The UFO General and the Rocket Scientist Who Vanished | True Crime News

Summary

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Crime House 24/7

Episode: The UFO General and the Rocket Scientist Who Vanished | True Crime News

Host: Vanessa Richardson
Date: April 29, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into two intertwined disappearances that have rattled both the true crime community and national security circles: the vanishing of retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland and decorated aerospace engineer Monica Jacinto Reza. Both had ties to sensitive nuclear, aerospace, and defense research, and both vanished without a trace under mysterious circumstances. Their disappearances are part of a growing, federally investigated pattern involving at least 10 individuals connected to critical U.S. technology programs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

National Security Disappearances: The Pattern Emerges [02:47]

• FBI Investigation: At least 10 scientists and officials tied to nuclear, aerospace, and defense programs have died or gone missing in recent years.
• White House Involvement: The President called the matter "pretty serious stuff" and federal multi-agency probes are underway, with Congress pressing for answers.

Case 1: The Disappearance of "The UFO General" – William Neil McCasland

Timeline & Facts [04:36]

• Date: Disappeared February 27, 2026, from his Albuquerque, NM home.
• Circumstances:
  • Interaction with a repairman at 10am, last seen by his wife Susan around noon.
  • Left behind essentials: phone, prescription glasses, wearable devices.
  • Took only his wallet, hiking boots, and a .38 revolver in a leather holster.
• Age at Disappearance: 68

Investigation Highlights [06:05]

• No clear evidence: Surveillance cameras on both ends of his street, but as of mid-March no significant findings.
• Found Items:
  • March 7: Gray USAF sweatshirt found 1.25 mi from home—family unable to confirm it was his; no blood detected.
  • At his second home in Pagosa Springs, CO: found hiking boots and a green button-up, but nothing else.
• Law Enforcement Quotes:
  • "We could not say where McCasland went, why he left, or whether anyone else was involved." — Lt. Kyle Woods, Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office [05:20]
• Search efforts: Extensive, with helicopters, infrared, drones, and door-to-door canvassing. Terrain and heat made search conditions nearly impossible.
  • "The mountain was just lit up like a candle. We couldn't differentiate from heat signatures and the heat from the rocks." — Lt. Woods [08:57]
• No cause established: As of this recording, no evidence of foul play or substantiated theories.

Why He Matters [07:40]

• Commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright Patterson AFB—central to American aerospace defense and UFO lore.
• Tied by public reporting (WikiLeaks, Podesta-deLong emails, etc.) to the UFO research community.
  • Labeled “the UFO General” by Congressman Eric Burleson [09:20]

Family and Public Response [09:50]

• Wife’s Clarification: Susan McCasland Wilkerson publicly downplayed UFO claims:
  • “He does not have any special knowledge about the E.T. bodies and debris from the Roswell crash… No sightings of a mothership hovering above the Sandia mountains have been reported.” [10:01]
  • She noted he was suffering from “mental fog” and had been withdrawing from projects.
• Silver Alert: Issued as a precaution. Investigators insisted, “there’s no indication Mr. McCasland was disoriented or confused… Arguably, he would still be the most intelligent person in the room.” — Lt. Woods [11:28]

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Case 2: The Vanishing of Rocket Scientist Monica Jacinto Reza

Timeline & Facts [12:46]

• Date: Last seen June 22, 2025, Angeles National Forest CA.
• Circumstances:
  • Hiking with a companion, 30 ft behind, made eye contact and smiled, then disappeared in seconds.
  • Last seen at Mount Waterman area along Angeles Crest Highway, ~9:10am.
• Age at Disappearance: 60

Investigation Highlights [13:13]

• Massive Search: Dogs, drones, helicopters, and dozens of agencies—no clues, no remains found.
• Case Status: Transferred to LA County Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau, Missing Persons Unit; remains open.
• Ongoing Efforts: Volunteers continue searching without success.

Professional Background and Impact [14:22]

• Career:
  • Columbia & UCLA educated.
  • Worked at Rocketdyne, co-invented Mondaloy, a superalloy key to U.S. rocket engines.
  • Held multiple patents, pivotal to both military and commercial rocketry.
  • Later became Director of Materials Processing at NASA’s JPL.
• Significance:
  • “Monica Reza built one of the materials that American rockets rely on… documented in patents, engineering publications, and public award citations.” [15:25]
  • Recognized as a trailblazer and a Luminary Award recipient.

