Lululemon Murder /// Part 1 /// 193 | Forensic Files

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the following is an account of a horrific and violent robbery many news outlets covered this story
what you're about to hear is comprised of articles that ran in the Washington Post on March 13th and 14th 2011.
one article LED with the headline both victims in Bethesda yoga store attack were beaten and raped
two men wearing masks and gloves entered in upscale yoga clothing store in downtown Bethesda after closing hours
this weekend they killed a worker and sexually assaulted another officials said detectives think the attack began as a
robbery about 10 pm Friday the assault victim who is expected to survive was found Bound in the back of
the store Saturday morning she was hospitalized and has been talking with detectives
police declined to say how the homicide victim identified as 30-year-old jaina Murray was killed
but law enforcement sources confirmed a horrific bloody scene inside Lululemon athletica
part of a chain of stores that began popping up a few years ago across the country
violent crime is exceedingly rare in bethesda's central business district law enforcement and government officials
could not recall a recent homicide we're all stunned no one can remember another
murder in the last 20 years said Ken Hartman a local government official the Bethesda store sits between a
stationary store and an Apple retail store that has been buzzing with its hot new product the iPad 2. it was unclear
how long the assailants were in the store the two victims had closed the store at
9 pm Friday and left a short time later police said one of them realized that she had left
something behind and didn't have the means to get back inside she called her co-worker who met her at the store and
let her inside leaving the door unlocked detectives think that the men dressed all in black with faces and hands
covered entered a short time later because The Intruders were covered police have come up with only limited
descriptions with one being six foot tall and the other a little over five foot three
according to police the following morning a female worker arrived to open the store she heard a faint noise in the
back of the store she retreated and called a man who was outside to come into the store
the man went in and he saw what he thought were two bodies in the back of the store police were called
detectives believe this started out to be a robbery said Captain Paul Starks of the Montgomery County Police
he said the noise was likely from the surviving victim who is 27 years old a bystander told the Washington Post
that the Survivor appeared to be badly bruised a Lululemon regional manager was at the
scene and described the two victims as great people detectives were still searching for
Witnesses who may have been working at nearby stores the day after the homicide the police
blocked off the sidewalk in front of the Lululemon store with yellow tape directing pedestrians across the street
the store's large front windows were covered with sheets of paper a young woman who works at a nearby
salad shop said Lululemon employees stopped by there for lunch they're all great peppy happy people and nice to
talk to as for previous homicides in the area in 1989 about six blocks from the yoga
store a gunman described as a disgruntled employee of Chevy Chase Federal Savings Bank opened fire with a
38 caliber revolver in a bank office killing three co-workers and shooting a fourth in the face before killing
himself a year later a jeweler at a store along Wisconsin Avenue shot two men to death after a hold up the Jeweler
ultimately was cleared of all charges the Lululemon attack was the first homicide in this area in 20 years
and this is true crime garage [Music] the Lululemon company was founded by chip Wilson in Vancouver Canada back in
1998. now in 2001 the company began selling yoga wear the retail store became quite popular
and today they have a few hundred locations today Lululemon describes its brand as yoga inspired technical
Athletic Apparel company that makes clothing for women and men the brand has of course received
criticism over the years partly for the quality and marketing of its products but also for comments made publicly by
the company's founder chip Wilson chip would eventually resign as the CEO this took place in 2013. now what were
these comments oh um do you do we want to do that sure okay let's do it I I've never heard that
he made bad comments well so and I you have to forgive me I do not know much about the Lululemon brand or or it's you
know it's products um I so I did a little research on the internet and that was a lot of the stuff
that came up first was you know people like to read salacious things and when people say bad things people have fun
reading that so it popped up a lot it was a kind of uh body shaming comments you know making comments like
um you so bigger people they they don't make so many clothes for for larger people right and and when when asked
about that specifically his response was something like well our clothes just don't work on those people oh yeah yeah
it's the person's fault that they didn't because that's how clothes work you know
clothes only work for certain sizes all right well so this guy's a real piece of
[ __ ] well you know what's funny is his name chip Wilson doesn't that sound like
a like a made-up character that would be in some kind of uh like he's the bad guy
in some comedy movie yeah it sounds like a real dick nose all right so anyway our
story is going to be centered around the Lululemon store located in Bethesda Maryland now Bethesda is a wealthy and
well-educated area according to the 2000 census Bethesda was the best educated city in the United States of America
with a population of 50 000 or more a lot of people study computer they lots of them now speaking of population in
2011 bethesda's population was about 61 000 wonderfully high-educated people anyway so Lululemon staffs its stores
