(CNN) — The woman suspected of fatally shooting the elite cyclist Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson in Texas was captured in Costa Rica, the United States Marshals Service said Thursday.
Kaitlin Marie Armstrong, 34, was found Wednesday at a hostel on the Santa Teresa beach in Puntarenas Province, the U.S. Marshals Service said in a news release. According to the agency, she will be deported to the United States.
The US Marshals Service released this search photo of Kaitlin Marie Armstrong.
Police wanted Armstrong for the May 11 shooting of Wilson, who had previously dated Armstrong’s boyfriend, 35-year-old professional cyclist Colin Strickland, in what investigators believe may have been a violent act of jealousy.
On May 17, police issued an arrest warrant for manslaughter once morest Armstrong. The affidavit mentions details such as a video showing a vehicle similar to his near the Austin, Texas, home where Wilson was staying shortly before his body was found.
On May 18, Armstrong used a fake passport to board a flight from Newark Liberty International Airport to San Jose, Costa Rica, according to the US Marshals Service.
The victim was a star skier and a champion cyclist
Wilson, 25, was a talented athlete in multiple sports. She was a noted skier in her younger years before turning to cycling.
Mo Wilson switched from skiing to cycling following college.
“In alpine skiing, Moriah reached the level of a nationally ranked junior skier, placing third at the 2013 Junior National Championships in the downhill event,” says his obituary.
Wilson was also the captain of her high school football team, according to her Dartmouth sports profile.
After college, he turned away from skiing to pursue competitive cycling.
Wilson especially excelled in “gravel racing,” a relatively new category of cycling that some consider to be a cross between road and mountain biking.
And VeloNews profile published on the day of her death referred to her as “the winningest woman on the American off-road scene”.
Wilson had several victories this year, including the Shasta Gravel Hugger and the Rock Cobbler in California, according to the article.
She also won the 220-kilometre Belgian Waffle Ride, 25 minutes ahead of the second-place finisher.
At the time of his death, Wilson was just days away from participating in the Gravel Locos bike race. The day following the race, an event organizer remembered her on Facebook as a “role model, a shy and compassionate person, a tactical competitor, and a competitor who truly cared regarding those who competed once morest her.”
What happened in Wilson’s last hours
On May 11, the day of her death, Wilson told her friend she was going for an followingnoon swim with Strickland, according to an arrest affidavit filed in Travis County District Court. Wilson was staying with a friend while she was preparing for the upcoming Gravel Locos race in Hico.
Strickland told investigators that following they swam, he and Wilson went out to dinner. Afterward, Strickland said, he dropped her off at her friend’s house but did not go inside, according to the affidavit.
Austin police responded to the home later that night, shortly before 10 p.m. CT, and found Wilson with multiple gunshot wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
On May 19, authorities filed an affidavit saying Strickland admitted trying to hide his communications with Wilson from Armstrong by changing Wilson’s name on his phone and deleting messages.
The affidavit cites an informant who alleged that Armstrong came to believe that Strickland and Wilson’s romantic relationship was ongoing as of January 2022.
Armstrong had contacted Wilson on several occasions, once telling him to “stay away” from Strickland, one of Wilson’s friends told investigators, according to the affidavit.
The newspaper Austin American-Statesman it quotes Strickland as saying that he had a “brief romantic relationship” with Wilson from late October to early November 2021, while separated from Armstrong.
Wilson’s family said he was not in any romantic relationships at the time of his death.
“While we are not going to elaborate on the ongoing investigation, we feel it is important to clarify that at the time of her death, those closest to her clearly understood, directly from Moriah, that she was not in a romantic relationship with anyone.” the family said in a statement last month.
Strickland and Armstrong reconciled and resumed their relationship regarding a month later, he told the newspaper. Strickland said her relationship with Wilson then became “platonic and professional” and that he considered her a “close friend,” she said.
“There is no way to adequately express the regret and torture I feel at my closeness to this horrible crime,” Strickland told the Austin American-Statesman. “I’m sorry, and I just can’t make sense of this incomprehensible situation.”
— Hannah Sarisohn, Dakin Andone, Emma Tucker and Eric Levenson contributed reporting.
