According to US Marshals, a fugitive yoga instructor who reportedly killed her romantic rival in Texas before fleeing to Costa Rica had a receipt for plastic surgery stashed away in her hostel locker and might have tried to change her appearance even more if she hadn’t been discovered.
Kaitlin Armstrong, 34, looked drastically different from the photo of her taken just before she vanished when she arrived at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport on Sunday.
An alleged $6,350 voucher for cosmetic treatment was allegedly discovered among her baggage by a witness to her arrest in Costa Rica.
Before her arrest on June 29, the witness claimed to have seen Armstrong at a $50 per night “treehouse hostel” near Santa Teresa Beach with bandages covering her nose.
Armstrong was captured on camera by ABC 13 with her hands bound and her once-ginger hair covered in a dark brown dye job, which she allegedly cut and colored to conceal her identity in the Central American nation.
Before being driven to the Harris County Jail, Armstrong dodged questions from reporters.
She will be moved to Austin, Texas, where she is charged with killing cyclist Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson, 25, as a result of a dispute involving Armstrong’s on-and-off boyfriend Colin Strickland.
Since May 11, she had been sought after by American officials.
Armstrong was apprehended “at a favorable time,” according to Brandon Filla, deputy U.S. marshal for Austin, Texas, before she could further modify her look.
According to Filla, Armstrong changed her appearance “to confuse law enforcement personnel.” She also said that Armstrong might have tried to get tattoos to help obscure her identity.
On Saturday, it was revealed Armstrong most likely used her sister’s passport to enter Costa Rica and may have undergone plastic surgery while fleeing.
Zachary Paulsen, who claims to have seen her arrest, claims she was seeking cost-cutting measures when police arrived for a routine inspection of the place.
Paulsen told Inside Edition, “She was just asking about how to get around cheaper, and then the police came.” Costa Rican police detained Armstrong after failing to locate her fictitious name in their database.
In a locker where she had kept her belongings, Paulsen claimed the fugitive had hidden two American passports.
The documents appeared to belong to her sister Christine Armstrong, who resembled her in one of the documents that bore her name.
One of the documents, which was photographed, is a passport with the name Kaitlin Marie Armstrong and a photo of the yoga instructor on it.
The brunette Christine Elizabeth Armstrong, 31, who was thought to be Armstrong’s younger sister, appeared to be the owner of the other passpor.
Armstrong had “cut her hair approximately shoulder length,” according to Filla, who also said that she had “coloured it dark brown.” This was perhaps an effort to look more like Christine.
Paulsen further asserted that among her possessions was a $6,350 receipt for cosmetic treatment under “another identity.”
He claimed Armstrong had been seen wandering the dorm with “blood in her nostrils and a bandage on her nose.”
Although the services listed on the receipt are not specified, Paulsen claims Armstrong bandaged her nose.
Armstrong reportedly ran away to Costa Rica in an effort to live two lives—one under a fictitious name, the other without.
During her stay at Don Jon’s Lodge in the tiny town of Santa Teresa, which has a population of just 3,000, she pretended to be a woman named “Ari.”
She slept in an eight-bunk room, but other guests reported her as a “strange” loner who would “stay to herself.”
Armstrong first arrived at the Don Jon’s Lodge on June 8, according to a source who spoke with DailyMail.com on Friday.
Her requests for employment as a yoga instructor had been repeatedly denied by staff; however, they finally gave in, and she began assisting with the classes when the regular teacher was absent.
Additionally, she was putting in shifts at the front desk in the lobby.
The source stated: “[Armstrong] taught the class in place of the other yoga girl when she was unable to make it. She wasn’t always employed.
She didn’t speak to anyone, they said further. She slept in late because she didn’t have to work in the morning.
She drank a lot of coffee after rising. She then sat in a few chairs by herself, away from the others.
Exclusive video of the alleged killer being taken into a Costa Rican police station while drastically transformed was first made public by DailyMail.com earlier this week.
‘The Marshals Service raised the Kaitlin Armstrong investigation to significant case status early in this investigation, which likely played a key role in her capture after a 43-day run,’ said Susan Pamerlea, the U.S. marshal for the Western District of Texas, on Thursday.
Armstrong is charged with shooting Wilson on May 11; she believed Wilson and her boyfriend, Colin Strickland, were dating.
Authorities discovered the yoga instructor ‘bleeding and unconscious’ at her friend’s residence in Austin, and they later connected her to Wilson’s death. There were numerous bullet wounds on her.
Before declaring Wilson dead at the scene, police gave her CPR.
Wilson, a “world-class” cyclist from Vermont, was staying in Austin for a competition.
As Armstrong’s car was spotted in the neighborhood around the time of the killing, officials came to the conclusion that Wilson was the victim of Armstrong’s jealously.
Later on, they learned that on May 11, Wilson had gone out to supper with Armstrong’s on-and-off boyfriend Strickland.
Strickland had informed the police that the two of them had been swimming at Deep Eddy Pool before grabbing burgers at Pool Burger.
Strickland claimed that on his BMW motorcycle, he picked her up from her friend Caitlin Cash’s apartment at 5:45 p.m., dropped her off at 8:36 p.m., and then stopped briefly to text Armstrong to let her know he had been dropping off flowers to another friend and that his phone had run out of battery.
But without Strickland’s knowledge, Armstrong is said to have been monitoring both of them using the riding software Strava, which displays the routes that runners and cyclists follow.
Armstrong’s black Jeep Cherokee was spotted by a neighbor’s security camera pulling up to the property at 8:35 p.m., she previously revealed to DailyMail.com while requesting anonymity.
Additionally, she revealed to DailyMail.com that Armstrong had been seen on camera the day before riding a bike in the same location.
Police in Austin questioned Armstrong on May 14 after learning that the yoga instructor was wanted on a misdemeanor theft of services charge.
Police took advantage of the opportunity to question her briefly about Wilson’s death a few days earlier after receiving a tip that Armstrong lost her cool when she learned that Strickland had once been romantically involved with Wilson.
Police showed Armstrong video surveillance of her SUV seemingly coming to a stop outside the apartment where Wilson was discovered dead on May 11 during the interview.
Following a swim and dinner with Strickland, Wilson, 25, entered the building just one minute before the video was time-stamped.
A probable cause affidavit for Armstrong’s arrest notes that she also acknowledged that “doesn’t look good” and that she “had no explanation as to why it was in the vicinity, and did not make any denials surrounding the claims made to her.”
It was determined that Armstrong had sold her black Jeep Grand Cherokee to an Austin car dealership for $12,2000 on May 13, five days before she left the country.
Unnamed police informant claimed that in January 2022, Armstrong lost his cool after learning about cyclist Strickland’s romance with another cyclist Wilson.