without going athletic and ambitious people who write their life goals and display them inside their stores their
personalities are key to the store's success employees get discounted apparel which they are expected to wear to
nearby health clubs and yoga studios right they become walking advertisements for Lululemon's 100 yoga pants and sixty
dollar running shirts that are only made for small people yes now we have well with that guy gone who knows what
they're doing now we shouldn't I mean he's no longer their guy right well hopefully they're making good products
for everybody there we go now we have two victims in this story in this robbery uh that turned into a vicious
attack that left one woman murdered and the other brutalized and Afraid jaina Murray was 30 years of age when
her life was stolen from her she was formerly of Houston Texas she was born in November 22nd of 1980 in Wichita
Kansas to David and Phyllis Murray David jaina's father was a Houston oil operations manager so that led to her
traveling the world quite a bit as a youngster she tried the Girl Scouts when she was a kid
um but she only did this for a little bit because she found it too boring yeah she sold so many cookies she was the
number one sales cookie the girl of the world well I guess got so bored with it I guess she began tagging along On Boy
Scout outings with her two brothers and her father the father was a scout master
he's also a former Army officer yeah now later in life jaina studied marketing and graduate at school at Johns Hopkins
University and while there she noticed a friend's bag decked out in sayings from
a store with a funny name and no capital letters this is it being Lulu Lemon athletica
she learned more about its Grassroots marketing strategies and wrote a paper about Lululemon which led to a job at
the company's Bethesda store jaina was a wonderful family she comes from a wonderful family a great upbringing
right she was active socially and physically and it appears she was a big fan of bungee jumping so a a brave woman
with maybe a little Daredevil side to her jaina's family launched a foundation to remember the adventure-seeking young
woman her father had the following to say about his daughter after she was killed saying she was one of the most
Fearless people he has ever known in his life and adding that that's as objective
as a father can get he really admired jaina for everything she did and everything she represented David Murray
said that uh you know people always commented to him that that it was her smile and it was also her hugs that was
the way that she would often greet people whether she knew you for a short period of time or knew you for years
she wanted to make people feel comfortable and happy Jana Murray was who was 30 years old and she was when
she was killed she was only weeks away from completing a master's degree and she had a close-knit circle of
friends now our other victim who police said when they arrived at the Lululemon store and found her
we thought she was dead yeah this is Brittany Norwood she was two years younger than jaina Brittany comes from a
large family her parents Earl and larkita Norwood are described as being polite to the point of formal a friendly
and generous couple who raised nine children to act the same way the Norwoods they own a Furniture Upholstery
and Fabric business now even in the Years where their business was struggling the Norwoods forked out
thousands of dollars a year to keep their children playing traveling soccer Brittany Norwood went to high school in
Federal Way Washington just about 20 miles from Seattle this is at Decatur High School where she was a skilled
soccer player and was named Rookie of the Year as a sophomore and most valuable player as a senior yeah she
went on to college she went to college at Stony Brook University in New York where Norwood studied sociology and
played soccer there as well suit on scholarship Sue Ryan was the head coach of the women's soccer team there at
Stony Brook and she said the 2002 team I'm sorry at the 2002 team release that Norwood had the mental makeup to be the
best defender in the league Britney hates losing more than she likes winning Ryan said now classmates said that
Norwood was fun to hang out with saying she could be so sweet so funny she was an amazing soccer player Brittany
Norwood attended the University's College of Arts and Science from 2000 to 2004 but did not receive a degree
before working at Lululemon she had previously worked at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel working the front
desk this is a luxury hotel located on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House there Brittany quickly displayed enough
charm and smarts to earn the assignment of managing VIP guests so when dignitaries and big shots arrived at the
hotel they would often be greeted by Brittany Norwood who would help get them checked in and get them settled yeah
behind the scenes Hotel work can be a grind irritable and jet lag guests demanding this and that from you but
Brittany Norwood was described as always upbeat one manager called her a cheerleader and referred to Brittany
Norwood as the sunshine amid the storm that's how I describe the that's how I described the captain well you know the
captain he's a sunshine amongst the storm Mr Sunshine yeah so shall we take a more detailed look at the crime the
crime scene and what evidence they are going to use to round up these turd monkeys okay here's a more exact
timeline of the slang so on on Friday March 11 2011. now police would later speak with a
regular customer now her name is Jana Carlson Carlson was one of several customers that were in the store shortly
before closing that night Carlson said that she was in the store for a little more than an hour and at the time at
some times she was the only customer in the store she like the other customers all said
the same thing no one saw anything suspicious nothing that stood out to anyone no one you know no customer saw
