Austin, Texas — The murder trial of a Texas woman charged in the May 2022 shooting death of rising professional cyclist Anna “Mo” Wilson has ended with a guilty verdict and a 90-year prison sentence.
Jurors took just two hours to convict Kaitlin Armstrong of murder on Thursday and just over three hours to decide her sentence on Friday.
Investigators said Armstrong fled the U.S. shortly after Wilson was killed and underwent plastic surgery in an attempt to evade authorities.
Wilson — a Vermont native and former alpine skier at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire — was a rising star in gravel and mountain bike riding when she was murdered at a friend’s apartment in Austin. She had been preparing to participate in a race in Texas, which she was among the favorites to win.
In the hours before she was killed, Wilson went swimming and had dinner with Armstrong’s friend, former professional cyclist Colin Strickland, with whom Wilson had a brief romantic relationship months earlier.
Investigators say Armstrong shot Wilson in a jealous rage and then used her sister’s passport to flee the U.S. before being tracked down and arrested at a beachside hostel in Costa Rica.
Here’s what happened during the trial:
There were no witnesses to the shooting or videos placing Armstrong in the apartment when Wilson was shot on May 11, 2022. Prosecutors built their case on a tight web of circumstantial evidence.
Strickland testified that he had to hide Wilson’s phone number from Armstrong under a fake name in his phone. Two of Armstrong’s friends said she told them she wanted — or could — kill Wilson.
Vehicle satellite data, phone records and surveillance video from a nearby home showed Armstrong’s Jeep driving around the apartment and parking in an alley shortly before Wilson was killed. Records from Armstrong’s phone showed it had been used that day to track Wilson’s location via a fitness app she used to map her training runs.
Investigators also said shell casings found near Wilson’s body matched a gun Armstrong owned.
Jurors heard the panicked 911 call from the friend who found Wilson’s body, saw the gruesome police body camera footage of first responders performing CPR, and heard audio from a neighbor’s home surveillance system that prosecutors said captured Wilson’s final screams and three gunshots.
Wilson was shot twice in the head and once through the heart.
Police interviewed Armstrong, among others, after Wilson was killed. The day after that interview, Armstrong sold her Jeep for more than $12,000 and headed to Costa Rica, where investigators say she had plastic surgery to change her nose and changed her hairstyle and skin color.
Armstrong evaded arrest for 43 days as she traveled through Costa Rica to establish herself as a yoga instructor before she was finally caught on June 29.
The jury also heard about another escape attempt by Armstrong on October 11, when she tried to flee from two corrections officers who had escorted her to a medical appointment outside the prison. The video showed Armstrong, wearing a striped prison uniform and arm braces, as he ran and tried to climb a fence.
She was quickly recaptured and faces a separate charge of attempted escape.
Armstrong’s lawyers spent only a few hours presenting her defense and she did not testify on her own behalf.
The defense accused the police of a sloppy investigation that focused too quickly on Armstrong as the only suspect. And they tried to sow doubts among jurors by suggesting someone else could have killed Wilson, wondering why prosecutors were so quick to dismiss Strickland as a suspect.
But a police analyst testified that records on Strickland’s phone showed that he drove away from Wilson’s apartment immediately after dropping her off and took a call at or near his home around the time Wilson was killed.
Armstrong’s lawyers tried to portray that data as unreliable and inaccurate. They wondered if anyone other than Armstrong had her car and phone that night. They also called an expert in forensic metallurgy to try to expose the firearms and tool marking methods used to match the bullets to Armstrong’s gun as flawed.
The sentencing phase of the trial delivered an emotional blow.
Caitlin Cash, the friend who found Wilson and pumped her chest 100 times in a desperate attempt to save her through CPR, said she texted Wilson’s family earlier that day with a photo of her embarking on a training run. It included a message: “Your girl is in safe hands here in Austin.”
“I felt guilty because I couldn’t protect her,” Cash said. “I fought for her with everything I had.”
Cash also described Anna Wilson’s mother, Karen, who later came to the apartment and lay on the bathroom floor to place herself in her daughter’s last place, stroking the floor tiles and crying.
Karen Wilson spoke twice, once before the verdict was handed down, and again afterward.
“When you shot Moriah in the heart, you shot me in the heart… all the people who loved her pierced their hearts,” Karen Wilson said, looking at Armstrong as she left the witness stand.
Armstrong didn’t seem to meet her gaze.