Ties to Defense and to McCasland [16:17]

• Funding and Connections:
  • Mondaloy research funded by Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)—the same lab McCasland would later command.
  • “NBC News reports the two did work together, though more than a decade ago… their professional worlds overlapped in a documented way.” [17:50]
• Institutional Overlap: Both connected to Wright-Patterson AFB, both prominent in the LA aerospace corridor.
  • “Her research, funded in part by the Air Force Research Laboratory, his laboratory, the same national security ecosystem.” [18:38]
• Congressional Focus:
  • House Oversight Committee and FBI multi-agency probe highlighted her case as one that "raised questions."
  • Her disappearance remains part of a national security concern.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “President Donald Trump has personally called the matter, quote, pretty serious stuff.” — Vanessa Richardson, [03:41]
• “We could not say where McCasland went, why he left, or whether anyone else was involved.” — Lt. Kyle Woods, Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, [05:20]
• “The mountain was just lit up like a candle. We couldn't differentiate from heat signatures and the heat from the rocks.” — Lt. Woods, [08:57]
• “His wife… wrote that her husband’s connection to the UFO community was, ‘brief’ and that he, ‘does not have any special knowledge about the E.T. bodies and debris from the Roswell crash… no sightings of a mothership… have been reported.’” — Vanessa Richardson quoting Susan McCasland Wilkerson, [10:01]
• “Arguably, he would still be the most intelligent person in the room that any of us would be in. Highly intelligent, highly capable.” — Lt. Woods [11:28]
• “Monica Reza built one of the materials that American rockets rely on… That is not a matter of speculation… it is documented in patents, engineering publications and public award citations spanning more than two decades.” — Vanessa Richardson, [15:25]
• “No official has publicly confirmed a personal relationship between them and no authority has drawn a causal connection between their two disappearances. What has been confirmed… is that the chain of professional relationships and institutional connections between these individuals is real and documented.” — Vanessa Richardson, [18:56]

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Timestamps: Key Segments

• (00:53) — Introduction and overview of twin disappearances
• (02:47) — Emergence of pattern: Multiple disappearances in nuclear/aerospace sectors
• (04:36 – 11:53) — Disappearance of Gen. McCasland: background, investigation, conspiracy theories, law enforcement perspective, family statements
• (12:46 – 19:30) — Disappearance of Monica Reza: timeline, professional achievements, ties to AFRL/McCasland, investigation scope
• (15:25 & 18:56) — Discussion on implications for national security and direct institutional/professional connections
• (19:30) — Host note: Commitment to ongoing coverage of these cases

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Tone & Language

• Style: Direct, precise, grounded, investigative.
• Host's Approach: Vanessa Richardson presents the facts, dispels sensational rumors, and emphasizes verified information, often quoting officials or affected family members to counteract internet speculation.

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Summary for Listeners

This episode provides a meticulous exploration of two major disappearances: Maj. Gen. William McCasland, dubbed “the UFO General,” and Monica Jacinto Reza, pivotal rocket propulsion scientist. Both cases remain unsolved, but evidence supports an unsettling pattern of vanished experts tied to top-secret programs. The episode skillfully separates fact from conspiracy, giving listeners a clear-eyed understanding of why these disappearances have drawn intense federal interest—and why the cases remain at the intersection of science, national security, and mystery.

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Stay tuned to Crime House 24/7 for ongoing updates as this investigation develops.

Transcript

[Vanessa Richardson]

Hi listeners, it's Vanessa Richardson. Real quick, before today's episode, I want to tell you about another show from Crime House that I know you'll love. America's Most Infamous Crimes. Hosted by Katie Ring. Each week, Katie takes on one of the most notorious criminal cases in American history. Serial killers who terrorized cities, unsolved mysteries that keep detectives up at night, and investigations that change the way we think about justice. Listen to and follow America's Most infamous crimes Tuesday through Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Co-host or Producer]

