- Video captures final screams of pro cyclist Mo Wilson after accused killer Kaitlin Armstrong tracked her on fitness app, prosecutor says CBS News
- Yoga Instructor Accused of Murdering Cyclist Goes on Trial Inside Edition
- Yoga teacher Kaitlin Armstrong shot love rival in the heart as cyclist screamed in horror: prosecutors New York Post
- Fitness app tracking, body cam footage, bullet casings. What the jury heard day 1 of Kaitlin Armstrong trial KEYE TV CBS Austin
- Kaitlin Armstrong trial begins with opening statements: Prosecutors say yoga teacher ‘stood over’ victim Mo Wi Daily Mail
Tag Archives: Cyclist
Controversial trans cyclist Austin Killips wins North Carolina race by 5 minutes: ‘Power is not comparable’ – New York Post
- Controversial trans cyclist Austin Killips wins North Carolina race by 5 minutes: ‘Power is not comparable’ New York Post
- Female cyclist, defeated by trans woman, speaks out after race: ‘I feel a separate category is appropriate’ Fox News
- Austin Killips and Adam Roberge win at Belgian Waffle Ride North Carolina Cyclingnews
- Trans cyclist wins North Carolina women’s race 5 MINUTES ahead of 2nd Daily Mail
- Trans Cyclist Austin Killips Wins Women’s Race By Over FIVE Minutes; Female Competitor Calls Out Lack of Fairness OutKick
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Chess outcast Hans Niemann says he was a top cyclist. Was he really?
Since early September, the usually genteel world of competitive chess has descended into acrimony and suspicion. There have been accusations, and admissions, of cheating. There have been (probably erroneous) allegations of vibrating anal beads. There have been vast lawsuits filed. Most news outlets in the world have weighed in. And at the centre of it all is Hans Moke Niemann, a 19-year-old US chess prodigy.
Niemann’s meteoric rise in world chess was capped by an upset victory over five-time reigning world champ Magnus Carlsen, the highest-ranked chess player in history. Carlsen didn’t like what he saw, hinting that he thought there was something improper afoot before going a step further and saying it outright.
In an impassioned defense, Niemann hit back at his critics, confessing to cheating twice in online games aged 12 and 16, calling it “the single biggest mistake of my life,” and saying that “this is the full truth … I’d like to see if everyone else can actually tell their truth.”
Soon after, Chess.com released a blisteringly spicy report indicating that it was likely Niemann had cheated in more than 100 games – including prize money events and live-streamed games, some against the world’s top players.
Six weeks later, the 19-year-old is now pursuing his truth to the tune of US$100 million in damages, with a lawsuit against Carlsen, Chess.com and popular chess streamer Hikaru Nakamura. Niemann says he’s been defamed and blacklisted from the sport. The other parties believe, in the words of Carlsen, that “Niemann has cheated more — and more recently — than he has publicly admitted”.
At the core of this whole mess, really, is that concept of ‘truth.’ Niemann has maintained his version of it, particularly in a September 7 interview – “There has been a lot of speculation, and there’s been a lot of things said, and I think I’m the only one who knows the truth,” he said emphatically. Niemann maintains he’s never cheated in ‘over the board’ games (as opposed to online), and independent adjudicators tend to agree, even if there’s a whole lot of smoke around the integrity of his results up to 2020.
But is Hans Niemann a reliable narrator? And more to the point, why are we writing about him (again) at CyclingTips?
The answer: before Niemann was a chess prodigy, he was apparently a top cyclist on the national stage.
Was he as good as he says he was? Well – that depends on your version of the truth.
Check yourself before Utrecht yourself
When Hans Niemann suddenly became a household name this year, his past results as a chess player were pored over by Grandmasters, fans, and media trying to work out where he came from and whether his rise was believable.
Niemann’s ascent has been fast and he’s still in his teens, but in chess terms, he’s seen as something of a late bloomer. Where that talent sprouted was in Utrecht, the Netherlands, where Niemann’s family once lived.
His parents – one Danish, one Hawaiian – were ex-pats working in the IT industry, and their son began chess classes at the age of eight. At that stage, it wasn’t just chess that had his attention.
