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Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. When you hear the name Lululemon, most of us think about the high-end activewear brand that has pretty much become a staple in the fitness community. After what happened on the night of March 11, 2011, you probably think about Lululemon in a much different way.
On the morning of March 12, 2011, the opening employee to the Lululemon store in Bethesda, Maryland, walked into a bloodbath. Right there inside of the store, two of her very own coworkers were found bound and gagged. One of the employees, 30-year-old Jaina Murray, had been stabbed over 330 times.
Her co-worker, Brittany Norwood, was somehow able to survive the attack. But in the days following the murder, something about Brittany's story, about what really happened during that closing shift, just didn't add up. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 60, The Lululemon Murder. ♪♪
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell.
Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast that covers real, bone-chilling true crime stories with a forensic science twist. Some of the cases have been solved by a little help of forensic science, while others have turned cold. The stories we cover each week send a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
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Hey everyone, thank you so much for listening to episode number 60 of Forensic Tales. Don't forget, if you'd like to listen to this episode ad-free, as well as get some other cool perks like bonus content and just to help support the show, head over to our Patreon page. You can support and get these perks of the show for as little as a dollar a month. Now, the case we're talking about this week is most famously known as the Lululemon murder.
Almost everything about this case is absolutely bone-chilling. The more you learn about this story, the less surprising it becomes as to why it became a media sensation, from the sheer brutality of the murder to the motive and because of the person who was behind it all.
When the story first broke, it checked all of the boxes for a media sensation. Female victims, two crazed killers on the loose, and a mystery that would slowly unravel to an ending that nobody saw coming. It's also a case that proves anyone is capable of becoming a murderer.
The case takes place back in March 2011 in the city of Bethesda, Maryland, which is an unincorporated part of the Washington, D.C. area. It was a place known for being the home of medical powerhouses like the National Institute of Health and the National Naval Medical Center.
But after March 12, 2011, it became known as the place where one of the most brutal murders this part of Montgomery County has ever seen. Everything was turned completely upside down on the chilly morning of March 12, 2011, when a 911 call was placed from inside of a Lululemon athletic store. Just in case you've never heard of the brand,
Lululemon, also sometimes called Lulu for short, is a high-end activewear brand. Now, when I say high-end, a typical pair of Lululemon leggings will probably cost you around $100, sometimes more, which to some of you listening sounds completely crazy and probably just hearing that price tag gave you a minor heart attack.
while others are completely okay with spending that kind of money on workout clothes. Lululemon is definitely one of the most pricey brands when it comes to athletic wear. So to be dressed in a pair of Lulu leggings is kind of a status symbol. And to be an employee of Lululemon is definitely a status symbol, at least in the world of high-end retail.
So on the morning of March 12, 2011, the opening employee of Lululemon arrived at the store to open up for the day. If you've ever worked in retail, you know it's common for one, maybe two employees, typically what you'd call your key holders, to come in early and basically help get the store ready for that day's opening.
This is maybe done an hour or two before the store actually opens to let customers inside. So this employee who was assigned to open the store that day arrived just a few minutes after 8 o'clock a.m. She opened up the front door of the store and made her way to the register to clock in for her shift, just like she did every other shift. Only, this wouldn't be just like every other shift.
After the employee got inside of the store, the first thing she saw was blood. Blood was everywhere. Blood covered the floor. Blood was smeared across the walls. Traces of blood was everywhere throughout the store. And the blood got thicker as she made her way down the back hallway to the back room. But it wasn't just the blood that this employee noticed.
As she got farther into the store, the employee could hear noises. She heard sounds coming from the back part of the store. Now, this employee must have listened to one too many true crime podcasts because this employee decided she's not going to go investigate this alone. So she headed back out to the front door and grabbed just a random passerby to go back in with her.
This was just a guy who was simply walking down the sidewalk out front of the Lululemon store. So her and this stranger from the street went back into the store and headed in the direction of where those noises were coming from. And once they got to the very back of the store, they learned where those noises were coming from.
They discovered a female employee who had been gagged and with her hands had been bound behind her head. Even though the victim had clearly suffered some sort of attack, she was alive. Not too far from the first employee, they found another female laying on the floor, completely covered in blood.
