Kaitlin Armstrong enters the courtroom to listen to the decision on her homicide trial on the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center on Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023, in Austin, Texas.

Mikala Compton/AP

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Mikala Compton/AP

Kaitlin Armstrong enters the courtroom to listen to the decision on her homicide trial on the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center on Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023, in Austin, Texas.

Mikala Compton/AP

AUSTIN, Texas — A lady convicted of homicide within the capturing dying of rising skilled bike owner Anna Moriah Wilson faces as much as life in jail in Texas when sentenced in a case that led investigators on a 43-day worldwide search to seek out her.

Kaitlin Armstrong, 35, was convicted Thursday. The jurors additionally will advocate a sentence and are anticipated to renew deliberating on Friday.

Prosecutors stated Armstrong gunned down the 25-year-old Wilson in a jealous rage in May 2022. Wilson, also referred to as “Mo,” had briefly dated Armstrong’s boyfriend a number of months earlier. Wilson went swimming and to a meal with him the day she was killed.

Jurors deliberated for about two hours after two weeks of testimony earlier than delivering their verdict.

“From the day she was born, she had a force in her,” Wilson’s mom, Karen Wilson, informed jurors Thursday firstly of the punishment part of the trial. “She lived as if every day was her last day. And she lived it so fully. She never wasted any time. … It’s as if she knew her life would be short.”

Wilson’s household and pals, who sat within the entrance row for many of the trial, hugged and cried after the decision.

Caitlin Cash, the good friend who discovered Wilson’s physique and tried to carry out CPR, informed jurors she had texted Wilson’s mom earlier that day with a photograph of her beginning a motorbike journey with a notice: “Your girl is in safe hands here in Austin.”

“I felt a lot of guilt not being able to protect her,” Cash stated. “I fought for her with everything I had.”

Kaitlin Armstrong’s youthful sister Christine and their mom sat behind the protection desk and cried after the decision. Armstrong’s father stood silently for a number of minutes.

Christine Armstrong informed jurors her older sister “is not a bad person.”

“She’s such a special person,” Christine Armstrong stated earlier than her sister. “I’ve always looked up to you. … She’s always cared for other people.”

A Vermont native and former alpine skier at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, Wilson was an rising star in professional gravel and mountain bike racing. She was visiting Austin forward of a race in Texas, the place she was among the many favorites to win.

Kaitlin Armstrong tracked Wilson to the condo the place she was staying by way of a health app and shot her thrice, twice within the head and as soon as by way of the guts, investigators stated.

“I would have done anything to stand in the way of that bullet,” Karen Wilson stated. “She did not deserve a death like that.”

Kaitlin Armstrong didn’t testify on her personal behalf in the course of the trial.

Her Jeep was seen close to the condo across the time Wilson was shot and bullet casings discovered close to Wilson’s physique matched a gun Armstrong owned. Armstrong briefly met with police earlier than promoting her car and utilizing her sister’s passport to fly to Costa Rica.

She spent greater than $6,000 on a nostril job there and altered the colour and elegance of her hair to evade authorities earlier than she was arrested at a beachside hostel, investigators stated.

Armstrong once more tried to flee authorities throughout an Oct. 11 medical appointment outdoors of jail. She faces a separate felony escape cost.