According to De Volkskrant newspaper, “he also liked to get on his racing bike to participate in competitions.” According to Niemann, meanwhile, he “was advancing much more rapidly [in cycling]” than in chess. For the duration of his time living and riding in the Netherlands, Niemann sat in the youngest two age categories, holding a license with the Royal Dutch Cycling Union (KNWU) for two years, in 2011 and 2012.
In the Netherlands, “from the age of 8 it is possible to compete in races and be as competitive as you wish,” a KNWU spokesperson told me, when asked whether the focus in the youth ranks was on competition or development. “Some riders are focussed on results from a young age, others need and/or take more time.”
Niemann seems to have fallen into the former category. In a 2020 article he wrote for the US Chess Federation, he said that “I have always been a single-minded person. I competed in cycling in the Netherlands and was one of the top cyclists in the nation for my age when I moved back to California, so my competitive spirit has always been what motivates me in everything.”
“One of the top cyclists in the nation” is an ambiguous statement, and the wording is a bit woolly – it’s not clear whether he was at that point referring to his results in the Netherlands, or in the US upon his return, and there’s no numerical ranking. Regardless, if it is the Netherlands we’re talking about, we have a problem: in the words of De Volkskrant, “his claim that he is one of the best in his age group in the Netherlands is difficult to verify. There are no results on the internet that indicate this.”
So what do we know about Hans Niemann’s cycling in the Netherlands? Well, he rode for the WV Het Stadion club, for starters – a club that bills itself as “the nicest* cycling club in Utrecht [* and also the sportiest, most beautiful, most versatile and nicest cycling association in the Domstad]”.
The only results of Niemann’s that CyclingTips could unearth were from the 2012 National Championships – five laps of a short circuit for a total of 7 km, where Niemann finished a minute back from the winner in a 12 and a half minute race, 25th out of 35 entrants.
Soon after, he was gone, leaving behind him in Utrecht a raft of chess tutors who remember him as “very fanatical” in his drive, paired with having a “very angry” streak when he lost. An approach to WV Het Stadion for information about his time with the cycling club went unanswered.
California dreaming
By the end of 2012, the Niemanns had left the Netherlands and returned to California, where his cycling continued into 2013. In most of his races, he was unaffiliated with a club or team, although through June and July of that year – his last competitive outings – he is listed as riding for WV Het Stadion, his old Dutch club, more than half a year after he’d left the country.
There are clues of young Niemann’s technological interest in the sport. He was an extremely early adopter of Strava, first logging a ride in February 2012 (he followed just one rider, Joe Dombrowski, and Niemann’s account is long dormant). But there are much more recent clues of Niemann using his cycling background to build his mythology.
In April 2021, Niemann relayed his life story to Chess Life magazine, a lengthy monologue with a very specific claim – both numerically and geographically – at the start of it. “I continued cycling upon my initial return to the States, finding myself ranked third for my age nationally,” Niemann says. Weirdly passive sentence construction aside, that statement is sharper than what he was saying a year earlier, and easier to disprove.
So, was he the third-best cyclist of his age in the US?
There’s nothing in the results on USA Cycling’s database that appears to support that statement. At the Northern California Nevada Cycling Association district track championships, he finished fifth of five riders, in all six races. In the Valley of the Sun Road Race, he finished sixth of eight on the general classification. In 24 races he started through the 2013 season, Niemann took no wins. Of his eight podium finishes, only two races had more than three riders.
USA Cycling’s rankings are calculated on a rolling basis and constantly in a state of flux, but on this evidence it’s difficult to see Niemann as one of the top-ranked riders of his age in his state, let alone the entire country. No national championships appearances, few departures from the bubble of Californian cycling, no signs of a future cycling star’s anointment.
Which, to be clear, really doesn’t matter – forensic analysis of the race results of a child is not what youth competition should be about. “While USA Cycling does offer competitive opportunities for Juniors under the age of 12,” a spokesperson told me, “we believe that at that age it’s mostly about skill development and making sure they have fun on the bike.”
