- 6/6/2025
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#Killers- Caught on Camera
#Killers- Caught on Camera
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00:00This time on Killers Caught on Camera, in Austin, Texas,
00:09a woman is shot three times on the eve of a bike race.
00:14Do I stop?
00:16I don't know what happened.
00:17I just walked in on her.
00:19Sit up.
00:20After a lunch date with a friend shapes a fatal love triangle.
00:25This might be the bike.
00:27That evolves into an international manhunt.
00:30There's a shell casing to the right.
00:32There's another one I gave it.
00:34Somebody had stood over her and fired one shot through her
00:37after she had already fallen to the floor.
00:39And in the north of England, a suspected gangland hit
00:43involves a shotgun and sulfuric acid.
00:47He's got a lot of white powder around him as well
00:50that seems to be sort of giving off gas.
00:54Why would an orchestrated hit like this happen
00:57in such a quiet residential area?
01:04It just sounds like something bad is happening to her.
01:07We know what happened because the video tells us what happened.
01:10I heard some gunshot me.
01:12Drop it! Whatever it is, drop it!
01:14That does not prove that I killed a wife.
01:17The camera doesn't hide.
01:26In central Texas, the state capital, Austin.
01:31In May 2022, emergency services received a panicked call.
01:37Austin 911.
01:38My friend is staying with me and I just walked in
01:41and she's laying on the bathroom floor
01:44and there's blood everywhere.
01:47There's blood all over her face
01:48and all on the back of her head.
01:52Austin police were the first on the scene.
01:57Austin police!
01:59First responders found a young woman lying on the bathroom floor.
02:03The friend who had called 911 was performing CPR.
02:09Do I stop?
02:11I don't know what happened.
02:12I just walked in on her.
02:13Sit up.
02:15It's on the right.
02:16Right here.
02:17As the first responding patrol officers arrived
02:19and emergency medical services,
02:22they quickly realized that the victim was deceased
02:25and they pronounced her dead on scene.
02:28Dad, stay out of here.
02:31Okay, I'll let you guys see.
02:32You can talk to them, okay?
02:33Okay.
02:35She doesn't live here.
02:38She's so, like, close to their families.
02:41Police questioned the friend
02:43to find out who the deceased woman was.
02:47What's her name?
02:49Her name is Mariah.
02:50Mariah is her middle name.
02:51Her first name is Anna.
02:53She's 26.
02:54Mariah Wilson, known as Moe,
02:58was staying in Austin to take part
03:00in the gravel locos race.
03:04Moe was a remarkable friend.
03:07She was introverted,
03:09but she really had this intensity and fierceness
03:13and this, like, quiet power.
03:16Moe grew up in East Burke, Vermont.
03:19She was born into an athletic family.
03:24Moe comes from an athletic family.
03:27Her dad was a very successful ski racer.
03:30She also had a younger brother
03:32who was also a ski racer.
03:35When Moe went to study engineering
03:37at Dartmouth College,
03:38she joined the Women's Alpine Ski Team.
03:42She was a competitor through and through.
03:46But after a series of injuries,
03:49Moe moved on from skiing
03:50to focus on competitive bike racing.
03:54Cycling was the next best thing for her.
03:56She was really good at it
03:58and she could channel that competitive energy.
04:03In 2019, Moe graduated from Dartmouth
04:06and moved to San Francisco.
04:09She started competing in gravel racing competitions.
04:11Her first few races,
04:14she just dominated the field
04:16and a world-class field at that.
04:18And then from there,
04:19her star was on the rise
04:21as one of the premier racers
04:23to come along in a long, long time.
04:26At the crime scene,
04:27police began a meticulous search for evidence.
04:30There had been fired cartridge cases
04:39located near her body
04:40and she had wounds consistent with being shot.
04:43There's a shell casing to the right.
04:45There's another one right here.
04:47So there's one in the bathroom.
04:50What have we got?
04:51Three shell cases.
04:52We have three shell cases.
04:53Nobody heard any shots?
04:54You don't know how long she's been down?
04:55No.
04:56No.
04:58They also discovered
04:59that Moe's bike was missing.
05:02Is there a bike?
05:03Anywhere?
05:04Do you see a bike?
05:05She said she would put it right by the door.
05:08No bike.
05:11But the bike wasn't far from the apartment.
05:14Hey, come here.
05:15Somebody might be in here.
05:16This might be the bike.