This second female victim had hundreds of stab wounds across her entire body. And this victim was dead. The opening employee and the man from the street called 911 at 8.12 a.m. And the Montgomery County Police arrived at the Lululemon store within just minutes.
The call came in that the employee who was opening the store discovered two female victims inside of the store. One was dead and the other was miraculously still alive. Both female victims were identified as 28-year-old Brittany Norwood and 30-year-old Jaina Murray.
Both Brittany and Jaina were employees at Lululemon, and both were assigned to the closing shift the night before. Brittany, the surviving employee who was found bound and gagged, was immediately rushed to the nearby hospital. But her co-worker, Jaina Murray, wasn't as lucky. Jaina was pronounced dead right there inside of the store.
Montgomery County police quickly wanted to speak with Brittany as soon as they possibly could. Brittany survived the attack and was probably the only possible eyewitness to what happened. They thought she'd be the key in figuring out what exactly happened here. It appeared to first responders that this was probably a robbery gone bad, a robbery turned assault-slash-homicide.
You've got two female employees who were likely closing for the night and the offender or offenders got inside of the store thinking that they were just going to rob the girls. Things escalated. One employee ends up brutally attacked and the other one ends up dead. It seems like this was pretty much an open and shut type case, right?
And when investigators got to the hospital to talk to Brittany, the surviving employee, well, she pretty much confirmed police's suspicion right off the bat. Brittany told detectives that the night before, her and Jaina, her coworker, worked together on the closing shift. She said they closed and locked up the store, just like you do every night, and that they were going to be there the next day.
but quickly realized that they needed to go back in. And that's because Brittany realized she forgot her wallet back inside the store. And as the girls are going back into the store together, two men wearing ski masks forcefully make their way back inside with them. Once inside, the two masked men reportedly raped and beat both of the girls.
Brittany somehow survived the beating, but her co-worker, Jaina, was killed. Brittany provided detectives with a lot of details about the attack. She told police about how she watched as these two men dragged her co-worker by the hair. How she watched as Jaina was raped and beaten to death.
News about the Lululemon murder, as it now became known in the media, created shockwaves felt around the entire state, especially after some of the details about the attack were leaked. Details about Jaina's murder and the attack on Brittany spread like wildfire, and it completely rocked the community.
This murder happened in an upscale business district that hadn't encountered a crime like this in decades. And it was also shocking that something like this could happen inside of a Lululemon store, a store that hosts weekly yoga classes. Now, information about Jaina and Brittany's injuries were also leaked by the media, which kind of started this mass hysteria in the area.
People were really worried that these two crazed murderers were now on the loose. So businesses in the area started to set up additional surveillance cameras. Some even hired additional security guards for their stores. And the rich people who shopped these stores even brought bodyguards with them to now go shopping.
This was happening because people really started to learn about what happened to these two poor girls, especially what happened to Jaina. Jaina had over 330 separate injuries to her body, 331 to be exact. The number of stab and puncture wounds to her skull and head were almost too many for the medical examiner to even count.
She suffered from stab wounds across her entire body. Her skull was fractured. Some of her bones had been crushed. Even her spinal cord had been severely severed by a wound that extended through her neck. And what was even more disturbing about Jaina's injuries was that of the 331 separate wounds to her body, the wounds appeared to have been inflicted by more than one weapon.
And actually, it appeared that her killer used at least five different types of weapons during the attack. And based on the medical examiner's findings at her autopsy, it's believed that Jaina was most likely alive for almost every single injury. Now, the injuries to Brittany were vastly different than Jaina's, which is certainly something that started to raise some antennas here.
Initially, it seemed like the two men who she said followed the girls back inside the store that night, they seemed to have taken it, quote, easy on her compared to Jaina. Brittany's injuries from the attack were described as being more superficial. Definitely nothing life-threatening here.
And when she got to the hospital, she only had some relatively minor, and I say relatively minor, of course, in comparison to Jaina's wounds, across her face and on her hands. And also, her pants had been slit at her crotch, which, of course, is a possible sign of rape.
Now, during the first interview or first discussion with police, Brittany indicated to detectives early on that the two men had sexually assaulted both her and Jaina. But once a rape kit was performed on both her and Jaina, pieces of Brittany's story about what really happened that night started to fall apart.