And by July 2013, Hans Niemann seems to have stopped having fun on the bike, or found something in chess that drove him more – “I quit cycling and really focused on chess,” he said of a 10-year-old version of himself that already saw the game as a “career”.
The end of the road
That leads us to the end of Hans Niemann’s foray into cycling – his dalliance with the sport that is mostly remarkable for how unremarkable it is. And that’s fine. Kids start riding, and kids stop. Kids win races and kids don’t. Kids come up with brash stories on the playground. Sometimes kids are told they’re special at something, and some of them probably internalise it and let the lines between truth and fiction blur.
But if you look at things a certain way – when a kid grows into the most controversial chess player in the world, staking his reputation and millions of dollars on the absolute truth of his words and actions – an inflated set of cycling results from a decade ago starts looking a bit less mundane, and a bit more instructive.
Kenyan cyclist Suleiman Kangangi dies during race in Vermont
Amani’s John Kariuki won Saturday’s race, which includes nearly 7,000 feet of climbing, and Amani’s Jordan Schleck finished third. The newly formed team consists of riders from Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda. Team Amani describes itself as a nonprofit organization promoting inclusivity in cycling and creating opportunities for riders based in Africa.
Gravel racing generally takes place on open roads and combines road, cyclocross and mountain bike racing. About 900 cyclists were competing Saturday in the race that begins and ends in the unincorporated community of Brownsville in the town of West Windsor.
“Vermont Overland is completely heartbroken,” race organizer Ansel Dickey said in a statement. “He was a kind friend and an inspiring and heroic athlete to his teammates and the gravel cycling community at large. We extend our deepest sympathies to his family, his friends, Team Amani, and the people of Kenya who are mourning his loss today.”
Kangangi raced for the pro continental team Bike Aid from 2016 until 2020, according to Velo News. He finished third overall in the 2017 Tour du Rwanda. He revived his cycling career with the Migration Gravel Race, a four-day event that debuted in Kenya in 2021. It featured international cyclists such as Ian Boswell and Laurens ten Dam alongside East Africa’s aspiring pros racing on gravel in the Maasai Mara of Kenya.
“My heartfelt condolences to his family, and the entire cycling community, that has lost a talented cyclist, a mentor and a friend,” Rachel Ruto, the wife of Kenya’s president-elect, William Ruto, tweeted. “We will all miss him as an individual. Kenya has lost a champion. Rest in peace Sule.”
Reckless DUI Driver Leads Chase From LA to OC, Nearly Hitting Cyclist – NBC Los Angeles
Deputies pursued a suspected DUI driver in Orange County after the dangerous chase began in Compton.
Throughout the course of the pursuit from LA to OC, the driver nearly hit cars, a bicyclist, traversed a freeway island, and apparently went running down a ravine before hopping back in the car.
The driver of the dark-colored Chevy Malibu got on the 710 Freeway heading north in the Long Beach area around 6:30 p.m.
At 6:40 p.m. the driver began attempting dangerous maneuvers, including driving across a divider with vegetation at the 405 interchange.
The driver continued on the 405 heading south, and just before 7 p.m., the driver crossed over into Orange County.
The driver headed into the Westminster area on the 405 South Freeway. The driver exited the freeway and was traveling on surface streets in the Costa Mesa area.
The driver at one point exited the sedan and was on foot and was running through a ravine, but got back in the car in the Irvine area.
The driver continued traveling to the Laguna Hills area, traveling north on the 5 Freeway.
Eventually, authorities performed a PIT maneuver as the driver headed into the area of Crown Valley Parkway and Cabot Road in Mission Viejo. He surrendered and was taken into custody,
Suspect in killing of elite cyclist used someone else’s passport in escape to Costa Rica, officials say. Here’s how authorities say she was caught
Authorities say they found Kaitlin Marie Armstrong at a hostel in Costa Rica on Wednesday. She’s facing extradition to the United States to face murder charges in the death of Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson, who was shot May 11.
Wilson briefly dated Armstrong’s boyfriend, a professional cyclist, and investigators say romantic jealousy might have been a motivating factor.