This is Crime House.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Good morning everyone. We have multiple breaking true crime cases this morning that you need to know about. And we're starting with the biggest one. A retired Air Force general who once oversaw the country's most classified aerospace programs walks out of his New Mexico home one morning and vanishes. Eight months earlier and nearly a thousand miles away, a decorated aerospace engineer disappears on a hiking trail in the mountains north of Los Angeles. She was reportedly 30ft behind her companion. They made eye contact, she smiled and waved, and then she was gone. A federal investigation is now underway into the deaths and disappearances of at least 10Americans tied to sensitive nuclear and aerospace research. These are two of those stories. This is Crime House 24 7, your non stop source for the biggest crime cases developing right now. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Vanessa Richardson and we have quite a lineup for you today. Here's what you need to know. 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Head to quince.com crimehouse24.7 for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q W-I-N C E.com crimehouse 247 for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com crime house24 7 what started as a viral conspiracy theory on social media has become a very real federal investigation now stretching across multiple agencies and all the way to the Oval office. At least 10 individuals with ties to America's most sensitive nuclear, aerospace and defense research programs have died or gone missing in recent years. The FBI has confirmed it's leading a multi agency probe. The White House has said it's working with federal agencies to look for any potential links between the cases, and President Donald Trump has personally called the matter, quote, pretty serious stuff. We scratched the surface of this investigation in Tuesday's episode laying out all the cases and the broader federal response. But today we want to slow down and go deeper into two of them. The two cases that, to investigators and researchers who followed this story closely, raise the most unsettling questions. Both involve people who spent careers at the very core of American aerospace and defense. Both disappeared without a trace. And both, it turns out, had a professional connection to each other. We start in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The morning of February 27, 2026, was an ordinary one on the surface. A repairman came to the home of retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland around 10am the two interacted normally. Around noon, McCasland's wife, Susan, returned home. Her husband was gone. He left behind his phone, his prescription glasses and his wearable devices, the kind of things an experienced outdoorsman would never intentionally leave behind. What he did take with him, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office, his wallet, his hiking boots, a.38 caliber revolver and a leather holster. He was 68 years old. Seventeen days after his disappearance, authorities still had no answers and said so publicly. Lt. Kyle woods of the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office told reporters that officials could not say where McCaslin went, why he left, or whether anyone else was involved. Authorities confirmed that surveillance cameras covered both ends of his street and that investigators were still working through that footage in March. A gray U S Air Force sweatshirt was recovered about 1.25 miles east of his home on March 7, eight days after he vanished. His family could not confirm the shirt was his and no blood was detected on it in initial testing. Investigators also searched a second home McCasland owned in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, roughly 200 miles to the north, where they found a light green button up shirt and a pair of hiking boots, but no sign of him. To understand why his disappearance has rattled so many people, you have to understand who this man was. McCasland was not just any retired military officer. During his career, he commanded the Air Force research Laboratory AFRL at Wright Patterson Air Force base in Ohio, one of the most consequential posts in the entire American defense research apparatus. He served as director of special programs for the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, and held senior roles in space acquisition at the Pentagon. He joined wright Patterson in 2011 and retired in 2013. His resume placed him at the center of classified aerospace research and advanced defense programs. As it happens, the facility that's been the subject of more UFO speculation than perhaps any other military installation in the country. That last part is worth addressing directly. Wright Patterson air force base has been connected, at least in popular culture and online UFO communities, to the alleged 1947 Roswell crash, the idea being that any recovered debris was eventually brought there. McCaslin's name surfaced in the 2016 WikiLeaks release of emails belonging to John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman. In those emails, musician and UAP advocate Tom DeLong described McCasland as someone he'd worked with in discussion about unidentified aerial phenomena and noted that the general had led the very laboratory at Wright Patterson where, in DeLong's framing, relevant materials were supposedly stored. McCasland neither confirmed nor denied that characterization publicly, but his name was out there in those circles for years before he disappeared. When he went missing, that history immediately collided with the broader story of disappearing scientists. Congressman Tim Burett of Tennessee said intelligence agencies had stymied his attempts to find out what happened. Congressman Eric burleson publicly referred to McCasland as, quote, the UFO general. His wife, Susan McCasland Wilkerson, has tried to pump the brakes on the more sensational narratives. In a Facebook post, she wrote that her husband's connection to the UFO community was, quote, brief and that he, quote, does not have any special knowledge about the e. T. Bodies and debris from the Roswell crash stored at Wright pat end quote. In a line that drew some attention for its dry humor, she added, quote, no sightings of a mothership hovering above the Sandia mountains have been reported, end quote. She also noted that her husband retired from the air force nearly 13 years ago and had held only commonly available security clearances since she said, quote, unquote, it seems quite unlikely that he was taken to extract very dated secrets from him, end quote. She Also offered a more personal and grounded explanation for his disappearance. Before he vanished, she told authorities McCasland had been experiencing what he described as mental fog, a condition he cited as the reason he'd been stepping back from various organizations and projects he'd been involved with. Authorities issued a silver alert out of an abundance of caution, they said, though Lt. Woods made clear that McCaslin was not impaired. Quote, there's no indication that Mr. McCasland was disoriented or confused. Arguably, he would still be the most intelligent person in the room that any of us would be in. Highly intelligent, highly capable. End quote. The search has been extraordinarily difficult. At the same time authorities were looking for him, an unseasonably warm spring turned the New Mexico terrain into a near impossible search environment. Investigators flew a helicopter equipped with infrared cameras over the canyons and cliffs near his home at night, searching for his heat signature. The effort was largely fruitless. As woods put it, quote, the mountain was just lit up like a candle. We couldn't differentiate from heat signatures and the heat from the rocks, end quote. Authorities canvassed more than 700 homes. Dogs, drones and helicopters covered the surrounding canyon, with the exception, investigators acknowledged, of some particularly difficult terrain. 