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Natalie Robomed
Campsite media.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
So it's March 2011 in Bethesda, Maryland. At the police station, detectives are trying to solve the murder of Jana Murray and the violent attack on Brittany Norwood. One was a George Washington grad, the other was a former soccer star. They both seemed to be very type A, but they were friendly and they were outgoing. It was hard to imagine who could have had a motive to attack them. Now, crimes against women are often committed by intimate partners. I mean, boyfriends, spouses, husbands. And so detectives bring in a guy that they heard was dating Brittany.
Detective
We understand that, like, you may have had a relationship with Britney, right? Okay. And it may have been the sexual relationship and the church. You may have had sex with her a couple of days before this whole thing started. Like, maybe Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, something like that.
Brittany Norwood's acquaintance
Going back, I met Brittany, and I think it was sometime. I'm giving it the best of my recollection, in the summer in Georgetown. She worked at the Georgetown Lululemon. And I went in there, bought some stuff. If you've been to the store, like, it almost seems like they're their model. They're all very friendly. Everybody's really nice. So it was nothing serious. Struck up some conversation. She gave me her number, I think. Yeah, I gave her mine. I never even called the girl. Like, it's kind of one of those you just flirting. You get the number. So I never called her, never reached out to her or anything. And then she texted me when I guess she was moving to the Bethesda store, remembering that I worked in Bethesda, lived in Bethesda, that thing. And she was like, ha. I forget the exact text, but it was very, you know, like, hey, what's up? Let's get some coffee or something this time. And I remember my response, because I didn't even have her number saved in my phone, was, I lost my phone. Who is this? She was like, oh, it's Britney. And I was like, oh, you know, Lululemon or whatever. I was like, oh, okay. Hey, what's going on? Sure, we can get some coffee or something sometime. That was it. We got some coffee at the Barnes and Nobles. It was awful, actually. She was, like, kind of dry. I go in that store frequently, all the time. Like, you know, I know most of the girls in the store, and I shop there, and I get stuff from.
Detective
The few dudes that do shop in there.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
Actually, now he says that he and Britney did eventually get together, just not right around the time of the attack.
Detective
Are you positive that you didn't have, like, sex with her that Wednesday, then.
Brittany Norwood's acquaintance
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was. It was literally, yeah, two or three weeks before. Okay, yeah, definitely two or three weeks before.
Detective
All right, so, I mean, the purpose is, like, if we do find anything, we're gonna get your DNA, so that way we can eliminate it so we don't submit it to a national database.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
It didn't seem like he had much of a motivation to attack Brittany, let alone Brittany and Jayna.
Detective
I mean, so then if it's there, we'll say, okay, it's not right. We're done.
Brittany Norwood's acquaintance
Obviously, you can tell in a situation like this, you definitely don't want to be close to anywhere near any of this type of situation.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
From Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media, this is infamous. I'm Vanessa Grigoriadis.
Natalie Robomed
And I'm Natalie Robomed.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
So last episode, we went into the way Lululemon works, some of it. And what happened in the aftermath of this brutal attack on two employees, educators in the boutique in Bethesda, Maryland. Afterward, Brittany was still alive. She was taken to the hospital where she began filling in investigators on the events of the night.
Natalie Robomed
This week, we pick up a story with those detectives as they try to figure out just who did this. This is murder. Lululemon part two. So Britney didn't make it seem like the guy you heard from at the beginning of this episode had something to do with the crime. She told police that she and Jaina were attacked by two men she didn't recognize. They were dressed all in black and wearing ski masks. One of them was about 6ft tall. The other was closer to Brittany's height, 5 foot 3. She said they sounded as if they were white. Now, this case was popping off in the media, so police were very motivated to find the assailants. And quick they get to work hunting down any clues they can find, starting with surveillance tapes. The Lululemon store didn't have interior cameras, so they can't see exactly what happened inside. But the Apple store next door does have a bunch of security cameras, and one of them points right at the parking lot outside the store. Police secure the tape from Friday, March 11, the night of the crime. One of the lead detectives on the case is eager to find out what it reveals. So he goes home, pops the DVD into his computer, and scrolls to 10pm I can just imagine him squinting at the screen in the dark, looking for anyone who matched the descriptions Brittany had provided. At first, he doesn't see much, just average shoppers in light colored clothes. But then just after 11pm There were.