05:21My initial thought is
05:22why is this property belonging to the victim
05:25several feet down and hidden in the bushes?
05:28We felt pretty certain
05:29that the possible suspect in the homicide
05:31had removed that bike.
05:35Moe's injuries also gave the police
05:37another clue about her killer.
05:40We located a gunshot wound in her chest
05:43that went through her chest, through her back
05:45and into the floor below her.
05:48And it appeared that somebody had stood over her
05:50and fired one shot through her
05:52after she had already fallen to the floor.
05:54I began to get the feeling that whoever did this,
05:57there could have been a personal aspect to it.
06:02Police began searching the area
06:04for surveillance footage.
06:06They discovered a camera pointing down the alley
06:09beside the apartment where Moe had been found.
06:14There was a vehicle observed on that video footage
06:16that was identified as a black Jeep.
06:18We also observed the brake lights going on and off,
06:21which showed us that the person was possibly unsure
06:25where they were going.
06:27We found the black Jeep also had a very distinct wheel pattern.
06:33Police questioned Moe's friend to find out
06:36who Moe had been with that night.
06:38Colin Strickland was a professional bike racer.
06:55He'd won some of gravel cycling's most prestigious races.
07:01Colin and Mariah had a very brief relationship.
07:05That relationship ended when Mariah left to go back to California.
07:10They were still friends and would still meet up on rides every now and then
07:14if they happened to be in the same city or at the same race.
07:19As the last known person to see Moe,
07:22Colin was now a person of interest.
07:24The next morning, Thursday, May 12th,
07:30Detective Richard Spitler went to Colin's residence.
07:34At this point, I didn't know if Colin was the person responsible for this murder
07:38or if maybe he was just a witness.
07:41I decided that I would do a death notification.
07:44It was really an easy way to say to Sir.
07:48So apparently last night she passed away.
07:56How did Ben?
07:58She...
07:59Right now, it's an open investigation.
08:01But it is being investigated as a homicide.
08:06Okay.
08:11I didn't have any solid proof to indicate
08:12to indicate that Colin was the person responsible
08:14for this murder.
08:16So I told Colin that I wanted his help
08:18in investigating this crime.
08:19I wanted to find out who was responsible.
08:24Colin was brought into the police department
08:27for an interview.
08:29If you just want to take a seat in here,
08:31I'll be right back.
08:33I began asking him, you know, more about Mariah,
08:36more about their outing.
08:38I had been in contact with Mo earlier in the day.
08:40And we were thinking of coordinating a ride.
08:43He was able to show me different text messages,
08:45the plans that they were making.
08:47Right, she sent me a photo of her on the bike.
08:51Is that Mo?
08:51Yeah, that's Mo.
08:53And this is more complexity.
08:55But I have it saved us a different name just because I am a little.
09:00I got you.
09:01His name is Christine.
09:03The name in Colin's phone for Mariah was Christine Wall.
09:09The question was, why did Colin have to keep Mo Wilson saved in his phone
09:13under someone else's name?
09:15He indicated that he does have a girlfriend named Kaitlyn Armstrong.
09:22Kaitlyn currently lives with him, and she would tend to be jealous.
09:26In the past, Kaitlyn has looked at my phone.
09:28Basically, that would always start fighting.
09:31Exactly.
09:33Like, does she do that with, like, all of the girls that are in your phone,
09:36or, like, just with most?
09:37Most of them.
09:38You know, she loves me, and she wants to be, you know.
09:43Yeah.
09:44Basically, nobody else can have you.
09:46Yeah.
09:47Yeah.
09:48You know.
09:49Having a contact in your phone under a different name,
09:51it definitely feels shady in the first instance.
09:54If you have a partner who is jealous,
09:56and you want to communicate with someone
09:59whom you've had a sexual relationship with before,
10:01then you might just put them under a different name,
10:03even if there's nothing else really going on.
10:05The problem with minor deceptions
10:07is that it can really amplify a jealous mind.
10:12When he says that Kaitlyn is jealous of,
10:14it seems, all his female friends,
10:16that signifies that there's a bigger issue going on here
10:20with her general jealousy.
10:21It seems almost as if it's part of this idea of love for him,
10:25and that he's thereby normalizing or rationalizing it,
10:29even though it sounds like it might be jealousy that is quite severe.
10:39We were able to get an alibi.
10:40We were able to get a story of where he had been, what he had done.
10:44And so we started trying to look to see if we could find surveillance video
10:48at that point, to try and corroborate his story and his alibi.
