Wearing a hoodie and a mask pulled up over her face, Kaitlin Armstrong showed up at Dr. Jorge Badilla’s clinic in San José, Costa Rica, the morning of her planned surgery. During the consultation, she had appeared completely normal to Badilla. However, on the day of the procedures, something was different. She was clearly upset. She objected when he attempted to take a typical “before” photo, which is standard procedure in cosmetic surgery. She didn’t want any documentation of her appearance before his alteration. Badilla and his assistant, Beth Chavarria, wouldn’t comprehend why until months after her arrest made headlines around the world.
On the evening of May 11, 2022, Armstrong murdered Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson in an Austin, Texas, apartment. Wilson, a 25-year-old professional gravel rider who was shot in the heart, was considered one of the sport’s most talented riders. After Wilson’s movements coincided with those of Armstrong’s intermittent boyfriend, Colin Strickland, Armstrong had followed her there using the fitness app Strava. The events that took place in that apartment were systematic. Peculiarly, what transpired in the weeks that followed was equally planned.
| “Allison Paige”; also used names “Beth” and “Ari”; used her sister’s passport | Kaitlin Marie Armstrong |
| Occupation (prior to arrest) | Yoga instructor, real estate agent |
| Crime | Murder of Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson (May 11, 2022, Austin, Texas) |
| Conviction | Guilty — November 2023; sentenced to 90 years in prison |
| Fugitive Period | May 18 – June 29, 2022 (fled to Costa Rica) |
| Plastic Surgery Location | San José, Costa Rica — Dr. Jorge Badilla’s clinic |
| Procedures (confirmed) | Rhinoplasty, brow lift, lip fillers, eye fillers; hair dyed |
| Surgery Cost | Approximately $6,000–$6,350 USD |
| Alias Used | “Allison Paige”; also used names “Beth” and “Ari”; used sister’s passport |
| Arrested By | Occupation (before arrest) |
A warrant had been issued a few days after the murder. Armstrong’s Jeep was captured on security footage near the apartment. Investigators were aware of her disappearance, her habits, and her motivation. Using her sister’s passport to get past customs, she had flown to Costa Rica on May 18 and fled the country while Austin police were still assembling the timeline. She traveled between beach towns in Costa Rica, such as Jacó and Santa Teresa, which are well-liked by surfers and yoga practitioners, and where an active, outdoorsy American woman would not stand out. Her hair was chopped off. It was dyed by her. She entered hostels using the names “Beth” and “Ari.” Allison Paige was the name she used to schedule her surgery.
She asked Badilla to follow certain, well-thought-out procedures. A rhinoplasty modifies the most instantly identifiable aspect of a face by narrowing the alar base, lifting and refining the tip, and smoothing the dorsal profile. A brow lift is a subtle restructuring of the upper face that involves raising the brows and opening the eye area. fillers around the eyes and in the lips. She spent between $6,000 and $6,350 in total. In terms of true crime, it’s an astonishingly useful investment—a methodical attempt to change the characteristics that would show up in every police photo that circulates on news networks and in bulletins from the U.S. Marshals. In hindsight, it’s difficult to ignore how much planning went into it. This was not a rash decision. She had done some research on this.
On June 20, 2022, Deputy U.S. Marshals Emir Perez and Damien Fernandez arrived in San José as members of the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force, which was put together especially to locate her. Based on information about her whereabouts, they relocated to Santa Teresa. They were informed that the beach town was full of athletic, blonde, yoga-adjacent women who resembled Kaitlin Armstrong. A female agent was sent to a yoga class. They spoke with contacts in the area. They pursued unsuccessful sightings. They were unaware of Armstrong’s absence during those crucial early days in Santa Teresa, and they would only find out later. She was recovering from the surgery that was supposed to make it impossible to find her in San José, in Badilla’s clinic, still covered in bandages. The target and the task force had nearly missed each other.
On June 29, 2022, she was taken into custody at a Santa Teresa hostel. She still had a bandage on her nose when Perez discovered her. The hostel is where the surgery receipts were found. However, Perez claimed that her eyes, not her nose or her freshly formed eyebrows, were what revealed her. Even after the weeks of attempted transformation and the fillers, the eyes were still clearly hers. There is some weight to that particular detail. A face’s architecture can be changed. The rhinoplasty can narrow the base and reshape the tip. Everything above the cheekbones can be reframed with a brow lift. However, it seems that something in the eyes is more difficult to alter.
After just two hours of deliberation, the jury found Armstrong guilty in November 2023. She received a 90-year prison sentence. Since then, the case has been the focus of a Netflix documentary called The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson. While it goes into great detail about the murder, some viewers feel that the surgical details are not given enough attention considering how important they were to the fugitive story. The now publicly accessible before-and-after photos, which were taken from post-arrest paperwork and U.S. Marshals records, depict a face that is both identically the same and noticeably different. The nose is not the same. The brows are positioned differently. There is more volume in the lips.
More than anything about cosmetic medicine, the surgery ultimately shows how carefully Armstrong planned each stage of her attempt to avoid responsibility. It also shows the calculation’s limitations. The task force was competent enough to locate her even though the procedures were genuine and the changes were apparent. A yoga instructor with a new face was practicing beach yoga in Santa Teresa while waiting for a bandage to come off her nose, while U.S. Marshals searched the same streets in search of an altered version of her. This Costa Rican chapter of the case remains one of the most bizarre fugitive tales in recent American true crime.
