was in Austin and exactly where she was staying.

She's viewing Mariah Wilson profile and activity on Strava on May 9, on May 10, and on May 11. She's not a fan. She's not a fan girl of Mariah.

Wilson, which is why she would be particularly incensed if she looked at her boyfriend's text messages with Mariah about making plans to swim. Then there was Caitlin's own cell phone data, or lack thereof. Her phone stopped pinging at 07:30 p.m. That fateful evening when Mariah and Colin were still having dinner. 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. She knew that she could be tracked.

And that's why she turned her phone off, said the prosecutors.

What she did know, presumably, is that her jeep was doing the same thing.

It's pretty hard to escape the technology now, isn't it?

It's everywhere.

More than 40 witnesses helped tell the prosecution story, liked a friend who testified that she asked Caitlin what would happen if Colin started dating someone new. And Caitlin said, I would kill her. And then there was the report of that stay away from my man phone call and the photos of Caitlyn's plastic surgery and the evidence that she'd googled herself while on the run. 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. 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 her heart. A ballistics expert testified that the bullets that were found at the scene were most likely shot from Caitlin Armstrong's gun. Most likely, not absolutely certain. So you worry about a defense attorney getting up and saying this is all just circumstantial evidence. You can ignore it, of course, which is what they did. And in fact, Caitlin's defense attorney, Rick Kofer, told the jury, there is a lot of schism.

There's not much stake.

Why would you say that? They had a lot of stake, didn't they?

Circumstantial evidence cases are peculiar when there's not an eyewitness, when there's not a confession, when there's not video of the actual criminal act. If you think of it like a Jenga tower, the government is trying to piece together little different logs of evidence, and we're trying to poke them out.

So Rick Cofer went at it, poking out the pieces best he could, starting with that secondhand account of Caitlin's so called threatening phone call to Mariah.

Caitlin called Mariah Wilson once in October 2021, probably it was a phone call, something to the extent of. By the by, Colin Strickland is a little bit of an ass, and I live with him. Is that so unreasonable? Is that insane?

But then there was that new evidence that Caitlin gave the prosecutors just before the trial. How badly did it hurt you that she tried to escape just before the trial?

I think everybody criminal defense lawyer in America who saw that shook their head and said, 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.

Terrified woman, fearful woman.

Same sort of reason for running to Costa Rica. He told the jury.

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? Or if not that, that whoever killed Mariah Wilson might want to kill Caitlin Armstrong next?

Now, Caitlin Armstrong was a captive audience.

Could you have passed that verdict to the mailers, please?

And she was about to find out that jury's verdict.

There's always more to the story. To go behind the scenes of tonight's episode. Listen to our talking Dateline series with Josh and Keith, available Wednesday.

Detective Richard Spitler waited 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, and now I just have to put my faith in the judicial process.

But your heart's flipping away like crazy.

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, the defendant, Caitlyn Armstrong, 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 will determine their sentence. Caitlin decided this jury still had work to do. And so attorneys from both sides addressed them again. Cofer asked the jury to consider the possibilities that his client could someday find redemption.

If we're not allowed at least the opportunity to atone for our sins, then we cannot grow as a society.

But prosecutor Gonzalez urged the jury to hold Caitlin fully accountable for her crime.

And I submit to you that without accountability, there cannot be redemption and forgiveness. This was somebody who thought and had time to calculate and meditate about what.

She was about to do.

And all of this is because of her, because of her action.

The jury had a profound decision to make. 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, 90 years in prison. But there was one more thing. Before the bailiff escorted her away. Mariah's friends and family had said very little since her death. Their silence and expression of how deep their pain was. But now they let it out.

Caitlin, I want you to know that I fought for Mo with everything I had that night.

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. And I'll never forget that moment in the bathroom, watching the sink turn red and wanting to put it back on my hands because it was the only thing I had left of her. I feel deep sadness for the road ahead that Mo's family must continue to walk.

Mo's mother, Karen.

I hate what you did to my beautiful daughter. 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. She would have cared about your feelings. When you shot Mariah in the heart, you shot me. In my heart, you shot Eric and Matt. In their hearts, you shot Mariah's cousins and aunts and uncles, and all the people who loved her pinched their hearts.

And then it was time.

Miss Armstrong, you're now remanded to the custody of the Travis County Sheriff's office for beginning of the execution of sentence.

She will almost certainly never be free again. Outside the courtroom, Mariah's father, Eric, said what Mariah might have said given the way she was.

This sad story is a perfect example of why integrity and honesty are crucial in our personal relationships and how dishonesty can often lead to unintended consequences. Selfish manipulation, jealousy, and hatred never, never lead to positive outcomes.

And a postscript. Colin Strickland, that celebrated world class cyclist, has given up the sport of gravel racing. Murder makes many victims many ways.

I have personally seen Colin become a much more private person who has moved more inward with his life.

On her friend Christopher's podcast, recorded not long before she died, Mariah Wilson was posed a lighthearted question by Christopher's co host. And what an answer she gave.

If you could have a superpower, what would it be? Oh, this is such a good one.

Being able to stop time and just, like, hit pause.

Do you remember that? Huh?

Yeah.

Yeah, I do.

Yeah. Obviously, that response is way more poignant than it was, and it's a great answer either way, because who doesn't want to just, like, you know, be able to savor some special time in your life or memory?

And she recognized that as a special time. Mm hmm. If only she could have stopped time. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.