Police witness: Kaitlin Armstrong's phone turned off hours before Mo Wilson killed

Kaitlin Armstrong’s iPhone 11 was turned off between 7:30 and 9:47 on the night that Anna Moriah "Mo" Wilson was killed, a prosecution witness testified Monday.

Armstrong is charged with murder in the fatal shooting of the 25-year-old professional cyclist around 9:15 p.m. May 11, 2022, in an East Austin garage apartment.

Austin police forensics specialist Daniel Portnoy resumed his testimony Monday about his examination of electronic devices seized for the murder investigation. He said Armstrong's iPhone 11 showed she had viewed pictures of a female bicyclist in May 2022. The pictures shown in court that he said she viewed were photos of Wilson.

Another photo in Armstrong's phone showed an individual at a shooting range, Portnoy said. He did not identify the person. A prosecutor later Monday showed in court a video of Armstrong practicing at a shooting range Jan. 12, 2022.

One of the text messages extracted from Armstrong's phone and shown in court Monday was from November 2021, during the time she and her boyfriend, Colin Strickland, had briefly split and he was dating Wilson.

Witnesses have testified that Armstrong had been angry at Wilson for dating Strickland and had talked about wanting to kill her. Portnoy said Armstrong sent a text message about Strickland to a friend while she and Strickland were not dating that referred to Wilson. "Today is his birthday and he's at home with a 24-year-old who may or may not have moved to Austin," said the message shown in court.

Portnoy said he was not able to extract information from a Mac laptop owned by Armstrong or a laptop owned by Wilson because they were both encrypted and he didn’t have the passwords.

He also was not able to extract information from an iPhone SE owned by Armstrong because it had undergone a factory reset, he said. When a phone has a factory reset, it loses all its data. The reset can be done by the user of the phone. Police previously have said the iPhone that Armstrong had was seized in Costa Rica after she fled there.

When defense lawyer Jeremy Sylestine cross-examined Portnoy on Monday, he asked if Portnoy could determine whether Armstrong turned off her phone at 7:30 p.m. May 11, 2022, or if her phone turned off because its battery had been drained. Portnoy said he could not determine that.

Sylestine also questioned the GPS data that Portnoy presented last week from the infotainment system in Armstrong's Jeep. Portnoy testified that the GPS data showed the vehicle parked near the home where Wilson was staying about 30 minutes before she was killed. The GPS data also showed Armstrong's Jeep leaving the area a few minutes after Wilson was shot.

Sylestine suggested the GPS data could be wrong.

"Sometimes if you are driving, GPS may show you in a place where you are not," he said. "In Austin there are concerns because we have tall buildings and trees that can create issues for these types of devices."

Portnoy said GPS data isn't perfect.

Prosecutor Jean Sullivan later said the travel industry and the U.S. government also rely on the satellites GPS systems use. She said to Portnoy, "You say that GPS isn't a perfect system, but isn't it largely a reliable system?"

"Yes," said Portnoy. "Especially if there's a lot of data points."

The GPS data he presented from Armstrong's car Thursday showed the entire route the vehicle traveled before and after it was tracked going to the crime scene.

Sylestine said the GPS data that Portnoy originally was able to pull from Armstrong's Jeep initially had the wrong date on it for some of the driving record. It showed the year as 2002 instead of 2022.

Portnoy said that was because of a defect in the GPS system called the "GPS rollover" that happens every 19.7 years when GPS satellite systems roll back 19.7 years and start recounting. Sullivan said Armstrong had a 2012 Jeep Cherokee, so it could not have possibly recorded trips in 2002.

Sylestine also asked Portnoy: "Nothing you have testified to today or last week tells us that Kaitlin Armstrong was driving that Jeep on May 11, 2022?"

Portnoy said his investigation had only focused on devices.

Another witness, Jill Zann, testified Monday that she lived in the same building as Armstrong's sister, Christie Armstrong, and that's how she met Kaitlin Armstrong. Zann said she taught Kaitlin Armstrong and Christie Armstrong gun safety rules at her apartment because an ex-boyfriend had taught her how to shoot.

She said that at that time Kaitlin Armstrong seemed "sweet, calm and friendly."

Zann said she and the Armstrong sisters all went to a shooting range "for fun" on Jan. 12, 2022, to practice." Zann said Kaitlin Armstrong seemed "focused in a normal way" when firing at the range.

"Like a person at a gun range and not like someone planning a murder?" defense attorney Rick Cofer asked.

"I wouldn't be able to say," Zann said.

More: Murder trial for Kaitlin Armstrong, charged in death of Mo Wilson, to resume Monday

Wilson was a star in the cycling world of gravel racing. Strickland was a professional cyclist at the time Wilson died. They initially met at a race in September 2021, Strickland has said.

Armstrong and Strickland were living together and dating again in May 2022 when Wilson visited Austin from San Francisco to prepare for a bicycle race. Strickland and Wilson went out to swim and eat on the day she was killed, Strickland has testified. Police have said he dropped her off on his motorcycle at the home where she was staying and went back to his South Austin house. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the case.

More: Austin police detective: Kaitlin Armstrong's demeanor was suspicious during interview

Videos from neighbors' cameras have shown a black SUV resembling Armstrong's vehicle in the area at the time before Wilson was killed.

Police have said Armstrong fled to Costa Rica on May 18, 2022, using her sister's passport. Police arrested her on June 29, 2022, at a hostel in the Central American country.

Armstrong had more than $6,000 of plastic surgery on her face in Costa Rica, a prosecutor has said.

Defense attorneys have said that no one ever saw Armstrong with Wilson. They also have said that no one saw anyone inside the Black SUV in the neighbors' videos. Defense attorneys have questioned why police didn't test evidence gathered to determine whether Wilson had been sexually assaulted.

Police also never did a forensic examination of Strickland's laptop, defense attorneys have said.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Witness: Kaitlin Armstrong's phone turned off before Mo Wilson killed