Pod Insights Crime, Conspiracy, Cults and Murder Ep. 114 | This Murder Case Took a Turn Nobody Expected | Moriah Wilson About this episode Head to https://brodo.com/CCCM for 20% off your first subscription order and use code CCCM for an additional $10 off.
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She was young, talented, and on the verge of something great - until her life was cut short in a brutal act of violence. The murder of Moriah Wilson would uncover a chilling story of envy, obsession, and deadly consequences.
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Transcript 11,649 words · 4 speakers
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0:50 Speaker 02 There's a world where competition is a kind of closeness. Professional cyclists ride side by side for hours. They share sponsors, hotel rooms, and dinner tables the night before a big race. It's a small world, and in a small world, nothing really stays private for long. Everyone knows everyone, and everyone's name gets passed around. One name in that world was climbing faster than any other, and someone was watching her a little bit too closely. But not for the reasons you might suspect. The achievements and fame didn't matter. This was personal, and it led to the worst possible outcome for everyone involved. And this is the story of how it got there.
1:34 Speaker 02 Crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers, and murder, all things that I love to consume, and I know you do, too, you sick, twisted, beautiful, intellectually-minded freak. Today, we are talking about an extremely interesting, horrifying case, the case of Mariah Wilson and Kaitlin Armstrong. And before we get into it, I just want to apologize if I sound a little bit off. I have been sick for about a week now, but I need to film. So if I sound a little nasally or a little scratchy, that is why I'm going to do my best and drink tea throughout this to sound as normal as possible. But without further ado, let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go Mach 5 down the highway, slam on the brakes, and bust through this windshield into this case together.
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3:12 Speaker 01 Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to bill Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.
3:29 Speaker 02 In the spring of 2022, she was called the winningest woman in the American off-road scene. And three years earlier, she hadn't even considered cycling as a career. And her name was Anna Mariah Wilson. But everyone called her Mo. And she was born on May 18, 1996. Shout out to my 1996 babies. Hi. We're turning 30 this year, but we're not talking about it, okay? And she was raised in the northeast kingdom of Vermont, tucked between the towns of Kirby and East Burke, where trails outnumber stoplights and the mountains mold who you become. And in Mo's family, the mountains really shaped everything. Her mom Karen and her dad Eric had both competed on the US ski team.
4:12 Speaker 02 And Eric came close to qualifying for the Olympics himself, while Laura Wilson Todd, Eric's sister, went all the way. She was a Nordic skier who competed at both the 1994 and 1998 Olympics. And Eric went on to coach at Burke Mountain Academy, a private boarding school built around alpine Ski racing and he later became a financial advisor in nearby Saint John'sbury. And Karen built a career that stretched across several worlds. She was a teacher, worked in hospitality and guided mountain bike tours. And Mo's younger brother Matthew also followed the family playbook skiing at Burke Mountain Academy, then racing at the college level before graduating from Middlebury in 2022 with a degree in English literature.
4:57 Speaker 02 And Mo got her first bike at seven years old. Specifically a specialized, which is the name of the company. And she'd ride it for fun, but skiing was the real dream. So her childhood rhythm was set early on. Growing up in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, she spent many hours on the kingdom trails, developing her skills and strength as a biker. But when winter came, it was all about the slopes. At Burke Mountain Academy, she was more than an athlete. She captained the women's soccer team her senior year, earned letters in cycling, soccer and alpine skiing, and was inducted into both the Natural Spanish Honor Society and the Cum Laude Society.
5:40 Speaker 02 And to top it off, she also played piano, just an extremely accomplished young girl. And on the mountain, she was fearless. And by 2013, she was finishing on the podium. Third at the US Junior National Championship downhill, and third in the country for her age group in Giant Slalom. And she performed so well that Olympic skiing felt less like a fantasy and more like a plan. But then she would suffer a difficult physical injury. And sophomore year at Burke Mountain Academy, her ACL gave out. A very, very common injury in soccer and skiing and basically any sport. Essentially, I knew so many girls that tore their ACL. I tore mine partly as well. It sucks. It's devastating.
6:21 Speaker 02 But she resiliently fought through rehab and finished high school in 2014. And that fall, she headed to Dartmouth as an engineering major with a spot on the women's alpine ski team. And then she tore it again, which is very common, putting a severe damper on her skiing dream. And most people would have more. The loss of that dream for a really long time. But instead, Mo just redirected it because she was determined. All that time grinding through recovery rewired something in her. The dream didn't die, it just changed shape. And cycling as a profession wasn't even on her radar until 2019. Right after finishing her time at Dartmouth, she took off for Europe,
7:05 Speaker 02 where she spent three weeks on a bike, just riding. And in September, she entered the Old Growth Classic in San Francisco, and it was her first gravel race, and she won her age group, finishing second overall. And she'd already relocated to California by that point, working as a demand planner for specialized bicycles. And she was learning the industry from the inside, but the races were what really set her on fire. So her progression was staggering. She finished ninth at Unbound Against a Stacked Field, and not long after, she grabbed a second-place finish at a Leadville 100. And in October of 2021, she entered the Big Sugar Gravel Race in Bentonville, Arkansas.
7:46 Speaker 02 And Mo blew past top pro women and crossed the line in 12th place overall. But she didn't just beat the pro women. She even beat seasoned pros like Peter Stuntina, a former World Tour rider. And by early 2022, she was unstoppable. She won the Rock Cobbler in February, the Shasta Gravel Hugger in March, and finished runner-up at the Mid-South. Then, won the Belgian Waffle Ride by 25 minutes. She was just going, just going up, like that little German guy with the Lederhosen on The Price is Right. You know what I'm talking about? The guy that goes, "Yolay, yolay, yolay." Maybe I'm too old. I'm too old for this.
8:24 Speaker 00 One step for every dollar you miss the prize.
8:27 Speaker 02 And at the Sea Otter Classic's Fuego 80K, she beat an Olympian to win the women's division. And that win put her at the top of the inaugural Lifetime Grand Prix standings. Six races, a $250,000 purse on the line, 10 event wins in a single year. And all of it in under three years since she started racing. You know how difficult that is? That is, this woman is incredible. And off the bike, people would say she was worn before they remembered her results. So everybody, everybody just loved her. Everybody that ran into her loved who she was. As pro cyclist Ian Boswell put it simply, quote, "She was a Vermonter in and out,
9:10 Speaker 02 always giving to those around her," unquote. And Boswell recalled the night before the Sea Otter Classic, a race she would go on to win, quote, "While a lot of the elite athletes might be resting before a big race like that, Mo was cooking everyone dinner and doing dishes. That's just who she was," unquote. And one event organizer described her as a, quote, "role model, a shy compassionate person, a spirited tactical racer, and a competitor that genuinely cared about those competing against you," unquote. And she loved cooking, writing, and traveling. She especially loved Italy, Taco Tuesdays, maple creamies, and playing catan with her friends. And she documented her races and journey through a Substack newsletter and on Instagram.