74 tips came into the sheriff's office alone, not counting those forwarded to the FBI, which became formally involved in the search. As of the time of this recording, McCasland has not been found. No cause has been established for his disappearance. No evidence of foul play has been publicly confirmed. Woods, at that March press conference, offered the most honest assessment of where things stood. He said, quote, we are many weeks in, and if he were to have gone into the mountains, the likelihood of surviving this time frame would be very low, end quote. What investigators have disclosed without drawing conclusions, is that his professional world overlapped directly with the next case. We're about to tell you. She worked in the same orbit of American aerospace defense research. Her work was funded, at least in part, by the same air force laboratory that McCasland once commanded. And she disappeared eight months before he did on a hiking trail not far from the laboratory where she'd spent the final chapter of her career. From the high desert of Albuquerque, we go to the mountains above Los Angeles. For a lot of people, the hardest part about weight loss isn't getting started. It's finding something that works and lasts. That's why weight loss by hers is designed to support you in a more effective way. With access to an affordable range of FDA approved GLP1 medications, including the Wegovy pill and the Wagovi pen with WeGovy. Through hers, you can lose up to 20% or more of your body weight when combined with diet and exercise. It helps regulate your appetite so you can eat less and maintain progress over time. And because it's also available as the first GLP1 in a pill, there's a no needle option if that's something you prefer. 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She was last seen at around 9:10am near the Mount Waterman area along Angeles Crest Highway. The search that followed lasted days, involved dozens of agencies, helicopters, dogs and drones and turned up nothing. Not a trace. Her body has never been recovered. To understand why her disappearance has captured the attention of investigators and national security researchers alike, you have to understand what she built and who relied on it. Ressa had spent her entire career at the intersection of material science and rocket propulsion. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in metallurgical engineering from Columbia University and later earned a master's in materials engineering from UCLA in 1997. She began her career at Rocketdyne, then a division of Rockwell International, in 1988 working on what was at the time considered an essentially unsolvable engineering problem, how to build a rocket engine that runs on oxygen rich staged combustion, a design that American manufacturers had historically avoided because the oxygen gas tended to combust engine components at high pressures. Reza's answer to that problem was Mondaloy, a nickel based super alloy she co invented in the mid-1990s. Specifically engineered to withstand the extreme heat and pressure inside a rocket engine, the alloy eventually found its way into approximately 12 components of American military, military and commercial rocket engines by 2003. She held the first of three patents for her work. In 2004 she received the inaugural Luminary Award from the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corporation, honoring both her technical contributions and her work inspiring the next generation of Hispanic engineers. Put simply, Monica Reza built one of the materials that American rockets rely on. That is not a matter of speculation or online conspiracy. It is documented in patents, engineering publications and public award citations spanning more than two decades. By the time she disappeared in the summer of 2025, she had transitioned from Aerojet Rocketdyne to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory JPL in Pasadena, California where she served as Director of Materials processing. Sometime around 2022 or 2023, she made the move to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory quietly, with no public announcement and no press release. The morning she disappeared, Reza was hiking with a friend on well traveled terrain near the Mount Waterman area. The trail is steep and uneven. According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. She was last seen at around 9:10am and then she was gone. What followed was an extensive search. Helicopters, dogs, drones, multiple agencies. The initial phase ran through June 30, 2025 when the case was trans transferred to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Homicide Bureau's Missing Persons Unit. An additional search was conducted on August 8th. Dedicated volunteers have continued searching the terrain around Mount Waterman ever since, with no trace of Reza ever found. Now here's the part of this story that has drawn the most attention in recent weeks. The connection between Monica Reza and the man we told you about in our first story Today, William Neil McCasland the thread between them runs through the Air Force Research Laboratory. Reza's work on Mondaloy, the rocket engine super alloy she co invented was funded in part by the Air Force Research Laboratory, according to reporting from Fox News and other outlets. The Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio was of course, the very organization that McCasland later commanded. While investigators have publicly stated that no direct personal relationship between Reza and McCasland has been confirmed, NBC News reports the two did work together, though more than a decade ago, and reporting by the New York Post, which cited investigators, shows that their professional worlds overlapped in a documented way. Her research, funded in part by the Air Force Research Laboratory, his laboratory, the same national security ecosystem. Both Reza and McCasland also have separately documented connections to Wright Patterson Air Force Base. She through the funding of her materials research, he as the facility's commanding officer, both ended up at institutions in or connected to the greater Los Angeles aerospace corridor, she at JPL in Pasadena, he in an overlapping network of research and defense programs that touched Southern California's aerospace industry. Fox 11 Los Angeles reported that investigators have noted Reza's professional past quote, overlapped with other missing figures in the field, including former colleague retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William McCasland, who oversaw projects involving her research, end quote. It's important to be precise here. No official has publicly confirmed a personal relationship between them and no authority has drawn a casual connection between their two disappearances. What has been confirmed and what has fueled the attention of Congress is that the chain of professional relationships and institutional connections between these individuals is real and documented. The House Oversight Committee, in announcing its investigation, specifically cited Reza among the individuals whose cases raised questions. Her name is on the official list that prompted the FBI's multi agency probe and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department remains the lead agency on her case as of today. Monica Jacinto Reza, a Columbia and UCLA educated engineer, a patent holder, a trailblazer in rocket propulsion technology, a woman described by colleagues as brilliant and dedicated has been missing for more than 10 months. Her case, like McCaslin's, remains open. Stay with us on Crime House 247 as we continue to follow this investigation. We'll bring you updates and more deeper dives as this story develops. Focus FEATURES in Blumhouse present Obsession When

