Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson was an American professional cyclist who rose to become the winningest off-road racer in the United States in just a few seasons of competing.
She was murdered in Austin, Texas, on May 11, 2022, at the age of 25. Her killer, Kaitlin Armstrong, was convicted of first-degree murder in November 2023 and sentenced to 90 years in prison.
Wilson’s life and death are the subject of the 2026 Netflix documentary The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson.
Who is Moriah Wilson?
Moriah Wilson was a Vermont-born athlete who became one of the most talked-about names in American gravel and mountain bike racing almost overnight.
She had grown up as a competitive alpine skier, earned a degree in engineering from Dartmouth College, and was transitioning to professional cycling full-time when her life was cut short.
She was known in the cycling community simply as “Mo.” In under three years of off-road racing, she became the most decorated female gravel cyclist in the United States, winning ten events in the 2022 season alone before she was killed.
Fellow riders and coaches described her as driven, warm, and once-in-a-generation talented. Cyclist Peter Stetina wrote after her death: “We were all watching her star ascend from this goofy side of our sport to the loftiest of heights. And we were all proud of her.”
Wilson’s murder drew national and international media attention. The case involved a 43-day international manhunt, an arrest in Costa Rica, a high-profile trial in Austin, and a civil lawsuit that concluded with a $15 million judgment against her killer.
Her family has since established the Moriah Wilson Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to youth cycling, outdoor recreation, and access to sport.
Moriah Wilson Age / Birthday
Moriah Wilson was born on May 18, 1996, in Littleton, New Hampshire. She was 25 years old at the time of her death on May 11, 2022, just one week before her 26th birthday.
Ethnicity and Nationality
Moriah Wilson was American. She grew up in Kirby, Vermont.
Moriah Wilson Early Life
Moriah was born on May 18, 1996, in Littleton, New Hampshire, to Karen (née Cronin) Wilson and Eric Wilson. She grew up in Kirby, Vermont, in a deeply athletic family. Both of her parents competed for the U.S. Ski Team.
Her father, Eric, was a professional alpine skier. Her aunt Laura was a Nordic skier who competed at the Olympic level. She had one sibling, a younger brother named Matthew.
Growing up in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, Moriah spent her childhood skiing in winter and mountain biking in summer. The trails around Burke Mountain shaped her early athletic instincts.
She attended Burke Town School and The Riverside School before enrolling at Burke Mountain Academy in 2010, graduating in 2014. At Burke Mountain Academy, she lettered in alpine skiing four times, soccer three times, and cycling twice.
She served as captain of the women’s soccer team during her senior year.
Moriah Wilson Height
Moriah Wilson’s height has not been publicly confirmed in verified sources. She had brown hair and captivating brown eyes.
Moriah Wilson Education
Wilson enrolled at Dartmouth College in 2014 and graduated in 2019 with a Bachelor of Engineering. She was a member of the women’s alpine ski racing team and a sister of Kappa Delta Epsilon sorority.
Her Dartmouth athletics profile noted that she also enjoyed cycling and playing piano. Dartmouth alpine ski coach John Dwyer later described her work ethic as something that “separated her from everyone else on the team.”
Her path to cycling grew out of hardship. She suffered two ACL injuries during her skiing career. The first came during her sophomore year at Burke Mountain Academy, when she was ranked third nationally in Giant Slalom for her age group.
The second came shortly after joining the Dartmouth ski team, effectively ending her aspirations of becoming an Olympic skier. Rather than stepping back from sport, she redirected her energy toward cycling.
Moriah Wilson Career
Early Cycling Career
After graduating from Dartmouth in 2019, Wilson moved to California and began working as a demand planner for Specialized Bicycles, a major cycling manufacturer in Morgan Hill.
That same summer, she took a three-week cycling trip through Europe and competed in her first gravel race, the Old Growth Classic in San Francisco in September 2019. She placed first in her age group and second overall.
She continued racing locally while working full-time at Specialized, building results and a reputation in the Northern California cycling scene.
Her early wins in the Grasshopper Adventure Series and other California events drew attention from the gravel community.