9:53 Speaker 02 And by the spring of 2022, Mo had made a major decision. She left her job at Specialized to pursue cycling full-time. And Vermont was going to be home again. So she packed up and headed back, already sketching out a vision. She wanted to open a space where cyclists could come together over good local food, a community hub, if you will. And her mom helped set her up with a training coach, Neil Burton, and sponsors were lining up behind her. Specialized Scratch Labs, The Feed, The Meteor Cafe. She was 25 years old at this point, leading the biggest race series in America off-road cycling, and doing exactly what she set out to do.
10:34 Speaker 02 And in May of 2022, she flew to Austin, Texas to race the Gravel Locos, a big community event that attracts amateurs and international pros alike. And it was the next step in her beautiful journey. So Colin Strickland didn't grow up dreaming about professional cycling. He was born November 7, 1986, and grew up on a farm in Johnson City, Texas. And after high school, he headed to the University of Texas at Austin. Where he studied environmental science. And his first real job out of college had nothing to do with bikes. He'd been hired by an environmental consulting firm to check development areas for endangered species habitat.
11:14 Speaker 02 Quote, "I would survey and commence excavation to see if it led to the potential little orifice feature that led to a cave. I had a permit to collect these endangered species, carst invertebrate, and send them into a lab." And carst invertebrate, for the record, are tiny insects and arachnids that live in cave systems. But still, from the time he turned 18 until his mid twenties, he was on a bike nearly every single day, but never to train, just to get to where he was going. But eventually, that time on the bike led him to enter his first race. And it was the Alley Cat, which is an unsanctioned fixed gear street race, popular in urban cycling culture. And he won it. And that was all it took.
11:58 Speaker 02 That first win pulled him deeper in, and rightfully so. And he started showing up to more local races, then graduated to national road events. And he landed a few podium finishes along the way. And Specialized picked him up for the 2016 Redhook Crit Series, which is a prestigious international fixed gear race held in major cities around the world. And at this point, he hadn't even quit his day job yet, but he still swept the competition. Four consecutive victories across four countries. Milan in 2015, then Brooklyn, and then London, and Barcelona in 2016. And after that, he turned pro. And gravel came next. And he entered his first off-road race about a year after going pro.
12:43 Speaker 02 And he knew almost immediately what it could become. Quote, "It took one race, maybe two, for me to realize that gravel was going to be the next big thing." Unquote. And he would go on to win gravel worlds in both 2017 and 2018. But the race that changed everything came in 2019 at Unbound Gravel. It's a 200-mile endurance race through the Flint Hills of Kansas, considered the sports main event. And halfway through, he gambled, and he launched solo off the front of the lead group and committed to it fully. And nobody had ever finished Unbound in under 10 hours, but Colin did it, putting more than nine minutes between himself and second-place finisher
13:27 Speaker 02 Peter Stettina. And that win put his name in the front of the entire cycling world. And after Unbound, Jonathan Vodders came calling, and he ran EF Pro Cycling, a world tour team, and he wanted Colin on the 2020 roster. And that meant a shot at legendary races like Paris-Roubaix, but Colin turned it down. Because he built his career on independence, assembling his own race calendar and his own roster of sponsors without ever belonging to a traditional team. And he didn't want to spend a year doing what someone else told him to do. And that independence defined more than just his racing. Because even as his name grew, he kept other things in his life front and center. Quote, "I still have
14:10 Speaker 02 other things going on in my life. It's always a balance for me. I'm rebuilding three diesel engines, am renovating a trailer, have projects around the house, and see friends," unquote. So he had a shit together, basically. And he never had a coach. He called himself a "tinkering projector," a person whose plate was always so full with what he already loved that nothing new could squeeze on. And the people around him saw a pattern. Nothing about how Colin got into cycling was typical, and he seemed to prefer it that way. And in September of 2021, he traveled to Idaho for a three-day gravel race. And that's where he met Mo Mariah. And in his words, she was an immense talent. And over the following
14:53 Speaker 02 months, he helped open doors for her with sponsors. And this was supposedly normal for him. Male or female, building friendships with other riders was just what he did. And a few weeks after that first meeting, Mo visited Austin, and the two of them spent time together. And for about a week, the friendship turned into something more. Because both of them have recently come out of other relationships. And then Mo went back to California, and the relationship would be over almost as quickly as it started. And after that week, the two of them were allegedly never romantic again, only platonic and professional. And Colin called her a very close friend, just two leaders in what he described as a lonely niche sport.
15:35 Speaker 02 But their story didn't end there, because another person would come into the mix. Now Caitlin Marie Armstrong was born November 21st, 1987, in Livonia, Michigan, a quiet suburb just west of Detroit. And she was the older of two daughters born to Sharon and Michael Armstrong. And her younger sister was Christine, and her father left the family when she was young, and her mother struggled with alcoholism. But in high school, none of that was visible, and her Stevenson High School yearbook told a different story. She was into volleyball and track, tried basketball for a bit, and had red hair that people remembered. So memorable, in fact, that her senior class voted her best hair in the class of 2005.
16:18 Speaker 02 And after graduating, she enrolled at Schoolcraft Community College. And from there, she transferred to Eastern Michigan University. And after school, Caitlin moved fast. She was writing mortgages by 19, and over the next decade, she bounced from mortgage lending to asset management to real estate finance. In Detroit, to Los Angeles, to Singapore, she lived in Santa Monica for a stretch before eventually landing in Austin, Texas. And by her mid-30s, she was a licensed agent with Cooper Sotheby's International Realty. And along the way, she'd gotten certified as a yoga instructor during an extended stay in Bali. And her Sotheby's profile read like someone who'd curated every detail of life.
16:59 Speaker 02 Years of breathwork and meditation in Bali, a real estate career spanning three continents. From every angle, it just looked polished. But there was one loose thread, a misdemeanor warrant out of Austin for theft of service. She'd actually gotten $650 worth of Botox done at Esthetica Med Spa in Austin, and when the bill came, she gave them a credit card. And before the charge went through, though, she said she wanted to grab a different card from the car, and that was the last anyone at the spa saw her. She can't really take back Botox because you get that shit injected, so some shady shit. But time would pass and Kaitlyn would meet Colin on a dating app in 2019.
