A 35-year-old Texas woman charged in the May 2022 shooting death of rising professional cyclist Anna “Mo” Wilson was found guilty on Thursday.
Kaitlin Armstrong, who fled the U.S. shortly after Wilson was killed and underwent plastic surgery in South America in an attempt to evade authorities, faces up to life in prison when she is sentenced later Thursday.
“Find her guilty of shooting Mo Wilson in the heart and the head and taking away this prodigy at the age of 25,” Travis County Assistant District Attorney Rick Jones told the jury in closing arguments. “Justice for Mo Wilson.”
The jury reached its verdict after less than a day of deliberation following two weeks of testimony in the case.
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Wilson, a 25-year Vermont native, was an emerging star in gravel and mountain bike riding. She was killed in a friend's apartment in Austin while visiting ahead of a Texas race that she was among the favorites to win.
In the hours before she was killed, Wilson went swimming and had a meal with Armstrong's boyfriend, former pro cyclist Colin Strickland, with whom Wilson had a brief romantic relationship months earlier.
Investigators say Armstrong gunned down Wilson in a jealous rage then used her sister’s passport to escape the U.S. before she was tracked down and arrested at a beachside hostel in Costa Rica.
Armstrong attorney Rick Cofer pressed jurors on the lack of a witness to the shooting or video evidence, and said Armstrong had been unfairly portrayed “as a jealous psycho.”
“Kaitlin Armstrong has been trapped in a nightmare of circumstantial evidence. How do you prove a negative?” Cofer said, urging the jury to reject an “easy” story of a jealous lover.
“It’s a simple case, a beautifully easy story,” Cofer said. “But it’s wrong.”
There were no witnesses to the shooting or videos that place Armstrong in the apartment when Wilson was gunned down 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 to, or could, kill Wilson.
Vehicle satellite records, phone-tracking data 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. Data from Armstrong's phone showed it had been used that day to track Wilson's location via a fitness app that she used to chart her training rides.
Investigators also said shell casings near Wilson's body matched a gun Armstrong owned.
Jurors heard the frantic emergency call from the friend who found Wilson's body, saw the gruesome police 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.
Police interviewed Armstrong, among others, after Wilson was killed. The day after that interview, Armstrong sold her Jeep for more than $12,000 and was soon headed to Costa Rica, where investigators say she had plastic surgery to change her nose, and she changed her hair style and color.
Armstrong evaded capture for 43 days as she moved around Costa Rica trying 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 Oct. 11, when she tried to flee two corrections officers who had escorted her to a medical appointment outside jail. Video showed Armstrong, in a striped jail uniform and arm restraints, running and trying to scale a fence.
She was quickly recaptured and faces a separate felony escape attempt charge.
