The Texas woman accused of killing a professional cyclist and attempting to flee custody last week while being taken to a doctor’s appointment allegedly planned the escape, police say.
According to an affidavit obtained by the Austin American-Statesman, Kaitlin Marie Armstrong, 35, had been devising her escape plan for “several months.” All that planning resulted in about a 10-minute chase before Armstrong was caught and returned to custody.
Armstrong is accused of shooting Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson in Austin, Texas, in May 2022 as part of a love triangle gone wrong. U.S. Marshals, working with Homeland Security Investigations, learned that Armstrong boarded a flight in New Jersey by using a fraudulent passport and landed in Costa Rica on May 18 – one week after Wilson was murdered and one day after an arrest warrant was issued for Armstrong, NBC News reported.
The arrest affidavit for her new escape charge alleges that Armstrong had been “exercising vigorously” over the past few months in prison. Videos from the Travis County Jail showed her doing squats, yoga, and running.
During the time she was working out, Armstrong complained of injuries. Jail staff provided investigators information showing that “Armstrong had recently utilized an injury complaint to secure an outside medical appointment as well as a medical request restricting the use of leg restraints,” the affidavit said.
Investigators also found in her cell a metal pin that had been broken off, “providing a solid thin metal piece that likely could be used to manipulate a handcuff to be removed.”
When she escaped, she was able to remove her uniform pants and manipulate her left hand out of her restraints. She remained within eyesight of corrections officers during her escape and was trying to climb a fence when she was caught.
WATCH: Video appears to show murder suspect Kaitlin Armstrong running from corrections officers. The attempted escape, which lasted around 10 minutes, took place in south Austin Wednesday morning, officials said.https://t.co/5bvsLufKnI pic.twitter.com/H9PcGJGQcl
— KXAN News (@KXAN_News) October 12, 2023
Armstrong is suspected of killing Wilson because they were both romantically connected to the same man, Colin Strickland, also a professional cyclist. Strickland and Armstrong dated for three years before taking a break. During that time, Strickland began to see Wilson. The relationship lasted just a few weeks, and Strickland and Armstrong got back together a month later.
In January, Armstrong learned about Strickland’s relationship with Wilson and “became furious and was shaking in anger,” a friend of Armstrong told NBC.
An affidavit filed in relation to the federal case against Armstrong described evidence that Armstrong had allegedly committed the murder.
“According to a witness, Armstrong expressed a desire to kill [Wilson] in January 2022, based on a personal grievance toward [Wilson],” the affidavit said, according to the Boston Globe. “A surveillance camera recorded what appears to be Armstrong’s vehicle near the scene of [Wilson’s] murder at the approximate time the murder occurred.”
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The filing also said that a pistol belonging to Armstrong had been retrieved from her home during a search and that “Laboratory test-firing of Armstrong’s pistol confirmed that it fired the spent shell casings that [Austin police] found at the scene of the murder.”
Wilson was a star skier through college before switching to cycling and gravitating toward “gravel racing,” described as a sport sitting between road cycling and mountain biking. She was favored to win a 157-mile race on May 14 but was shot and killed days earlier, on May 11.
Police quickly honed in on Armstrong and brought her in for questioning. Days later, on May 14, Armstrong flew from Austin, Texas, where Wilson was killed, to Houston, and then from Houston to LaGuardia Airport in New York. From there she traveled to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and then flew to San Jose, Costa Rica. A homicide warrant for Armstrong’s arrest was issued on May 18, the day she flew to Costa Rica. On May 25, a federal warrant charged her with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
Armstrong was found at a hostel in Santa Teresa Beach in Provincia de Puntarenas, the Globe reported.