John McCarthy
Two figures, both black, one taller, one shorter, all dressed in black. That went by that, by that camera.
Natalie Robomed
That's State's Attorney John McCarthy again, the chief prosecutor for the county. He's describing what police found on the.
John McCarthy
CCTV tape that night around 11:07pm, right after the murder would have occurred.
Natalie Robomed
One about six feet tall, the other shorter, both dressed in black and wearing beanies that looked like they could have been ski masks. If they were to be pulled down over their faces, investigators spring into action.
John McCarthy
Well, we found those people.
Natalie Robomed
They start questioning them. The two men are nervous and can only speak broken English. And these men say they have a perfectly good reason to be in that footage. They work in a restaurant in that shopping center.
John McCarthy
There were two gentlemen who were dishwashers in the Hispanic restaurant that was on the corner had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Natalie Robomed
To be sure, one of the investigators went down to the restaurant. Other restaurant employees confirmed the men's stories. They couldn't have been leaving the scene of a murder. They just finished their shift. So the security footage lead was a dead end. But police also had tons of tips coming in. The reward for information was more than $100,000.
Detective
I mean, tips are coming in like, non stop.
Natalie Robomed
This is audio of the two detectives who are investigating the case.
Detective
I mean, I think the rewards now is like, what, 130?
Brittany Norwood's acquaintance
This, last I heard was 136.
Detective
We're getting to the point where there's so many tips that we gotta, like, go through and say, okay, which ones are more important?
Natalie Robomed
Most of these tips don't go anywhere. But a lot of people are calling about a man named Keith Lockett. He's a tall, black homeless man known for being a drinker. Investigators are skeptical. This is mostly wealthy, mostly white Bethesda. And when people get scared, their prejudices quickly start to show. But some of the callers say they've noticed Keith hanging out with a short guy and that he hasn't been seen at his usual location since the murder. And when detectives look into him, they find a colorful rap sheet spanning back years. Cocaine possession, assault and battery, robbery. The list goes on. So even though they think it's a long shot, they start looking for Keith. And they find him six miles away at a hospital with bloody clothes and a swollen eye. Now, Keith says that the reason his eye is swollen was that a man had punched him the night before. But he can't seem to keep the details straight about who that man was, how the fight started, or where it even happened. As the Detectives interview him. Keith becomes increasingly agitated. He keeps saying that he's schizophrenic and needs medication. And detectives start to wonder, was he unstable enough to have committed this grisly crime?
John McCarthy
This is infamous from Campside Media.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
So while police are questioning Keith, they're also interviewing other people, collecting evidence and following all sorts of other leads. As they examine the crime scene further, it seems more and more like whoever did this really left a trail. For example, there was one extremely odd detail that had to do with a pair of shoes.
John McCarthy
We found a pair of men's shoes, a pair of men's size 14 sneakers. And they were in there because when you bought gear there and both men and women's clothing was available at Lululemon, they would fit you with the clothing because they wanted it to look right on you. And so the shoes were there so that if you tried on a pair of jogging pants or something like that, they would hem them, they would fit them for you so you would look great when you went to the gym with these size 14 shoes, all of a sudden, a detective turned the shoes over. There's no obvious signs of blood or anything on them. But he looked at the pattern on the bottom of the shoes and he recognized the pattern on the bottom of that shoes was identical to the pattern of the shoe prints that were all over the store in red, which I think were, you know, at some point in time. My God. The attacker in this case was wearing these shoes and doing the attack.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
So what he's saying is in the store, you know, there would have been shoes for fittings, right? At Lululemon, that was something that they did in this case. The detective, according to Dan Morse's book, you know, looks at the actual shoes and when he turns over the shoes, Dan Morse says that the detectives eyebrows rose nearly all the way to his bald head. The shoe prints that were on the floor matched exactly the wavy waffle patterns on this shoe. So these were the shoes that were worn by the attacker.
