The boyfriend at the center of the ‘killer’ yoga teacher trial took the stand in Austin today to tell the jury of their ‘tumultuous’ two-year relationship which started on a dating app and ended with the murder of his former lover, a fellow cyclist his girlfriend was jealous of.
Strickland testified for the state against former girlfriend Kaitlin Armstrong. She is charged with murdering Moriah ‘Mo’ Wilson, Strickland’s ex, after learning the pair were still talking and meeting up in May 2022.
Wilson, he testified, was a sore spot for Armstrong. She was jealous of their shared love of cycling, and the fact Strickland took Wilson on rides that she was not invited to join.
After allegedly killing Wilson by shooting her three times – twice in the head and once through the heart – Armstrong fled to Costa Rica in May 2022. She was eventually arrested after 43 days on the run.
She denies murder but her attorneys are yet to present an alibi.
Today, Strickland told the court in Travis County, Texas, how they met on a dating app. It developed into a two-year-long relationship that was, he said, often ‘tumultuous’.
Colin Strickland took the stand today to testify against his former girlfriend, Kaitlin Armstrong, who is charged with murdering one of his exes, Moriah ‘Mo’ Wilson
Kaitlin Armstrong is shown on the first day of her murder trial. She has pleaded not guilty, but is yet to make any public statement or take the stand
‘I was very uncertain about getting into a long term relationship with her,’ he said, telling the jury how he never intended for it to become serious.
Armstrong moved in with him, he said, during the COVID-19 pandemic while in ‘urgent’ need of a place to stay.
‘It was not designed to be long term, but it ended up being long term. I just wasn’t sure that we were compatible for long-term partnership, life partners,’ he said.
In 2021, the pair broke up after arguing about his relationship with Wilson.
Both he and Wilson were professional cyclists, which Armstrong, he said, was jealous of.
Strickland admitted to traveling to Colorado to visit another woman during his relationship with Armstrong but insists it wasn’t romantic, despite lying to his girlfriend about where he was going.
When he returned and told her where he had been, she confronted him with an explicit photo that the woman had texted him. He had no idea how she accessed it.
A spooked Strickland said it made him ‘hesitant to inform her of all of my actions moving forward.’
Strickland testified that he owned multiple Apple devices, which Armstrong had access to including his iCloud. When her suspicions grew over Wilson, he says he deleted texts because he ‘simply didn’t want to agitate the defendant.’
He added that he changed Wilson’s name in his phone and to Christine Wall ‘simply to avoid conflict with the defendant.’
Moriah ‘Mo’ Wilson was shot dead in Austin on May 11th. She had just returned home from an evening swim with Strickland, who she had at one time been romantic with
At the time of Wilson’s murder, Strickland was a professional cyclist who made a living through sponsorship deals.
Strickland says after one race, he posted a video of racers that included many people including Wilson. Armstrong became enraged because Stickland posted the video to Instagram.
He added that Armstrong was upset despite claiming he made it clear to her he wasn’t involved with Wilson, and that his relationship with her was strictly professional at that point.
At another time, Strickland went to race in California and contacted Wilson, and he says they met up in Santa Cruz again to train.
After Wilson and Strickland’s secret meet-up, Armstrong’s 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee was spotted driving outside the Austin home of Wilson’s friend, where the cyclist was murdered
US Marshals launched a massive manhunt for Armstrong after she fled
The day before the shooting, Strickland said Wilson texted him to let him know she would be in Texas for a race, and they discussed doing a short training ride in Austin.
The next day, he went to the dentist when Wilson text him to says she was doing a solo bike ride. Wilson and Stickland arranged to meet up and she texted him the address where she was staying, at Cash’s apartment.
They decided to go swimming instead because it was over 100 degrees, before stopping at a restaurant.
He dropped her off at the apartment on his motorcycle, and he said he mostly like told Wilson to grip his waist with her knees and hold on to his waist to prevent her from falling.
He added in his testimony that Armstrong called him while he was out with Wilson but he did not respond, and admitted he never told her Wilson was in town.
Strickland says he made up an alibi instead of telling her that he was going to see Wilson. He said that he told Armstrong that he was delivering flowers to a family friend.
