The Texas cyclist at the heart of an alleged love triangle murder that left another pro rider dead and his girlfriend confined to an Austin jail cell had “a feminist conviction” that women should arm themselves to protect their freedom, according to a new report.
Colin Strickland, a 36-year-old gravel cycling star, went out for dinner and a swim with 25-year-old rising star Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson on May 11, 2022.
Police would find her later that evening gunned down in a friend’s apartment, where she was staying while visiting.
Strickland, who allegedly believed “every woman should own a gun,” may have completely failed in his efforts to conceal his rendezvous with Wilson by changing her name in his phone and wound up “traumatized” by the suspect killer’s sexual behavior on the night of the crime, according to the report.
Colin Strickland main); Moriah WIlson (left, inset); Kaitlin Armstrong (right, inset)
(MEGA/Handout/U.S. Marshals Service)
Strickland’s live-in girlfriend and business partner, Kaitlin Armstrong, was arrested on first-degree murder charges after a 43-day manhunt that ended with her capture in Costa Rica, where she was allegedly hiding out under a false identity with an altered appearance.
The new details emerged in an Outside magazine article published this week, written by a cyclist journalist who noted he is friends with Strickland.
Wilson, who lived in California, was visiting Texas ahead of a race. She went out with Strickland for a swim at the Deep Eddy pool, and then they went to a burger joint across the street, according to authorities.
Anna Moriah ‘Mo’ Wilson smiles after a gravel cycling race.
(The Wilson Family)
Strickland dropped her off at a friend’s apartment around 8:36 p.m., then left, according to court documents.
Just a moment later, police allege, Armstrong’s SUV was spotted on camera near the house, and investigators have said bullets found at the crime scene matched her gun, which Strickland bought her months earlier.
Booking photos taken after Kaitlin Armstrong’s extradition to the U.S.
(US Marshals, Travis County Sheriff’s Office)
Shortly after 9:21 p.m., Armstrong returned home, alone, in a Jeep police said she sold days later before departing from Texas.
“Friends of mine familiar with the events of that night told me that Armstrong then approached Strickland and initiated sex, and she was rough and dominating,” the journalist Ian Dille reported Monday. “They were regularly intimate, but this forcefulness was unusual. Strickland didn’t mind it at the time, but later, in the wake of Wilson’s death and Armstrong’s murder charge, he would feel traumatized by memories of the experience.”
FUGITIVE KAITLIN ARMSTRONG: TIMELINE OF AUSTIN MURDER SUSPECT’S DISAPPEARANCE AND CAPTURE
Police documents allege that while Strickland and Wilson were out, Armstrong asked him through text what he was doing, and he lied to her.
“Strickland had lied about his whereabouts to Armstrong to hide he was with Wilson throughout the evening,” Austin Detective Richard Spitler wrote in an affidavit.
Kaitlin Armstrong, left, pictured during an interrogation with Austin Police Department Detective Katy Conner in May.
(Austin Police)
According to the report, however, Armstrong had access to Strickland’s Apple laptop login and password and may have been able to read his messages on the computer, which reportedly “usually sat open on the kitchen table.”
She was questioned and released in May, then left Texas for New York, where her sister was living at an upstate campsite, before flying from New Jersey to Costa Rica.
The suspect in the Austin shooting death of pro cyclist Moriah “Mo” Wilson has been linked to the Camp Haven compound in Livingston Manor, New York.
(Stephanie Pagones/Fox News Digital)
Strickland has made few public comments about the case and did not respond to messages from Fox News Digital Wednesday.
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He has not been charged with a crime in connection with Wilson’s slaying. Police say he bought a pair of guns early last year, including one for Armstrong, which is the alleged murder weapon.
In court filings, he repeatedly told detectives he did not believe she would have shot Wilson, and that he did not think she was the jealous or violent type.