anybody casing The Joint let's say yeah now and now this is like a mall well it's it's kind of a mall we should
we maybe we should paint a better picture than that it's it's not a mall in the sense where you
walk in and you know there's a Atrium and there's hallways that lead to all these different storefronts these are
these are self-standing stores that have their own storefront they're not inside
of a mall you park your car and walk but it's a large community of stores yes it's a it's a basically outside mall
it's a business district you know so it's this Lululemon store is going to be surrounded by other stores like we said
there's an Apple Store there's a stationery store they basically share a wall with these other businesses there's
also restaurants in the area so this could this is probably a very busy evening there on this Friday
especially with the Apple Store having the new iPad coming out now Jana she the customer said that she
actually interacted with both of the victims during her Lululemon visit stating that the two seemed like the
perfect sales team Carlson stayed and chatted a while before walking out with new running pants a running jacket a
shirt and a headband she spent quite a bit of money I'm sure four million dollars there was absolutely nothing
wrong inside the Lululemon store according to this customer and other customers now at 9pm that night jaina
Murray and her fellow employee Brittany Norwood they closed the Bethesda Row Lululemon athletica store for the night
so this means at this time everyone is out of the store and Jaina and Brittany would have locked the doors at this time
before finishing up their closing duties right at 9 45 PM they were both done so
they set the alarm they locked the store and they left now around this time after having left the store
jaina calls her manager they have a very brief work-related conversation and then
a short time later Brittany discovered that she had left her wallet or pocketbook inside the store now a lot of
times and you know this Captain but maybe not everybody knows this a lot of times these stores will have like a
small locker room where you where the employees can keep their things during their shift yeah I used to I used to
actually lock my keys inside the locker with my other items so I couldn't I couldn't actually leave without taking
all my stuff with me well you what do you mean the keys to the store keys to your car keys to my car well you could
technically leave the building without all your stuff yeah I wouldn't make it wouldn't make it very far right I would
want my car to go home anyway that was just me and it and so Britney leaves this item behind but jaina is the one
with the keys to the store and actually as I understand it Britney was somewhat new to the store she had previously
worked at another Lululemon location yeah and had transferred to this store so Brittany had not been at this store
long enough to have the keys or to be well she wasn't the manager either the employee level of someone that would
open or close the store right that's what managers do now Here Again Britney being kind of new
she doesn't have jaina's phone number so she has to call another store employee someone she is closer with
from that person she gets jaina's phone number and then she called jaina she told her that she had left her wallet
and so the two met back at the store they entered the front door at 10 05 pm now right at this time is when the
police believe that the two suspects in this case followed the two women inside probably just seconds after the two
victims entered the store so the door was not locked when the two women went inside you know you're just
you're just running in real quick to re retrieve something that you left behind yes believe that Britney forgot her
wallet but jaina forgot a laptop so they were both going to just go in unlock the
door run to the back they gotta turn off the alarm and then grab the stuff and go
now according to the surviving victim when the two women were just about to leave the store again two men appeared
somewhat out of nowhere because the women had not heard anyone or or seen anything there was nothing to tip them
off that anybody was in the store in fact Brittany would later say that she believes that the two men were hiding
behind a clothing rack or a display of some sort so my guess would be that the the police state that they believed that
the men would have followed them into the store yeah and and the reason why I think that they believe that is there's
likely motion detectors on that security system so once they set it after it was
set for the evening if anybody would have moved at certain parts inside the store it would have triggered the alarm
and so these guys they were gone from the store long enough that that would have been activated so they think that
these guys probably just slipped in through the unlocked door kind of hid themselves until the women got near them
and jumped out at them so the the man wore dark clothing gloves and ski mask one of them is thought to be six feet
tall the other about five foot three now I do want to mention before we move forward that these are not
exact Heights of these guys here you know I think we can make a good assumption as to how the investigators
determine these Heights because as we will see this is a very up close and personal attack on both women so my
guess would be that Britney is supplying the detectives with Heights based on relation to her own height right you
know something like this how tall would you say they are well I don't know okay are they taller or shorter than you both
taller but one you know just close to my height because Britney was about five foot two yeah you know so she gives them
Heights of five foot three maybe a little taller and the other one is six feet tall and I believe she may have
said at least six feet tall again she believes both men are Caucasian now height is going to be very very
important to these officers I believe if they want to track these guys down reason being they're they're disguised
