BEFORE THE CRASH

Katherine Anne Austen was born in 1977 and raised in Iowa by her parents Diane and Sam. Kate grew up believing Sam was her father, but when she was making a scrapbook for him, she found pictures of him in Korea. They were taken four months before she was born, meaning he wasn't her real father. Sam and Diane were now separated and Diane got married to Kate's real father, Wayne. Wayne was a drunk who abused Diane. Kate wanted to help her mother and decided to kill Wayne and making it look like an accident. One night, she blew up his house. Then she visited her mother, telling her she had to go away for a while. Her mother suspected something was wrong and reported her to the authorities when she found out what her daughter had done.
Kate has been on the run ever since and was constantly chased by the U.S. Marshal Edward Mars, who became obsessed with catching her. The first time he caught her, when she was buying a bus ticket to Tallahassee, she managed to escape when she saw a black horse on the road. That forced them off the road and Kate left the marshal behind.
A while later, Kate was still on the run. She met a woman named Cassidy who helped her get in contact with her mother for the first time since she killed Wayne. Her mother told Kate that she loved Wayne, despite what he did to her. Kate told her mother she did it for her, but Diane replied that Kate did it for herself. Diane told Kate she wouldn't report her this time, but if she ever saw her daughter again she would scream for help. Kate later told Cassidy that she would never forgive her mother for giving her up.
Later, Kate found out her mother was dying in cancer and she felt she had to meet her one last time. She sought out her old boyfriend Tom, a doctor who helped her sneak in to the hospital and see her mother. Diane freaked out when she saw her daughter and cried for help. Kate left, but was discovered and had to escape in Tom's car. He went with her and was shot by the police and died. Kate left him in the car and ran away again.
Then she went to Florida and started calling herself Monica. There she met a police officer, Kevin and married him. She started calling Mars, asking him to stop chasing her and to let her live a normal life. When Kevin booked a vacation, that required a passport, Kate realised she had to leave him. She drugged him and told him some of her story before she ran off again.
Mars tried to lure her out by telling her he had the toy airplane that belong to Tom locked up in a safety deposit box. Kate, now posing as a woman named Maggie, arranged a bank robbery. She seduced a guy named Jason into doing the robbery. During the robbery, she shot Jason and the others, took the airplane from the deposit box and left once again.
Then she travelled to Australia, where she lived at a farm for four months. The owner of the farm, Ray Mullen saw a wanted poster of her and gave her up for 23.000 dollars. While in a car, Kate noticed Mars following them and forced the car off the road. Mullen was badly wounded and Kate decided to save him instead off running away and she was caught by Mars. He took her aboard Oceanic Flight 815 to bring her back to the United States.