10:53Police obtained surveillance footage from the pool bar
10:56where Colin said they went after their swim.
11:03This video shows Colin and Mariah having a conversation.
11:08They appear calm.
11:10She doesn't look like she's in any kind of fear.
11:14She drinks from his drink, very friendly.
11:19Mo and Colin left the pool bar together.
11:24They were then captured on multiple cameras on Colin's motorcycle,
11:28heading towards the apartment where Mo was later found dead.
11:31This is another angle of Colin on that white motorbike.
11:42This is important because this corroborates the story that Colin has told us of what happened that evening.
11:48In his interview, Colin told police that he had dropped Mo off in the alley behind the house where she was staying.
11:55We said a pretty brief goodbye there.
11:59I didn't actually like watch her go up the stairs.
12:05I got back to my house a little bit before dark.
12:08Investigators discovered that the apartment where Mo was staying had an electronic door lock.
12:15It logged her arriving home at 8.36 p.m.
12:17Just one minute later, the black Jeep was captured on camera in the alley just outside the apartment.
12:30While we don't have a clear view of the license plate of this car, that doesn't stop us from getting a lot of information.
12:39This very obvious running stripe, as well as what appears to be some sort of rack on the back of the vehicle.
12:46This car is in the area at the time of the homicide.
12:50In the hours leading up to Mo's murder, the black Jeep was caught on camera multiple times, circling the neighborhood.
13:02We're able to see that running stripe in the bike rack on the back.
13:06We've seen this vehicle now on several camera angles and traveling at a very slow rate of speed, really appearing to prowl the area.
13:16This is potentially the suspect in this homicide.
13:20Police had seen this vehicle before.
13:27It had been parked in Colin's driveway when they first visited his house.
13:34We noticed this dark SUV with the bike rack on the rear.
13:39We see that silver running stripe along the side of the vehicle.
13:43Detective Spitler asked Colin who owned the Jeep.
13:50I told Colin that Caitlin's Jeep is on camera, that it's in the neighborhood at the time that Mariah had gotten home after he had already dropped her off.
14:12Colin was shocked.
14:13Colin was shocked. He was very surprised.
14:16When he says that she's a mild, gentle person, that, to me, feels like he...
14:18When he says that she's a mild, gentle person, that, to me, feels like he...
14:22In his mind has, well, a version of her that even though she's jealous, she would never do anything.
14:28When he says that she's a mild, gentle person, that, to me, feels like he, in his mind has, well, a version of her that even though she's jealous, she would never do anything.
14:49He's probably running through all these moments, maybe even the jealous moments, maybe the moments where she's potentially gone through his phone, and yet thinking, no, but she's gentle and she's like me, we're the same, we're calm and quiet.
15:03And so, it feels like he's trying to say to this police officer, it couldn't have been her, like, this is not in her demeanor at all.
15:12When they asked if Caitlyn owned a gun, Colin told the police that he had recently bought two handguns, one for himself and one for Caitlyn.
15:24She's had a couple of incidents where she's been, like, accosted or had people in parking lots.
15:32You're frightening.
15:36Colin had been in an on-off relationship with Caitlyn Armstrong since 2019.
15:42She was a yoga teacher, realtor, and also had a background in finance.
15:50It was found that Caitlyn had an active warrant for her arrest, a Class B misdemeanor warrant for theft of service.
15:56She had received a Botox treatment, but she didn't pay for it.
16:03Just in a quick pat down real quick.
16:05It gave the police a reason to bring Caitlyn in.
16:09All right, just stay tight and sit right here in this chair.
16:11It was a chance to volunteer anything she might know about Mo's death.
16:18She was placed in the interview room, and we let them sit for a little bit because we do want to kind of watch their body language, see what they do, how they respond.
16:28They're fidgety if they're not.
16:30She was interesting because she was extremely still, which kind of stood out to me.
16:34So there's a situation that's going on.
16:37Did you hear about what's happened over the past 24 hours?
16:41Colin walked in the house and said one of the women in the cycling community passed away.
16:44Yes.
16:45Yeah.
16:45It sounds like maybe he went out with this girl the other day, and from what he's saying, that you were a little upset about it.
16:52I bet it's not accurate.
16:55Yeah, and that's why I wanted to chat with you because it's a guy.
16:59He's going to say stuff.
17:00And so we want to make sure that we get both sides of the story and everything and clear it up.
