AUSTIN, Texas — On the sixth day of the Kaitlin Armstrong murder trial, the court was able to hear from Austin Police Department (APD) Homicide Det. Katy Conner, who assisted lead Det. Richard Spitler on the case.
The state pulled up a video interview between Conner and Armstrong that was conducted on May 12, 2022, a day after semi-professional cyclist Moriah Wilson was killed.
APD Homicide Det. Katy Conner's interview with Armstrong
In the video, Conner tells Armstrong that she was brought in on a theft of service warrant. Later during the interview, Conner tells Armstrong that the warrant had the same name but a different birth date, so she was actually not under arrest anymore and was free to leave at any time.
Armstrong responds by saying, “I would love to leave,” and expresses frustration about APD handcuffing her in front of her house and in front of her neighbors. Conner continues to mention that she is free to leave at any time and even motions towards the door. But Conner says she would love to get Armstrong’s side of the story because Colin Strickland had mentioned her name in his interview. Conner testified that Spitler had already been interviewing Strickland earlier that day.
Despite Armstrong saying several times that she would like to leave, Conner points out that in the video, Armstrong’s body language does not suggest that. The video shows Armstrong keeps her legs crossed and makes no movement to get up and leave.
Conner testified that she believes Armstrong stayed because she was trying to find out how much APD knew about the situation without giving away anything she knew.
During the interview, Conner asks Armstrong if she heard of what had happened, referring to Wilson’s death. Armstrong responded saying, “Colin walked in the house and said one of the women in the cycling community had passed away.”
Conner testified that she thought Armstrong knew Wilson’s name, even though she didn’t say it. She also said she became more suspicious of Armstrong after this interview because she mentioned not knowing that Strickland was seeing Wilson. Conner said she later found out through phone data that Armstrong did know of Wilson at that time.
U.S. Marshal Emir Perez in Costa Rica
Later, the court got to hear from Dep. Emir Perez with the U.S. Marshal Service, who was the one to find Armstrong in the small tourist town of Santa Teresa, Costa Rica. Perez said he got there towards the end of June and interviewed several people in town in an attempt to try and locate Armstrong.
On June 29, 2022, Perez got information about a hostel where Armstrong was staying and was able to find her sitting with a man on the patio. He said he didn’t recognize Armstrong at first because she had a bandage on her nose, her lips looked swollen and her hair looked darker. Perez said he started speaking to her in Spanish, so he could get closer to her and because it’s the native language there.
Perez said Armstrong was then transported to the local jail in Santa Teresa. He said she was being investigated for entering the country illegally with a different name, so she was then transported to San Jose, Costa Rica, for a hearing. From there, U.S. Marshals transported her to the Harris County Jail in Houston.
District Attorney Office Staff interprets Spanish plastic surgery document
The court also heard the senior staff interpreter for the District Attorney’s Office translate a document from Spanish to English. The document was from Jorge Badilla Plastic Surgery, a Costa Rican cosmetic surgery clinic.
The document showed records of patient “Allison Page” getting a rhinoplasty and a brow lift in June 2022. There was also a transcription of conversations between the patient and the clinic about scheduling the surgeries. The patient also asked the clinic about the bandages and stitches and how soon she could get them removed. The document also included photographs of this patient during and after the plastic surgery.
APD Digital Forensic Examiner Daniel Portnoy
The state then offered APD Det. Daniel Portnoy, who is the digital forensic examiner, as an expert witness in this trial. Portnoy testified about data extraction and all the devices that were submitted in this case. There were nine in total, including five iPhones, two MacBooks, one Uconnect – a vehicle entertainment system – and one Lenovo ThinkPad laptop. Portnoy said this was a large number of devices to be submitted for data extraction.
Portnoy was able to extract a large amount of GPS data from the Uconnect system in Armstrong’s 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee. The GPS data shows everywhere the car has been driven while it was turned on.
The state reviewed the entire course that Jeep drove on the evening of May 11, 2022, the night that Wilson was killed. The video of the GPS data showed the Jeep drove down Maple Avenue and circled around the neighborhood for about 15 minutes. They point out that at 8:37 p.m. that evening, the Jeep stopped at the alley next to Maple. The next time the car moved was 9:17 p.m., which Portnoy said would have been about 5 minutes after the gunshots went off.
After stopping twice, the Jeep ended up back at Strickland’s house at 9:48 p.m.
The court will be in recess until Monday morning.