Allen Lim, Caitlin Cash, Colin Strickland, documentaries, Eric Wilson, film festivals, Guillermo Gonzales, Gunnar Shaw, Ian Dille, Kate Quay, Katy Conner, Kimmi Bolsinger, Libby Caldwell, Marina Zenovich, Matt Wilson, Moriah Wilson, movies, Netflix, Olivia Sinnott, Pamela Mazak, reviews, Richard Spitler, Rickey Jones, SXSW, SXSW Film and TV Festival, SXSW Film Festival, The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson, true crime, Virginia Brown
April 2, 2026
by Carla Hay
“The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson”
Directed by Marina Zenovich
Culture Representation: The true crime documentary film “The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson” features a predominantly white group of people (with one African American, one Latin person and one Asian person) talking about the 2022 murder of Anna Moriah “Mo” Wilson, a 25-year-old professional gravel cyclist, who was shot to death in the home of a friend whom she was visiting in Austin, Texas.
Culture Clash: Wilson was murdered by yoga instructor Kaitlin Armstrong, who was 34 at the time and had an on-again/off-again relationship with another cyclist whom Wilson had recently begun casually dating.
Culture Audience: “The Truth and Tragedy of Morial Wilson” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in true crime documentaries about love triangles that turn deadly.
“The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson” is a heart-wrenching movie about the dark side of love triangles and about a life that was cruelly cut short. This true crime documentary effectively balances journalistic reporting of the murder of cyclist Moriah Wilson with a compassionate story of who she was and the genuinely positive impact she had on others. What makes this documentary better than the average true crime documentary about a murder case is how the documentary has meaningful room for the murder victims’ loved ones to give their perspectives without being exploitative. “The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson” is also skillfully edited in a way to make the story clear and compelling.
Directed by Marina Zenovich, “The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson” had its world premiere at the 2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival. (Kudos to the documentary’s filmmakers for not choosing a predictable title such as “The Murder of Moriah Wilson.”) The SXSW Festival takes place in Austin, Texas, the city where Wilson’s life came to a tragic end on May 11, 2022. Wilson was murdered by a woman who was a jealous rival in a love triangle.
Because this murder case received an enormous amount of publicity in the United States and elsewhere, the outcome of this murder case will already be known to many viewers. However, “The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson” is the first documentary to have extensive interviews with many of the people who were close to Wilson, as well as the law enforcement officials who brought the killer to justice. The documentary has a “whodunit” format for viewers who don’t know anything about this case.
“The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson” begins with home video footage of Wilson as a an 8-week-old infant and other videos from her childhood. Anna Moriah Wilson was born on May 18, 1996, in Littleton, New Hampshire. She grew up in Kirkby, Vermont. Most people called her Moriah or her nickname Mo. After graduating from Dartmouth College, she lived in California. She had a career on the rise as a professional gravel cyclist.
Her mother Karen Wilson, her father Eric Wilson and her younger brother Matt Wilson are interviewed in the documentary. Her parents describe Moriah as friendly, thoughtful, athletic and very focused on her goals. Her ex-boyfriend Gunnar Shaw, who dated Moriah during and after she was a student at Dartmouth, says she was a “consummate introvert” who was confident but not arrogant.
From an early age, Moriah had a passion for sports and dreamed of becoming an Olympian. At first, she set her sights on becoming a skier. However, injuries ended her skiing career. She discovered gravel cycling and excelled in the sport. Moriah quickly became a champion racer. She became so caught up in her cycling career, Shaw says it led to the demise of their relationship because she told him that she didn’t love anything more than cycling at that that time in her life.
It was through her career as a cyclist that Moriah met an Austin-based gravel cyclist named Colin Strickland. Strickland (who was born on November 7, 1986) was 35 years old at the time of the murder. Moriah told friends that she had a crush on Strickland, who had a complicated love life. He was living with a yoga instructor named Kaitlin Armstong and was running a trailer sales business with her called Spartan Trailer, but Strickland and Armstrong had a volatile on-again/off-again relationship. Armstrong (who was born on December 12, 1987) was 34 years old at the time of Moriah’s murder.
Moriah knew about Armstrong, but the status of Strickland’s relationship with Armstrong was constantly changing, which was confusing for Moriah. Strickland later told a journalist acquaintaince named Ian Dille that Strickland was attracted to Moriah too. The documentary includes excerpts of Dille’s interviews with Strickland. By all accounts, Moriah and Strickland’s relationship did not turn sexual or romantic in any way. The documentary includes police interview footage with Strickland where he said he and Moriah never even kissed each other.
