Seven floors down from the courtroom where police officer Christopher Taylor’s murder trial has unfolded over the past nine days at the Thurman-Blackwell Courthouse, a scrum of TV reporters congealed outside a different courtroom hoping to catch a glimpse of a different criminal defendant, also on trial for murder.
They awaited Kaitlin Armstrong, whose murder trial began today, Nov. 1; she is suspected of killing cyclist Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson on May 11, 2022. It’s been dubbed a “love triangle” killing, as the initial police affidavit described Wilson going swimming with Armstrong’s boyfriend the day of her death. The case has drawn national media attention, with reporters from NBC and ESPN making their way to Austin’s “Lawyer District” where the Travis County criminal courthouse is located. The trial is being held in a large auxiliary courtroom on the first floor of the courthouse.
In his opening statement, prosecutor Rickey Jones said that a gun at Armstrong’s house matched shell casings at the scene of the murder and that the GPS system in Armstrong’s car placed her at the time of the murder near the East Austin house where Wilson died, the Statesman reported. Outlets across the country, including the New York Post and CNN, honed in on this quote from Jones: “The last thing Mo did on this earth was scream in terror.”
No such national attention has developed around the Taylor trial, over the fatal police shooting of Michael Ramos. It began Oct. 23 on the eighth floor of the same courthouse. It’s the most high-profile in a slew of trials over police violence which progressive D.A. José Garza promised to prioritize during his campaign for the top law enforcement role in the county. Austin’s local TV reporters have diligently attended and covered the trial daily, however. To read about Taylor’s uncle’s role on the APD unit tasked with investigating him, click here.
This article appears in October 27 • 2023.