Natalie Robomed
Then there was the issue of Jaina's car. Jayna had actually driven to work that day. So when Britney called her telling her she needed to go back to get her wallet, Jaina drove back to meet her. So you'd expect that Jana would park right outside the store, but her car wasn't there.
John McCarthy
Jaina's car is discovered about a third of a mile away in a parking lot in the middle of Bethesda. We ultimately contact the local police, and the police had noticed that car in that parking lot the night before. And at some point in time, they actually even noticed that had been occupied by someone.
Natalie Robomed
Local police had seen Jaina's car in the parking lot the night of the murder, and they'd seen someone in it. When detectives get to the car, they discover something else.
John McCarthy
We also realized that there was some blood in the car.
Natalie Robomed
There was some blood in Jaina's car. Had the killers taken Jaina's keys, planning to steal it, but then just abandoned it a few blocks away? It didn't make much sense. And there was one more clue investigators uncovered.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
Remember the Apple store right next to Lululemon, the one with the cctv?
John McCarthy
These buildings immediately were adjacent to one another, close enough so that if somebody was screaming in the building next door, you could literally hear it in your building.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
That's right. You could hear what was happening in Lululemon from inside the Apple store. This was late at night, it was past 10pm, so it was hardly peak shopping hours. Most employees had gone home for the day. It was pretty quiet. I mean, that's part of why you could hear it.
John McCarthy
There were two assistant managers of the Apple Store, one male, one female, who talked about. On Friday evening, about 10:15 in the evening, they heard an argument coming from next door. The two store managers walked over to the wall. The female employee said to the male, I think there's something going on over here. We ought to pay attention to it.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
The Apple employee who'd noticed the sounds said that she heard high pitched yelps and squeals, grunting, thuds, a dragging noise, like something heavy was being moved. She flagged down another manager and they both stood there and listened. The words seemed muddled, but one of them thought they heard somebody saying, talk to me, don't do this, talk to me. What's going on? And then there was what sounded like a different voice saying, God help me. Please help me. The Apple employees talked back and forth about calling the police, but that conversation through the wall, it just seemed so personal and intimate.
John McCarthy
They made the determination that they were not going to get involved.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
Plus, there was something about the voices that possibly could have stopped them. The voice's high pitched nature. This was not a guy fighting with a girl, which they might have perceived as leading to more violence.
John McCarthy
Both of them said this was clearly an argument between two women. This is infamous from Campside Media.
Natalie Robomed
So Jaina had impeccable credentials. With her exceptional education and master's degrees, she didn't need to sell Lululemon clothes to make ends meet. She was at the store because she was inspired by their corporate ethos, had even studied it. And Brittany, with her college education and Division 1 soccer career, had pretty impeccable credentials, too. She dated professional men. Not just the guy you heard at the start of the episode, but a dentist and even a guy in the Secret Service. Britney had come to Lululemon after working at a DC high tier hotel where she had said she'd work directly with VIPs like the Jonas Brothers to make sure their suites were exactly to their liking. She was actually hoping that working at Lululemon would help her get to her next goal goal in life to be an Equinox trainer. And now two Apple employees are saying that on Friday night, when Brittany said that two men had been yelling and laughing as they carried out this horrible attack, they hadn't heard any men in the store. Instead, they said they'd heard what sounded like an argument between two women. This is interesting to detectives, especially now that the Keith lead felt like it was drying up. They'd collected his DNA to send to the crime lab, but they weren't optimistic. So they start talking to Lululemon employees, looking for new clues.
Isla
I probably was one of the closer people to Brittany, but I was also equally, like, very close to Jada.
Natalie Robomed
That's Isla.
Detective
And you obviously work at Lululemon. Is it Lululemon? Lululemon.
Isla
It's Lululemon.
Detective
Really? That was. Somebody said Lululemon. I was like, well, wrong.
Isla
They clearly don't work for the company if that's the case.
Natalie Robomed
She worked the early morning shift the Friday of the attack, and she knew both Jayna and Brittany well.