When asked about his final words to Wilson, he recalled that ‘we said we’d see each other soon’, before sending a text to Armstrong when he got home that she never responded to.
He says eventually, Armstrong arrived at their house and had a yoga mat with her.
Strickland says that night, Armstrong seemed ‘calm.’ He said he had a glass of whisky that night and watched a cycling documentary with Armstrong.
When he heard the news of Wilson’s death, he said he was ‘shell shocked’, and confessed to Armstrong that he had been with her the night before to explain why police wanted to talk to him.
He then went to provide a ‘highly unpleasant’ police statement that lasted for over six hours.
Police found that gun in the pair’s shared home on May 12, the day after the murder, where they also found Armstrong’s passport and foreign currency laid out on a table.
It is the state’s case that Armstrong shot Wilson using a gun that Strickland bought for her.
He said that learning his girlfriend’s Jeep was outside the apartment where Wilson was staying was ‘very shocking information’, but added that at the time he still considered himself to be in a loving, committed relationship with Armstrong.
Strickland says he turned over his phone to the police and after leaving the police department, Strictland went to his father’s house before returning home to Armstrong.
He told her to write down a ‘timeline of where she was so there record and it could be explained’. He says he asked her if she went to Wilson’s apartment and Armstrong responded that she went to a waxing appointment, a yoga class and went to see a healer at a business called ‘Nasha’s’.
The next day, she went to a coffee shop because she believed that her house was bugged, and says he never saw her again.
The day after the murder, two cops approached Strickland and asked if he knew Wilson. He shook his head at first, then confessed that he did know her.
The pair had both planned to attend a cycling race on May 12th.
It was 8.36pm when Wilson entered her friend’s apartment. The last time she used her phone was 9.13pm, leading police to believe that is around the time she was killed.
‘So I’m the last person who saw her, from her circle?’ he asked the police.
Kaitlin Armstrong in her booking photo after being brought back to the US from Costa Rica
He denied that they had been intimate during their date, insisting that they had only hugged, but admitted dating Wilson while on a break from his relationship with Armstrong.
‘I ended up getting back together with my girlfriend,’ he said, before admitting that he’d concealed his plans with Wilson from Armstrong.
When asked why he stayed in touch with Wilson, he said: ‘[I’ve] just been keeping up with her because she’s awesome.’
The officers then asked if he had Wilson’s mother’s address.
At 8.36pm, Strickland sent Armstrong a text telling her he was on his way home.
One minute later, her jeep was filmed approaching the apartment where Wilson was staying.
At 9.15pm, two gunshots were captured by a neighbor’s surveillance camera. A third was later heard.
At 9.21pm, Strickland sent Armstrong another text telling her he was home. She then arrived home shortly afterwards.
Cash, the friend Wilson was staying with, returned home at 9.54pm. She found her body in the bathroom and called 911. Police arrived and declared Wilson dead at 10.10pm.
How Armstrong is believed to have entered the home remains a mystery. Her jeep was filmed circling the block of the murder scene multiple times between 8pm and 9pm.
Cash’s landlord and neighbor told police that he entered his garage at some time between 8.30pm and 9.30pm. While inside, he heard someone running down the stairs from the apartment.
He saw a cyclist then speed away southbound in an alley behind the building, but the garage door was only partially raised which blocked his view of who was on the bicycle.
Wilson’s bike was the only thing missing from the apartment. It was found 20 yards from the building in vegetation. Prosecutors claim DNA found on the bike has a strong potential match for Armstrong’s.
Shortly after 9.21pm, Armstrong arrived home.
On May 12, Armstrong was questioned by police on an outstanding, unrelated warrant. Because of an error in that paperwork, she was released without charge.
Two days later, she used her sister’s passport to board a plane to New York and then to Costa Rica, where she remained until she was arrested on suspicion of the murder in July.
She has pleaded not guilty. Strickland is listed among prosecution witnesses for the trial. He went into hiding while Armstrong was on the run, and has never been arrested or charged in connection with the killing.
Prosecutors say Armstrong was a woman possessed by jealousy and rage who had discovered her boyfriend’s lies and decided to kill Wilson to get her out the picture.
The trial in Austin, Texas, is slated to continue for another two weeks.