you know they're all in black their faces are covered so when you have the heights of these gentlemen well I
shouldn't say gentlemen when you have the heights of these guys right you are going to have potential security cameras
that are in the area that if you could see these guys you know if you see one guy that's about a head taller than the
other dude dressed in black and you see them leaving the area or getting into a vehicle
you might be able to track these guys down maybe you can pull a plate number off of that security footage
now Brittany is going to be able to provide them like the captain said with one more detail regarding the physical
description of the two offenders she says she believes they are Caucasian she believes they are white dudes now
remember these guys have their faces covered but she is going to base this off of how the men sounded in words that
were said so they sounded white yeah so just a quick warning this is a brutal attack and we won't go through every
single detail but some things might be difficult to hear so I just want to throw that out there so almost
immediately after the two women become aware that there are two Intruders in the store the one man attacks jaina
right away he's hitting her repeatedly Britney is thrown to the ground by the second man and he tells her that he will
slit her throat if she's not going to be quiet so the same guy that attacked jaina he
took jaina to the back of the store dragging her by her hair he was repeating repeatedly hitting her
along the way now jaina is screaming at this time the men in their mask according to Brittany they
the men are laughing as this is happening now Brittany would later tell the officers that there was so much
blood coming from jaina the two masked attackers she said sounded White and the man that assaulted
Brittany said that he repeatedly used racial slurs she told officers how he cut her
down her stomach and that the man said that he'd never been with one of her before
from there Brittany could hear jaina being attacked Brittany Norwood said that she could hear Murray being hit
repeatedly but eventually The Sounds grew faint Brittany also said that the other masked
man attacked and raped her in a different part of the store and at one point this man used a clothes hanger
during the sexual assault and called Brittany a dirty [ __ ] the man asked her where the money was
kept in the store and dragged Brittany around the store as he walked looking for valuables
Brittany is unsure of how long the attackers were in the store but she said that at some point the attackers both of
them they took her to the back of the store and they showed her jaina Murray's body
and her she was bloodied and lifeless by this point this is when they threatened Brittany
see the masked man men told her that she was going to be spared however they had gone through Britney's
belongings so they claimed to know her name where she lived and some information about her family and they
were going to you know they're letting her know that if at any time for any reason or no reason at all if they want
to they can find her they can hurt her they can kill her now she was told and I'm a little unclear when this this
particular statement comes out because I I find this to be a strange statement one coming from the victim and
two and coming from the attackers but but you know I actually heard somebody say the other day um psychos are psycho
so don't try to don't try to figure out if it's you think it's weird or not yeah
but anyway uh at some point she Britney has told the investigators that she was being spared because she was quote fun
to have sex with now Brittany was bound at the ankles and wrist with zip ties and shortly after 8
A.M the following morning an employee showed up to open the store and saw trouble she got frightened and left the
store [Music] all right we're back cheers mates cheers so as we said Captain the opening
manager for the Lululemon store on that Saturday March 12 2011 arrived at the store for work
shortly after 8 A.M now this manager sees and hears and or hears something that is going to make
her turn around and go back out of the store now right next door is that Apple Store that we spoke about remember we
said that the new iPad was coming out or was released that weekend yeah I believe
it was the iPad 2. well there was a man out front of the Apple store waiting for
the Apple Store to open up for the day so the lady from Lululemon asked this man would you go into the store with me
now he goes in with her he finds what he would later describe as two bodies they
call the police so First Responders are showing up at the scene expecting to find two dead women inside the Lululemon
store responding officers saw Brittany Norwood tied up on the floor in a restroom but
she was alive she was taken to a hospital and interviewed by a detective both women were violently attacked jaina
Murray received what has been quoted as catastrophic injuries yeah that rattled even long-time law enforcement officers
Brittany was hospitalized and her condition continued to improve the police had said on that Saturday police
had a theory and this is a good one and it does involve the Apple retail store so they
began selling the new hot iPad 2 as you had said about 5 p.m on Friday this as we all are
aware would be a high ticket item right so we're going to expect to have many people out at this Apple Store right on
Friday so possibly many targets and people with money so the police speculation was this that the two
assailants that ended up going into the Lululemon store that maybe they were there because they wanted to be near the
Apple Store at closing time yeah you know late after dark maybe to Rob customers as they are going to their
vehicles or to rob the Apple Store because they have a lot more money on hand because they were selling so many
iPad twos and the police thought well maybe while these two guys were there casing the