17:42 Speaker 02 And he later joked that at the time, he was, quote, "riding bicycles in circles for a living." And Colin described their relationship as, quote, "tumultuous at times and extremely comfortable and loving at others," unquote. So over the next two and a half years, they built something that looked, from the outside, like a shared life. Kaitlyn started cycling after meeting him, and his friends, Chris Tully, remembered how eager Colin was to bring her into his world. Quote, "He was very willing to kind of show her, you know, what his passions were and how passionate he was for cycling and, you know, get her involved with it," unquote. And she signed up for the Driveway Series, a weekly cycling event run on an auto racing
18:23 Speaker 02 track in Austin that drew a lively crowd. Because she had a background in competitive running, so the transition kind of made sense. And the two of them even started a business together, and it was called Wheelhouse Mobile, based out of Lockhart, Texas, and they renovated vintage travel trailers. And Kaitlyn handled the finances, managed accounts payable, and built the website. And they would set up an LLC, and they would even buy a house together in Lockhart. But Colin's friend Tully was caught off guard by that step. Quote, "Owning property together, I was like, whoa, that's a big step for Colin," unquote. And to people around them, Kaitlyn seemed invested. And Tully said she appeared happy. Quote, "She was in love with Colin. She wanted him to be, you know, the one. At the end of
19:08 Speaker 02 the day, I feel like they had a pretty normal relationship. They both ride bikes together. They would, you know, do fun stuff," unquote. But Colin felt differently than it looked. He said he loved her once and was pretty sure the feeling was mutual. But he also admitted that he wasn't sure the two of them worked together in any lasting way. And that uncertainty hung over everything. He wasn't enthusiastic about living together, and when her apartment flooded during the catastrophic Texas freeze in February of 2021, he simply offered her a place to stay out of kindness. Quote, "I was not in favor of living together, but she needed a place to live urgently." And that freeze was crazy.
19:50 Speaker 02 Caleb lived in Texas during that time and the pictures, it's just all like, God bless everyone that went through that in 2021 in Texas. My goodness. So what was supposed to be temporary became permanent. And through it all, Kaitlyn had access to Colin's digital life. She knew his passwords. She could get into his email and his Instagram and basically all of it, even his texts. And friends noticed that beneath the surface, the relationship carried a tension that never fully resolved. So Kaitlyn and Colin would actually split in October of 2021 after a trip to Bentonville, Arkansas for the big sugar gravel race. Kaitlyn had ridden along, but when Colin organized a mountain bike ride with other cyclists during
20:35 Speaker 02 the event, he didn't invite her. Ouch. But it was because he told her she didn't have the skill level to keep up. Kaitlyn was furious about this and Colin said the relationship ended shortly after. But ended is a complicated word when two people still share, you know, a home. And Kaitlyn's belongings stayed right where they were. And five or six days after the Bentonville blow up, Mo arrived in Austin to visit friends. And this is when Mo, Mariah, and Colin's short relationship occurred. The one that we talked about previously, that little, little short span and then they kind of parted ways and became platonic. But text messages between the two suggested Mo believed she was the one Colin was dating.
21:20 Speaker 02 But she didn't seem to know that his previous relationship had barely cooled or that the woman he'd been with still lived under his roof. Now that's some shady shit too. And then Kaitlyn would find out and she picked up the phone and called Mo before things between Mo and Colin had even ended. And Kaitlyn was blunt and she claimed Colin was hers and demanded that Mo back off. And Mo returned to California not long after. And she figured out pretty quickly that the two of them weren't headed in the same direction and whatever it had been it was over now and about a month later Kaitlyn and Colin would actually get back together but Kaitlyn wasn't finished
22:01 Speaker 02 with Mo and according to a friend of Mo's Kaitlyn got hold of her number and reached out to her again and again and again and Mo eventually blocked her and then Kaitlyn started following Mo on Instagram and every message carried the same demand to stay away from Colin and behind closed doors Kaitlyn was watching even more carefully she would confront him about conversations that he had with other women because Colin had texted a friend about visiting someone in Colorado and Kaitlyn would see it and text him a semi nude photo of a woman he'd met there months before and she couldn't have known about that photo unless she'd been reading conversations he thought was private so but there's shady
22:46 Speaker 02 activity happening in this relationship it's toxic AF and this was her way of letting him know that she knows she's watching she knows everything and Colin now knew she was looking so he started hiding why aren't we just leaving each other I don't know I literally don't know it doesn't make sense to me but there's nothing we can do about it so I digress so he would change Mo's name in his phone to Christine Wall and routinely deleted their text conversations and he justified the decision by saying he had quote right to a friendship with this person without having like constant strife unquote but
23:26 Speaker 02 Kaitlyn went a step further and she got into Colin's phone and blocked Mo's number herself so he couldn't contact her the level of crazy happening in this in this is is wild in this and it's gonna get a lot worse so buckle up but still there was yet another layer to the tension because Colin drew a sharp line between himself and Kaitlyn on the bike he was a racer she was a participant but when he talked about Mo the language was entirely different Mo in Colin's words was the best female cyclist in the US which was
24:05 Speaker 02 Correct. And he thought she might be the best on the planet. So Kaitlyn wasn't just losing her boyfriend's attention to another woman. She was losing it to a woman who excelled at the very thing Kaitlyn could only participate in. So in November of 2021, Kaitlyn's friend Nicole Mertz noticed something she hadn't seen before. The two were out together at the Meteor Cafe in Austin, and Mertz said Kaitlyn was unusually quiet that night. And that night, Kaitlyn confided that she and Colin weren't together anymore. And then, Mo walked in. And Mertz said Kaitlyn became visibly angry, and it was a side of her Mertz had never encountered. And later that evening, Mertz asked Kaitlyn what she would do if Colin started seriously
24:50 Speaker 02 dating someone else. And Kaitlyn replied, quote, unquote, "I would kill her." And Mertz didn't think much of it at the time. Quote, "It wasn't about anyone in particular. Seemed like something you would say when you're angry." And two months later, someone else heard the same thing. And in January 2022, Kaitlyn attended a bike race dinner in Bentonville, Arkansas, with an acquaintance named Jacqueline Chastain. And over the course of the evening, Kaitlyn opened up to Chastain about what she'd learned. Colin had been with Mo behind her back. And she said Mo wouldn't stop texting him despite Kaitlyn's attempts to make her stop. And then, according to Chastain, Kaitlyn said, quote, "In so many words that she thought
25:34 Speaker 02 about killing Wilson and wanted to kill her." And the next day, the conversation picked back up over text. And Kaitlyn brought up buying a gun. And she had been watching Mo through Strava, which is a GPS-based app that cyclists and runners use to log their rides and routes. Which is horrifying to think that somebody can track somebody else's movements like that, like, "Why does this exist? That sounds terrible." And Strava's records show Kaitlyn viewed Mo's profile six times. And she knew where Mo was training, and she knew when Mo was riding. And by early May 2022, Kaitlyn was accessing Colin's Gmail and his Instagram from her own phone. Remember? She knew all the passwords and everything. So she kept looking at both of them intently.
26:19 Speaker 02 So Mo landed in Austin on May 10th, 2022, and her friend Caitlin Cash picked her up from the airport and brought her back to her place on Maple Avenue. And the gravel locust was that weekend, and she was the favorite to win. And the next day, May 11th, Mo sent Cash a text letting her know that she had plans that evening. And she told Cash she was heading out with a friend named Colin. And throughout the day, the two had been exchanging messages. Mo asked him, quote, unquote, "Do you have plans tonight?" And he replied, quote, "Want to go swimming? Maybe swimming and a beverage?" unquote. And that afternoon, Cash stopped by her own place to check in with Mo before heading out. And by 5:30, Cash was out the door, heading to dinner with friends.