Isla
Jana and I closed a lot together, and she was my closing manager. So we all bonded based on the fact that we were much a little bit older than most of the girls in the store. And how old are you? I'm 28. So Jayna's 30 and she's been going through her MBA. And I just finished my MBA in 2009 and started working here. Jana and I used to bond a lot over just where she wanted to go, what she wanted to do with her mba. Like, different corporate things. We were looking into Brittany. I met probably in October or November because she used to work at the Georgetown store. And there's certain events that a lot of, like, all the stores get involved in. And so we went to a event at the W Hotel called Beach Bums and Blinis, and it's essentially an exercise class. And then right after you have brunch. So that's where I first met Brittany. We had Just started recently and that we were both in educator positions and like I was looking to grow within the company and she was saying those things too. And our company is a very goal oriented company. So, you know, we have our goals stated in the front with key leaders and things like that. And so, you know, we talked about long term goals for what we wanted to do with Lululemon.
Natalie Robomed
Brittany had been at Lululemon only for a little while, but Bethesda was actually the second store she'd worked in. As Isla mentioned, Britney had been at the Georgetown store. She got let go from it for a reason Isla found a bit confusing.
Isla
Britney had some sort of issue during the holidays where she bought too much with our holiday discount and she went over the limit of spending. And it was because of that that she was let go at Georgetown.
Natalie Robomed
Basically during the holidays, Lululemon ran a special sale for employees called Shop Night, where workers could buy clothes at 70% off, an even bigger discount than usual. Lululemon employees were only allowed to buy $1,000 worth of clothes, but Britney bought more than $2,000 worth. It caused conflict between her and her manager and Brittany was actually fired. But after launching an internal investigation, Lululemon corporate overturned the decision and Britney was relocated to Bethesda's store around January 2011, where things seemed to be going swimmingly, according to Isla.
Detective
Did she confide in you as far as like, any problems that she was having with anybody, specifically maybe with Jaina or anybody like that, or.
Isla
No. I knew she was kind of frustrated with her place in the store. I think she felt a little bit like an outsider sometimes because she was the new girl and she's really into personal training and being fit. And so she was talking about how she wanted to get her personal training license or whatever the accreditation is that day. She had actually said, if I get this job at Equinox, I want to cut back my hours at Lulu.
Natalie Robomed
The day of the attack, Isla actually hung out with Brittany that morning.
Isla
I was supposed to meet Brittany at 10:30 to go to a class at Crunch Gym, but I had run late from my marching shift, so I ended up going there, but I didn't make it to the class. So I waited for her and she ended up taking the class at Crunch that day. Crunch Crunch is a. It's a gym. It's a gym chain. So I waited for her to get out and I had lunch with her. We got our manicure and pedicures done together and I knew she was working that afternoon. She was doing closing shift. We Basically hung out until she had to go to work. And then I went and visited all the girls that were on the floor. So Jayna was on the floor at the time as well.
Detective
And so who else would have been working that day then?
Isla
Jaina was there, and I saw her up front. Rachel was there.
Natalie Robomed
So the police also brought in Rachel, another educator working there the day of the attack.
Detective
How long have you worked for Lululemon?
Rachel
I worked at the Tysons Corner store starting in June of 09, and I transferred to Bethesda in May of 2010.
Detective
And just no problems at the store? Everything's fine, right?
Rachel
Yeah, no, everything seemed fine. I knew that some people had been missing stuff from the back, like out of their bags and everything, but that was all I knew about it, was that a couple, like, couple personal items have been missing. I know maybe a bottle of perfume was gone.
Natalie Robomed
So a couple personal items had gone missing, but Rachel says it was nothing crazy.
Detective
So that whole thing about, like, people stealing or, you know.
Rachel
Yeah, it was kind of more. It was just like a. Watch out. People have been missing stuff, like a. Just a warning.
Detective
But no, no one specific was mentioned.
Rachel
No, no one specific at all was mentioned.
Natalie Robomed
Police start asking about the private area in the back of the store, the little kitchenette where staff hang out on break, make coffee, that sort of thing.
Detective
Knives, sharp objects, anything like that.
Rachel
So there's the back room where all that is with the microwave and everything. I don't think there's anything sharp back there. There is. I mean, maybe silverware, like a butter knife, maybe one like bread knife or something like that. In the back hallway, there are X acto knives where we cut. For cutting the tape from the boxes, but that's pretty much it. I know we have a toolbox and we have just normal tools like screwdrivers and stuff in it, but that's all I know of.
