The Extraordinary Love Triangle: Cyclist Murder Case Takes a Twisted Turn

The whole thing looks like a crazy story of a love triangle between a man and two women, one of whom couldn’t stand the idea of ​​being “the other one” and murdered her wife out of jealousy with three shots from a pistol.

There may be hundreds of such stories, but this one is extraordinary in that a very promising cyclist, Olympic talent Moriah Wilson, was killed.

The defendant is Kaitlin Armstrong, who faces charges of first degree murder and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. All indications are that after Wilson’s murder, she fled to Costa Rica for 43 days to avoid arrest. To top it all off, in early October, she injured two guards who were supervising her while trying to escape from the prison.

But what it looks like may not be the truth. Armstrong’s defenders draw attention to an important fact. There is only circumstantial evidence against their client. There is no witness to see her murdered. To Armstrong’s detriment, on the other hand, everything, including her behavior, points to her being the person who did the killing.

The tragedy occurred on May 11, 2022 in Austin. 25-year-old cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson was shot and killed three times at her friend’s house, where she was preparing for an upcoming gravel race. Her death hit the cycling community hard, which saw Wilson as a rising star in her sport and a future Olympian.

Within days, police had identified a suspect in the murder: 36-year-old Kaitlin Marie Armstrong, a local yoga instructor, real estate agent, and girlfriend of pro cyclist Colin Strickland. The 36-year-old professional driver is the third of the aforementioned triangle. Wilson dated him briefly and the two spent the evening before her death. Police believe Armstrong killed Wilson out of jealousy.

Soon after the tragic evening, Armstrong disappeared. It wasn’t until 43 days later that she was apprehended at a hostel in Costa Rica, returned to the US and charged with first degree murder. She was placed in the Travis County Correctional Complex in Texas on $3.5 million bail.

Great media coverage

The whole case would not have received such media attention if the murdered young woman had not been an excellent athlete. Moriah, or “Mo” was the most dominant racer on the American gravel scene. These are “off-road” bike races on the wide gravel roads that are typical of much of the American countryside.

Mo grew up in a sporty family in Kirby, Vermont, mountain biking with family members around the area. She attended Burke Mountain Academy, a private school where the country’s best alpine skiers grow up. In 2015, she then joined the Dartmouth ski team.

After graduating in 2019 with an engineering degree, Wilson began competing on mountain bikes and gravel, quickly becoming a quality and popular rider. In 2020, she won her first gravel race as a pro, finishing second at the prestigious Leadville 100 mountain bike race in Colorado. In April 2022, she began defeating Olympic candidates and also left her job at the cycling company Specialized to compete.

In September 2021, she met Colin Strickland, a big star of American gravel racing, at a four-day gravel race in Idaho. Strickland, who grew up in Texas, was world champion in 2017 and 2018 and then won the iconic Unbound 200 miles through eastern Kansas the following year. Great success brought him sponsorship from Specialized and the global brand Red Bull.

The love triangle?

And now how Strickland was with Armstrong. The two dated for three years before breaking up, but still living in the same house in Austin. In this situation, the outstanding racer met the single, talented cyclist “Mo” Wilson, and a spark flew between the two.

But the whole thing was probably pretty messed up. In late October 2021, Wilson went to Austin to see Strickland, and the two reportedly had a brief romantic relationship. According to Strickland’s statement, the whole thing took about a week. Wilson then reportedly returned home to San Francisco.

But what didn’t happen… Armstrong and Strickland are said to have reconciled soon. According to him, the relationship between him and the younger woman changed to “only” professional and platonic, and the two only saw each other at cycling events. “Moriah and I were both leaders in this lonely, niche field of cycling. I greatly admired her and considered her a close friend,” Strickland wrote shortly after the murder.

And what happened on the incriminated day of the murder? Wilson traveled to Texas to compete in the Gravel Locos race. She was staying with her friend Caitlin Cash and had spent the evening with Strickland the night before the tragic event. He first picked her up from her friend’s apartment on a BMW motorcycle and around 5:45 p.m. they arrived at Austin’s Deep Eddy pool, where they swam and then had dinner together. Shortly after 8:30 p.m., Strickland then dropped “Mo” off at Cash’s friend’s apartment. She returned home around 10 p.m. to find Wilson on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood and unconscious. She immediately called 911, but the help that was called only declared the girl’s death.

She was behaving suspiciously

Everyone’s wondering how Armstrong could have become the prime suspect when she wasn’t with Wilson that night. The police soon discovered something else.

Neighbor Caitlin Cash’s security camera caught a black 2012 Jeep Cherokee, the same car owned by Armstrong, driving past Cash’s house just a minute after Wilson returned to her apartment.

And now come the key testimonies. Days after the murder, a friend of Wilson’s told police that Armstrong had repeatedly contacted the up-and-coming cyclist over the previous months, threatening her to stay away from Strickland. Another witness told police she was with Armstrong in January 2022 when the woman discovered Strickland was in a relationship with Wilson. Armstrong allegedly told her she wanted to kill Wilson.

At the same time, Strickland told police that sometime in January 2022, he purchased a handgun for himself and Armstrong as a means of personal protection. Ballistics tests performed on Armstrong’s Sig Sauer P365 9mm handgun showed that it appeared to be the same firearm used to shoot Wilson.

Escape, misuse of passport and attempt to escape

Austin police interviewed Armstrong the day after the murder, May 12, 2022. And then she started acting very suspicious. The very next day, she sold her Jeep Cherokee to a local dealership for cash, flew from Austin to Houston and then to LaGuardia Airport in New York. An arrest warrant was issued for her on May 17. On the 18th, cameras caught her at Newark Airport in New Jersey, from where she flew to Costa Rica on her sister’s passport.

Police have launched a manhunt for Armstrong. After 43 days, the woman was caught in Costa Rica at a hostel in Santa Teresa, a remote area known for ecotourism, surfing and yoga. Meanwhile, Armstrong changed her appearance. She cut her strawberry blonde hair short and dyed it black. Among her belongings were found receipts from a plastic surgeon’s office stating that she had a nose job.

Armstrong thus faces further prosecution for passport misuse.

In the meantime, however, there was a significant shift in the whole case. In July 2022, Armstrong denied the charges and requested a so-called speedy trial with her legal team led by Rick Cofer to face a jury as soon as possible. Prosecutors refused, saying they had not yet received all the evidence and that it was too early to go to trial.

Has a wrong been done?

That’s not all. On October 11, 2023, 16 months after she was arrested, Armstrong attempted to escape from custody after seeing a doctor, injuring two guards. She was charged with escape with bodily harm. According to the warrant, guards believe Armstrong had been planning her escape attempt for months.

The trial has now begun in a situation where Cofer’s attorney rejected the prosecutor’s action. Biased publicity is said to make it practically impossible for his client to get a fair trial. “There has been a great injustice here. The killer must be caught. But Kaitlin Armstrong is not guilty,” he said, among other things, in a two-hour interview with NBC.

Both Strickland and Cash are expected to testify in the trial, which could last weeks, while Armstrong, on the other hand, is unlikely to testify. Cameras are not allowed except for opening statements and closing remarks.