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Subscribe and listen to the Writer Wrong Podcast today. That's Writer, W-R-I-T-E-R, Wrong Podcast. Also available at writerwrongpodcast.com. Both Brittany and Jaina had rape kits done, and both tests came back negative for sexual assault.
They found nothing to suggest that either girl had been sexually assaulted that night, like Brittany had said. This was the first big indication to detectives that something about Brittany's story to police just isn't adding up here. And it wasn't just the negative results on the rape kits themselves.
Forensic evidence discovered inside of the Lululemon store also suggested that something else may have happened that night. Something other than two men breaking in and assaulting the girls like everyone had thought. The first couple days after Jaina's murder and attack on Brittany, detectives were busy searching the Lululemon store for any possible forensic evidence.
While they searched for clues, Montgomery County Police offered a $150,000 reward for any information to try and help capture these two men. The public was desperate. They wanted answers. They wanted whoever was responsible for this vicious attack to be arrested. But back inside of the store, investigators were taking a closer look at the forensic evidence.
And the closer they looked at the evidence, Brittany's story started becoming less and less realistic. Her story just wasn't matching the forensic evidence. Near Jaina's body, investigators found a red toolbox and a hammer that appeared to have been placed or dumped after some sort of attack already took place.
That's because blood was found underneath the red toolbox and hammer, suggesting it had been placed on top of the blood. Blood spatter patterns on the hallway that led back to the store's back room suggested that Jaina had been repeatedly struck before falling to the ground in the hallway. This meant that she was likely trying to run away from her attacker.
And the blood spatter also showed that the back hallway is where most of the attack took place. The blood's patterns were also very consistent with the findings that very strong force was used to deliver every blow to Jaina's body. Investigators recovered two sets of footprints in the blood found in the back hallway where it appeared the majority of the attacks took place.
They discovered that one footprint belonged to Brittany because it matched the bottom of the shoes she was wearing that night. But the other footprint didn't match either Brittany or Jaina. This meant that the shoe and footprint had to belong to Jaina's killer. The footprint was identified as a men's size 14 shoe. But when it came time for investigators to find out whose shoe left that footprint in the blood,
Well, it didn't take investigators very long. Because by the time investigators got done searching the entire store, they found a pair of men's size 14 shoes that appeared to be a match. The shoes were simply just a pair of Lululemon shoes on sale, where one of the shoes was the display shoe right there in the store.
When the display shoe was tested and then later on compared to the footprint left in the blood, it was an exact match. That men's size 14 shoe serving as a shoe display was the same shoe print found on top of the blood. This discovery led detectives to one conclusion, that the footprint was staged.
The men's size 14 footprint in blood obviously appeared to detectives to be staged. They believed that whoever was responsible for Jaina's murder took a shoe off one of the store's displays and then simply just smeared it across the floor, kind of making it appear as though that it came from one of the killers.
Now, detectives knew that the only other person inside of the store that night who could have staged the footprint and then put the shoe back was Brittany. The shadow of suspicion hanging over Brittany's head grew even bigger when investigators conducted a forensic search on her co-worker, Jaina's car. Now, if you thought she was lying before, no.
The search of Jaina's car was like the nail in the coffin. Sometime after or during the attack, Jaina's car had been moved. It wasn't found parked where she typically parked it for work. But it wasn't just where her car was parked that raised some eyebrows. It was what was found inside.
That's because inside Jaina's car, detectives recovered blood and a considerable amount of it. When the blood was tested, the DNA was a match to Brittany. It was Brittany's blood found inside of Jaina's car. Investigators sat down with Brittany several times over the days following the attack.
And when detectives confronted her about finding her DNA and finding her blood inside of Jaina's car, well, she had an explanation. She told detectives that during the attack, the two men instructed her to leave the store while they waited inside with Jaina and to go out and move her car.
The men supposedly told her, hey, go move her car, and if you're not back within 10 minutes, we're going to kill you. Now, we're all thinking the same thing here. If this really happened as Brittany is saying that it did, well, number one, why didn't she drive away in the car and go get help? Number two, why did they even want her to move the car in the first place?