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[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

This case today is going to start just before 10pm on Wednesday, May 11, 2022, in Austin, Texas. There, a young woman named Caitlyn Cash is walking back to her apartment in the Cherrywood neighborhood, which is on the east side of the city. She's been out for the evening. Her friend Mo Wilson has been staying with her all week though. She's a 25 year old cyclist who's in town for a race called Gravel Locos. And it's scheduled for that Saturday. Saturday before she left earlier that day, Cash sent Mo's mom Karen a short video. And in this video, Mo is laughing. She's getting ready for a training ride. And the text that she sent with it says, quote, your girl's here safe with me. Cash unlocks the door. The apartment is quiet when she walks in and she wasn't really expecting that having a friend in town. So she calls out, but there's no answer from Mo. So she goes around the corner of her apartment and she sees that her bathroom door is actually, actually open, which kind of strikes her as being odd. So she goes inside and in there she finds her friend Mo Wilson lying on her back on the floor and she's unconscious and there is blood everywhere in this bathroom. So Cash, thinking quickly, she goes and she grabs the phone and dials 91 1. Immediately, the dispatcher, who you know We've had some really bad 911 dispatchers on the show in this 911 call. This dispatcher I thought was amazing.

[Co-host or Producer]

I was gonna say, I'm so glad you brought it up because this is one of the best dispatchers I think I've ever heard.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

Yeah. He immediately like, is like, we're going to do chest compressions, teaches her how to do chest compressions and is constantly reassuring her like the police are on their way. I've dispatched the police.

[Co-host or Producer]

Well, and you can hear the shock, the trauma in Cash's voice. And he does such a good job keeping her calm and focused on cpr.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

And when Cash is counting out loud to the dispatcher, she gets to 26. And that's when she hears that there's officers knocking at the door. She that's how fast they get there. And the first responders take over doing chest compressions and they lead Caitlyn Cash outside. And when Caitlyn's outside, she starts wondering why there's not a little bit more urgency. She saw the first responders go in, but they're not rushing out with Mo to get her to the hospital. And so she ends up asking like, hey, what's going on? Why aren't you bringing my friend out right now? And that's when the first responders have to basically tell her that it seems like your friend didn't make it. And that's when Anna Mariah Wilson was pronounced dead at the scene at just 25 years old, a week shy of her 26th birthday. Birthday. Now, this goes on to be one of the twistiest investigations that we've covered. But before we get into it, I want to take a quick step back and describe Mo Wilson a little bit because you need to know who she was to really understand how this investigation unfolded. Anna Mariah Wilson was born on May 18, 1996 in Littleton, New Hampshire. She grew up in Kirby, Vermont, though, and everyone who knew her called her Mo. She grew up in a family of athletes. Her father, Eric was a champion skier and a coach, and her aunt is actually a two time Olympic skater skier. And almost before she could walk, she was on skis and riding bikes. She dreamed of competing in the Olympics as an Alpine ski racer. And soon that dream became a reality. By her junior year at Burke Mountain Academy, this is a prestigious Vermont prep school for competitive skiers, she was ranked third nationally in her age group. But before she was able to compete in the Olympics, she blew out her acl. She didn't let that stop her, though. She recovered, and she got into Dartmouth, and she goes on to study engineering and made the alpine ski team. And then she blew out that same ACL again. After her second tear, she realized her Olympic skiing path was pretty much over. So instead of giving up, that was definitely not the type of person she was. She pivoted, and she wanted to get into something that she'd always loved alongside skiing, and that was cycling, specifically this thing called gravel racing, which I didn't really know much about until I watched the stock event country. But it's cool. It's basically like off roading, biking. You're, like, on those little gravel paths in the woods.