joint while they're they're planting this robbery whether it be of a customer or of the store
instead they see what might be an easier or maybe even a better score when they see two women by
themselves return to the closed Lululemon store enter the store and then leave the door unlocked I mean these
guys could have just been loitering out front for all we know yeah now within days police had collected forensic
evidence from the Lululemon store finding bloody shoe prints throughout the store one set of prints was from a
men's tennis shoe size 14. police do point out and this Captain I found to be very surprising this was surprising to
me and I I think you will feel the same way but police pointed out to the public
that they had what they called a lack of video surveillance in this case which I mean we we talked about this
these are higher end stores yeah you'd think that there'd be videos inside the store and probably facing the storefront
yes and Lululemon did not have any video cameras inside its actual store right now so according to local news reports
within days of the murder police had not formed a solid theory about why the attack happened but they think the
attack was random and have found no evidence that either victim knew the attackers the County police chief said
we have no indication at this point that this was anything but a random crime of
opportunity due to the nature of the attack detectives were hopeful that forensic
evidence from the crime scene will lead to DNA profiles of the offenders right so we have shoe prints of you know size
14 male shoe and then we also have eight to ten items that were used in the attack but police also believe that
those items were all items that were came from the store and when we say that they're hoping to find DNA profiles of
the two attackers well we we did mention sexual assaults right on on both females
and as well we have talked about this on our show plenty of times that when you have these violent attacks and
to say violent attack on on jaina is is of a huge understatement yeah I think she had a hundred and five or more
self-defense wounds meaning that she was you know she's getting struck by these different items and she's holding her
ends up and on her forearms and her hands there's over a hundred and some uh attack marks so if you can't recover DNA
from the two sexual assaults you as an investigator you're hoping that the in this struggle that one of the
offenders was injured themselves or cut themselves on something and that you may
find blood from one or both of the suspects still at the crime scene one this whole crime scene is covered in
blood it was an extremely bloody crime scene now Lulu Lululemon athletica and its founder our buddy chip Wilson yeah
it sounds like a dick knows Wilson it sounds like a uh a male a a weatherman for a uh a town nobody wants to go to
uh welcome to the town of Lululemon and this is from meteorologist chip Wilson well the the company donated 125
000 to a reward fund for information well they would have donated more but their sales were down because they were
only selling clothes to small people well and a local I think this might be a local company I'm not certain don't
quote me on that but I believe it's called Federal realty they offered up ten thousand
dollars and Crime Stoppers crime solvers did one thousand dollars so very quickly
after this attack the reward money for information was already a hundred and thirty six thousand dollars
and investigators provided the public with a free long-distance phone number and encouraged anyone with information
to submit a tip we had talked about this captain we're talking about a shopping what what is called a business district
that is full of stores and restaurants this is a Friday evening when this crime takes place they're hoping that somebody
walking by somebody driving their vehicle somebody saw something somebody heard something call in with a tip we
need some help on this case so this is gets a little confusing to me because we don't have surveillance quote unquote
but we do have surveillance I guess of the area like sometimes when it's reported it makes it seem like that we
have a surveillance of the storefront of Lululemon but that's not very clear so I
think somewhere they have footage of possibly these two men one being over six foot tall one being around five
three five four yeah yeah so the way that this goes down and this is pretty early in the investigation we're talking
about with that weekend or by Monday right and I wouldn't call it a break in the case but police see on surveillance
footage two men as the captain said matching the very vague description of the attacker so what does that mean it
the the height is correct and they're white yeah we have a tall guy we have a shorter guy they're dressed all in black
they're not wearing masks but they're they're white dudes dressed in black and the height is correct one one has a book
bag and I believe that um Brittany said that one of the attackers had a book bag
and one didn't you know there's probably a few people out there listening going what do you mean there is surveillance
or there is no surveillance well we got a full disclosure here the way that the way that some of these reports sound
it's worded and sounds like they may have surveillance footage what we cannot find clear-cut evidence
of is a definitive statement of somebody saying we pulled the footage from from right in front of the Lululemon store
right or where they pulled the footage and and saw these guys this may become this may become more clear later as we
discuss the area a little more but I think what we can deduce from these different reports about this crime and
as the information and evidence started coming out is that there was some type of surveillance footage now what that
means though guys is this that we have multiple storefronts I would be willing to to wager pretty
good on this that we're we're pretty accurate on this statement some of these storefronts have