Just like pretty much every other part of her story, nothing about moving Jaina's car made much sense here. And nothing in the way of forensic evidence from the crime scene or the medical findings seemed to back up Brittany's story either. Investigators just couldn't find any evidence that these two men really even existed. From the blood spatter evidence in the hallway...
The men's size 14 footprint that was clearly staged using a display shoe. Brittany's DNA and blood found inside of Jaina's car. And then, of course, we have the rape kit findings that proved neither girl had been sexually assaulted, as Brittany claimed.
Now, there's one final thing that investigators studied that continued to lead them in the direction of believing Brittany was actually the prime suspect here. And that was the murder weapons. I mentioned earlier when we talked about the over 330 injuries found on Jaina's body. And I mentioned that the medical examiner who performed the autopsy said
They had believed that there were more than five possible murder weapons. Well, it turned out all the weapons used to murder Jaina were all found inside of the store. Consistent with the autopsy findings, investigators recovered many items from inside the store that they believed were used to murder Jaina. Items they believed Brittany used.
They found a hammer, a knife, a wrench, and even a metal peg used to hold up a mannequin. All items containing Jaina's DNA. By this point, investigators felt pretty confident that Brittany was lying. She's a big fat liar. That she made the entire story up about two men. They were even confident that Brittany was actually Jaina's killer.
But before even making an arrest, investigators did one last thing to confirm what was already backed up by both the forensic and medical evidence. And that is they went and spoke to a couple employees who worked the closing shift at the Apple store right next door to Lululemon.
And when they talked to the Apple Store employees, the employees told investigators that on the night of Jaina's murder, they heard the voices of two females arguing. They said they even heard a woman screaming. But when police asked the employees, well, why didn't you call 911? Why didn't you call police when you heard screaming?
The Apple employees simply chalked it up to, quote, thinking it was just two females arguing. Just female drama. Now, if you think that's callous behavior on behalf of the Apple Store employees who clearly heard something going on, well, just wait until we get to the trial. So on March 18th, this is just six days after the murder, Brittany Norwood was arrested.
the victim-turned-prime suspect in Jaina's murder was now being charged with first-degree murder. After just a six-day investigation, police and prosecutors had gathered a mountain of not only forensic evidence refuting Brittany's story, but they also believed they uncovered the motive. When police spoke with many of Brittany and Jaina's co-workers,
They shared with police what they believed was the motive to murder. According to other employees of Lululemon, just days before Jaina's murder, there was a rumor going around the store that Brittany was stealing from the store. The rumor was that Brittany was taking clothes with her inside her purse at the end of her shift.
Brittany and Jaina's co-workers knew that Jaina had just recently confronted Brittany and basically accused her of stealing clothes from the store. Now, I know you're wondering, is being accused of stealing some clothes from your job really motive to first-degree murder? Let's keep in mind, Jaina had been stabbed 331 times over the course of 20 minutes.
That's not just first-degree murder. That's a savage and vicious murder for anyone to commit. Here's where I think we need to talk a little bit about the culture surrounding Lululemon and why some aren't surprised this incident led to murder. Working at a Lululemon store isn't like working for your typical retail store. It's highly competitive. It's one of the highest-end brands for activewear.
Working for Lululemon has been described by many as like being a part of a cult. Lululemon has been widely criticized about their business ethics over the years. From the 2005 allegation that the company was using child labor and sweatshops to produce some of their products.
to the 2006 controversy surrounding their Vita-C, which was basically apparel which claimed was made from seaweed fiber with the power to reduce stress and also produce other medical benefits, which was later on uncovered by the New York Times to be a lie.
And even recently, when their CEO resigned from the company for allegedly engaging in an inappropriate romantic affair with someone else within the company. Now, of course, all major companies have their fair share of controversies. I would even venture to say that the bigger the company, the more controversies they're likely to have over the years.
But the culture that's been created with Lululemon is unique and has gained that, quote, cult-like status that trickles down to their frontline workers. It's become a brand known to represent a higher class customer who's willing to spend hundreds upon thousands of dollars to wear the brand. They're a company who refers to their employees as educators.
Educators about this whole new lifestyle that their customers are about to embark on. They've been accused of creating a culture within their store where their employees are basically trained to only act welcoming to their, quote, target customers. That those who look or act a certain way. And to them, that, quote, target customer is someone who they call Ocean, right?