[Co-host or Producer]

It's intense riding really fast. You're going far.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

Yeah, it's kind of scary. And these events can cover 100 to 300 miles of unpaved terrain through farmland and forest roads, and also in extreme conditions. There's no support crew, and there's no guarantees when you're doing these rides. And Mo took to it almost immediately, and she was excellent at it. By 2022, Mo Wilson was 25 years old, and she was ranked in the top tier of American gravel racers. She had this really intense inner strength and work ethic combined with a focus that made her a dominant force in the sport. Journalists and professionals in the gravel racing industry were saying that she was bound to be the best in the country and probably the world. Eventually. She was fully sponsored, and she was beloved by everyone in this community. Everyone was just so impressed by by her. Mo was known in the gravel racing world not just for her talent, though, but also for her warmth and generosity toward other competitors. She was the kind of athlete who would genuinely celebrate a rival's win. And the people who knew her described her as being just full of light and laughter. She smiled more than anyone around her. Every picture you see of her in the documentary, every interview, she's always, like, laughing and smiling. She was someone who made you feel like the most important person in the room.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Room.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

She remembered details about everyone's lives. She showed up for them, and she brought genuine enthusiasm to every interaction.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Yeah.

[Co-host or Producer]

When you hear her friends talk about her, you just can tell how loved she was. And I did a deep dive into some of her blog posts that are on the website the family has now established. And her personality shines through these blog posts. I mean, absolutely incredible. And I want to read a quote here, here that the family did share from her journal, too. Quote, I want to be the kind of person that picks other people up when they fall down. Who's there for people when they need support, encouragement, and insight. I want to be the type of person that people can't help but smile when they're around. I want to be the type of person who fills their minds and thoughts with more worthwhile things. I mean, she had friends everywhere and was so beloved. And again, her blog posts, I feel like more motivated after reading them.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

Yeah.

[Co-host or Producer]

How she talks about risks and taking risk and she interviews her friends and talks about their passion and. Yeah, you're into art. What does art mean to you? What about, you know, community? What does that mean you? Yeah, she even gives wine recommendations.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

Oh, my gosh. I mean, she does it all.

[Co-host or Producer]

She does it all. Just such a light.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

And despite being so busy deep inside of this world, she still took a lot of time to slow down and spend quality time with everyone she knew. So she was scheduled to compete in the Migration Gravel Race in East Africa that summer. It was one of the most coveted events in the sport. People who followed Gravel Racing believed 2022 was going to be Mo's year. And we're going to play some clips of Mariah Racing just to show you absolutely how dominant she was in this sport. I mean, it's just podium finish after podium finish. She's, like, on fire, on fire all

[Co-host or Producer]

the time, holding up those big checks. And when you watch the clips of these hills, like, I'm going to be honest, like, I got a little nauseous watching, like, how hard this looked.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

Yeah, I know I could.

[Co-host or Producer]

Intense.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

I could never do anything even remotely close.

[Co-host or Producer]

Was such an insane athlete.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

So 2022 was definitely going to be a breakout year for her. She had this Africa trip, but before that, she was going to do a trip in Austin, and that was to race the Gravel Locos. She'd be staying with her friend Caitlyn Cash. She was going to be in town a little bit early to train, and while she was there, she was going to catch up with another friend, Colin Strickland, who was a fellow gravel racer. She was five days away from the starting line when her career and her life was cut tragically short.