17:04So what were you doing yesterday?
17:08I would like to leave, I think.
17:09You'd like to leave?
17:10Yeah.
17:11Okay, that's totally your choice.
17:13And the door's open.
17:15You're welcome to leave.
17:16But again, that limits us to where we only have one side of the story.
17:20And your vehicle was seen next to her house.
17:24I would like to leave if I'm free to leave.
17:26Okay.
17:27Is there any explanation as far as why the vehicle would be over there?
17:32I would like to leave if I'm free to leave.
17:33Okay.
17:34Typically with a truthful person that has not done anything, they're going to respond in
17:42a manner of, how can I help you?
17:44They're going to offer up information.
17:45So it was a very different reaction than what I expected from her.
17:52Kaitlyn Armstrong was allowed to walk free.
17:55But the police had a search warrant for the home she shared with Colin.
18:00We were able to locate two handguns.
18:02Those handguns were tested against the fired cartridge cases that I found on scene near the victim.
18:10One of the handguns came back as a positive match.
18:17Police also found footage of Kaitlyn at the shooting range.
18:23She was clearly capable of handling a gun.
18:31Both Colin and Kaitlyn's cell phones were seized during the search of their property.
18:36When the police traced both of their movements on the night that Mo had been killed, they revealed a major discrepancy.
18:46Colin's whereabouts are no for that night, but Kaitlyn's are not.
18:50It appeared as though her device had circled around downtown Austin and then began traveling to East Austin.
18:56Kaitlyn's device, it turns off.
18:58This is something that is normally seen when someone is trying to conceal their movements because they are about to commit a crime.
19:07Colin Strickland was now in the clear.
19:11Armed with this new evidence, police issued a warrant for Kaitlyn's arrest.
19:15The only problem was that when they went to pick Kaitlyn up, no one could find her.
19:22We noticed that her social media shut down.
19:24Nobody had heard from her.
19:26So we knew, okay, something's up.
19:28She might have taken off at that point.
19:32Police discovered that two days after Mo had been killed,
19:36Kaitlyn Armstrong was at a car dealership in South Austin where she sold her black Jeep for $12,000.
19:45This video shows Kaitlyn Armstrong in the waiting area dealing with her cell phone.
19:51There appears to be some plastic hanging off this phone.
19:55Is this a new cell phone?
19:58Is she making plans to leave the area?
20:01She doesn't seem agitated.
20:03When the police seized the Jeep, the GPS system revealed Kaitlyn's exact movements on the night Mo Wilson was killed.
20:12There was a lot of data and GPS hits showing the Jeep circling the neighborhood.
20:20We were able to put that black Jeep on the scene at the time of the murder.
20:24It showed that Kaitlyn Armstrong had planned this.
20:27It showed that she knew where Mo was staying,
20:30and she was going to wait for them to come back to possibly confront Mo.
20:36Mo Wilson was caught in the middle of a complicated situation,
20:41unaware of the intensity of emotions and their consequences.
20:44Police knew Mo had been shot three times,
20:50twice in the head and once in the chest while lying on the floor.
20:56Then, police found footage from a neighbor's security camera,
21:00which revealed the distressing sound of Mo Wilson's last moments.
21:05The pattern of the shots is callous.
21:21The space of time between that second and third shot
21:25would have allowed the shooter to turn and leave,
21:28but this perpetrator didn't do that.
21:29They followed the victim into another room
21:33and fired that third and fatal shot.
21:37I stayed away from the investigation.
21:41I found that it just, it kind of unraveled me.
21:45The more I learned, the more it just deeply upset me.
21:51But Kaitlyn Armstrong was on the run.
21:54She was missing, wanted as part of a murder investigation.
21:58Weeks passed by, and the investigation hit a dead end.
22:04Then, a breakthrough.
22:07Police discovered that Kaitlyn had fled the country
22:10using her sister's passport.
22:14We have Kaitlyn just making her way calmly through the airport.
22:19She's wearing a face covering, which, while not mandated at this time,
22:23it's very easy for her to obstruct her face from view of the cameras
22:28and from other people without causing any alarm
22:31or raising any red flags for those around her.
22:34But we can see Kaitlyn's distinctive yoga mat here.
22:39Her yoga mat was the only clue the police had.
22:44U.S. Marshals flew to Costa Rica.
22:48Weeks of investigation drew a blank.
22:50Investigators decided to try their luck
22:54and put out a flyer for a yoga teacher.