surveillance cameras the others do not so what the police are going to use they're going to go around and they're
going to pull footage from as many places that actually have it right they're going to view it and they're
going to try to piece together what they see going on to camera and off to camera
and they're going to base those movements of those individuals and try to determine where they're going once
they're off camera based on the direction that they're heading what storefronts they might be walking toward
so when we say that we have surveillance footage of two men matching the vague description
keep in mind this is not this is not them saying we see these two guys going into the Lululemon store they're saying
in the area around that approximate time we have two guys matching that description now that could be one of two
things it's either a huge coincidence or you've captured the two offenders on security camera right okay so there's
something to work with the other thing here is the two women's Vehicles so they find Britney's vehicle parked where she
said it would be you know where she left it after returning to the Lululemon store to retrieve the wallet or
pocketbook okay so I'm guessing that they were both parked where employees would park
and so they had to walk a little bit further away from the store and then when Britney calls to say hey I left my
wallet back in the store that both employees took their cars and drove them closer to the store
yeah so it sounds like both of them had actually I shouldn't say both of them but it sounds to me like the jaina
probably had left actually left the parking lot okay before receiving the call to turn around and come back
because it's about 15 minutes yeah there was enough time to to be actually driving for for a portion of that right
and you're right Captain usually they have people Park a considerable distance away so the customers can park closer
and yeah so when you're returning you're just supposed to be doing a quick in and
out you probably parked right the closest spot to the store yeah would be my guess so Britney's car the police
now mind you she's in the hospital so she's got to give them tell them what you know what she knows from a hospital
bed and and she has been attacked it seems like it's uh mainly with a knife uh it looks like there's cuts on her
thighs and there's cuts on her breast and I think she's beat up a little bit but there are some signs of sexual
assault and so Brittany her vehicle is where they would expect to find it where she
says she left the vehicle yeah the issue is jaina's car jaina's vehicle is parked
like it's like three blocks away from the store so even further away yeah so indicating that sometime after the I'm
guessing after the attack these the attackers one or both of them maybe used her car to flee the scene and
and or or is it possible that's where she originally parked and when she got the phone call she just walked back yeah
possible yeah I mean these are uh you know this whole this whole store and its whole idea is built around uh Fitness
you know Park a little further get a couple more steps in for the day you know using a victim's card to fully a
scene is not that uncommon though you know it is something that we see we talked about earlier you know if if
these guys were spotted on camera and they get into one of their own vehicles or a vehicle that could be traced to
them right you don't necessarily have to be able to pull the entire plate off of
that vehicle to track them down you can pull a couple of numbers match with the description of the vehicle and probably
locate these dudes so that you might want to if you're going to you know you got to keep in mind too
if this attack went down the way that police initially thought this was not it wasn't a planned murder
it wasn't like these guys were hanging out waiting to jump into the Lululemon store and kill somebody right they just
kind of stumbled upon this let's say opportunity for a lack of a better word and if they were seen fleeing the area
maybe their intention was to flee on foot but after this this horrific attack after committing murder maybe they
changed their plans and decided you know what we gotta we gotta get out of here and we don't want this traced back to us
we got to get out of here quick well law enforcement thought that these attacks probably took place within you know 45
minutes to like an hour and a half so this was a long attack the investigators they examined surveillance cameras from
the area searching for signs of the mysterious attackers tips were coming in early in this investigation they were
receiving help from the public the officers even followed a man that they thought might be a person of interest in
this case now nothing ends up coming out of this person of interest person that they were following around right now we
talked a little bit about the area and about the shopping the stores this attack and rightfully so this attack and
murder this terrified the public this is a nice area business in this area in the
following days was down significantly less than half of what it would typically be people did not want to be
in this area no one wanted to be the victim of the next random attack stores moved to install security cameras and
private security guards escorted workers to their cars there were even citizens that were going into some of the
clothing stores in the area and asking if they had sold if the store had sold ski mask to anyone that they thought was
suspicious foot traffic along the road was extremely light during the following days and many businesses they were
actually closing early because they had to do this each day because the employees that worked at the
store were so nervous that they were closing early so that people could leave many officers worked this case in fact
they received and responded to over 300 tips that were submitted from the general public everyone wanted these
monsters to be caught but we will introduce you to two of the main detectives in this case the first that