Breakout Season: 2021
Wilson’s 2021 season announced her as a major force in American off-road cycling. She placed ninth in her first attempt at the prestigious 200-mile Unbound Gravel race in Kansas.
She followed that with a second-place finish at the high-altitude Leadville Trail 100 MTB in Colorado. Wilson closed her season with a landmark victory at the inaugural Big Sugar Gravel race in Bentonville, Arkansas, in October 2021.
By the end of 2021, she was widely recognized as one of the most exciting young talents in the sport. Cycling media began calling her a potential future Olympian and a transformative figure for women’s gravel racing.
2022 Season: Dominant and Unfinished
Wilson entered 2022 at the top of the sport. She was enrolled in the inaugural Life Time Grand Prix, a prestigious series of six events that represented the most competitive off-road racing circuit in the United States.
She won the first event of the series, the Sea Otter Classic Fuego 80K XC, in April 2022. Shortly after, she won the Belgian Waffle Ride California in San Diego by more than 25 minutes. By May 2022, she had won 10 events in the calendar year.
She had recently submitted her resignation from Specialized to race full-time as a professional. Her last planned race before Unbound Gravel was the Gravel Locos 157-mile race in Hico, Texas.
She was considered one of the favorites to win the Gravel Locos race and was projected as the frontrunner in the Life Time Grand Prix series. She was killed four days before the event.
Moriah Wilson Death
On May 11, 2022, Wilson was found fatally shot in the Austin, Texas, home of her friend Caitlin Cash, where she had been staying ahead of the Gravel Locos race.
Cash returned home that evening to find Wilson bleeding and unresponsive on the bathroom floor. She called 911, but Wilson was pronounced dead at the scene after paramedics arrived. She had been shot three times.
Earlier that day, Wilson had gone swimming at Deep Eddy Municipal Pool in Austin with professional cyclist Colin Strickland, a friend she had briefly dated in the fall of 2021. Strickland had been in an on-again, off-again relationship with Austin yoga instructor Kaitlin Armstrong for approximately three years.
Investigators identified Armstrong as the prime suspect within days. Surveillance footage showed a dark-colored SUV matching Armstrong’s 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee near Cash’s apartment around the time of the shooting.
Shell casings found at the scene matched a 9mm handgun registered to Armstrong. Investigators also found that Armstrong had accessed Strickland’s email and Instagram accounts in the days before the murder and had used the fitness tracking app Strava to monitor Wilson’s location. GPS data later placed Armstrong’s Jeep on the street outside Cash’s home at the time of the shooting.
Police questioned Armstrong and released her. Within days, she sold her vehicle, traveled to Newark Liberty International Airport using her sister’s passport, and flew to Costa Rica.
Kaitlin Armstrong: The Manhunt and Arrest
The U.S. Marshals Service joined the search for Armstrong, and what followed was a 43-day international manhunt. Armstrong had changed her appearance in Costa Rica, spending more than $6,000 on a nose job and altering her hair color and style. She was living under an assumed identity in the coastal town of Santa Teresa.
U.S. Marshals located her by posting a job listing for a yoga instructor position in the area where they believed she was hiding. She was arrested on June 29, 2022, at a beachside hostel. She was extradited to the United States and charged with first-degree murder.
Armstrong made an additional attempt to escape custody on October 11, 2023, just three weeks before her trial began. She fled from officers during a medical appointment outside of jail but was caught within half a block.
Kaitlin Armstrong Trial and Conviction
Armstrong’s murder trial began on October 30, 2023, at the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center in Austin, Texas. The trial lasted nearly three weeks, with nearly 40 witnesses testifying. Armstrong chose not to testify in her own defense.
Prosecutors argued that Armstrong tracked Wilson’s movements and killed her in a jealous rage. The defense argued that the investigation had been conducted with tunnel vision and that no witness directly saw Armstrong commit the crime.
The jury deliberated for approximately two and a half hours before returning a guilty verdict on November 16, 2023. On November 17, following roughly three additional hours of deliberation during the penalty phase, the jury sentenced Armstrong to 90 years in prison. The jury also imposed a $10,000 fine.
