Murder of Mo

Anna Moriah Wilson, known as Mo, grew up surrounded by people with a deep love for sports. Her entire family was athletic in some way, and as a young child, Mo quickly fell in love with competitive cycling. She was also a talented skier, but cycling was the sport that she wanted to spend the rest of her life doing. Even after graduating from high school and then receiving her Bachelor of Engineering degree, cycling was the center of Mo’s life and eventually, she was able to launch into a career as a professional gravel cyclist.

In late 2021, Mo had a fling with another professional gravel cyclist, world champion Colin Strickland. Even though the two shared a deep passion for the sport, the romantic relationship quickly ended - but while Mo and Colin were quick to move on, Colin’s ex-girlfriend, Kaitlin Armstrong, was not.

Colin and Kaitlin, who was a realtor and yoga teacher from Michigan, had an on-again, off-again relationship. During one of their separations, Colin had started dating Mo… but afterward, he decided to get back together with Kaitlin. On the 11th of May 2022, Mo was staying with a friend in Austin, Texas, while preparing to compete in a cycling race. While she was in town, she decided to meet up with Colin. The pair traveled to Deep Eddy Pool together to go for a swim, and then had dinner together before Colin dropped her back at her friend's house. Before leaving to see Mo, Colin had lied to Kaitlin about where he was going, hoping that she wouldn’t find out that he was meeting up with Mo. However, after using her laptop to view his messages, Kaitlin managed to use the exercise app Strava to track his location.

Only a couple of hours later, Mo’s friend Caitlin Cash got home, and found Mo lying in a pool of blood on the tiled bathroom floor. She dialed 911, telling the operator, “I can’t tell what’s happened…she’s not awake, and there’s blood all over her face.” When first responders arrived at the house, they pronounced Mo dead at the scene. Mo’s autopsy revealed that her cause of death was blood loss due to multiple gunshot wounds - one to the chest, and two to the head. The angle and positioning of the bullet holes revealed that she had been shot while lying face-up on the floor in the same position where her body was later found. Several 9mm shell casings were found at the scene…but the gun that had been used to shoot Mo was nowhere to be found.

Now that investigators knew that Mo had been murdered, it became crucial to find out who had been in and out of the house before Caitlin Cash arrived home at 9:45. Police were able to recover footage from several neighborhood surveillance cameras, which showed Colin Strickland pulling up outside the address and dropping Mo off. It was clear from the footage that Colin remained in the vehicle - he hadn’t followed Mo inside, and he hadn’t returned to the property after leaving. However, less than two minutes after Mo had gone inside the house, a second vehicle had been captured near the address: a black 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee, identical to the car that Kaitlin Armstrong drove.

Initially, Colin told the police that he didn’t know Mo - but after a while, he admitted that the two of them were still romantically, and that he often deleted text messages from his phone to prevent Kaitlin from finding out. Despite Colin’s best attempts at hiding his infidelity, Kaitlin had found out - and she was willing to do anything to make sure that Colin and Mo could no longer see each other. The police received an anonymous tip from somebody close to Kaitlin, claiming that shortly after finding out about Colin and Mo’s continued relationship, Kaitlin had expressed interest in buying a gun.

The black Jeep’s plates were traced, and investigators confirmed that the car was registered to Kaitlin and Colin’s address. On the 12th of May, police searched the property and recovered Kaitlin’s firearm: a 9mm handgun, which matched the casings that had been found with Mo’s body. On that same day, Kaitlin was arrested due to an unrelated misdemeanor theft warrant - four years prior, she had gotten Botox done and had left the spa without paying for her treatment. The police questioned her, but then released her immediately afterwards because of an error that caused her recorded date of birth in the police database to not match the one printed on the outstanding warrant.

It was only a technicality - but it meant that Kaitlin was free to leave. The following day, she went to a dealership and sold the Jeep Cherokee. The day after that, she began the process of fleeing the country altogether.

On the 14th of May, Kaitlin got a flight to New York and visited her sister, Christine. She spent four days there before boarding a flight to San Jose, Costa Rica - but the ticket was under Christine’s name instead of her own. From then on, Kaitlin stopped using her own name, instead introducing herself as “Ari”, and using the full name “Allison Page.” She arrived in Santa Teresa, a small beach town located West of San Jose, and booked accommodation at a surf and yoga lodge called Don Jon’s. Kaitlin tried to blend in with the other travelers, working on her laptop on the lodge’s patio, and going out for drinks with the other guests in the evening.

Despite going by a different name, Kaitlin was still concerned that she would be recognized. There was a warrant out for her arrest, and the Austin police force had asked the US Marshals for their assistance locating her, and on the 20th of May, the Marshals had released a “wanted” poster with Kaitlin’s picture on it. So, after spending a few weeks in Santa Teresa, Kaitlin made a trip back to San Jose, where she dropped thousands of dollars on plastic surgery to change the appearance of her face.

By late June, the US Marshals were closing in, and they had started to interview locals and travelers staying in Santa Teresa. Less than a week later, they were able to locate Kaitlin, sitting outside Don Jon’s on the patio. One of the Marshals who apprehended Kaitlin initially didn’t recognize her due to the plastic surgery, saying, “Initially, it did not appear to be her…but as I got closer, I realized it was her. It appeared she had a bandage on her nose, and her lips were a bit swollen. Her hair was a little bit lighter.” The Marshals escorted Kaitlin to the closest jail before she was extradited back to the United States.

On the 11th of October 2023, only a few weeks before the trial, Kaitlin attempted to escape from law enforcement a second time. She had been escorted out of jail by several corrections officers to go to a medical appointment, but after her appointment was finished, she was able to break free, removing the restraints from one of her hands and sprinting away from the officers. While she was running, Kaitlin ripped down her jail pants, revealing that she was wearing thermals underneath in a hope to be less recognizable. After her path was blocked by a six-foot-tall fence, Kaitlin attempted to climb it and was grabbed by one of the corrections officers.

It was clear that the escape attempt wasn’t spontaneous. In fact, prison staff had noticed Kaitlin “exercising vigorously” for months before her escape attempt, doing squats in her cell, practicing hours of yoga, and running as much as she was able to. Kaitlin had also made sure to complain about an injury that would guarantee leaving her cell to go see a doctor without any restraints on her legs. A search of her jail cell revealed a thin, sharp piece of metal, which investigators believed she had used to remove one of her handcuffs.

With Kaitlin’s attempted escape failing, the trial’s opening statements began on the first of November. More than 20 witnesses testified, including one of Kaitlin’s close friends, Nicole Mertz. Nicole told the court that, during a conversation with Kaitlin, she had asked her what she would do if “Colin ever started dating someone else seriously.” Kaitlin had been quick to reply, “I would kill her.”

The trial concluded on the 16th of November, when after only a couple of hours of deliberation, the jury reached their verdict: Kaitlin Armstrong was guilty of Mo Wilson’s murder, and received a 90-year prison sentence. During the trial’s punishment phase, Mo’s mother told the jury, “From the day she was born, [Mo] had a force in her. She lived as if every day was her last day, and she lived it so fully. She never wasted any time. It’s as if she knew her life would be short.”