we will talk about is a young man or a young detective this is Officer Dimitri Ruben after a few days into the
investigation he had some issues with the original Theory regarding two men just hanging out in front of the Apple
store waiting to attack an actual customer or go into the store and Rob the Apple Store okay
he was beginning to believe that maybe this random attack was not so Random after all his suspicions well they lie
with the victims so we have we have jaina she's killed during the brutal attack and then we have Brittany who is
spared okay Okay so the the reason why he has an issue with this original Theory and an issue with
the victims wrong issue with Britney's story well he's what at this point in the
investigation he's actually talking to the other detectives into officers and saying you know that theory we were kind
of working with with the Apple store right I I'm not into that theory so much anymore and the reason being is what he
refers to as an imbalance in wounds and an imbalance in injuries between the two
victims here he thinks that this imbalance of injuries might suggest that maybe Brittany was spared because she
actually knew the attackers okay so you you referenced uh jaina's injuries earlier now we would learn that
there's over 300 wounds to jaina these are overlapping wounds she had 107 defensive wounds her spinal cord was
severed her skull was crushed and then we have Brittany it's a whole different story she yes she
she has she's bloodied she has cuts to her head hand breast stomach and legs but what we see with jaina is a
completely different scenario we're seeing an individual that was attacked with multiple weapons and these are
overlapping wounds to the point where the investigators aren't really sure you know when you're when you're looking
at something if if somebody's beat with a club someone's stabbed someone's in in
and these injuries are to similar parts of the body it gets tough to to disseminate what uh item was used to
create those wounds and in her case how many items were used to create these wounds yeah they I mean they found blood
on I think it was I heard one of the detectives say he believes that was 8 to 10 items
that's a lot of items yeah um they would ultimately end up taking um I think it yeah it might have been 10
or two a dozen items from the store that they thought could have possibly been used in the attack and they ended up
submitting those for evidence I've seen some crime scene footage or photos from this Lululemon store and you know you
had said earlier there was blood everywhere and that is a very good description my friend there was blood on
the walls on the floor the area of the store where it's very obvious was that they were attacked it's just it's just a
bloody mess is what it is so the detective Dimitri he's coming out with this Theory saying okay
there's some stuff that's not lining up here and we have two attackers right one
that's six foot tall one that's five three that seems pretty small for a male but we think that they're both Caucasian
we have tons of wounds and one dead employee and we have another one that doesn't have as many wounds
and she's still alive we have this discrepancy as far as one car is being way farther away than the
other car would be and and possibly there's a robbery of some kind yeah you know we have one set of
footprints not two that's a little strange but so he starts coming up with this idea that maybe they knew Britney
so they spared her life or maybe possibly she's in on it right you know in any investigator would tell you this
when when you're talking about a robbery of a store or a restaurant or a business
of any kind the first angle they usually look at is was this some form of inside
job and there's many different inside jobs that can go down it could be a former employee you know that has
knowledge of the general operations of that business that would know when doors would be unlocked or when people would
be vulnerable to be taken hostage where money's located what days they have the most money in the in the business right
things of that nature and then you have current employees okay well it could be a current employee coming in when
they're not scheduled to work and robbing the place or you get some Goombas that you know and you have them
come in and guess what why don't you Goomba one and two why don't you come in and Rob the store when I'm there and
here's what I'll do I won't put up a you know I'm not gonna put up a big fight we
just gotta you gotta maybe rough me up a little bit to make it look real right I'll lead you to where all the valuables
are we'll make it easy for you to get into the store and get out of the store now the issue here is we have another
worker [Music] so where I think Dimitri's suspicions lie is look they they returned to the
store because of Brittany right who survived brit Brittany right it's starting to look like these two
victims quote unquote victims were only at the store because Brittany put them at the store right and then we
also don't know what went down once they got to the store who was the last one in
the door was it who should have been responsible for locking that door if anyone I mean the intention was to grab
something and leave but you know did Britney walk in behind jaina and conveniently not lock the door
because she knows that she's got Goomba one and two showing up within the next five minutes right
and then all of a sudden these guys show up in all hell breaks loose it turns into this horrific horrific murder and
we have some evidence of sexual assault on both victims so you know Dimitri is kind of going out on a limb on this idea
I mean you got to be sensitive about this you have you do have at this point an investigation you have two victims
and you have two victims that we have some evidence of sexual assault yeah well and you cannot you look if your
suspicion is that Britney was in on this somehow I mean how are you going to investigate
