Famous Crime Scenes: The Lululemon Murder

This story contains graphic images.

The incident that is now known as the “Lululemon Murder” is one of the most famous crime scenes in recent memory, but it did not start out that way. What began with a brutal, yet straight forward story of an assault within an upscale yoga apparel store quickly unraveled into a disturbing story of lies, cover-ups, indifference, and intense violence.

Horror In Bethesda

A glimpse of the Lululemon Murder’s crime scene.

On a chilling March morning in 2011, an employee of the athletic clothing store Lululemon in the affluent city of Bethesda, MD (located in the Washington D.C. area) came in for work as usual. Upon arriving to the store, she came across a very unusual and gory circumstance. There were obvious smears, footprints, and traces of blood everywhere.

After hearing unsettling noises coming from the back of the store, she beckoned a man from outside to go in and investigate for her; what he found sent shivers through the spine of the two of them, as well as the entire city of Bethesda.

Amidst the smears and puddles of blood, the man found a female employee bound and wounded, yet alive. Nearby on the hallway floor was another woman, disfigured by hundreds of stab wounds and blunt force trauma; she was dead.

The living woman (Brittany Norwood) was rushed to the hospital, tearfully sharing the previous night’s events with the police and other investigators. She spoke of two masked men who forcibly followed her and her co-worker into the store as they were going back to retrieve a forgotten personal item after store hours.

Both women were brutally raped, beaten, and her co-worker Jayna Murray was murdered. Norwood then went into further detail, telling officials how she watched helplessly as Murray was dragged by her hair, beaten, and abused.

Local Effects

Needless to say, these events struck a great deal of fear in the heart of Bethesda; the upscale business district had not seen a violent homicide in decades, and the thought of such ruthless murderers on the loose began to have a negative effect on the local restaurants and stores. Surveillance jumped, and some people hired bodyguards while they were out shopping or going to and from work.

Detectives began a search for suspects, following several dead-end leads. A $150,000 reward was offered to anyone who could assist in capturing the two men. But as their search went on, and forensic studies began, a lot of what Norwood had reported to them began to seem less and less realistic.

The public was shocked when events within the investigation took a drastic turn and the supposedly traumatized victim, Norwood herself, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

What Really Happened

What really led to the horrific violence that Friday night, March 11th, may never be fully known. Some state that Murray had recently accused Norwood of stealing some clothing, which led to a heated argument that night.

Lululemon is known to a large portion of the public as a company that pushes peace and acceptance, but many who have worked there have a different view of it. While in no way an excuse for the events that transpired that night, some have speculated that a motive for Norwood’s actions was to stop Murray from notifying the company of her attempted theft.

The idea is that she knew that the allegedly toxic and repressive culture of the company would deal with the news of her stealing in a rash way, and the only way to stop this was to handle Murray herself.

During the trials after her arrest, Murray’s defense team claimed the attack was premeditated, while Norwood’s attorney insists that the violent incident was merely the result of the argument then and there. Whatever the case, Murray was the recipient of 331 wounds varying from stabs, to crushed bones, to deep-impact bruises and a severed spinal cord.

The attack was carried out with the store’s maintenance tools such as hammers, utility knives, and an array of other equipment. Examinations showed that Murray was most likely alive for nearly all of the assault.

Various tools used during the crime.

Fatal Indifference

As the attack went on, the employees of the next door Apple store heard some yelling and even screaming, but never considered that it was as serious as it turned out to truly be. The employees of the Apple store came under intense scrutiny when video surveillance was released from within the apple store, showing them standing near the wall closest to the Lululemon, listening to the noises coming from the store.

During the trial, one of the employees who was present at the time of the murder explained their reasoning for not checking on the situation or at the very least calling the police as believing all of the noise and yelling as “Just drama”. Judge Robert Greenberg described the behavior of the Apple employees as “Callous indifference”.

Among the noises of crashing and shouting, two phrases stood out in particular:

• “Talk to me. Don’t do this. Talk to me. What’s going on?”

Then, after some more screaming and time had passed:

• “God help me…please help me.”

Those are believed to be the final words of Jayna Murray.

Staging the Crime Scene

Following the crime, Norwood did her best to stage a “robbery gone bad”; she made bloody footprints with men’s shoes from the store (the shoes were later found by the police). She then inflicted a few minor scrapes and bruises on herself before tying herself up with some zip-ties in the bathroom. The bloody crime scene gave them all of the hints that they needed to indicate that something was very wrong with her story.

The final piece of evidence that investigators were able to confront Norwood with that led to the truth was blood in her vehicle. They asked her how it would have gotten there if she were really assaulted and tied up in the store. Thinking quickly, she said that the two men forced her to move her car during the attack. When asked why she didn’t take that opportunity to escape, she had no answer.

The Verdict

The Lululemon Murder has definitely found its place among the list of world famous crime scenes, and the verdict was as severe as the act. In January of 2012, after a series of trials, Judge Robert A. Greenberg sentenced Brittany Norwood to life in prison with no chance of parole.

And thus, the Lululemon Murder was closed, placing the murderer behind bars forever, and leaving the family and fiance of Jayna Murray to mourn over the death of their loved one.