Ocean is someone who does yoga every day, makes over $100,000 a year, and dates a triathlete by the name of Mountain. So I think you get the idea. Now, full disclosure, I have nothing against the Lululemon brand. I don't necessarily agree with some of their business decisions or their business philosophies. It doesn't mean I'm not a customer.
But I think the biggest takeaway is recognizing the culture here, the cult-like culture this company has created within its stores, and how one of their very own employees could be driven to murder after being accused of stealing some leggings. So when other employees of the same store found out that Brittany was arrested in Jaina's murder, nobody was too surprised.
Many people even speculated that even though Lululemon is a brand that holds weekly yoga sessions within some of their stores and is a brand that pushes ideas like acceptance, love, and peace,
These people believed that the motive behind Brittany's actions was to prevent Jaina from telling management and telling the company about her stealing, which of course would result in her immediate termination and her exile from this elite retail position. At her trial, the prosecution laid out the entire case for the jury.
According to them, the motive for Brittany to murder Jaina was because she had confronted her about stealing from the store. Brittany was worried that Jaina was going to report her to management, to corporate, and she would lose her prestigious job of working for Lululemon. So in order to not let that happen, she needed to kill her. According to the prosecution's story, this is what really happened that night.
Brittany and Jaina were the two employees assigned that night to close. And after the girls locked up for the night, Brittany then pretended to have left her wallet inside the store, which lured Jaina back inside. And once they got back inside, they headed towards the back room, still pretending to go back for the wallet. In the hallway leading to the store's back room, that's where Brittany began attacking Jaina,
She began stabbing her over and over again. She used whatever she could get her hands on. A hammer, a wrench, a knife, and even that metal peg from one of the store's mannequins. During the attack, Brittany inflicted 331 stab wounds to Jaina's body. And based on the medical examiner's findings, she was alive for nearly all of them.
When the Apple Store employees, who worked right next door to Lululemon, took the stand to testify to what they heard that night, an employee said he heard a woman saying, Talk to me. Don't do this. Talk to me. What's going on? Then after some more screaming, they heard, God help me. Please help me. Which was likely Jaina's last words before she was murdered. And sadly, no.
Nobody who worked at the Apple store even thought to call the police. After Brittany realized Jaina was dead, she then went on to stage the entire thing to make it look like two men attacked them. She grabbed that men's size 14 shoe from the display rack and tracked it across the bloody floor. And for a reason we may never understand,
She then left the store in order to move Jaina's car, which later on, when confronted about the car, she'd say that the two men told her to move it. She then returned back inside the store to finish staging the crime. She inflicted a couple superficial wounds to herself, slit a hole in the crotch of her pants, and then tied herself up. She then waited for hours.
She waited and sat next to her dead co-worker all night until the opening employee showed up. The prosecution concluded by telling the jury that the entire thing was made up, that Brittany made up a story and staged everything. There was no break-in. There was no sexual assault on either girl. There was no one else responsible for Jaina's murder but Brittany. And to the prosecution, no.
That's completely backed up by both the forensic and medical evidence. In January 2012, Brittany Norwood was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.
The judge in her case showed absolutely no mercy on Brittany. And even at her sentencing was quoted as saying, You will live. There'll be Christmases. There'll be telephone calls. There'll be visits. The only visits Jaina Murray will have are those to her grave. In the aftermath, the Lululemon murder was closed. But...
Just because it's closed doesn't mean that this story will soon be forgotten. It will always be remembered as one of the most brutal murders Bethesda Maryland has ever seen. Following her death, Jaina left behind a family. She left behind a fiancé.
She was stabbed 331 times and murdered because her co-worker was afraid she was going to tell her managers that she was stealing clothes. Jaina Murray was just 30 years old. To share your thoughts on the Lululemon murder, make sure you follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at Forensic Tales.
You can also let us know what you think about the show on our website, ForensicTales.com. Also, if you want to check out photos from the Lululemon murder, stop by our website. If you love the show, please consider leaving us a positive rating with a review. You can also tell family and friends about us. Okay, guys, that just about covers it for this week.
We'll be back next Monday with a brand new episode and a brand new case. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.
Thank you.
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