Costa Rica surf instructor recounts meeting fugitive Kaitlin Armstrong in Santa Teresa Beach
Teal Oceans Akerson, an expat surf instructor in Santa Teresa Beach, says he unwittingly went on a few dates with the Texas love triangle murder suspect while she was on the run, altered her appearance and adopted an alias.
Texas cycling love triangle murder suspect Kaitlin Armstrong was dating while hiding out in Costa Rica after the shooting death of a romantic rival who had gone to dinner with her boyfriend, according to a new report.
The 34-year-old fugitive was using the name "Ari," one of several aliases U.S. Marshals said she had adopted while on the run for 43 days,
"Ari was a strange person," Teal Oceans Akerson, an expat surf instructor, told the Austin American-Statesman. "I met her right outside the tattoo shop, Good Life Tattoos, and her friends were getting tattooed, so she was waiting out there on the bench."
They struck up a conversation, exchanged numbers and went on a handful of dates, he said.
Teal Oceans Akerson looks at text messages from fugitive Kaitlin Armstrong in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica, July 8, 2022. Akerson said he went on four or five dates with Armstrong, who used an alias. (Jay Janner/USA Today Network)
"She said that she had just been through a real traumatizing breakup, and she hadn’t healed from it yet and wasn’t ready to get close at all," he said. "So we were just being friends."
He said she preferred to go out to secluded spots and that her appearance when he met her did not match the images marshals had publicized during the manhunt.
Teal Akerson, an expat surf instructor in Costa Rica, said he briefly met Kaitlin Armstrong while she was a fugitive going by the alias "Ari." (Travis County Sheriff's Office; Jay Janner/USA Today Network )
"I didn’t put any of it together – you wouldn’t imagine it," he said. "But after it all happened … you hear what she was really doing and running from, it made sense that she didn’t want to be seen."
Akerson could not immediately be reached for comment, but, during the interview, he corroborated reports that Armstrong had undergone some kind of plastic surgery to alter her facial features.
Marshals have declined to confirm the authenticity of a purported receipt for cosmetic found with her belongings.
"We don't have that information," an official from the clinic named on the document told Fox News Digital earlier this month when asked for confirmation of the receipt's validity.
However, photos taken before and after her arrest appear to show a change.
Booking photos taken after Kaitlin Armstrong's extradition to the U.S. appear to show a change in her facial features. (U.S. Marshals, Travis County Sheriff's Office)
Law enforcement caught up with Armstrong June 29, 43 days after Austin police obtained a warrant for her arrest on murder charges in the ambush shooting of Anna Moriah "Mo" Wilson, a 25-year-old rising star in the pro gravel cycling scene.
On the night of her death, Wilson had gone swimming and out to dinner with Armstrong’s boyfriend, fellow pro cyclist Colin Strickland, 35.
Left: victim Moriah "Mo" Wilson after a race. Right: a photo of suspect Kaitlin Armstrong released by the U.S. Marshals. (The Wilson Family/US Marshals)
Police say Armstrong’s Jeep appeared on surveillance video from a home adjacent to the crime scene a minute after Strickland dropped Wilson off.
Warrants obtained by Fox News Digital earlier this week reveal gruesome details about the slaying.
On the evening of May 11, police found Wilson dead on a bathroom floor with at least three bullet wounds, two to the head and a third to her chest that allegedly occurred "after she was already laying supine on the floor," documents say. She had an exit wound on her back, and police found a bullet and chipped tile beneath her.
She also had lacerations on a finger on her right hand and under her chin, according to the warrant.
Strickland also told detectives Armstrong had previously gone to a shooting range with her sister to practice her firearm skills and that he hid his contact with Wilson by putting her in his phone under a false name.
An anonymous tipster who police say they believe to be credible also alleged that Armstrong had expressed a desire to kill Wilson out of jealousy months earlier when she learned of the relationship. Despite that apparent anger, Strickland bought her a 9mm handgun in December or January, the warrants state. Ballistic forensics later linked it to shell casings found at the crime scene.
Strickland and Wilson had a brief tryst in October 2021 while he was on a break from Armstrong, his girlfriend of three years, according to the warrants. The California resident was visiting Texas in May ahead of a competition and met up with Strickland in Austin.
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Police questioned and released Armstrong in connection with the case before she allegedly fled to New York, then New Jersey and finally Costa Rica, according to the marshals.
Costa Rican police captured her there on an immigration violation after she allegedly gave them a fake name, then admitted her real identity. She has been returned to Texas and is being held on $3.5 million bond in an Austin jail.
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