27:03 Speaker 02 And before she left, she spotted Mo's bike travel bag sitting on the front porch. And Cash went back in and told Mo to bring it inside before somebody walked off with it. And while Mo was getting ready for a casual evening with a friend, Caitlin was already in motion. And according to her Strava account, Caitlin had been out on her bike that morning, and her route included a stop at the meteor, because Mo had uploaded a ride to Strava earlier that day as well, and it started and ended at Cash's house on Maple Avenue. And Mo texted Colin the address to where she was staying. And Caitlin had access to the laptop where those messages came in. She didn't need to guess where Mo would be that night.
27:44 Speaker 02 So Colin picked up Mo from Maple Avenue on his motorcycle around 5:45 PM. And Cash's electronic door lock recorded a lock event at 5:55 PM. And then they rode to Deep Eddy Pool, a spring-fed public pool on the west side of Austin, and went for a swim. And once they were done swimming, they headed on foot to Pool Burger, a little cafe nearby, and got something to eat. And at 8:16 PM, surveillance cameras captured them leaving the Pool Burger parking lot on Colin's motorcycle. And meanwhile, Caitlin had called Colin several times that evening, but he didn't pick up. And when they did finally connect, Colin just flat-out lied. And he said his phone had been dead and that he'd been out running errands on his own.
28:29 Speaker 02 But obviously, as we know, and as Caitlin knew, none of this was true. Because she'd been monitoring his location through his phone. And she'd even been parked outside the restaurant while Colin and Mo were inside. And at 8:26 PM, surveillance footage captured Caitlin's Jeep driving northbound on Maple Avenue, then turning westbound on East 18th Street. She was heading toward Cash's house. Now, Mo hadn't even arrived back yet, but at 8:35 PM, cameras recorded Colin's motorcycle moving northbound through the alley just north of East 18th Street. And he dropped Mo off and was heading home. One minute later, at 8:36, two things happened almost simultaneously.
29:12 Speaker 02 Cash's door lock pinged because Mo had just unlocked the front door and walked in. And from his motorcycle, Colin sent Caitlin a text message saying, quote, "Hey, are you out? I went to drop some flowers for Allison at her son's house up north and my phone died. Heading home unless you have another food suggestion," unquote. So they're still living in the same house. Oh, by the way, they're not together, but they're still living in the same house. And at 8:37 PM, Caitlin's Jeep appeared on surveillance footage again, and it stopped next to Cash's residence. And Mo had been inside for about 60 seconds at this point. And Caitlin's phone was then turned off. But the GPS system inside her Jeep was not.
29:57 Speaker 02 And she had been looping the same block around Maple Avenue over and over and over again in the minutes that followed. And at 8:43 PM, Colin got home and sent Caitlin another text. And by 8:48, cameras placed him driving southbound on the I-35 Frontiers Road, roughly eight miles from Cash's apartment. He was nowhere near Maple Avenue. And then, around 9:13 PM, something triggered the Ring Doorbell camera outside Cash's apartment. And the apartment's alarm system recorded activity at the same time. And at approximately 9:15, three gunshots were picked up by The security system and cameras in the vicinity recorded screaming.
30:39 Speaker 02 And at 9:21, Colin texted Caitlin again from their garage. And a few minutes later, Caitlin showed up at the house in her Jeep, and she was the only person in the vehicle. And the man who lived in the unit below Cash's place was David Harris. And somewhere between 8:30 and 9:30 PM that night, he heard footsteps pounding down the outside staircase. And he also thought he saw someone on a bicycle heading south through the back alley. And at approximately 9:54 PM, Cash came home. The front door wasn't locked, which was unusual, and that would be the first thing she noticed. And then inside, she found Mo lying on the bathroom floor, blood everywhere.
31:21 Speaker 02 The apartment was completely empty, and Mo's specialized S-Works bike was gone. And nothing else in the apartment looked like it had been touched. And Cash called 911, and on the 911 recording, Cash is absolutely frantic. Boston 911?
31:38 Speaker 03 Um, my friend is staying with me, and I just walked in and he's laying on the bathroom floor, and there's blood everywhere.
31:47 Speaker 02 She's describing what she sees, just begging for help and trying to do CPR while the operator walks her through it. And APD Officer Martin Salinas arrived at 1708 Maple Avenue at 9:56 PM, and he found Cash on the floor beside Mo, still doing chest compressions. And when officers examined Mo, they found what looked like multiple gunshot wounds across her body, and shell casings littered the floor near where she lay. And no firearm was found at the scene. And Mo had been shot three times, twice in the head and once in the chest. And at this point, they saw no signs of forced entry. And Detective Mark McLeod studied the scene and formed an early picture of what happened.
32:30 Speaker 02 And he said, quote, "It sounded like it started off near the door and went backwards, like she was trying to get away, or there was some sort of struggle," unquote. And then his tone shifted, saying, quote, "Whoever shot her at that point..." stood over her and shot her at least once, unquote. And police searched the area around Cash's apartment, found Mo's bike 68 feet south of the building, stashed in a dense patch of bushes. And at 10:10 PM, Dr. Eschott pronounced Mo deceased. And she was 25 years old at the time of her death, seven days from her birthday and seven days from the race she was supposed to win. So the detective who caught the case
33:13 Speaker 02 had only been on the job for 60 days at this point. Richard Spitler was assigned to the Austin Police Department's homicide unit in the spring of 2022. And at this point, he'd never been lead investigator on a murder before. And on May 12th, one day after the shooting, the Travis County Medical Examiner performed an autopsy and confirmed what everyone at the scene already suspected. Mo's death was, in fact, a homicide. And APD put out a statement that same day, and they confirmed something violent had happened on Maple Avenue, but kept Mo's identity out of it. And her name didn't go public until May 14. And that's when APD told the press she'd been killed, that the shooting did, quote, "not appear to be a random act",
33:57 Speaker 02 and that they already had someone on their radar, unquote. And when detectives spoke to Cash, she gave them a name. Mo had been out with Colin Strickland that night, and he was a fellow cyclist. And as far as anyone knew, Strickland was the last person to spend time with Mo before she was killed. So naturally, detectives brought him in. And his first answer to detectives was that he had no idea who the victim was. But that story didn't last. As he walked it back and started working with investigators and told them the truth. He'd taken Mo out that night, and they went swimming, grabbed food, and then drove her back to Cash's place. And when pressed about the nature of their relationship, he minimized it and said, quote,
34:41 Speaker 02 "I mean, honestly, it was kind of like an interruption of blip", unquote. And he'd also acknowledged that he'd hidden his friendship with Mo from Kaitlyn Armstrong, admitting he'd concealed her contact information and deleted Their messages because he didn't want the conflict. And while detectives were questioning Strickland, another team was already working the surveillance footage from the night before. And they matched the black SUV that cameras had captured near Maple Avenue to the Jeep Grand Cherokee parked in Armstrong and Strickland's driveway. And on the video, it showed up 60 seconds after Collins' motorcycle left. And tips started coming in, too. And callers told APD that Kaitlyn Armstrong had been consumed with jealousy over Mo and
35:24 Speaker 02 that she'd made threats against her in the months before the killing. So with the Jeep confirmed and the tips piling up, investigators got a search warrant, and they served it on May 12th at the house where Kaitlyn and Collins lived together. Inside, they found two handguns. One of them was a Sig Sawyer P3659mm. And Strickland said he'd bought both guns in late 2021. And Kaitlyn Armstrong had been anxious about being alone on trails, and a road rage incident had rattled her. "It led us to a conclusion, it would be reasonable." One for himself and one for Kaitlyn. And they test fired and matched what came out against the casings pulled from the floor of Cash's apartment.