Here’s a timeline of the case, from Wilson’s death to the capture of Armstrong, a 34-year-old real estate agent and yoga teacher from Austin, Texas.
May 11: Wilson is found dead with multiple gunshot wounds at the home of a friend. She had told her friend she was going for an afternoon swim with Colin Strickland, 35, a professional cyclist and Armstrong’s boyfriend. He tells police he and Wilson swam and ate dinner, and he dropped her off at the friend’s home, according to an arrest affidavit in Travis County District Court.
May 12: Austin police apprehend Armstrong on an unrelated warrant. They release her after learning the warrant is invalid.
May 13: Armstrong sells her black Jeep Grand Cherokee for $12,200.
May 14: Armstrong flies from Austin to Houston to New York City.
May 17: Police issue a homicide warrant for Armstrong. It says a vehicle similar to hers was shown on video surveillance near the home shortly before Wilson’s body was found.
May 18: Armstrong is seen at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, according to the US Marshals Service. No reservation is found in her name.
May 19: An arrest warrant says Strickiland told police he tried to hide his communications with Wilson from Armstrong. It says Armstrong told Wilson to “stay away” from Strickland, one of Wilson’s friends told police.
May 25: Authorities issue a separate, federal warrant for Armstrong for “unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.” Strickland tells the Austin American-Statesman that he had a “brief romantic relationship” with Wilson last year while separated from Armstrong. He tells the newspaper that he and Armstrong reconciled and that he considered Wilson a “platonic” and “close friend.”
Found 6 weeks later in another country, with another look
June 29: Authorities arrest Armstrong at a hostel in Santa Teresa Beach in Provincia de Puntarenas, according to the US Marshals Office.
June 30: Austin-based Deputy Marshal Brandon Filla tells CNN that Armstrong “changed her appearance drastically.” Her long blonde hair is now “shoulder length and dark brown,” he says.
He also reveals further details about the weeks-long search:
• Armstrong previously “resembled” the person whose passport she used to flee the country. Filla does not say how Armstrong got the passport or if its rightful owner gave it to her.
• After authorities learned of the name Armstrong might have been using to travel, US Marshals “worked with Homeland Security and looked at flight passenger lists.” They found the name matching that passport on a May 18 flight from Newark to San José, Costa Rica.
• They then scoured the surveillance cameras for the specific airport gate the flight left from and “ID’d Kaitlin Armstrong” boarding.
• US Marshals contacted Costa Rican authorities, who located Armstrong at the hostel and detained her on an immigration violation for using a fraudulent passport to enter the country.
What’s next: Filla says Armstrong will face a murder charge upon her return to Austin. She is also facing an added federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
Armstrong has been returned to Texas and was being held at the Harris County Jail awaiting extradition to Austin, US Marshals said Saturday.
When she arrives in Austin, she’ll be held with bond set at $3.5 million, court records in Texas’ Travis County show.
It’s unclear if anyone else aided Armstrong in her efforts to evade the US Marshals, but Filla says “they are not ruling out others being charged” depending on where their investigation takes them.
CNN’s Emma Tucker, Rebekah Riess, Holly Yan and Jennifer Henderson contributed to this report.
Suspect in killing of elite cyclist used someone else’s passport in escape to Costa Rica, officials say. Here’s how authorities say she was caught
Authorities say they found Kaitlin Marie Armstrong at a hostel in Costa Rica on Wednesday. She’s facing extradition to the United States to face murder charges in the death of Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson, who was shot May 11.
Wilson briefly dated Armstrong’s boyfriend, a professional cyclist, and investigators say romantic jealousy might have been a motivating factor.
Here’s a timeline of the case, from Wilson’s death to the capture of Armstrong, a 34-year-old real estate agent and yoga teacher from Austin, Texas.
May 11: Wilson is found dead with multiple gunshot wounds at the home of a friend. She had told her friend she was going for an afternoon swim with Colin Strickland, 35, a professional cyclist and Armstrong’s boyfriend. He tells police he and Wilson swam and ate dinner, and he dropped her off at the friend’s home, according to an arrest affidavit in Travis County District Court.