Natalie Robomed
Okay, so this specific Friday, when Rachel left for the day, this is what she remembers.
Rachel
There was no customers in the store. Jada's in the back room doing a restock was what we call it. It's where you print out everything that we sold. And like the past hour or since the last one was done, and you bring the stuff out, the merchandise out to the floor. She was in the back doing that. Britney was.
Detective
What did you call it?
Rachel
A restock report. And Britney was taping up a box. She was in the sitting room area.
Detective
Is there anybody talking to each other or, like, any signs of problems?
Rachel
No, not at all. I said bye to both of them. They both seemed happy. They both seemed fine.
Natalie Robomed
They both seemed fine. But apparently after Rachel left, something happened that made everything not fine. Remember the bag checks where employees who are closing have to look in each other's bags? Isla explained it.
Isla
You just say, hey, can you bag check me? Like, and it's just assumed that you're just going to show what you have in there.
Detective
And that happens every night.
Isla
That happens every night.
Natalie Robomed
Well, apparently when Jayna went to bag check Britney that night, she found something. Jayna called another employee to ask about it. Here's that employee now.
Employee
First she was like, I don't remember which order it was, but I know she asked me, did I sell Britney some crops? And I was like, no, because I was not even at the registers that day. So I told her no.
Natalie Robomed
Apparently, Brittany had said that this employee had rung her up.
Employee
She was like, that's why I called you to see if she. If you rang her out. And I said, nope, I sure didn't. She was like, all right, I want to call Rachel so she can check it in the morning.
Natalie Robomed
A different Rachel, the store manager, the woman who would find Jayna dead. The next morning, State's Attorney John McCarthy again.
John McCarthy
As soon as they left, Jana Murray called Rachel. Rachel was the store manager. She was about a 30 year old young woman who was working on her own PhD. Again, typical profile for these brilliant young women that worked there. And Jana said, look, I think I caught Brittany stealing tonight.
Natalie Robomed
Remember the size 14 men's shoes, the display ones that had been used for hemming with that distinctive waffle print that had tracked blood around the store? Well, the footprints from the shoes never left the store.
John McCarthy
They're still there. There's no blood on them now, but they obviously had been worn earlier. Who's gonna stick around, wash these shoes off? They also did a luminol spray test. Luminol spray is a reactive agent that allows you to see. It's almost like a black, like, poster glow. And the sinks in the. And the place began to glow and blow up when they were processing them, as if somebody had cleaned up, washed up some blood. And so you're thinking, wait a minute, the shoes are here. Why are the sinks glowing? Who would stay long enough after having committed these crimes and not worry about getting caught, but would stay there for hours doing this.
Natalie Robomed
And police began to wonder, what if there hadn't been anyone else there at all? What if Britney had put the display shoes on to make it look like there'd been a man there? It would explain why Jayna had been killed. But the attackers had left Britney alive. And it would explain why the Apple employees had heard only women's voices. The problem. It didn't make a whole lot of sense. Just because someone gets caught stealing, that doesn't mean they kill the person who caught them. And what happened to Jaina was horrific. When medical examiners carried out an autopsy, they counted more than 331 wounds made with over five different weapons. The back of Jaina's head had 13 different fractures. There was just no way that Brittany, this friendly, charming athlete who was all into athleisure clothes, could do something like this. Was there? Next time on Infamous.
John McCarthy
It'd be hard to convince somebody that somebody would commit this kind of a brutal murder over a pair of $120 jogging shorts.
Detective
What else have you been holding back that you're. You've been afraid to like? Yeah, tell us.
Hosts: Vanessa Grigoriadis, Gabriel Sherman, Natalie Robehmed
Release Date: February 27, 2025
Production: Campside Media & Sony Music Entertainment
In the gripping second part of "Murder at Lululemon," the hosts delve deeper into the perplexing and brutal attack that shook Bethesda, Maryland. Vanessa Grigoriadis and Natalie Robehmed guide listeners through the intricate investigation, uncovering new evidence and exploring the complexities that have left detectives baffled.