[Co-host or Producer]

With friends and family left devastated and just reeling, investigators needed to get some answers and fast. Mo didn't have any enemies. According to her friend Cash, she didn't really know anyone in Austin except for that one other friend, Colin Strickland. So they needed to evaluate our first clue, the crime scene stat, and see what they could really gather. To get any idea of where to go, detectives quickly arrived at Caitlyn Cash's apartment on the night of May11. And they immediately started assessing the crime scene. There's no signs of a break in or forced entry. No furniture is damaged. The room hasn't been torn apart. There's nothing noticeably missing. To detectives, immediately and very quickly, they're able to locate shell casings. There's three 9 millimeter shell casings on the bathroom floor. However, no murder weapon was left behind and isn't clearly visible anywhere nearby. The landlord, who lived in the unit below, below David Harris, was home at the time and said he heard nothing unusual. What Harris did hear was footsteps running down the stairs and the sound of bicycle spokes clicking through the back alleyway behind the building. And that's when police realize Mo's bike, one of her most prized possessions, her livelihood, essentially like an extension of herself, her identity as an athlete. Athlete. Is missing from the apartment. A quick search of the area around the complex shows that it didn't go far, though. Police find it in the bushes approximately 60ft away from the building. Clearly not stolen. It's thrown, tossed haphazardly in the shrubbery. So with the one item that appeared to be stolen now accounted for, what's the motive here? Investigators quickly began canvassing the neighborhood. Clever. Any eyewitness statements, any evidence that they can. And that brings us to our second clue, the doorbell camera footage. Detective Richard Spitler found the exact moment that Mo was shot on a neighbor's continuously recording doorbell camera that also captured audio. While this recording just showed the front porch, he was able to hear screams, thus indicating Mo's last moments. He heard a scream, two shots, a six second silence, and then a third and final shot. And these audible shots line up with those three casings that were found in the apartment. This video also gave Detective Spitler a very specific time of death. 9:15pm Just an hour before her friend Caitlin Cash got her home. The security camera audio, along with Mo's examination, put together a clear picture of how things likely played out between Mo and her attacker. The next description of Mo's injuries are a bit graphic, so please skip ahead a little bit if you can't handle that. Today, detectives learn that Mo Wilson had been shot those three times. Shot one to the front of the head, shot two to the side of the head, which also passed through Mo's right index finger as a trap and also left a cut on her hand, almost as if her hand was up to block. Investigators believe Mo was on the ground after those first two shots. Then there was a six second pause. Six seconds. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, before a final shot was fired through her heart. Whoever did this stood over my Mo after she had already been down and fired that final time to make sure she was not getting back up. That six second pause told police a lot. This wasn't a panic killing. That pause meant it wasn't just a quick reaction. This was a very deliberate choice. And I counted them out because when you count them out, like, you realize how long 6 seconds can be in that moment.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

Yeah. When you're standing over someone who, who's laying on the floor can't hurt you, and you count to six, that person is fully aware of what they're doing,

[Co-host or Producer]

you know what you're doing. After this, investigators know, like, we've gotta canvas harder. So they go all around the block for more footage, and they actually locate another neighbor's doorbell camera that catches something really important. This doorbell camera was positioned to cover the front of Cash's building, and it captured an unknown vehicle in the time between when Mo returned to the apartment and when Cash discovered her body. A black Jeep Cherokee with a bike rack on top is seen driving by. It actually circles the block multiple times and it never fully stops or parks, but it's clear that it, it's watching. It's almost like stalking. And it does disappear shortly before Cash's 911 calls. Investigators can't get a clear read on the car's license plate, though, so they're going to have to keep digging deeper to be able to even identify who this could be. Investigators start retracing Mo's steps to narrow down potential suspects on the night of the murder. Caitlyn Cash tells police that Mo texted her before she left that afternoon. It read, quote, just FYI, I'm going to go swim and eat dinner with Colin tonight, which is clue number three for us. Us, the date. Now, Colin Strickland is Mo's friend, but he's also one of the best known names in American gravel cycling. He's a professional racer who's based in Austin. And by 2021, he was kind of beginning to phase out of the sport just as Mo was rising and really coming out on top of it. By some accounts, Colin was one of the original stars of the sport. He, he kind of put it on the map in the US US and he and Mo actually first met at a race in Idaho in September 2021. He and Mo clicked immediately. But here's a quote from Colin that kind of describes the relationship and how it first started. Quote, I had met Mariah at Rebecca's private Idaho. She just smashed the race at the end of the event. I invited her out to get a beer. I had a girlfriend. We didn't have any romantic conversations at all. We just talked about her future career. I told her, you're going to win so many events. Definitely was attracted to her, but also just wanted to be helpful. And at that point it was totally inappropriate to be dating. They spent time together as friends, and Colin was seemingly going to help Mo get sponsors. But come October, Colin and his girlfriend, who were kind of on again, off again, they ended up being off, so Mo went to go visit him in Austin. It seemed like it was a let's see if there's more here kind of trip. And during this time they did become intimate, but things were extremely confusing for Mo. I have some quotes from her where she's just trying to describe the situation and you just like, get the. The confusion of, like, this situationship. And I think a lot of us have been there where you're like, you're kind of interested, but you don't know if they're interested and you have a short amount of time, you're like, what is this?