Strickland was also a champion cylist, but his professional cycling career was winding down just as Moriah’s was beginning. On May 11, 2022, Moriah was visiting in Austin for about a week because she was set to compete in the Gravel Locos race. During her visit, Moriah stayed at with her close friend Caitlin Cash, who had a rental apartment in Austin. Cash was also a cyclist who had been in races with Moriah in the past, but Cash wasn’t pursuing a long-term career as a cyclist in the way that Moriah was.
On the night of May 11, 2022, Cash was out having dinner with friends. Moriah had told Cash that Moriah and Strickland had plans to meet up to go swimming at Deep Eddy Pool and then have dinner together. At the time, Moriah was told that Strickland and Armstrong had broken up. However, Strickland and Armstrong were still living together. It’s unclear in the documentary if Moriah knew that Strickland and Armstrong were still living in the same house at the time that Moriah met up with Strickland that day.
The documentary includes the 911 emergency call that Cash made when she came home shortly before 10 p.m. and found Moriah dead. Cash, who is interviewed in the documentary, gives an emotional retelling of how she followed the 911 operator’s instructions to do chest compressions on Mariah. Cash says she was in so much shock and denial that Moriah was no longer alive, she couldn’t understand (until a police officer at the scene told her) why Moriah wasn’t being taken to a hospital.
The story that unfolds is one of an innocent and unsuspecting person who had no idea that her casual and platonic dates with a colleague would lead to her murder. Strickland had offered to help Moriah get sponsors for her cycling, which is one of the reasons why she was interested in meeting up with him. Maude Farrell and Libby Caldwell, two gravel racers who also knew Strickland, describe him in the documentary as someone with a reputation for manipulating women.
Caldwell adds that Strickland often acted like he didn’t have a girlfriend because she doesn’t remember him talking about Armstrong, who wasn’t regularly seen at Strickland’s races. Ian Dille, a cycling journalist who interviewed Strickland multiple times, says that Strickland had the type of relationship with Armstrong where she could be standing next to Strickland, and you’d have no idea that she was his girlfriend.
When the murder investigation started, Strickland became the prime suspect because he was the last known person to have seen Moriah alive on the night that she was murdered. He said the last time he saw Moriah was when he dropped her off at Cash’s apartment building at about 8:30 p.m., and he didn’t go inside the building. He admitted that he owned a SIG Sauer P365 (a 9mm handgun) that used the same bullets that were found in Moriah’s murdered body. She had been shot twice in the chest and once in the head. However, through diligent police work, various video surveillance footage was uncovered that exonerated Strickland and made Armstrong the prime suspect.
Other people interviewed in the documentary are Austin Police Department detective Richard Spitler, who interviewed Strickland during the investigation; Austin Police Department sergeant, who interviewed Armstrong; criminal intelligence analyst Pamela Mazak; Kimmi Bolsinger, who was Moriah’s roommate at the time Moriah died; cycling coach/sports scientist Allen Lim; Virginia Brown, a friend of Strickland and Armstrong; Kate Quay, Morian’s specialized manager; Rickey Jones, the second assistant district attorney in the case; and Guillermo González director of trial court division of the Travis County District Attorney office.
The documentary has a brief interview with Strickland toward the end (he does the interview while tinkering in his garage), but he doesn’t say much except how he feels guilt and regret about everything that happened. During part of the interview, he cradles a pet Dachshund, which he seems to have as a support animal. It’s the same dog that he carried to court when he testified in Armstrong’s trial. It’s unknown why the interview with Strickland is so limited, considering he is a big part of this murder case.
Throughout the documentary, there are text messages and journal entries from Moriah that give further insight into her personality, which show that she was a very kind and empathetic person. The journal entries are read as voiceover narration by actress Olivia Sinnott. The documentary also has archival footage of Moriah and some non-verbal re-enactment footage that get minimal screen time so as not to distract from the main story. However, the most vivid descriptions of Moriah come from the people who knew her best.
Armstrong proved to be a very difficult defendant and did several things to avoid punishment. The details won’t be recounted in this review because the information has already gotten a lot of publicity and is also covered in the documentary. In 2023, Armstrong went on trial. She was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to 90 years in prison, with the possibility of parole. “The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson” might be too unsettling for some viewers because of how and why Moriah was murdered. However, this documentary is a worthy tribute to her and stands as a testament that her untimely death does not erase the magnitude of how she affected other people.
Netflix will premiere “The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson” on April 3, 2026.