March 2011, Bethesda, Maryland: Detectives are on the trail of a heinous crime involving the murder of Jana Murray and the violent attack on Brittany Norwood, both employees at a local Lululemon store. The victims, both highly educated and outgoing individuals, present no obvious motive for their attackers.
Quote:
Vanessa Grigoriadis [00:09]:
"One was a George Washington grad, the other was a former soccer star. They both seemed to be very Type A, but they were friendly and outgoing. It was hard to imagine who could have had a motive to attack them."
Early suspicions pointed towards a man who had recently dated Brittany Norwood. However, the connection seemed tenuous, lacking clear motivation for such extreme violence.
Quote:
Detective [00:45]:
"We understand that, like, you may have had a relationship with Britney, right? Okay. And it may have been the sexual relationship and the church..."
Despite this lead, detectives struggled to find concrete evidence linking him to the crime.
The investigation took a pivotal turn when detectives accessed surveillance footage from a neighboring Apple store. Although Lululemon lacked interior cameras, the Apple store's exterior cameras provided a crucial glimpse into the night of the attack.
Quote:
John McCarthy [05:38]:
"Two figures, both black, one taller, one shorter, all dressed in black. That went by that camera." [05:52]
This footage revealed two men dressed in black with ski masks, matching the descriptions provided by Brittany Norwood.
Among the numerous tips received, focus shifted to Keith Lockett, a homeless man with a criminal history. Found at a hospital with suspicious injuries, his potential involvement added complexity to the case.
Quote:
Detectives [07:03]:
"I mean, I think the rewards now is like, what, 130?"
However, inconsistencies in his account and his deteriorating mental state cast doubt on his involvement.
Examination of the crime scene revealed critical evidence, including a distinctive pair of men's size 14 sneakers with unique waffle-patterned soles. These shoes matched footprints found in the store, suggesting a staged scenario by the attacker.
Quote:
John McCarthy [09:20]:
"We found a pair of men's shoes, a pair of men's size 14 sneakers... they matched the pattern of the shoe prints that were all over the store in red." [10:19]
Additionally, the discovery of Jayna Murray's car with bloodstains raised further questions about the assailants' movements post-attack.
Employees from the adjacent Apple store provided valuable auditory evidence. Their account of hearing what appeared to be a heated argument between two women offered a puzzling contradiction to the initial suspect descriptions.
Quote:
Vanessa Grigoriadis [12:09]:
"I heard high-pitched yelps and squeals, grunting, thuds... Somebody saying, 'talk to me, don't do this, talk to me.' God help me." [12:18]
This led detectives to reconsider their assumptions about the nature of the perpetrators.
Further interviews with Lululemon employees, including Isla and Rachel, painted a picture of the victims' professional lives and personal aspirations. Insights into Brittany Norwood's recent transfer to the Bethesda store and her aspirations to become a personal trainer provided depth to her character.
Quote:
Isla [15:35]:
"Jana and I closed a lot together, and she was my closing manager... We bonded based on the fact that we were a little bit older than most of the girls in the store." [16:02]
These interviews also highlighted minor conflicts, such as Brittany's previous dismissal from the Georgetown store for exceeding her employee discount limit.
As the investigation progressed, detectives began to question the plausibility of Brittany Norwood being the perpetrator. The sheer brutality of Jayna Murray's injuries and the staged evidence suggested involvement of a more violent assailant.
Quote:
John McCarthy [25:36]:
"It'd be hard to convince somebody that somebody would commit this kind of a brutal murder over a pair of $120 jogging shorts." [25:46]
This realization led to renewed efforts to uncover the true identity of the attackers, leaving the case open and fraught with uncertainties.
"Murder at Lululemon I Part 2" concludes with unresolved questions and a chilling reminder of the complexity of criminal investigations. The hosts set the stage for the next episode, promising to delve deeper into the psychological and investigative twists that continue to confound the detectives.
Stay tuned for the next episode of "Infamous" as Vanessa Grigoriadis and Natalie Robehmed uncover more layers of this baffling case.
Note: This summary intentionally omits advertisements, intros, and outros to focus solely on the content of the episode.