22:58Kaitlyn just happened to reach out to one of those flyers.
23:02After 43 days on the run,
23:05Kaitlyn Armstrong was finally located and arrested at a hostel.
23:10But she looked different.
23:15Kaitlyn had changed her hair color,
23:17her style, the length of hair.
23:20But she also had gotten a nose job.
23:23And she was currently in the healing process from this surgery.
23:27She ran.
23:28She fled the country, changed her appearance,
23:31spent thousands of dollars altering her face with cosmetic surgery.
23:37Because she traveled into the country illegally
23:39on her sister's passport,
23:41Kaitlyn was deported from Costa Rica
23:43and arrested by U.S. officials.
23:47Kaitlyn was charged with first-degree murder.
23:50She pled not guilty.
23:53But two weeks before the trial was due to start,
23:56her determination to flee justice surfaced again.
23:59She claimed that she had a leg injury
24:04and which required her to not use leg restraints
24:08and that she needed to go to a doctor's office
24:10that was outside of the jail.
24:13As they go to this doctor's office,
24:15she bolts for it.
24:17It was a thought-out escape.
24:20It was not something that was a spur of the moment.
24:25She gets almost a mile away
24:27before she's actually caught.
24:30It was very telling.
24:32She does not come across as a person that has any remorse.
24:37After a 17-day trial,
24:39Kaitlyn Armstrong was found guilty
24:41of the first-degree murder of Mo Wilson.
24:45She was sentenced to 90 years.
24:48But the question remained,
24:50why did she commit such a horrific murder?
24:53By all accounts,
24:55Kaitlyn Armstrong appeared to be
24:56a fairly intelligent person.
24:58I believe that there was a jealousy issue,
25:01and I believe that she killed Mariah Wilson in cold blood.
25:05She plotted and planned this murder.
25:07She tracked Mariah Wilson to that apartment,
25:09and she stood over her and shot her one final time.
25:13And for somebody to be able to do that,
25:16to have the capacity to do that,
25:18it's just cold-hearted.
25:20It's extremely rare to have a woman kill another woman over a partner.
25:28Mo ends up being the target of Kaitlyn's jealousy,
25:35of her morbid jealousy,
25:36and I feel like it could have almost as easily been somebody else,
25:39but maybe because Mo kind of had it all.
25:42She was a really successful cyclist,
25:44which was exactly what her partner was into.
25:46She was beautiful, she was intelligent,
25:49she was a friend who often saw her partner
25:53and had a sexual history with him.
25:55So maybe she was the ultimate threat in her mind,
25:58and so that's why she killed Mo.
26:00The reaction among the cycling community was just utter disbelief
26:06that something like this could befall our world,
26:11let alone Mariah Wilson,
26:12someone who had just so much future, so much potential.
26:16It was devastating and shocking on every level.
26:20I think I'll best remember her as this hard-charging, gritty, sweet girl.
26:29She was fierce, intense, but so sweet and had the kindest heart.
26:35She was really special.
26:37Katelyn Armstrong brutally murdered Mo Wilson
26:53as a result of her morbid jealousy.
26:57What jealousy does is it moves you from suspicions to beliefs,
27:04and those beliefs become your reality.
27:07And at some point, you might feel the need to act on that reality,
27:11even if it's not based in fact.
27:14And sometimes, you might be jealous or morbidly jealous
27:17because you perceive a relationship between your partner and somebody else,
27:20and you seek at some point to eliminate the romantic rival.
27:25In other circumstances, though,
27:26you can have a single instance that is just sticking in your mind.
27:32And in those cases, it can become an all-consuming experience
27:36where, again, even without sufficient evidence
27:39that anything particularly untoward happened,
27:41you constantly are thinking about this moment in time.
27:45And that kind of fixation, that version of morbid jealousy,
27:48can also lead to you taking matters into your own hands.
27:53In the winter of 2022, British police found themselves confronted
27:58with a complete mystery,
28:01a case which ultimately also came down to jealousy.
28:05In the north-west of England is Wigan.
28:19Wigan is a former industrial town.
28:22It was known back in the day for its textiles.
28:24Like many of the towns and cities around here in the north,
28:27that declined throughout the 20th century,
28:30and nowadays it's a lot more known for its green spaces,
28:33its parks and canal side.
28:38At 6.38pm on November 24th,
28:42Greater Manchester Police received a call.
28:45A body had been found in the Shevington district of Wigan.
