Crime
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas jury on Thursday convicted a lady of homicide within the Could 2022 capturing dying of rising skilled bicycle owner Anna Moriah Wilson in a case that led investigators on a 43-day worldwide seek for the killer.
Kaitlin Armstrong, 35, faces as much as life in jail when she is sentenced later Thursday. Prosecutors stated Armstrong gunned down the 25-year-old Wilson in a jealous rage. Wilson, who was often known as “Mo,” had briefly dated Armstrong’s boyfriend a number of months earlier. Wilson had gone swimming and to a meal with him the day she was killed.
Jurors deliberated for about two hours after two weeks of testimony. Wilson household and associates — together with the good friend who discovered her physique the evening she was killed — hugged and cried within the courtroom after the decision was learn.
Kaitlin Armstrong’s sister sat subsequent to their mom crying. Armstrong’s father stood silently for a number of minutes after the decision.
A Vermont native and former alpine skier at Dartmouth, Wilson was an rising star in professional gravel and mountain bike racing. She was visiting Austin forward of a race in Texas the place she was among the many favorites to win. Investigators stated Armstrong tracked Wilson to the house the place she was staying and shot her 3 times.
Armstrong briefly met with police earlier than promoting her automobile and utilizing her sister’s identify and passport to fly to Costa Rica. Investigators stated she spent greater than $6,000 on a nostril job there and adjusted her coiffure and hair colour to evade authorities earlier than she was arrested as a beachside hostel.
Armstrong’s protection attorneys had urged the jury to search out affordable doubt in what they referred to as an insufficient and sloppy investigation. They accused investigators of “tunnel imaginative and prescient” in shortly figuring out Armstrong because the suspect.
Armstrong’s attorneys famous there have been no witnesses to the capturing or video surveillance that captured it. They questioned why police didn’t strongly contemplate as suspects Colin Strickland, Armstrong’s boyfriend who was with Wilson the day she died, or two different male acquaintances.
However investigators stated they shortly eradicated Strickland and the others and that the proof pointed solely to Armstrong. Investigators stated Armstrong tracked Wilson’s location via a health app, they usually discovered deleted digital maps to the storage house the place she was killed.
Armstrong’s Jeep was seen close to close to the house across the time Wilson was shot and bullet casings discovered close to Wilson’s physique matched a gun Armstrong owned. Two of Armstrong’s associates testified that she had beforehand stated she needed to, or may, kill Wilson.
After promoting her Jeep for $12,000, Armstrong fled to Costa Rice the place she tried to ascertain herself as a yoga teacher earlier than federal authorities discovered her, investigators stated.
Armstrong once more tried to flee authorities throughout an Oct. 11 physician’s appointment exterior of jail. She faces a separate felony escape cost.
