Kaitlin Marie Armstrong, 35, was sentenced on Friday to 90 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for the murder of Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson.
A jury of her peers delivered a guilty verdict on Thursday in the nine-day trial at the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center in Austin, Texas.
Attorneys presented witnesses in the penalty phase, which began late Thursday afternoon immediately after the jury took less than three hours to deliberate and return a guilty verdict for murder. Armstrong had pled not guilty to first-degree murder charges.
Before abbreviated closing arguments on Friday, jurors heard from Wilson’s parents and brother, and then the father and sister of Armstrong. The jury considered a termed sentence of 5 to 99 years or life in prison with no parole. The verdict was read at approximately 2:30 p.m. CT with confinement for 90 years.
Coverage of the proceedings was permitted in the courtroom for opening statements, closing arguments, and the verdict, which Court TV called the ‘Love Triangle Murder Trial’.
Prosecutor Rickey Jones made the State’s closing statement, and he replayed a recording from a Ring doorbell camera that was part of the evidence presented during the nine-day trial, noting “the last thing Mo Wilson did on this earth, on May 11, 2022, at 9:15 p.m. was scream in terror.”
That recording from the camera, which was positioned outside the residence where Wilson was staying in Austin, was played for jurors and the audio resonated with screams from a female and the sound of two apparent gunshots.
After a pause, an apparent third gunshot was heard on the recording. Prosecutor Rickey Jones said the first two shots struck Wilson in the head and were fatal, while the third bullet was fired into her heart.
Defence attorneys stated that not all evidence was tested for DNA and there was not a thorough investigation about other possible suspects, according to reports in The Austin American-Stateman.
Wilson, a highly-successful gravel racer, had won the opening round of the Life Time Grand Prix’s Sea Otter Classic Fuego MTB 80K in April 2022 and four other early-season gravel races. She was in Austin for the Gravel Locos race, ahead of a defence of her title at Unbound Gravel, and was found fatally shot in a friend’s apartment in Austin, Texas on May 11, 2022.
After a six-day inquiry, police issued an arrest warrant on May 17, 2022 for Armstrong, who fled the country using her sister’s passport, flying to Costa Rica. She…
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