36:07 Speaker 02 And the warrant language was careful but pointed, saying, "The potential that the same firearm was involved is significant." So as the evidence mounted quickly, Detective Spittler even said, "It was shocking the amount of evidence we were able to get on Kaitlyn." And on that same day, May 12th, police moved to bring Kaitlyn Armstrong in for questioning. And they didn't have a murder warrant just yet. But what they did have was the outstanding misdemeanor warrant. That unpaid Botox bill. Remember from way before, when she got Botox and just dipped out? Yeah, that came in handy. And that was enough to get her into an interview room. And detectives told Armstrong that her Jeep had been captured on a camera near the apartment
36:51 Speaker 02 where Mo was killed. But she wouldn't confirm or deny being in the area. And Spittler described her reaction, "There was no emotion at all. We are telling her that her car is at the scene of a murder, and she just nods her head." She doesn't even try to deny it, unquote. And other investigators in the room said she appeared, quote, "almost completely disinterested in hearing what the detectives had to say", unquote. As if they were just like bothering her daily routine by asking her questions about a murder she committed. But before the interview could reach a conclusion, something went wrong on the administrative side. And the misdemeanor warrant that brought Armstrong in listed a date of birth that didn't
37:32 Speaker 02 match the APD's report management system that showed a birthday in April. And Armstrong's real date of birth is November 21st, 1987. So none of the three dates matched. So halfway through the questioning, word came down that the warrant had a problem. And the birthdate mismatch meant it couldn't hold up and Armstrong was informed she wasn't under arrest. She didn't leave right away. She actually did stay for a little bit and detectives would keep asking her questions. And she continued to give them almost nothing. And at some point during the interview, when they pressed further about her vehicle, she simply said, I would like to leave, I think. And she left. Spitler admitted the truth that even with the correct birthdate, a Class B charge was
38:16 Speaker 02 never going to keep Armstrong locked up. She'd have posted bond and walked out the same day. But at least they would have had her in the system. But instead, she'd walked out the door completely free. And five days passed before the murder warrant dropped. And on May 17th, the ballistics came back and the casings from Cash's apartment were a likely match to the gun purchased for Caitlin. But by then, it was too late and Armstrong was already gone. So while investigators scrambled to figure out where Armstrong had gone, the people left behind tried to make sense of what had even happened. Colin released a public statement on May 20th, and he maintained that what he and
38:58 Speaker 02 Mo had was nothing more than a friendship built around the sport. And he also understood he was standing too close to something terrible, saying, quote, "There was no way to adequately express the regret and torture I feel about my proximity to this horrible crime. I am sorry and I simply cannot make sense." sense of this unfathomable tragedy unquote. And he said he cooperated fully with investigators from the beginning and would continue to do so until justice was served. And the cycling industry responded within days and specialized actually cut Colin first, terminating his contract on May 21st. And Rafa, Envy, and Meteor followed. And Allied Cycle Works said they were done putting him in front of audiences at races.
39:40 Speaker 02 So one by one, every sponsor walked away. And most family broke their silence with a statement of their own, saying that they were quote, "absolutely devastated. There are no words that can express the pain and suffering we are experiencing due to the senseless tragic loss." And at the time, they started a GoFundMe in her memory, but it has now transitioned into the Mariah Wilson Foundation, which I will link down below and obviously make a contribution to. So on May 29th, the Austin cycling community held a memorial ride for Mo. And the case got bumped to major status. Between law enforcement rewards and money put up by an anonymous donor, the total bounty
40:22 Speaker 02 for information that could lead to Kaitlyn Armstrong's arrest hit $21,000. And Kaitlyn Armstrong's father, Michael, spoke briefly to reporters. And according to him, there was no way Kaitlyn could have done something like this. But meanwhile, his daughter was already in another country. Because the day after police let her walk, Kaitlyn Armstrong drove her black Jeep Grand Cherokee to a CarMax in South Austin and sold it for $12,200. And similar vehicles at the time were reselling for more than $30,000. So she just took a fraction of what it was worth and took it in cash. Nothing screams guilty like selling your car for half of what it's worth and running to a different country. Am I right?
41:05 Speaker 02 Not to mention, she also had access to $450,000 of Colin's money, which he'd given to her as investment capital when she was managing his finances, but she never returned it. And it didn't take long before her Instagram was completely gone. And Colin Strickland told investigators the last time he spoke to Kaitlyn Armstrong was May 13th, and by then she was already preparing to vanish. So on May 14th, around 12:30 in the afternoon, Kaitlyn boarded Southwest Airlines flight WN2262 from Austin to Bergstrom International Airport to Houston Hobby. And from there, she caught a connecting Southwest flight to LaGuardia, and she landed in the New York area and made her way upstate to a campground where her sister Christine
41:50 Speaker 02 was staying. And she spent a couple of days with Christine. And when it was time to go, Christine drove her back to the airport. And as far as Christine knew, Kaitlyn was just headed home to Texas. She was completely oblivious to everything that has happened. But then Caitlyn called and told her sister she changed her mind and would be driving instead of flying. And that was the last Christine heard of her. And investigators meanwhile, were running into walls. Every outbound flight log at Newark was checked, and Kaitlyn Armstrong's name just didn't appear on a single one of them. Detective Mark McLeod confirmed, quote, "We never got a hit of Kaitlyn Armstrong's passport", unquote. But the team had a hunch. And when a deputy US marshal tracked down Christine at her home in upstate New York,
42:35 Speaker 02 she said something that caught his attention. She didn't know where her own passport was, and Caitlyn had just been there. And Detective Jonathan Riley reached out to a contact at Homeland Security, and the answer came back in minutes. Quote, "He got back to me and he's like, 'Yeah, we're showing Christie Armstrong traveled out of Newark, New Jersey International Airport on a one-way flight to Costa Rica,'" unquote. So she stole her sister's passport to travel, to not trigger her passport being found to where she's going. Absolutely bonkers. And Deputy Marshal Amir Perez connected the dots immediately and said, quote, "I said there's no way that the sister left, and we're looking for her and we can't find Caitlyn. No, that's Caitlyn," unquote.