this but still treat her she still needs to be treated like a victim you you can't you can't if you can't
show all your cards here if that's your suspicion you can't bring her in and say
look we know you did this and then and then you're wrong and then you're wrong and you find out she was sexually
assaulted that she was brutalized by these two guys she didn't know who they were at all
right then that just makes use a piece of [ __ ] so I guess if you start to go down that road Captain it gets easy to
start venturing off and going down some other roads as to possible questionable things
with inside the story or what you're finding at the crime scene yeah I mean this detective Dimitri I mean certain
things are just not lining up to them and and I think when you start reading about these attacks I mean
two white males they attacked believed to be white out there Caucasian and we have a white female worker and we
have a black female worker the white female worker is beaten to death 300 and some
attacks on her I'm I mean it's just ridiculous and then you have a black female victim both supposedly
sexually assaulted but she has significantly less wounds on her and she was saying that they were saying
all this racial stuff and it to me it just seems like that part of the story doesn't line up too much you'd think if
there was some if this was some kind of hate crime or racial uh racially motivated then
they're killing the white girl I'm not the black girl I just doesn't make a lot of sense to me I see what you're saying
and I get that I don't know that it the way that Brittany describes this attack was that when she says racial
slurs she's referring to the man that attacked her right okay and and according to her story she's being
attacked by one man after jaina was dragged off into the back of the store by the other man who attacked her to the
point where she could hear jaina being hit and then eventually the the noises go faint and she doesn't hear anything
right so then you have so you have two different victims and two attackers so then the marks would make a little more
sense or the attacks being different make a little more sense when one is being attacked by one attacker and one
is being attacked by the other attack yeah and I see what you're questioning and and I I certainly thought about that
as well but what I the conclusion I came to was that two separate attackers two separate victims almost like it's
happening like they're different events almost and do we have a situation here where one offender is just so much more
violent and brutal than the other and impossible and we don't know if one of them is using racial slurs we don't
necessarily know that the other one would be a racist as well right the thing here though that gets me and I
think you're on the right track because it seems to me like why would you leave any potential Witnesses for this thing I
mean if you if you you brutally murdered one of the people in the store regardless if she's white black or green
or purple or whatever maybe they didn't know she was dead and and then you leave somebody alive well I
I think they do because I you know when they show Brittany the body of of jaina that's when they threaten her and
it's almost like I don't know the exact words we don't have the exact words for what they said to Brittany in that
instance but I can I almost picture this in my mind of the two assailants holding
this this woman hostage and holding her captive and they're all three looking down on the on this
murdered victim and they're going look it's almost kind of like look what we did we can do this to you too yeah but
why wouldn't you just do it to her then and you wouldn't wait that's again there's so many things that don't line
up in this story and we're gonna get to those and make sense of those [Music] we will see everybody back here in the
garage tomorrow until then everybody please be good be kind and don't litter [Music]
[Applause] thank you [Music]

Lululemon Murder /// Part 1 /// 193

Part 1 of 2

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Episode 193 - March 11th, 2011 - Bethesda, Maryland. After closing two masked men slipped into a retail store through an unlocked door. When the two intruders find two employees in the store a brutal attack is unleashed. Dan Morse wrote the book "The Yoga Store Murders" had the following to say when asked about the crime. - It was Mayhem in Bethesda. It was like a nightmare - random guys in ski masks who could slaughter and rape people they don't know. That's like out of the movies. It really doesn't happen that much anywhere, and it happened in a place where people thought they would be safe. This week we discuss the crimes that would later be known as the LuluLemon murder. Beer of the Week - The Truth by Flying Dog Brewery Garage Grade - 5 out of 5 bottle caps

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Brief Summary

A violent robbery at a Lululemon store leads to murder and assault, sparking an intense investigation and community fear.

Key points

Horrific Lululemon Attack. A violent robbery leads to a shocking murder in Bethesda, Maryland.
Victims Remembered. Jaina Murray and Brittany Norwood, two young women, become victims of a brutal crime.
Brutal Attack Unfolds. Two women are violently attacked in a store, leading to a desperate struggle for survival.
Surveillance Footage Captured. Police find surveillance footage of two men matching the attackers' description near the crime scene.
Community in Fear. The brutal nature of the crime leaves the community terrified, leading to decreased business and increased security measures.
Detective Dimitri's Theory. Detective Dimitri begins to doubt the original theory of the attack, suggesting a deeper connection.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's good to be seen and it's good to see you.

Host greeting the audience.

0:52WatchNov 26, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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