As true crime documentaries rise in popularity, from murder mysteries like “Making a Murderer” and “The Keepers” to strange crime hits like “Killer Sally” and “Tiger King,” 2023’s court docket is set to be filled with more stories worthy of a true crime retelling.
Here is a list of the three of the biggest criminal trials to watch for this year:
Texas v. Kaitlin Armstrong
Kaitlin Armstrong is charged with fatally shooting professional cyclist Moriah Wilson over a love interest. Armstrong is alleged to have killed Wilson after suspecting she was romantically involved with Armstrong’s boyfriend, professional cyclist Colin Strickland.
Armstrong is accused of shooting Wilson after spending an evening with Strickland. Wilson was shot and found unconscious on May 11, 2022, in a friend’s apartment in Austin, Texas.
Wilson reportedly met Strickland during a break from his long-term relationship with Armstrong. According to an Austin Police Department affidavit, Armstrong was jealous of the relationship.
Armstrong famously fled the country this past summer when authorities found her in Costa Rica where she had changed her name and hair color.
Her trial is set for June 26.
South Carolina v. Alex Murdaugh
The infamous Murdaugh mystery has gained international attention for its stranger-than-fiction Southern gothic tale. Now disbarred South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh is accused of killing his wife and youngest son to cover up his financial crimes.
Prosecutors claim that Murdaugh, a heir to the legal dynasty in South Carolina Lowcountry, “was a drug addict who helped run a money laundering and painkiller ring and stole millions from settlements he secured from mostly poor clients to fund an increasingly unsustainable lifestyle,” according to the Lincoln Journal Star.
Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, who himself faced two felony counts of boating under the influence causing bodily harm, resulting in the 2019 death of his friend Mallory Beach, were found shot to death on June 7, 2021, on the family’s property.
Murdaugh is scheduled to stand trial on Jan. 23.
Florida v. Courtney Clenney
Courtney Clenney, a model who gained attention on the subscription site OnlyFans, has pleaded not guilty to killing her boyfriend Christian Obumseli on April 3, 2022.
Clenney said she acted in self-defense by stabbing Obumseli during an argument at their luxury Edgewater apartment where the murder occurred.
The chief medical examiner of Miami-Dade County, Dr. Kenneth D. Hutchins, testified in November that the cause of death was not a knife being thrown at Obumseli in self-defense but a close-contact stab wound.
“As a hypothetical, my opinion is, it was a stab wound,” he said when speaking on Obumseli’s matter of death. “But if you give me other information that the person is a knife thrower, and they throw knives and throw them into targets and whatnot, then maybe this could have been a knife that was thrown.”
In a cell phone clip obtained by Miami Fox affiliate WSVN, taken nearly one month before she allegedly killed Obumseli, Clenney can be heard telling him, “I’m actually [expletive] not having a good day where I actually, literally [expletive] want to kill you. But you don’t take me seriously.”
Clenney is set to go to trial later this year.
