Kaitlin Marie Armstrong, 35, was declared responsible of murdering Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson by a jury of her friends on the Blackwell-Thurman Legal Justice Middle in Austin, Texas on Thursday.
The deliberations took simply two hours earlier than Decide Brenda Kennedy learn the responsible verdict to the courtroom with no obvious response from Armstrong.
The following part of the trial might be sentencing. Armstrong, who pled not responsible to first-degree homicide expenses, faces as much as 99 years in jail.
She additionally faces a separate felony cost of making an attempt to flee from custody, inflicting bodily harm, for a failed escape final month. If convicted, she faces an extra 20 years in jail.
Wilson was a profitable gravel racer on an upward trajectory, having gained the distinguished Unbound Gravel occasion in 2021.
She was in Austin for the Gravel Locos race and getting ready to defend her Unbound title when she was discovered fatally shot in a buddy’s condo in Austin, Texas on Could 11, 2022. The information was devastating for her household, mates and the gravel neighborhood.
Amid the outpouring of assist, fellow gravel racer and organiser Rebecca Rusch described Wilson as “all mild and laughter” and “gifted, clever, light, quick, centered and swish”.
After a six-day inquiry, police issued an arrest warrant on Could 17, 2022 for Armstrong, who fled the nation utilizing her sister’s passport, flying to Costa Rica. She was apprehended 43 days later and introduced into custody.
Armstrong’s trial started on November 1, 2023, with the State offering eight days of testimony from witnesses together with Armstrong’s boyfriend Colin Strickland, who was the final individual to see Wilson alive.
Wilson and Strickland had a short romantic relationship throughout a breakup between Armstrong and Strickland in 2021, and a number of witnesses testified to Armstrong being jealous of Wilson.
Testimony urged that Armstrong used Wilson’s Strava information to trace her.
The Protection took solely sooner or later to argue in Armstrong’s favour, arguing {that a} neighbour’s safety digicam that captured photos of her Jeep on the homicide scene on the evening of Wilson’s dying confirmed no photos that Armstrong was current.
Investigators discovered DNA strongly linked to Armstrong on Wilson’s bike which was discovered within the bushes close to the homicide scene along with bullets that have been deemed a match to a gun that Armstrong possessed.
Based on KXAN, Prosecutor Rickey Jones pointed to the proof in his closing arguments as proof of Armstrong’s guilt, saying, “Nobody else on this planet fired from [that pistol] and had their DNA on the scene. Nobody else on this planet left the scene of the homicide in Kaitlin Armstrong’s Jeep two minutes after the homicide.”
Armstrong’s attorneys Rick Cofer and Geoffrey Puryear argued that she had been “caught in a nightmare of circumstantial proof” in a case “primarily based on assumptions, affirmation bias and a scarcity of direct offence”.