28:49Emergency services were quickly on the scene.
28:53What they found was highly disturbing.
28:56When the first responders arrived at the scene,
29:00it was apparent quite quickly that the victim had been attacked
29:03with some sort of corrosive substance.
29:06He's got a lot of white powder around him as well
29:09that seems to be sort of giving off gas and some description.
29:13It smells a bit bleaching.
29:16His body was covered in sulfuric acid and sodium carbonate.
29:21His body was smoking.
29:23Really concerning for everybody who approached there,
29:26and also prevented people actually rendering first aid.
29:30The paramedics were uncertain about what this corrosive substance might be,
29:35but it was apparent that the victim had succumbed to his injuries.
29:45It was only when police accessed footage from security cameras
29:49that they began to understand what they were dealing with.
29:56Although it was dark at the time,
30:01the police heard this really distinctive noise of a gunshot.
30:07Alongside the acid attack,
30:09the victim had suffered a single gunshot to the face.
30:12This changed the police investigation completely.
30:16The crime presented a total mystery for investigators.
30:23Even though this shooting bore all the hallmarks of a gangland shooting,
30:28this is 90% elderly people living there,
30:31so who and why would an orchestrated hit like this happen
30:35in such a quiet residential area?
30:37It wasn't until the day after the murder
30:41that a possible name for the victim emerged.
30:45In their initial search of the area,
30:47police found a property which had been left unsecured,
30:50as though somebody had just popped out.
30:53A short while afterwards,
30:55that person's family then reported him missing.
30:57The victim was confirmed as 38-year-old Liam Smith.
31:07Liam Smith was an electrician.
31:09He had his own business.
31:11He was the father to two young sons.
31:13And although he was separated from his partner,
31:16he was still very much a part of his children's life.
31:19In many ways, this only deepens the mystery for the police.
31:23They're then wondering about the motive for such a vicious crime.
31:28Could it even be the case
31:30that this was an incident of mistaken identity,
31:33where Liam was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
31:39The extreme use of violence may communicate a number of things.
31:43It might be about destroying evidence.
31:46It may be about obliterating the identity of the individual.
31:50But it could also be about sending a clear message
31:52to the families of the victim
31:54that this person has done something wrong
31:56and a retaliation has taken place.
32:01An autopsy on Liam's body revealed further alarming details
32:05of the manner of his killing.
32:08He was shot in the face with an adapted Glock,
32:14with shot pellets and a much larger sphere
32:16that had been added, I believe, for maximum damage.
32:20They were really interesting aspects.
32:24And as a team made us ask lots of questions
32:27around why somebody would use those particular types of chemicals.
32:32Why would somebody use that particular combination of ammunition?
32:37With so little information to go on,
32:40police began to search for more video evidence.
32:44Liam's own security cameras provided the first breakthrough.
32:47A little after 6.30pm,
32:54a man in a high-vis jacket and a head torch
32:57gets out of a car,
32:58which is parked a little further away on the street,
33:00and heads towards the house.
33:06It disappears for probably about 40 seconds out of camera,
33:10potentially to lure Liam out of his address.
33:13He has a phone in his hand,
33:15and then he turns left from Liam's drive
33:17and he walks back in the vehicle,
33:19wearing a fluorescent jacket, a headlamp,
33:22all efforts to disguise his identity.
33:29Liam comes out of his house,
33:30presumably alerted by the CCTV cameras.
33:33He checks round the side of the house,
33:35he then comes to the front and pauses,
33:37before heading towards this parked car
33:40a little further up the road.
33:44That's a heartbreaking moment to watch.
33:46It's the last few seconds of Liam's life.
33:50Less than half a minute later,
33:52there's the sound, the audio sound,
33:53of one gunshot.
33:55The vehicle drives away,
34:01but then, strangely, a few minutes later,
34:03returns to the crime scene.
34:06The man gets out of his car with the chemicals
34:08and pours them onto Liam's body.
34:12It does seem strange,
34:14after shooting Liam in the face fatally,
34:17that this assailant would return to the crime scene
34:20to then throw these chemicals on the body.
34:22It does beg the question,
34:24was this to cause further damage and pain to him,
34:27or maybe even to send some kind of message?
34:32Police continued to search through hours of footage
34:36from the surrounding area.
34:38Police now discovered two vital pieces of evidence.
34:42The first was some footage from the dash cam
34:45of a supermarket delivery van.
