The Lululemon murder happened on March 11, 2011, inside a Lululemon store in Bethesda, Maryland. A store employee, Brittany Norwood, killed her coworker Jayna Troxel Murray.
What Was Found That Morning
On the morning of March 12, 2011, a manager arrived at the Lululemon store to open it. Right away, something felt wrong. The door was unlocked and clothes and items were scattered across the floor. Mannequins were knocked over and the store looked messy and disturbed.
As the manager stepped inside, she heard someone making moaning sounds coming from the back of the store. It scared her, so she asked a man who was standing outside to come in and help her check what was going on.
When they reached the back hallway, they found a horrifying scene. Jayna Murray was lying face down in a pool of blood. There was a ligature around her neck and she was clearly dead.
Nearby, Brittany Norwood was found in the bathroom. She appeared semi-conscious, with zip ties around her wrists and ankles. There was blood on her face. Bloody footprints were seen throughout the store. The manager immediately called 911.
“There’s two people in the back of my store. One person seems dead, and the other person is breathing.”
At first, Norwood told police she was also a victim. She said that after closing the store the night before, she realized she had forgotten her wallet. She claimed she called Jayna Murray and asked her to come back and let her inside. Alarm records showed the store door was unlocked at 10:05 p.m.
Norwood told investigators that once they were inside, two men wearing dark clothes and ski masks came in. She said the men attacked both women and sexually assaulted them. Because of this story, police first treated Norwood as a victim.
But as the investigation continued, things stopped adding up.
What Police Found Didn’t Match Her Story
Jayna Murray had been brutally attacked. She suffered at least 331 wounds made with at least five different weapons, including a knife and a hammer. Some of these tools may have come from a toolbox inside the store.
The violence was extreme and went on for a long time. Her head and face were badly bruised and covered in many cuts. The injury that caused her death was likely a stab wound to the back of her neck. That wound was so serious that it cut through her spinal cord and reached her brain.
Norwood’s injuries, however, were very minor. Investigators believed they looked self-inflicted. A forensic expert later testified that the blood on her face came from a cut on her forehead and had dripped straight down. This suggested she had been standing upright most of the night, not lying on the bathroom floor as she claimed.
Footprints also raised questions. Blood trails showed two sets of shoe prints: one from men’s size 14 Reebok sneakers and the other from Norwood’s own shoes. The strange part was that these tracks stopped before reaching any exit. That made it hard to believe strangers had escaped.
Police also found that there was no evidence that either woman had been sexually assaulted. Investigators learned that Norwood had cut a hole in Murray’s pants to make it look like an assault had happened.
More details came from the Apple Store next door. An employee and a manager said they heard loud noises coming through the shared wall that night. Surveillance video showed them standing near the wall while a security guard nearby listened to music on an iPod.
According to WJLA, At trial, the Apple employee said she heard two women arguing. One voice said, “Talk to me. Don’t do this. Talk to me. What’s going on?” Then she heard screams, sounds of hitting or dragging, and a weak voice saying, “God help me… please help me.”
The manager later said he thought the noise was “just drama” and did not call for help.
Police also found blood inside Jayna Murray’s car. Testing showed it was a mix of Murray’s blood and Norwood’s blood. The car was later found parked at a farmer’s market about three blocks away.
When police asked Norwood about the car, she admitted she had moved it. She claimed the masked men ordered her to do it and told her they would kill her if she did not return in ten minutes. She also said she saw a police officer while moving the car but never spoke to him.
This explanation raised more doubts.
Detective Dimitry Ruvin, who questioned Brittany Norwood several times, later said, “It’s just this little voice in the back of my head. Something’s just not right. The way Brittany’s describing these two guys — they’re racist, they’re rapists, they’re robbers, they’re murderers — it’s like the worst human being that you could possibly describe, right?”
What Really Happened That Night
As investigators looked deeper, a clearer picture formed. Earlier that evening, Murray and Norwood had checked each other’s bags before closing. This was a normal loss-prevention rule at Lululemon. During the check, Murray found a pair of pants in Norwood’s bag.
Murray called their manager after leaving the store to report it. The manager said she would handle the issue in the morning.
Soon after that, Norwood called Murray and said she had forgotten something. She asked Murray to come back and let her in. When Murray returned, she was attacked.
Police said Norwood assaulted her coworker, later moved Murray’s car, and then tried to stage the crime scene to look like a robbery. She put on men’s shoes to make bloody footprints, threw items like mops, chairs and a broom around the store and finally cut herself.
She tied her own wrists and ankles with zip ties to make it seem like she had been restrained.
It was a carefully staged scene but one that fell apart under investigation.
About a week after the killing, police arrested Brittany Norwood and charged her with first-degree murder. At trial, the evidence and testimony pointed clearly to her.
On January 27, 2012, Norwood was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. She is currently serving her sentence at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women.