May 12: Austin police apprehend Armstrong on an unrelated warrant. They release her after learning the warrant is invalid.
May 13: Armstrong sells her black Jeep Grand Cherokee for $12,200.
May 14: Armstrong flies from Austin to Houston to New York City.
May 17: Police issue a homicide warrant for Armstrong. It says a vehicle similar to hers was shown on video surveillance near the home shortly before Wilson’s body was found.
May 18: Armstrong is seen at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, according to the US Marshals Service. No reservation is found in her name.
May 19: An arrest warrant says Strickiland told police he tried to hide his communications with Wilson from Armstrong. It says Armstrong told Wilson to “stay away” from Strickland, one of Wilson’s friends told police.
May 25: Authorities issue a separate, federal warrant for Armstrong for “unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.” Strickland tells the Austin American-Statesman that he had a “brief romantic relationship” with Wilson last year while separated from Armstrong. He tells the newspaper that he and Armstrong reconciled and that he considered Wilson a “platonic” and “close friend.”
Found 6 weeks later in another country, with another look
June 29: Authorities arrest Armstrong at a hostel in Santa Teresa Beach in Provincia de Puntarenas, according to the US Marshals Office.
June 30: Austin-based Deputy Marshal Brandon Filla tells CNN that Armstrong “changed her appearance drastically.” Her long blonde hair is now “shoulder length and dark brown,” he says.
He also reveals further details about the weeks-long search:
• Armstrong previously “resembled” the person whose passport she used to flee the country. Filla does not say how Armstrong got the passport or if its rightful owner gave it to her.
• After authorities learned of the name Armstrong might have been using to travel, US Marshals “worked with Homeland Security and looked at flight passenger lists.” They found the name matching that passport on a May 18 flight from Newark to San José, Costa Rica.
• They then scoured the surveillance cameras for the specific airport gate the flight left from and “ID’d Kaitlin Armstrong” boarding.
• US Marshals contacted Costa Rican authorities, who located Armstrong at the hostel and detained her on an immigration violation for using a fraudulent passport to enter the country.
What’s next: Filla says Armstrong will face a murder charge upon her return to Austin. She is also facing an added federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
When she returns, she’ll be held with bond set at $3.5 million, court records in Texas’ Travis County show.
It’s unclear if anyone else aided Armstrong in her efforts to evade the US Marshals, but Filla says “they are not ruling out others being charged” depending on where their investigation takes them.
CNN’s Emma Tucker, Rebekah Riess, Holly Yan and Jennifer Henderson contributed to this report.
Kaitlin Armstrong, Texas woman accused of killing pro cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson, is arrested in Costa Rica
A Texas woman suspected in the fatal shooting of professional cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson at an Austin home has been arrested in Costa Rica, the U.S. Marshals Service said Thursday.
Kaitlin Marie Armstrong, 34, was arrested Wednesday at a hostel on Santa Teresa Beach in Provincia de Puntarenas, the Marshals Service said in a statement. Armstrong was expected to be returned to the United States, where she faces a murder charge, the agency said.
“The Marshals Service elevated the Kaitlin Armstrong investigation to major case status early in this investigation, which likely played a key role in her capture after a 43-day run,” said U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Texas Susan Pamerleau.
Wilson, 25, was found dead May 11, and Austin police on May 19 issued a murder warrant for Armstrong.
Authorities said Armstrong sold her vehicle May 13, then flew from Austin to Houston shortly after being questioned that day by authorities about Wilson’s death. She then flew to New York before using a fraudulent passport to fly from Newark, New Jersey, to San Jose, Costa Rica, on May 18, the service said.
Wilson, a competitive gravel and mountain bike racer and Vermont native known as “Mo,” had been in Austin for a cycling event. According to an affidavit, Wilson had previously dated Armstrong’s boyfriend, cyclist Colin Strickland, who has cooperated with investigators and is not a suspect.
According to the affidavit, Armstrong’s SUV was seen on surveillance video outside the home where Wilson was found shot to death.