43:19 Speaker 02 And with Christine's name in hand, the team coordinated with Homeland Security to cross-reference flight manifests. And then they pulled camera footage from the exact departure gate, and they found her. And the flight was United Airlines 1222. And it left Newark. At 5:09 PM on May 18th and landed in San Jose, Costa Rica, three hours later at 8:27. And she was indeed carrying her sister's passport. And she left on what would have been Mo's 26th birthday. The one Mo never got to see because Caitlin stole her life. Now Christine made it clear from the start that she never handed her passport over willingly, and she was never charged with any crime.
44:00 Speaker 02 Back in Texas, the US Marshal elevated the case to major status, and a federal warrant for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution was issued on May 25th. And tips poured in throughout the search, and more than 80 came from across the United States. An APD had already brought in the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force, and by this point, the operation had expanded to include international branches of the US Marshals, Homeland Security Investigations, and Diplomatic Security Service under the State Department, and law enforcement agencies inside Costa Rica. And in Costa Rica, Caitlin Armstrong was doing what she could to reinvent herself, because her path in Costa Rica started in San Jose, and moved to Haco, and ended in
44:43 Speaker 02 Santa Teresa, which is a small Pacific Coast village where surfers, yoga people, and drifters kind of blended together, and nobody really presses for details. And she would check into Don John's Lodge, a small oceanside hostel, and then she started filling in at the hostel's reception desk when they needed extra help. And when the usual yoga instructor wasn't available, she talked the owner into letting her take over some sessions. And her hair, of course, was different now, brown instead of auburn and shorter than it had ever been. And she used a rotating set of aliases, Beth Martin, Liz Martin, Ari Martin. And toward the end of June, she just vanished, no word to anyone at the hostel, just gone yet again.
45:26 Speaker 02 And the owner called and called, but she never picked up. She showed up days later, looking different, though. She would have tape across the bridge of her nose and dark marks underneath both eyes. And she told people it was a surfing accident, but it wasn't. She'd actually gone to San Jose under under the name Allison Page and paid $6,360 for cosmetic procedures. Performed by Dr. Jorge Badia. The work included fillers in her lips, a rhinoplasty, and a lift above her brows. She got plastic surgery to try to change her face so she wouldn't get caught. This is like movie level deception happening here.
46:10 Speaker 02 And Dr. Badia later told Dateline that she grew visibly uncomfortable the moment he tried to take a pre-surgery photo. And on June 20th, Deputy Marshals Amir Perez and Damian Fernandez landed in San Jose. And Haco was their first stop, but there was no sign of her. And someone then told them to try Santa Teresa and they got there after dark on June 22nd. But Kaitlyn Armstrong wasn't there either because she was in San Jose on an operating table, getting a new face. And Perez later reflected on timing, saying, quote, "I mean, talk about odds. The whole time that we're in Santa Teresa, she's not there," unquote. And when they did begin searching the beach town in earnest, the challenge was staggering.
46:54 Speaker 02 And Fernandez noted, quote, "I think from the get-go, we were told, you're gonna be in for a surprise because a lot of the women in Santa Teresa look just like Kaitlyn, a lot of them," unquote. And she'd reserved rooms at various places under fake names. And as she always somehow managed, by the time anyone checked, she was already gone. She was constantly on the move. But the marshals adapted and they hit every yoga studio they could find, checking each one for any trace of her. And at one studio, someone remembered her. Deputy Marshal Brandon Fia described the moment, saying, quote, "It was when someone there at one of the studios said, yes, I remember her. She signed into this book.
47:35 Speaker 02 She listed herself as one of these three aliases, Liz Martin, Beth Martin, and Ari Martin," unquote. And knowing Armstrong was drawn to yoga, the team placed a woman inside several classes to scan the room. And Perez said the operative attended three different sessions on their behalf. And they also made friends with locals who'd Send photos from restaurants and bars. And Fernandez recalled one instance saying, quote, "Oh, look, I think I saw her at this restaurant yesterday and she's in the back in the background of the photo that I took", unquote. But days would keep passing with no arrest. So, the marshals tried one last thing. They created bogus help-wanted ads for a yoga teacher and dropped them on a Santa Teresa community Facebook group.
48:19 Speaker 02 And Perez explained, quote, "We decided we were gonna put an ad out, or multiple ads, for a yoga instructor and see, see what happened", unquote. And nearly a week went by with nothing. And both deputies were on the verge of packing in and returning to the US. But then, Caitlin Armstrong finally took the bait. And using the name Ari, she replied and suggested they talk at Don John's Lodge about the opening, the same hostel where she'd been staying. And Perez went in alone. And he walked up, looking like any other traveler, and started a conversation in Spanish. "How much are the rooms? Is it a nice place to stay?" Armstrong didn't speak Spanish.
49:00 Speaker 02 She didn't understand him, so she opened Google Translate on her phone to type back answers. And that gave Perez an excuse to lean in closer. And her nose was bandaged and her lips were swollen, but her eyes hadn't changed. And Perez recognized her from the photo he'd been carrying for weeks. And he walked back to the car where Fernandez was waiting. And Fernandez recalled, quote, "He gets in the car and he is like, 'That's her. She's in there'", unquote. And Perez reached out to local authorities in Costa Rica to set up the arrest. And on June 29th, 2022, 43 days after the murder of Mo, Armstrong was detained on an immigration violation for entering the country on someone else's passport.
49:44 Speaker 02 But she didn't give up her name right away, Nene. And according to Deputy Marshal Fia, Armstrong looked completely worn out by the time they got her. And she kept insisting that she was Ari Martin. She did everything she could to hold out, but after six hours on the road to San Jose, she gave in. And they said, quote, "That's when she eventually confesses her identity". that she was Caitlyn Armstrong, Fia said. And inside her hostel locker, investigators found two passports. One was hers and the other belonged to Christine. And alongside the passports, there were a boarding pass from the Newark to Costa Rica flight issued in Christine's name and a receipt showing the cosmetic work she had done. So Caitlyn Armstrong was extradited, but technically she was deported.
50:27 Speaker 02 And officials were careful about the distinction because deporting someone is handled through immigration paperwork and extradition is a formal legal process negotiated between governments. And Costa Rican authorities kept her in custody for four days as the deportation paperwork went through. And on July 2nd, she landed in Houston and by July 5th, she'd been transferred to Travis County and booked into jail on charges of first degree murder and theft of service. And her bond was set at $3.5 million. Don't think she can make that bail. Because even with the $3.5 million, the bail came with strings. She'd have to wear GPS monitoring at all times, hand over her passport and stay home during set hours.