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

Yeah, help.

[Co-host or Producer]

So Mo says this. Quote, I think I like him more than I'd like to admit, but was worried he didn't feel the same way. Quote, I want to know his cards first before playing my own. I'm terrified of expressing feelings and being rejected. And before they were able to really explore things further or define what they were, Colin was kind of breaking things off, taking a step back and putting Mo back in that friend zone. Seemingly, but.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

Hmm.

[Co-host or Producer]

By May 2022, Colin was back together with his girlfriend. And while he stayed in touch, he saved her number under a fake name in his phone. That fake name being Christine Wall.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

Yeah. He saved Mo's number in his phone under a fake name.

[Co-host or Producer]

Yeah. Yeah. You're clearly, if you have to save someone's name under a fake number, there's something wrong with that situation. So again, Mo is extremely confused. She's unsure of what and where things stood between them. While reviewing Mo's phone during the investigation, Detective Spitler found voice memos that she had actually recorded to some friends. Trying to help make sense of it all in one. She described arriving in Bentonville, Arkansas for race and hearing nothing from Colin. Total silence, just kind of getting ghosted. She did end up running into him that night at a bar with his girlfriend and a group of friends. He did hug her briefly, but barely said anything and then kind of moved on. On the day that she was killed. Mo texted him, quote, my mind has been going in circles and I don't know what to think. She wanted that evening to be just where they would talk, kind of figure things out where they actually stood between them, like, hey, we're friends. Like, we're good. Stop letting this be awkward. And Colin texted her back and said, quote, want to go swimming, maybe swimming in a beverage. And Detective Spitler, when analyzing all of this, you know, between her and Colin, between her and her friends, he kind of said, like, it looked like Mariah was just constantly questioning everything and like, just wanted to sort the status of this relationship. And so on the afternoon of May 11, Colin picked up Mo on his motorcycle. They swam at D. Betty Pool, which is this public spring fed spot in Austin. And then they had dinner at Pool Burger across the street. He dropped her off at the base of the stairs to her friend Cash's apartment around 8:30pm and rode away on his motorcycle. So pretty quickly, the police are like, last person to see her alive.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

Yeah. And also had a girlfriend. Like, did he kill her to shut her up? Like, what's going on? We already know he has some loser behavior, so he's looking pretty suspect.

[Co-host or Producer]

Yeah. So they go to his house the next morning. So this is a point a lot of people will bring up on Reddit where they're like, we can give them a botched mark here. The detectives a little confused by the name and they go, do you know Anna? Anna, Mo, Monique, Mon, last name Wilson? Like not even getting Mariah's name right as you're going to a potential suspect. And they're like, botch. Like, if they would have said said her name right, you could have gotten a genuine reaction from him about being confronted.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

Yes.

[Co-host or Producer]

And so we're gonna give it a little mark there. But I will say, once the detective does get Mo's name right, Colin's face just looks shocked.

[Morgan Absher or Kaylin Moore]

Yes, he looks ill. Ill.

[Co-host or Producer]

But let us know what you think in the comments. But something else that the detective does notice. There is a vehicle sitting in the driveway, a black jeep with a bicycle rack, just like the one that was spotted in that footage.

[Vanessa Richardson]

That's Morgan Absher and Kaylin Moore on clues. And that's just a taste. Their full episode on the murder of Mo Wilson is out right now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Just search clues and make sure you follow so you don't miss any episode episodes. You've been listening to crime house 247 bringing you breaking crime news. I'm Vanessa Richardson. We'll be back tomorrow morning with more developing stories. Stay safe and thanks for listening. If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for the tip off. And Granger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H Vac and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock so your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. Thanks for listening to today's episode. Not sure what to listen to next. Next, check out America's Most Infamous Crimes, hosted by Katie Ring. From serial killers to unsolved mysteries and game changing investigations, each week Katie takes on a notorious criminal case in American history. Listen to and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes now. Wherever you listen to podcasts.