U.S. Marshals
Moriah Wilson came from a family of athletes. The 25-year-old elite cyclist was preparing for another race before she was killed
Wilson’s family is mourning the loss of their “beautiful daughter and sister,” who excelled as a biker and skier. “Moriah was a talented, kind, and caring young woman. Her life was taken from her before she had the opportunity to achieve everything she dreamed of,” the family said.
Here’s what we know so far about Wilson, why police believe she may have been targeted and her short-lived success in the burgeoning sport of gravel racing.
Wilson was a star skier in her younger years but recently became a high-level cyclist. She particularly excelled at “gravel racing,” a relatively new category of cycling that sits in a hybrid middle ground between road cycling and mountain biking.
A profile in VeloNews published the day she died referred to her as “the winningest woman in the American off-road scene.” Wilson had won nearly 10 races this year, including the Shasta Gravel Hugger and Rock Cobbler in California, according to the article. Last month, she won the 137-mile Belgian Waffle Ride by 25 minutes over the second-place finisher.
Wilson wrote about her racing experiences on her Instagram and in a Substack newsletter. In March, she reflected on her second place finish at The Mid South race and reflected briefly on her rise to the top of the field.
“This race was the first time in my career (I can call it a career at this point) that I truly felt like I had a target on my back,” she wrote. “Was I nervous? Heck yeah! But more than anything I was excited.”
At the time of her death, Wilson was just days from participating in the Gravel Locos bike race. The day after the race, an event organizer remembered her on Facebook as a “role model, a shy compassionate person, a spirited tactical racer and a competitor that genuinely cared about those competing against you.”
Wilson had recently moved back to her home state of Vermont. While growing up, she was a consummate athlete, skiing in the winter and mountain biking in the summer. Her father Eric Wilson skied for the US National Ski team, and her aunt Laura was a Nordic skier and competed at the Olympics, she told VeloNews.
She, too, picked up the sport competitively. “In alpine skiing, Moriah rose to the level of a nationally ranked junior skier, placing 3rd in the 2013 U.S. Junior National Championship Downhill event,” her obituary states. While attending Dartmouth University, she was a member of the Alpine Ski Team, “fulfilling a lifelong dream,” the obituary says.
Wilson also was the captain of her high school soccer team, according to her Dartmouth athletic profile.
After college, she moved away from skiing toward competitive biking.
“Growing up in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, she spent many hours on the Kingdom Trails developing her skills and strength as a biker,” the obituary states. “After graduating from Dartmouth, Moriah shifted gears and continued to pursue her athletic dreams as an elite bike racer.”
Outside of sports, she enjoyed “cooking, writing, and traveling,” it says, adding, “she especially loved Italy, Taco Tuesdays, maple creemees and playing Catan with her friends.”
How the shooting unfolded
On May 11, Wilson was shot multiple times while staying at a friend’s home in Austin ahead of the Gravel Locos race in Hico, according to an arrest affidavit filed in Travis County District Court.
Kaitlin Marie Armstrong, a 34-year-old Austin resident, is wanted for homicide in the killing and is now a fugitive, the US Marshals said.
Both women had recently been in romantic relationships with the same man — professional cyclist Colin Strickland — and messages and interviews with tipsters suggest jealousy could be a potential motive, according to the affidavit.
On the day of the killing, Wilson told her friend she was going for an afternoon swim with Strickland, the affidavit says — a detail Strickland confirmed in an interview with police. They had dinner together afterward and he then dropped her off at her friend’s home, Strickland said. He did not go inside.
Austin Police responded to the home later that evening, shortly before 10 p.m. CT, and found Wilson with multiple gunshot wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The shooting did not appear to be “a random act,” police said in a May 14 news release.
Police issued a homicide warrant on May 17 for Armstrong. The affidavit for her arrest points in part to video surveillance obtained by investigators that shows a vehicle similar to hers near the home shortly before Wilson’s body was found.
In addition, investigators compared ballistics from the scene with those of bullets test-fired from a firearm Strickland had recently purchased for Armstrong, and the “potential that the same firearm was involved is significant,” the document says.