34:52On that footage, we see the assailant's vehicle
34:55arriving on the street at 7.30am that morning.
34:59This vehicle was also spotted on the cameras
35:01of a bin lorry in the area that morning.
35:07It was a car with the licence plate beginning R22.
35:10The fact that someone sat outside Liam Smith's house
35:29for ten hours gives us a real insight into their psyche.
35:33This is someone who's committed to the course of action
35:37that they want to take.
35:38They're subscribing to a code that makes sense to them,
35:41but really makes them judge, jury and executioner.
35:46Police quickly discovered the licence plates
35:49on the vehicle had been cloned.
35:51From the assailant's movements,
35:53the police thought that he must have had
35:55some prior knowledge of the area,
35:57maybe had even visited the address previously.
36:01The hunch proved to be correct.
36:03After days meticulously searching CCTV,
36:07they found further sightings of the car in Liam's street,
36:13three weeks before the murder.
36:23The driver of this car matched the description
36:26of the assailant from the night of Liam's killing.
36:28Police believed it was a hostile reconnaissance.
36:35At that time, the licence plate on the jeep was different.
36:40Again, they checked and worked out
36:42that the plate was also fake.
36:46These false plates had been caught
36:48on an ANPR camera over in Sheffield,
36:51so this now gave the police their first clue
36:53and a new area to search.
36:55A couple of weeks into the investigation,
37:02we received intelligence from South Yorkshire Police
37:04that a vehicle had been stopped
37:06three weeks before Liam was murdered.
37:09And in that vehicle was the R22 plate.
37:13It was that that really unravelled this case.
37:16This is a false number plate,
37:20so they confiscate it,
37:22but it then seems that the driver
37:24created an identical set.
37:27Police were now able to link the driver of that vehicle
37:30back to a business in Sheffield.
37:33They visited the premises
37:34and searched CCTV cameras in the vicinity.
37:37They found footage of an individual
37:42who matched the description of the assailant
37:45parking a shogun car with the false number plates
37:49and then going into the business premises.
37:52They then found footage of the same individual
37:55parking an Audi car outside the premises.
37:58A check of the license details on the Audi
38:04gave them a name.
38:06Michael Hillier.
38:11Hillier was a known drug dealer
38:13around the area of Sheffield.
38:15He had previous convictions for violence.
38:18Police also discovered incidences
38:20of coercive control and domestic violence.
38:23Hillier was tracked down to his home in Sheffield
38:28and taken into custody.
38:31This photograph communicates power, control and dominance.
38:36To me, it's a communication of aggression, distance.
38:40There's the communication that this connects to
38:42a gangster lifestyle.
38:47When Hillier was first interviewed by police,
38:50he played it very cool,
38:51giving no common answers across the board.
38:54And the police were really struggling at this stage
38:56to establish a link between Liam and Hillier,
38:59other than the fact that he had been seen
39:01on that CCTV footage outside Liam's home.
39:05But unbeknown to Hillier,
39:08his car insurance details revealed another name to the police.
39:12Rachel Falstow.
39:17Rachel had been in a relationship with Hillier since 2021.
39:20And they had just come back from a holiday to Jamaica.
39:25When police arrive at Rachel Falstow's address,
39:28she admitted to officers that she had met Liam Smith
39:31in September 2019,
39:33that they'd gone on a date after meeting on Tinder,
39:36they'd spent the night together,
39:38and also gone for lunch the next day.
39:40She was initially brought in
39:42and questioned as a potential witness.
39:45When she was interviewed,
39:47Rachel spoke at length,
39:48but denied any involvement.
39:51She said she only knew that Liam had been killed
39:54when Hillier told her the day after Liam had been murdered.
39:57At first, she was treated as a witness.
40:00But it wasn't long before further evidence came to light.
40:03Police found she'd searched for Whiggin murder
40:08just hours after Liam had been killed,
40:10before his name had been released to the public.
40:14That in itself was a really significant search.
40:18How could she have known that the man
40:20that she'd had a one-night stand with two years before
40:23was dead on the street, unless she was involved?
40:25Detectives then found a string of suspicious messages
40:31on Falstor's phone.
40:34The day before the murder,
40:36Hillier sent a text to Rachel saying he was ill
40:38and in need of some TLC.
40:40She said she was on her way.
40:47Rachel was sending Hillier messages
40:49knowing he wasn't there,
40:50because Rachel had been at Hillier's house
40:53when he left to murder Liam.