51:11 Speaker 02 And Mariah's family released a statement after the arrest, which read, quote, "We are relieved that this phase of uncertainty is behind us and we trust that justice will prevail." Unquote. So on July 21st, 2021, Armstrong appeared in court for the first time at her arraignment. And she pleaded not guilty and requested a speedy trial. The fucking audacity of this bitch. So Caitlyn Armstrong's trial was originally set for June 26, 2023, but it didn't start until November. And after the arraignment, the defense went after the evidence and they filed two motions to suppress what police had gathered during Armstrong's May 12 interview. And the defense boiled it down to two points.
51:54 Speaker 02 First, the Class B warrant used to bring her in was completely unrelated to the killing. And second, no one gave Armstrong a full Miranda warning before asking her about Mo. And they called the entire interview an illegal interrogation. But Judge Brenda Kennedy and myself disagreed as a rule.
52:14 Speaker 02 was clear, the questioning was lawful, and the defense hadn't shown any constitutional violation by the detectives. And because Caitlin Armstrong had been free to leave the entire time, she quote, "had no Fifth Amendment right to counsel," unquote, the video of the interview would be allowed at trial. But Armstrong wasn't waiting for a courtroom. And with the trial less than three weeks away, Armstrong bolted once again. And it was October 11th, 2023. And this time, she'd been planning for months. A detention facility camera showed the preparation in plain sight. Because for months, Caitlin had been intensely working out in her cell. She did yoga, she did squats, she ran in her cell.
52:59 Speaker 02 She also filed a medical request for an injury that required treatment outside the jail. And that request meant her legs would be unrestrained for the trip. And two corrections officers escorted her to the appointment. And once the appointment was over, the moment they stepped through the rear exit, she bolted. And at that point, she'd already freed one hand from her handcuffs. And when officers went through her cell afterward, they turned up a thin, broken piece of metal. It looked like she'd had fashioned a key that could pop open a set of handcuffs. Literally, again, movie, level, deception, and idiocy. Because where are you going? And also, under her black and white striped jail pants, she was wearing thermal leggings. And as she sprinted away,
53:43 Speaker 02 she peeled off the jail uniform to blend in. And officers chased her through a neighborhood in South Austin near Ben White Boulevard. And at one point, she even climbed a tree and then a six-foot fence, but she didn't make it over. And a stellar officer would catch her at the top, and the two of them went down together. Oh, what a beautiful sight. And the sheriff's office said officers never lost visual contact with her during this entire pursuit. And after roughly 10 minutes and about a mile, they caught her and put her back in restraints. And medical staff checked her out at the nearby hospital. And once cleared, she went straight back to lockup. And both officers sustained injuries.
54:24 Speaker 02 In the chase, and Armstrong was hit with an additional felony charge. Karma's a bitch, isn't it? Escape causing bodily injury. And prosecutors eventually moved to dismiss that charge. And DA Jose Garza said the decision came after discussions with both law enforcement and the Wilson family. And finally, on November 1st, 2023, the trial began and lasted more than two weeks. And the prosecution opened with a 50-minute presentation from Assistant District Attorney Ricky Jones. Jones told the jury he was giving them a roadmap to follow through the case. And over 40 witnesses would be called, and the witness list stretched nearly 10 pages. And it included people from Armstrong's personal life, analysts who'd processed the
55:09 Speaker 02 physical evidence, and officers from every level of the investigation, and Colin Strickland himself. Then Jones told the jury what happened inside that apartment. And he said, quote, "Caitlin Armstrong stood over Mo Wilson and put a third shot right in Mo Wilson's heart," unquote. The first two shots hit her in the head, and the third came after she was already on the ground. And the jurors heard the audio captured by a Ring doorbell camera near the apartment. And they heard the screams. And one of the prosecution's most powerful exhibits was something no one in the courtroom had seen before. An analyst had pulled GPS data from the infotainment system inside Armstrong's Jeep
55:53 Speaker 02 and turned it into an animation. And on screen, the jury watched the Jeep loop the same stretch of Maple Avenue again and again. And then it stopped, and the Jeep parked in the alley behind Cash's apartment, and the last recorded position came in at 8:40 PM. And for 37 minutes, the Jeep didn't move. And then at 9:17 PM, it pulled away, and the GPS showed it heading straight for Fort Clark Drive, when Armstrong lived with Strickland. And the gunshots were recorded at 9:15 PM. And Stephen Aston, a firearms and tool mark examiner, told the jury that the cartridge casings found near Mo's body came from one gun, Caitlin Armstrong's Sig Sawyer P365. And he also eliminated- ...strickland's firearm as the source.
56:37 Speaker 02 And a forensic pull of Armstrong's phone turned up a note she'd tried to erase that just read 1704 Maple Avenue. And the actual address of the apartment where Mo was staying at was 1708. And she deleted it the morning after Mo died on May 12th. And prosecutors also showed the jury what Caitlin Armstrong had been searching for on her phone while hiding in Costa Rica. And she'd searched for information on nose jobs. And she'd searched the phrase, can pineapple burn your fingerprints? I can't believe this human being is a real person. And she'd also gone looking for answers about whether phones could be used to trace someone's location. And the jury heard testimony from Armstrong's own friends about threats she'd made months before the killing.
57:21 Speaker 02 And Assistant District Attorney Guillermo Gonzalez framed the totality of it for the jury, saying, quote, "This was not a momentary action. This was someone who thought and had time to calculate and meditate about what she was about to do." The definition of premeditation, the definition of first degree murder. And the defense faced all of it with a single argument. None of it was direct. Jeffrey Poyer, her defense attorney, spoke for 15 minutes. And he told the jury the state's evidence was lacking. What? He framed Caitlin Armstrong as, quote, "A woman trapped in a nightmare of circumstantial evidence. You won't hear and you didn't hear about any camera footage showing Caitlin Armstrong at the scene of the shooting, despite there being tons of cameras in the area.
58:06 Speaker 02 Not one captures Caitlin Armstrong at the scene." No witness saw Armstrong at Cash's apartment. That's true. And no camera captured her entering or leaving. That's true. And the burden of proof, Poyer reminded the jury, rested entirely with the state. And defense attorney Rick Kofor picked up the same thread. And he argued that police locked onto Armstrong early and never considered other suspects. And he called it an easy narrative, a jealous lover, a convenient story. Quote, "Police think Caitlin committed this crime. They don't know. She fits their story." And when it came time for closing arguments... Kover pointed the finger at the man at the center of the triangle. Strickland became the defense's alternate theory.
58:50 Speaker 02 And they brought in their own experts to challenge the science. The defense called Bill Tobin to the stand. And he was a material scientist with an FBI background and over 300 prior court appearances. And his testimony challenged the entire foundation of the ballistics match. And he told the jury that experts in the field can't even agree on what significant agreement between projectiles actually means. And Matthew Cortaro, a DNA consultant brought in by the defense, took on the prosecution's analyst, Tim Cullifutt. And Cullifutt had told the jury that Armstrong's DNA was on Mo's bike. And that someone had most likely grabbed it directly. But Cortaro said it wasn't that simple.