Per the affidavit, Strickland told police he has not had contact with Armstrong since May 13.
Within 24 hours of Wilson’s death, officers from the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force apprehended Armstrong in connection with an unrelated arrest warrant and spoke to her. However, Austin Police said they then learned Armstrong’s arrest warrant was not valid and told her she was free to leave.
Armstrong requested to end the interview and left after detectives began confronting her about the security camera video that placed her car near the crime scene, the affidavit states.
Wilson had past relationship with suspect’s boyfriend
In a statement to the Austin American-Statesman, Strickland said he had a “brief romantic relationship” with Wilson from late October to early November 2021, while he was separated from Armstrong.
Strickland and Armstrong reconciled and resumed their relationship about a month later, he told the paper. His relationship with Wilson then became “platonic and professional” and he considered her a “close friend,” he said.
“There is no way to adequately express the regret and torture I feel about my proximity to this horrible crime,” Strickland said, per the newspaper. “I am sorry, and I simply cannot make sense of this unfathomable situation.”
The affidavit cites a tipster who alleged Armstrong came to believe Strickland and Wilson’s romantic relationship was ongoing as of January 2022. Strickland admitted to trying to hide his communications with Wilson from Armstrong by changing Wilson’s name in his phone and deleting texts, the affidavit says.
Armstrong had contacted Wilson several times and in one instance told her to “stay away” from Strickland, one of Wilson’s friends told investigators, according to the affidavit.
Wilson was not in any romantic relationship at the time of her death, her family said in a statement.
“While we will not elaborate about the ongoing investigation, we do feel it’s important to clarify that at the time of her death, those closest to her clearly understood, directly from Moriah, that she was not in a romantic relationship with anyone,” the family said.
A Texas woman is wanted for the alleged murder of an elite cyclist who had a relationship with her boyfriend, authorities say
Anyone with information about where Armstrong might be is urged to contact authorities, the Marshals Service said in a news release last Friday.
Wilson, who lived in San Francisco, was in Austin, Texas, for a cycling race when she was shot multiple times at the home of a friend she was staying with, according to an arrest affidavit filed in Travis County District Court.
The affidavit described how both the victim and the suspect had been in romantic relationships with the same man, and detailed text messages and interviews with tipsters pointing to jealousy as a possible motive.
On the day of the murder, Wilson had gone out for an afternoon swim with Colin Strickland, a fellow professional cyclist she’d been dating on and off since last fall, according to the affidavit. During that time, Strickland was living with Armstrong, his girlfriend.
Strickland told police he began his romantic relationship with Wilson during a two-week period when he was separated from Armstrong, according to the affidavit. Strickland maintained his relationship with Wilson after resuming his relationship with Armstrong, per the affidavit, and admitted to trying to hide his communications with her from Armstrong by changing Wilson’s name in his phone and deleting texts.
It’s unclear if Wilson and Strickland were still in a romantic relationship at the time of her death.
Armstrong had contacted Wilson several times and in one instance told her to “stay away” from Strickland, one of Wilson’s friends told investigators, according to the affidavit.
Strickland considered Wilson to be one of the best cyclists in the world, he told police, and a VeloNews feature published on the day of her death called her “the winningest woman in the American off-road scene.” Wilson had won a series of races in California this spring, the article notes, before traveling to Austin.
Multiple law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation obtained security camera footage that captured Armstrong’s car near the house before Wilson’s body was found, according to the affidavit.
Within 24 hours of Wilson’s death, officers from the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force apprehended Armstrong in connection with an unrelated arrest warrant and spoke to her. However, Austin Police then said they learned Armstrong’s arrest warrant was not valid and told her she was free to leave.
Armstrong requested to end the interview and left after detectives began confronting her about the security camera video that placed her car near the crime scene, the affidavit states.
Ballistic evidence found at the scene of the killing was compared to bullets test-fired from a firearm Strickland had purchased for Armstrong, according to the affidavit. The test showed “the potential that the same firearm was involved is significant,” the document says.
CNN’s Chris Boyette and Elizabeth Wolfe contributed to this report.