Jealous girlfriend behind this athlete’s murder?
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Bikes piled up outside as Lycraclad cyclists streamed into the heaving cafe. The Meteor, in Austin, Texas, was a favourite haunt for cyclists.
That day, in autumn 2021, best friends Kaitlin Armstrong and Nicole Mertz sat sipping their drinks.
Kaitlin had been in an on-again-off-again relationship with professional cyclist Colin Strickland for three years. Now they’d split up. So when Anna Moriah Wilson – known as Mo to friends – walked into the cafe, Kaitlin was seething.
She’d heard rumours about Mo and Colin’s close friendship.
Nicole noticed Kaitlin become ‘visibly angry’.
‘What would you do if Colin started dating someone else?’ she asked.
‘I’d kill her,’ Kaitlin snapped back.
It wasn’t long before Kaitlin, a yoga instructor, and Colin got back together again.
Yet Kaitlin discovered her boyfriend had indeed pursued an intimate relationship with Mo during their split.
At a post-race party in January 2022, Kaitlin told another pal, Jacqueline Chasteen, that she wanted to kill Mo.
Jacqueline brushed it off as an emotional response.
Yet, as Colin and Mo stayed friends, Kaitlin’s jealousy bubbled away.
Sporting superstar
Mo, 25, had spent her childhood in Vermont, mountain biking and skiing.
Now she lived in San Francisco and was taking the cycling scene by storm.
She was appearing in cycling magazines and winning nearly every race she competed in.
Mo was a popular, beautiful brunette too, with a dazzling smile.
So, when Kaitlin saw an Instagram photo of Mo and Colin completing a cycling race that March, she was furious.
Send my love to Mo, she messaged Colin.
Can you please stop, he begged.
Afraid of upsetting Kaitlin further, Colin began keeping the friendship secret.
Stored Mo’s number in his phone under a fake name.
That May, Mo had a race in Austin, where Colin and Kaitlin lived.
While she prepared for the race, Mo stayed with her friend Caitlin Cash.
And, seeing as she was in town, she arranged to meet Colin.
On 11 May 2022, the platonic pals went swimming and grabbed a drink together.
But at around 10pm, Caitlin Cash returned home to find Mo lying on the bathroom floor.
She thought her friend was stretching.
Then she saw the pool of blood.
Mo had been shot twice in the head, once in the heart.
Caitlin called the emergency services.
‘Her brain is leaking,’ she sobbed down the phone.
Mo was pronounced dead, and the cycling community was flooded with grief.
Mo was described as an ‘angel’, and a ‘great ambassador for the sport’.
Kaitlin, who had made no secret of her feelings about Mo, was instantly a suspect in the crime.
An SUV similar to hers had been spotted on CCTV in the area.
But, after briefly being questioned by police, she was released.
Attempt to flee
The next day, Kaitlin sold her car.
Used the money, and someone else’s passport, to flee the country.
Cops issued a warrant for her arrest.
After 43 days on the run, in late June, she was tracked down to a hostel in Costa Rica.
Extradited back to the US and charged with first-degree murder.
In October 2023, Kaitlin attempted to escape custody during a medical appointment. Footage showed her dressed in prison scrubs, running off and trying to scale a wall while a police officer gave chase.
She was apprehended after 10 minutes.
The following month, Kaitlin Armstrong, then 35, faced a jury.
She pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. The prosecution’s case was that Kaitlin murdered Mo in a jealous rage. She’d found out that Colin had lied to her about his whereabouts that day, they claimed. He’d told her he was taking flowers to a friend. But Kaitlin had access to his messages on a laptop at home.
Realised he’d gone to meet Mo.
So, Kaitlin had tracked Mo’s movements using the exercise-sharing app Strava.
Traced her to Caitlin Cash’s Austin flat. Kaitlin then circled the apartment building in her SUV for an hour. Parked nearby when Mo returned from seeing Colin. Shortly after, a neighbour’s surveillance camera caught Mo’s screams.
Then the boom of two gunshots.
Two seconds later, a third. ‘The last thing Mo did on this Earth was scream in terror,’ prosecutor Rickey Jones told the court.
Kaitlin’s car matched the SUV on CCTV.
It was seen leaving two minutes after the gunshots.
Mo’s bike was found in the bushes outside.
Two experts testified that Kaitlin’s DNA was on the handlebars and seat.
And bullet casings from the scene matched her handgun.
Irrefutable evidence, the prosecution said, that Kaitlin was there.
Changed appearance
Kaitlin’s friends gave damning testimony, too.
Nicole and Jacqueline both detailed their conversations where Kaitlin mentioned killing Mo.
While in Costa Rica, Kaitlin had undergone plastic surgery.
A brow lift, nose job, and fillers in her face.
All indicating guilt, the prosecution said.
But the defence argued that Kaitlin was trapped in a ‘nightmare’ of circumstantial evidence.
Because no one had actually seen her pull the trigger.
‘Not one witness saw Kaitlin Armstrong allegedly commit this murder. Not one,’ said defence lawyer Geoffrey Puryear. ‘Because there isn’t one.’ Colin Strickland gave hours of testimony.
He wasn’t accused of any wrongdoing.
But he said that he’d hidden his correspondence with Mo because Kaitlin was upset.
Yet he’d felt he had a right to maintain a professional relationship with Mo, a colleague also at the top of their shared sport.
So, was Kaitlin Armstrong a heartless killer who slaughtered an innocent woman in blind jealousy?
Or was she merely a victim of circumstance herself?
It was up to the jury to decide.
Guilty or not? Turn to find out