A Texas yoga teacher accused of gunning down an elite cyclist last May in a jealous rage—before going on the lam for over a month in Costa Rica—was convicted of murder on Thursday afternoon.
After just two hours of deliberation, a jury found Kaitlin Armstrong, 35, guilty of first-degree murder in connection with Anna Moriah Wilson’s slaying on May 11, 2022.
Armstrong looked straight ahead as the verdict was read. Wilson’s family, who were in the gallery, were seen crying and hugging one another.
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State District Judge Brenda Kennedy jumped into the sentencing phase shortly after the verdict was read, with several members of Wilson’s friends and family speaking about the cyclist and the tragic impact of her murder.
“It’s been 554 days since she was killed and I cannot tell you how many times I have relived that night,” Caitlin Cash, who found Wilson the night of the murder on her apartment floor, told the court. “Trying to figure out if there was something I could have done differently to protect her...I think about it every single day of my life. I've had panic attacks where I thought I was dying.”
Prosecutors allege that Armstrong ambushed the 25-year-old at a friend’s Austin home and shot her three times, including once “right in the heart.” Just before the murder, Wilson had gone for a swim and dinner with Armstrong’s ex, Colin Strickland, whom she also briefly dated in October 2021.
Prosecutors say Armstrong took radical steps to vanish in the wake of the grisly crime by selling her car, spending thousands on plastic surgery, and fleeing to Costa Rica. Her disappearance spurred an international manhunt for 43 days before she was captured in June 2022.
Armstrong now faces a maximum sentence of up to 99 years in prison. She also faces separate charges for attempting to escape from deputies after a doctor’s appointment just weeks before trial.
“She was not just running from the sheriff’s office, she was running from you and you, and you,” Travis County prosecutor Rick Jones said during closing arguments on Thursday as he pointed to the jurors. “She is running from all of you in the back road. Everybody deserves their day in court, and she got it. As you see in this video, she didn’t want to face you. “
Throughout the two-week trial, prosecutors called 40 witnesses to the stand to prove their argument that Armstrong was the only person who could have killed Wilson, who was in Texas ahead of a gravel race.
Witnesses detailed how footage showed Armstrong’s 2021 Jeep around the apartment where Wilson was staying the night of the murder and that her DNA was found on Wilson’s bike.
Jurors also heard doorbell audio of the murder, which included Wilson’s scream and three gunshots. A medical examiner testified Tuesday that Wilson was shot twice in the head, once in the heart, and suffered a defensive wound on her finger.
“The last thing Mo Wilson did on this earth was scream in terror,” Jones said in his opening statements.
Strickland, who testified twice during the trial, told jurors that he first spoke to investigators the day after the murder. He’d spent the previous evening with Wilson and confirmed that the car seen in the surveillance footage was Armstrong’s Jeep.
Armstrong was also interviewed by authorities, and could not explain why her car was near the murder scene. Police testified that she was initially considered a person of interest, but was released because an open misdemeanor warrant for allegedly skipping out on a Botox bill was not valid.
Prosecutors say that after the police interview, Armstrong sold her Jeep and flew to New York, then hopped on a plane to Costa Rica, using her sister’s passport. There, prosecutors say she used three different names and underwent drastic cosmetic surgery. While on the run, Armstrong also kept tabs on the investigation online, and even searched whether pineapples can “burn your fingerprints.”
“Workers who cut up pineapples eventually lose their fingerprints,” Kaitlin Armstrong also searched on July 23, according to data revealed in court Wednesday, NewsNation reported.
She was arrested at Don John’s Lodge in Saint Teresa on June 30, 2022.
At trial, Armstrong’s defense lawyers insisted during closing arguments that prosecutors do not have the evidence to prove Armstrong murdered Wilson.
Attorney Rick Cofer said that Armstrong is “trapped in a nightmare of circumstantial evidence” and called the prosecution’s argument that she was trapped in a love triangle offensive.
“There is a lot of sizzle, but there’s not much steak,” Cofer said. “This is a case based on assumptions, it’s based on confirmation bias and a lack of direct evidence.”
