Austin yoga teacher Kaitlin Armstrong will spend 90 years behind bars for the murder of professional cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson.
Armstrong was found guilty of the killing, which took place on May 11 2022, on Thursday after brief jury deliberations.
On Friday afternoon, after a further three and half hours of deliberation, jurors returned with her sentence.
Wilson’s family members in the courtroom cried and embraced each other while Armstrong remained emotionless as the sentence was passed down.
The two women had become involved in a love triangle with Armstrong’s then on-and-off boyfriend and Wilson’s fellow cyclist Colin Strickland. Wilson was found dead at her friend’s apartment with multiple gunshot wounds.
Following the murder, Armstrong had fled the country, remaining at large for 43 days before being apprehended by authorities.
On Thursday, following the guilty verdict, the court heard heart-wrenching impact statements from family and friends of Wilson. Armstrong’s own family also gave testimony.
Wilson’s mother, Karen Wilson, told the court that her daughter “did not deserve a death like that”.
“When you love somebody so much, and if any of you are parents, you understand what that means... when you love someone that much, and it’s taken from you, the depth of the joy of that love is equal to the depth of the pain you have to live with,” she said.
“I just miss her so much and nothing here can bring her back and I knew that coming down here. I would have done anything to stand in the way of that bullet and I wasn’t there to protect her.
“And she died all alone on the floor of her friend’s house. She did not deserve a death like that.”
On Friday Assistant District Attorney Rick Jones told the court that he wanted “today to be about Mo Wilson”, and not Armstrong.
Holding up a photo of Wilson he said: “She was a beautiful person... I was so moved by [Karen’s] words...it oozed from her yesterday, as well as Eric.
“That’s a parent’s love. And to be honest with you, I felt Mr Armstrong’s love for his daughter. I felt it. But the difference is that his daughter is still sitting right there.
“She’s not in a good situation, but she’s still sitting right there.”