40:55And she knew he'd left his phone there.
40:58Clear alibi messages.
41:01Hillier sent no messages.
41:02He had no phone with him.
41:03He deliberately left his phone at home.
41:06Deeper dives into Falstor's search history
41:09only added to the weight of the evidence against her.
41:13In October 2022, a month before Liam's killing,
41:17Falstor had been searching for his company details online
41:20and she'd been looking up his address on Google Earth.
41:23Her phone also showed searches for a Mitsubishi Shogun car
41:27and how long it takes to burn a car out completely.
41:31This was just days before Liam's killing.
41:33The vehicle was eventually found burned out in a forest in the north of England.
41:43Hillier and Falstor were charged with murder.
41:48Rachel and Liam had gone for one day in Rachel's hometown of York.
41:52They'd stayed the night in a hotel together.
41:55The pair never saw each other again.
41:57In 2021, Rachel began a relationship with Hillier,
42:01who she said could be verbally abusive and quite volatile.
42:07Falstor said that Hillier was not happy
42:10when he found out about this one-night stand with Liam,
42:13despite this happening two years earlier,
42:15and that he would continuously bring this up whenever the pair would argue.
42:22Michael Hillier had very strong views about women.
42:25He was disturbed by the fact that Rachel Falstor
42:27did not only have a dating life before they met,
42:30she also had a sexual life,
42:32and that was intolerable for him to comprehend.
42:37This is where things become a bit complicated.
42:40So Rachel Falstor denies that she ever said this,
42:44but Hillier seems to get in his mind
42:46that that night Liam Smith had unconsensual sex with Rachel,
42:51and that he then needed to take revenge against Liam
42:55in this act of vigilante justice.
43:02We can understand how someone may feel jealous
43:05when they hear about a partner's sexual past,
43:08because it does challenge sometimes the experience in the here and now.
43:12However, it's not so much the feelings that's problematic,
43:15it's how a person responds to that.
43:17And it seems that in some cases,
43:19the activation of a criminal code
43:21provides a pathway by which to resolve this issue.
43:25What Michael Hillier would say
43:27is that he is someone of very traditional values,
43:30and he didn't like the fact that Rachel Falstor
43:33had had a one-night stand with Liam.
43:35The disturbing thing about this situation
43:39is that these thoughts and opinions about women
43:42initiated and fuelled
43:44a very calculated, sadistic and violent response
43:47that ended up in a person dying.
43:54Falstor claims she knew nothing of the killing
43:57until Hillier came back to her house the next day
44:00and that she was petrified to go to the police.
44:02But police found evidence that Hillier and Falstor
44:05began planning to murder Liam in May 2022,
44:09six months before he was eventually killed.
44:14Just days after the brutal murder,
44:17they marked the occasion by wallowing
44:19in the luxurious bays of the Caribbean.
44:24Their case went to court in the summer of 2023.
44:28As the trial wore on,
44:31Hillier and Falstor seemed to turn against one another.
44:35Hillier claims that it was Falstor
44:37that planned the routes to and from Liam's address,
44:40that she had sourced the acid to use in the attack,
44:43and that she had even suggested
44:45that he sever Liam's penis.
44:49Hillier and Falstor were both convicted of murder.
44:52Falstor was also convicted of perverting
44:57the course of justice.
45:00Michael Hillier was sentenced to 33 years in prison,
45:04and Rachel Falstor was given a 30-year sentence.
45:12Liam was more than just a family member to us.
45:14He was our rock, our Liam.
45:16He had the biggest and most kind-hearted soul
45:20and would literally do anything for anyone.
45:23Liam's life wasn't the only one
45:25that was destroyed that night.
45:27Everyone who knew and loved Liam
45:29had been left completely heartbroken,
45:32devastated and traumatised
45:34by the events that happened on the 24th of November.
45:39It was unbelievable, the motive for Liam Smith's murder.
45:43Liam's family will never, ever get over that,
45:47nor should they be expected to.
45:50This case begins with police arriving to this crime scene.
45:54There's an unknown body laid in this residential street
45:57covered in a mysterious, corrosive substance.
46:00It's confusing and mysterious from the get-go.
46:04But what materialises is this really senseless,
46:08brutal killing of a father of two,
46:10grounded in nothing more than malice
46:13and Liam Smith did not deserve to die
46:16in the way that he did.
46:17The End
46:20The End
46:21The End
46:25The End
46:26The End
46:29Transcription by CastingWords
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