Kaitlin Armstrong enters the courtroom to listen to the decision on her homicide trial on the Blackwell-Thurman Legal Justice Middle on Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023, in Austin, Texas.
Mikala Compton/AP
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Mikala Compton/AP
Kaitlin Armstrong enters the courtroom to listen to the decision on her homicide trial on the Blackwell-Thurman Legal Justice Middle on Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023, in Austin, Texas.
Mikala Compton/AP
AUSTIN, Texas — A girl convicted of homicide within the capturing demise of rising skilled bike owner Anna Moriah Wilson faces as much as life in jail in Texas when sentenced in a case that led investigators on a 43-day worldwide search to seek out her.
Kaitlin Armstrong, 35, was convicted Thursday. The jurors additionally will suggest a sentence and are anticipated to renew deliberating on Friday.
Prosecutors stated Armstrong gunned down the 25-year-old Wilson in a jealous rage in Could 2022. Wilson, also called ”Mo,” had briefly dated Armstrong’s boyfriend a number of months earlier. Wilson went swimming and to a meal with him the day she was killed.
Jurors deliberated for about two hours after two weeks of testimony earlier than delivering their verdict.
”From the day she was born, she had a power in her,” Wilson’s mom, Karen Wilson, advised jurors Thursday in the beginning of the punishment section of the trial. ”She lived as if daily was her final day. And he or she lived it so totally. She by no means wasted any time. … It is as if she knew her life can be quick.”
Wilson’s household and pals, who sat within the entrance row for a lot of the trial, hugged and cried after the decision.
Caitlin Money, the buddy who discovered Wilson’s physique and tried to carry out CPR, advised jurors she had texted Wilson’s mom earlier that day with a photograph of her beginning a motorcycle trip with a be aware: ”Your lady is in protected palms right here in Austin.”
”I felt numerous guilt not having the ability to defend her,” Money stated. ”I fought for her with every little thing I had.”
Kaitlin Armstrong’s youthful sister Christine and their mom sat behind the protection desk and cried after the decision. Armstrong’s father stood silently for a number of minutes.
Christine Armstrong advised jurors her older sister ”will not be a foul individual.”
”She’s such a particular individual,” Christine Armstrong stated earlier than her sister. ”I’ve at all times regarded as much as you. … She’s at all times cared for different folks.”
A Vermont native and former alpine skier at Dartmouth Faculty in New Hampshire, 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.
Kaitlin Armstrong tracked Wilson to the condo the place she was staying by means of a health app and shot her 3 times, twice within the head and as soon as by means of the center, investigators stated.
”I might have finished something to face in the best way of that bullet,” Karen Wilson stated. ”She didn’t deserve a demise like that.”
Kaitlin Armstrong didn’t testify on her personal behalf in the course of the trial.
Her Jeep was seen close to the condo across the time Wilson was shot and bullet casings discovered close to Wilson’s physique matched a gun Armstrong owned. Armstrong briefly met with police earlier than promoting her automobile and utilizing her sister’s passport to fly to Costa Rica.
She spent greater than $6,000 on a nostril job there and adjusted the colour and elegance of her hair to evade authorities earlier than she was arrested at a beachside hostel, investigators stated.
Armstrong once more tried to flee authorities throughout an Oct. 11 medical appointment exterior of jail. She faces a separate felony escape cost.