Kriti Mehrotra
It was May 2022 when the entire cycling community was left baffled to the core as professional racer Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson was found horrifically murdered inside a friend’s home. Fortunately, officials were able to identify the perpetrator not long after, thanks to cell phone and GPS data, surveillance cameras around the area, as well as a couple of tips from the public. As explored in ABC’s ’20/20: Three Shots in the Dark,’ though, it still took some time for the case to be closed for good, owing to the fact that the suspect subsequently tried to escape justice not once but twice.
Anna Moriah Wilson Was Fatally Shot Just as Her Career Was Taking Off
Although born on May 18, 1996, in New Hampshire, to Karen Cronin and Eric Wilson as one of their two kids, Anna Moriah Wilson AKA Mo primarily grew up in wondrous Kirby, Vermont. Thus, with the beautiful terrain of the area and her father also being a champion skier and coach, she fell in love with the outdoors at an early age before developing a passion for skiing too. This actually went to such an extent that she not only trained before starting to compete in numerous local competitions, but she also had dreams of maybe, hopefully, making it to the Winter Olympics one day.
In fact, by the time Anna was a teenager, she had honed her skills so diligently that she’d evolved into a nationally ranked junior skier who later even placed 3rd in the 2013 Championship. A year after this, she graduated from Burke Mountain Academy before enrolling at Dartmouth University, where she studied Engineering and was also a part of their Alpine Ski Team. However, once she earned her degree in 2019, she found herself shifting gears and gravitating more towards gravel bike racing. She had been biking for years, but at the age of 23, she realized this was her calling.
Anna spent the ensuing two seasons training as hard as possible, just to end up making a name for herself as she secured either podiums or victories in almost every race she competed in. Therefore, in Spring 2022, she decided to leave her job as a Demand Planner at Specialized to focus only on her passion, unaware that everything would turn upside down mere weeks later. The 25-year-old was in Austin, Texas, residing at a friend’s place, ahead of the 155-mile Gravel Locos race in Hico, when she was brutally killed on May 11, 2022 – she was shot twice in the head and then once through the heart at essentially point-blank range. Her friend, Caitlin Cash, found her in her bathroom shortly before 10 pm.
Anna Moriah Wilson’s Case Initially Indicated Two Suspects
Despite Caitlin’s as well as the first responders’ best attempts, Anna simply could not be revived, resulting in her being pronounced dead, and the case immediately being ruled a homicide. That’s because not only were a couple of her gunshot wounds quite clear, but detectives also noticed three shell casings near her remains and the clear lack of defensive wounds on her arms. Furthermore, as they took in the scene, they realized that the only item missing from the entire property was the victim’s expensive professional bike, only for it to be found abandoned less than a mile away.
This is when investigators realized many local residents had home security cameras, driving them to knock on doors and ask for footage in the hopes of uncovering something significant. At the same time, Caitlin Cash admitted in her interview with officials that Anna had actually spent the evening with a former fling turned friend, Colin Strickland, before returning just prior to 9 pm. She could specify the time since she had gotten a security alert on her phone, leading them to look deeper into Colin, a fellow pro cyclist with whom Anna had a 10-day relationship earlier in the year.
As for the surveillance footage, it revealed that a black Jeep Grand Cherokee had been circling the area in the hour preceding the murder, the harrowing audio of which was also caught. It was at 9:15 pm when Anna let out a shrill scream, which was instantaneously followed by two gunshots, a 6-second gap of pure eerie silence, and then the final gunshot before the car fled the scene. The next morning, when detectives went to Colin’s home to ask him a few questions, they found an identical vehicle in his driveway, so they didn’t hesitate to change their plans and bring him in. That’s where he revealed the car belonged solely to his on-again, off-again, long-term live-in girlfriend, Kaitlin Marie Armstrong.
The Killer of Anna Moriah Wilson Became a Fugitive After Being Identified
According to Colin’s statements, he and Anna had explored a romantic connection briefly during a period when he and Kaitlin were broken up, after which they’d set clear boundaries. Yet, he claimed, the yoga instructor, licensed realtor, as well as fellow pro cyclist, was still jealous of the friendship he shared with the young rising professional, so he kept their meeting a secret. In fact, he asserted that he had changed Anna’s name on his phone sometime before so as to keep his girlfriend’s seeming jealousy at bay, and on the fateful day, he’d left without telling her who he was going to meet.
Colin also detailed to investigators that he’d taken Anna for a swim at Deep Eddy Pool and dinner at Pool’s Burger before dropping her off near her friend’s place on his BMW motorbike. His alibi was rock solid as surveillance footage showed him driving directly home following his evening out with the 25-year-old. However, he still kept on being questioned as he’d revealed something eerie. In his 6-hour interrogation, the then 36-year-old had admitted he’d actually bought a gun each for himself and for Kaitlin mere months ago after she had claimed to have been a victim of road rage.
Colin had done so for safety reasons, yet it turned out the weapon he’d bought for Kaitlin was the same caliber as the murder weapon, driving officials to execute a search warrant on their home. By this point, the latter had already been arrested on an outstanding warrant for non-payment to a local business, but due to a technical error on the paperwork, it was deemed redundant. She subsequently refused to answer any questions regarding Anna, all the while maintaining a very stoic demeanor, and she didn’t stay long at the police station either. Then, she fled the city as well as the nation.
Anna Moriah Wilson’s Killer Was Brought to Justice in 2023
When officials tried to find Kaitlin a few days later with an arrest warrant for first-degree murder in the death of Anna Moriah Wilson in hand, she was nowhere to be found. This came after a couple of her friends came forward with tips, asserting she was actually rather obsessed with Anna and had gone as far as to state she would kill the youngster if she tried to get with Colin. Even her now ex-boyfriend hadn’t heard from her in a while, only for it to turn out that she had taken a flight to New York and stayed with her sister for a couple of days before leaving the country altogether. The fact that Kaitlin was carrying her yoga mat is what helped US Marshals narrow down their search, as they believed she was hoping to start anew while still serving as a yoga instructor.
With that, along with her cell phone records, they were able to successfully track her down to Santa Teresa, Costa Rica, where she was arrested after 43 days on the lam – on June 29, 2022. By this point, she had cut her hair short, dyed it black, undertaken aliases, and gotten plastic surgery on her nose in the hopes of becoming unrecognizable – it also came to light that she’d used her sister’s passport to flee. Kaitlin was subsequently extradited to Austin, Texas, where she was officially indicted for first-degree murder and ordered to be held at Travis County Jail on a $3.5 million bond until trial.
Two weeks before she was set to face the court, on October 12, 2023, she escaped jail while being escorted to a medical appointment, but thankfully, she was caught less than a mile away. Finally, her trial commenced on October 30, 2023, with the prosecutors arguing their case first – they played the audio clip of Anna’s murder before detailing all the evidence available, including her cell phone and the Jeep’s GPS data showing her at the scene at the time of the crime. The defense later tried to contend this by stating it could have been Colin behind the wheel since no surveillance footage actually captures the driver’s face or physique, but to no avail. On November 16, 2023, Kaitlin was found guilty as charged and sentenced to 90 years in prison.
Read More: Where is Kaitlin Armstrong Now?