59:32 Speaker 02 And according to him, there was no way to tell from the evidence alone how Armstrong's DNA ended up on Mo's bike. It could have been direct, or it could have been transferred. How are these people really? How do they sleep at night? I don't understand. Quote, "DNA only says who was there," unquote. And there was also an unknown DNA sample collected at the crime scene that didn't match anyone involved. And the defense held that up as proof someone else may have been responsible. Or someone else has been in Cash's apartment in like the last six months. You idiots? And Caitlin Armstrong chose not to take the stand. And the jury went to deliberate on November 16th. And they came back in two hours. That is not a lot of time for juries, folks.
1:00:15 Speaker 02 And it came back, ding ding ding, guilty. On one side of the courtroom, Armstrong's sister sobbed while Armstrong herself didn't even flinch. And she sat motionless and expressionless. And on the other side, Mo's family and friends held each other. And you could hear people weeping. And Mo's parents and her brother Matthew had been in court every single day since the trial began. And Caitlin Cash had also been right there beside them. And the sentencing range for first degree murder in Texas stretched from five years all the way to 99. The prosecution had not sought the death penalty. And rather than leave the sentence to the judge, Armstrong chose to let the Jury decide and the state asked them to start at 40 years and work upward.
1:00:59 Speaker 02 The defense offered nothing. Attorney Coffer told the courtroom, quote unquote, "We have no recommendation for an appropriate sentence." And during the penalty phase, the people closest to Mo stood up and faced the woman who killed her. And Mo's brother, Matthew, took the stand and called her his closest confidant. And then Cash stood up. And she was the one who found Mo on the bathroom floor. The one who tried to desperately save her friend with CPR. And earlier on, the day of the murder, she'd sent Karen Wilson a photo of Mo about to go riding. And the message read, quote unquote, "Your girl is in safe hands here in Austin." And Cash paused, quote, "I felt a lot of guilt not being able to protect her.
1:01:43 Speaker 02 I fought for her with everything I had," unquote. I can't imagine how, how she felt in those moments. As always, you know, my heart always goes out to the, to the family, but in this case, especially the friend. I mean, how strong of her to be able to stand up there and face this piece of shit human being. And thank goodness, thank goodness she did, because it gives Caitlin something to think about in jail for the rest of her miserable life. Karen addressed Armstrong directly, saying, quote, "When you shot Mariah in the heart, you shot me in my heart," unquote. And Armstrong's family spoke too. And her father, Michael, took the stand and painted a picture of the daughter he knew. He called her strong and someone who doesn't get flustered by things.
1:02:28 Speaker 02 And he offered condolences to the Wilson's family, saying, quote, "I know what we are going through is terrible, but what they are is worse," unquote. And Armstrong's sister Christine looked at her across the courtroom and said, quote, "She's not a bad person. She's such a special person. I've always looked up to you. She's always cared for other people," unquote. And after three and a half hours, the jury returned with a sentence. 90 years in prison. Nine zero years in prison and a $10,000 fine. And in the gallery, her father's eyes were wet. And he pressed a hand to his face without making making a sound and Caitlin Armstrong again said nothing and she remained exactly
1:03:09 Speaker 02 as she'd been throughout still silence and completely unreadable a defense attorney Rick Kofor issued a written statement after the proceedings ended saying quote the loss of Mariah Wilson is a tragedy and our hearts go out to the Wilson family and to the family of our client Caitlin Armstrong unquote so Caitlin was transferred to the Dr Lane Murray unit in Gatesville Texas on January 18th 2024 which is a women's prison and her projected release date is July 3rd 2112 and she'll be eligible for parole in 2052 and she hasn't stopped fighting and her lawyers filed for a new trial in December of 2023 claiming she'd
1:03:50 Speaker 02 been pregnant at the time of her arrest and her father submitted an affidavit saying he believed she'd miscarried in custody and the court denied an evidentiary hearing in August 2024 and she appealed but they refused and on January 23rd 2026 the appeals court upheld her conviction entirely and Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza released a statement afterward saying quote our hearts continue to break for Mariah's family and friends the appellate process while a fundamental right of any defendant prolongs closure we will continue fighting to ensure that the defendant is held accountable for her actions unquote and after the verdict Eric Wilson spoke publicly on behalf of his family and
1:04:32 Speaker 02 he said quote as a family we believe justice has been served there really are no winners here this is not a time for celebration but a time for prayer unquote and he said the family's lives would never be the same but with the trial behind them they were prepared to begin healing but moving forward doesn't mean the grief lifts and during the trial a prosecutor asked Karen Wilson whether life had gone back to the way it was before and she responded quote unquote there is no normal but she would say swimming helped and so did time in the garden because those were the moments where she could think about Mariah and feel something other than pain but the dread came just as frequently and Eric Took up gravel cycling after Mo's death.
1:05:17 Speaker 02 And it was his way of staying connected to her. And Matt began writing poetry. The family filed a wrongful death suit. And Caitlin Armstrong didn't appear at the hearing. And a court awarded a default judgment of $15 million. And $5 million to Karen and $5 billion to Eric and $5 million to exemplary damages. And in July of 2024, the Wilsons filed a second suit against Armstrong, her sister, her mother, and Colin Strickland alleging that properties and bank accounts had been transferred into other names to prevent the family from collecting what they were owed. And in 2023, the Wilsons then channeled their grief into something lasting that we talked about before, which was the founding of the Mariah Wilson Foundation.
1:06:02 Speaker 02 And Eric runs it as president. And Matt holds the vice president role. And Karen is on the board of directors. It's a family project built from a family's loss. But its goal is straightforward. Get kids into sports who wouldn't have the chance on their own. Cycling and skiing sit at the center of that mission, which are the two things Mo loved most. And Eric said, quote, "In the first few years, we've been able to give out over $140,000 to various organizations," unquote. And every year, the foundation hosts a Ride for Mo at Kingdom Trails in Lyndon, Vermont. And these are the same trails where Mo grew up. But what Mo left behind lives in her own words.
1:06:44 Speaker 02 And in 2015, she wrote that she wanted to, quote, "be the kind of person that picks other people up when they fall down, who's there for people when they need support, encouragement, and inspiration," unquote. By 2022, she'd put her purpose into words. She wanted to, quote, "inspire people to ride bikes and be active and promote positive body image awareness for women and female athletes in particular. When you love something so much to the point where you're fully committed, you make the choice and the risk sort of becomes irrelevant because even if you fail, it will have been worth it," unquote. And that is where I would like to end this video. But again, if you want to check out that foundation, I will link it down below.
1:07:27 Speaker 02 And as always, my heart goes out to the family and I will be making a contribution to that foundation. And if you have any other cases you would like me to look into, please let me down below. I always read the comments and until then I will see your beautiful face. Okay? Be safe out there. Bye.
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