While hiding out in Costa Rica, the Texas yoga teacher Kaitlin Armstrong, suspected of murdering a romantic rival allegedly, was arrested in Costa Rica, at Don Jon’s Surf and Yoga Lodge. She had posed as a Yoga teacher and taught a few classes in the absence of the regular instructor, reports say. Her arrest ended the 43-day manhunt for the murderer.
Armstrong befriended Teal Akerson outside a tattoo shop under the false name of Ari Martin and eventually exchanged phone numbers, the Austin American-Statesman reported. One night he tried to be more than friends, but “Ari” merely wanted to be friends, he told the newspaper.
She ended any possibility of a connection with the admirer, telling him she had recently come out of a “traumatizing split.” However, she did not tell him she was suspected of murdering elite cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson after finding Wilson was secretly dating her boyfriend.
Kaitlin Armstrong, went out with the suitor a few times when she was on the run in the days after the May 11 death of pro cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson, who had a relationship with Armstrong’s live-in partner.
Police suspect Armstrong fatally shot Wilson after the rider spent the day with Armstrong’s boyfriend and another cyclist, Colin Strickland, in Austin.
Wilson, who was visiting from San Francisco and stayed at a friend’s house before a race, admitted to cops that he dated Strickland last year.
Police later questioned Armstrong and showed her CCTV footage of a Jeep SUV that matched hers at the homicide scene.
Armstrong was released by police, and she later sold her Jeep for $12,200 and fled the country. She first flew from Austin to Houston, then to New York City.
Days later, she flew from Newark, New Jersey, to San Jose, Costa Rica, using someone else’s passport.
According to the Statesman, she eventually wound up in Santa Teresa, a secluded Pacific Coast hamlet 130 miles from the nearest airport.
After a six-week manhunt, she was apprehended there, living under aliases and with an altered appearance that may have involved cosmetic surgery.
After she was taken away, an Argentinian man she met on a bus came into Don Jon’s searching for a job. She allegedly stayed at Don Jon’s Surf and Yoga Lodge and partied at a barbecue restaurant owned by a former New York lawyer. He told them that he knew Ari; they said that he did not know her.
Armstrong is currently being held in custody in Austin, where she will face a first-degree murder accusation.
Celebrity Cyclist murderer Kaitlin Armstrong on the run gets caught by U.S Marshalls in Costa Rica