Prosecutors had not sought the death penalty. Armstrong will be eligible for parole after serving at least 30 years, with a projected release date of July 3, 2112, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice records.
Armstrong is currently imprisoned at the Dr. Lane Murray Unit, a women’s prison in Gatesville, Texas.
Legal Aftermath
The Wilson family pursued additional legal action. In May 2024, Moriah’s parents, Karen and Eric Wilson, filed a civil wrongful death lawsuit against Kaitlin Armstrong.
A judge ruled in their favor in June 2024, awarding a total of $15 million: $5 million each to Karen and Eric Wilson for mental anguish and suffering, and $5 million in exemplary damages to deter similar conduct.
The family also filed a separate suit against Armstrong, her mother, her sister, and Colin Strickland alleging fraudulent transfer.
Armstrong appealed her criminal conviction. The Texas Third Court of Appeals denied the appeal in January 2026, upholding both the conviction and the 90-year sentence.
Moriah Wilson Legacy
The cycling community’s response to Wilson’s death was immediate and profound. The hashtag #RideLikeMo spread across social media.
Rebecca Rusch, a seven-time cycling world champion, wrote: “Moriah Wilson was all light and laughter. She was talented, intelligent, gentle, fast, focused, and graceful.”
In 2023, Moriah’s family established the Moriah Wilson Foundation. Her father Eric serves as president, her brother Matt as vice president, and her mother Karen sits on the board of directors. The foundation supports youth cycling, outdoor recreation, and community-building programs.
As of 2026, it has distributed $140,000 to various organizations. The foundation hosts an annual Ride for Mo, a 52-mile communal gravel ride through the roads around Burke Mountain in Vermont where Moriah grew up. The 2026 edition was held on May 9 in Lyndon, Vermont.
The Netflix Documentary
The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson premiered at the SXSW Film and TV Festival in Austin on March 12, 2026, and began streaming globally on Netflix on April 3, 2026.
Directed by Emmy-winning director Marina Zenovich and produced by Oscar-winning Free Solo producer Evan Hayes, the film focuses on Wilson’s life rather than the crime alone.
It features interviews with Karen, Eric, and Matthew Wilson, as well as friends, coaches, and fellow athletes. The documentary ranked in the top 10 most-watched films on Netflix within its first few days of release, according to Matthew Wilson.
The documentary was inspired by a 2022 feature story in Bicycling magazine bearing the same title, which was one of the first in-depth accounts of Wilson’s life and death.
Moriah Wilson Family
Moriah Wilson was the daughter of Karen and Eric Wilson of Kirby, Vermont. Both parents competed for the U.S. Ski Team.
Her brother Matthew Wilson has remained a visible advocate for his sister’s memory and serves as vice president of the Moriah Wilson Foundation. The family was described by all who knew them as close, supportive, and deeply connected to Moriah’s athletic journey.
Eric Wilson said outside the courthouse after the sentencing: “As a family, we believe justice has been served. There really are no winners here. This is not a time for celebration, but a time for prayer.”
Moriah Wilson Boyfriend
Professional cyclist Colin Strickland had a romantic relationship with Moriah Wilson in late 2021. They remained close friends, but Strickland’s partner, Kaitlin Armstrong, fatally shot Wilson out of romantic jealousy in May 2022.
Conclusion
Moriah Wilson built one of the most remarkable athletic careers in American cycling in just a few years, transitioning from elite alpine skiing to the top of the gravel racing world with a speed and grace that stunned the sport.
She was 25 years old, one week from her birthday, and days from what was expected to be another dominant performance when she was murdered.
Her killer was convicted and sentenced to 90 years in prison. Her family transformed unimaginable grief into the Moriah Wilson Foundation, a lasting tribute to the community she loved and the values she lived by.
Through the Netflix documentary, the annual Ride for Mo, and the work of the foundation, Mo Wilson’s light continues to reach people who never had the chance to meet her.