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Murder at the Lululemon · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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Early in the morning of March twelfth, twenty eleven, the Lululemon store in
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Bethesda, Maryland was about to open. The manager arrived at the front door,
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ready to open the shop for the day, when she noticed that the
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door had been left unlocked. Looking through the window, she realized this wasn't
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just a situation where an employee had failed to lock up the previous night.
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Clothing had been torn off the racks and thrown across the shop floor, and
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some of the Mannikins had been knocked over. Now believing that there had been
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a break in, the manager approached a nearby man and asked him to look
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inside. The man followed the trail of bloody footprints to a hallway out the
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back, where he saw a woman lying face down in a pool of her
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own blood. It was Jana Murray, one of the store's employees. It
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was clear that she had been the victim of some kind of violent attack and
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had died several hours before. Another employee, Brittany Norwood, was located in
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the bathroom, lying on the floor. Her face was covered in blood and
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somebody had tied her wrists and ankles with zip ties. When the police arrived
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on the scene, they were able to speak with Brittany and find out more
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details about what happened. She told them that she and Jana had been rostered
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on a closing shift the previous night. The two women had closed up like
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they usually would, but after they left, Brittany realized that she had left
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her wallet inside the store. She called Jana, who had the keys,
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and asked to be let back inside. The store's alarm system records confirmed the
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timeline showing that the door had been unlocked again just after ten pm. Shortly
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after the door was unlocked, Brittany told the police that two unidentified men wearing
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ski masks had followed her and Jana back inside the store. The men quickly
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overpowered the two women, violently attacking and then sexually assaulting both of them.
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For investigators, there were some things about Britney's story that just didn't make sense.
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Jana's injuries were consistent with the kind of vicious attack that Brittany had described.
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She had received more than three hundred thirty wounds on her body, which
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had come from a minimum of five weapons. Police couldn't think of any reason
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why a pair of violent attackers would carry out such a brutal attack on one
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employee, while leaving the other one with only a few cuts and bruises.
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Despite Brittany's insistence that she and Jana had been raped by the men, there
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was no forensic evidence suggesting that either of them had been sexually assaulted. The
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only sign that rape had taken place was a hole that had been deliberately cut
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into Jana's pants, as if somebody had been trying to make the police believe
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that the crime had been sexually motivated. Even though there were a significant number
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of bloody footprints inside the store, none of them led to any of the
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store's exits. In fact, there was no sign that the attackers had left
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the store at all. Even more strangely, while one of the bloody footprints
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had come from a pair of men's sneakers which had been taken off and abandoned
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inside the store, the other set of footprints weren't made with men's shoes.
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In fact, the other footprints belonged to one of the victims. Brittany nor
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would investigators searched for anybody who had been close to the Lululemen's store that night,
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hoping that a witness would be able to confirm whether the two masked assailants
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had even existed. They spoke to two employees at the neighboring Apple store who
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had heard a loud argument coming from inside the Lululemen's store at around the same
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time the supposed attack had taken place. However, both the employee and the
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manager insisted that they had not heard any male voices. In fact, the
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altercation had sounded like it was between two women. One of the women had
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been saying, quote, talk to me, don't do this, talk to
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me, what's going on. Then there had been the sounds of screaming and
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loud banging noises, which sounded as if someone was being hit. After that,
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a quieter voice said, God help me, Please help me. At
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the time, the Apple's store manager hadn't thought the argument was anything serious,
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believing it was quote just drama. In the early hours of the investigation,
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the police had been treating Britain as if she were one of the victims of
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the attack, but the more information they discovered, the more they began to
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believe that she was not a victim at all. When Brittany had been found,
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she had been lying on the bathroom floor, supposedly drifting in and out
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of consciousness since the attack, she didn't have any serious head injuries that could
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have led to her losing consciousness. In fact, the one wound that was
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found on her forehead suggested her story was a lie. A forensic expert analyzed
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the pattern of the blood from the forehead cut, confirming that it had dripped
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downwards in a straight line, showing that Brittany had actually spent most of the
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night standing or sitting up instead of lying on the floor. The police located
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Jana's car, which was parked three blocks away outside of a farmer's market.
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They found a significant amount of blood inside the car, which belonged to two
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people, Jana and Britney. Because Jane's injuries were so severe it was impossible
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for her to have driven the car after the attack, the only person who
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could have left the blood inside the car was Brittany. When she was confronted
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with this evidence, Brittany eventually told the police that she had been forced to
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move Jana's car by the two attackers, who had told her that if she
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didn't return to the store within ten minutes, she would be killed. This
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was just another detail which didn't make any sense. To the investigators, why
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would the attackers insist on Jane's carr being moved, and if they wanted it
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to be moved, why didn't one of them leave the store and drive it.
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Brittany didn't have any answers, and she also didn't have a credible explanation
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for returning to the store after she had been sent to move the car.
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She told the police that she was too scared to make a run for it
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because she knew that the two men knew where she lived. She believed that
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if she had just driven Jane's car to safety, the men would have hunted
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her down and killed her. One week after Jane's death, Brittany Norwood was
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arrested for her co worker murder. The masked men who had broken into the
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store had never existed. Instead, Jana had died after a petty argument with
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Britney. Before leaving the store that evening, Brittany and Jana had followed the
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usual security procedures at the store, including both women checking the other one's bag
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for any Lululemon merchandise. While searching Britney's bag, Jana found a pair of
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Lulu Limon pants which had not been paid for. Believing that her coworker was
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trying to steal the pants. Jana placed a phone call to the manager,
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who said that she'd deal with the potential theft the following day. Then,
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Jana received a phone call from Brittany asking her to unlock the store so that
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she could go back in and get her wallet. Jana agreed, and when
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she arrived at the store, Brittany attacked her using a hammer, a knife,
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a metal bar, box cutters, and a wrnch to inflict hundreds of
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injuries. She hit Jana in the head so hard that her spine was broken
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and her skull was shattered. Once Jana was dead, Brittany then decided to
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stage the crime scene, hoping that the police would believe Jana had been killed
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in a robbery. She put on a men's size fourteen sneakers to leave blood
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trails around the store, through clothing and cleaning supplies around the store, and
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knocked over the Mannikins to make it appear as if the store had been ransacked.
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Finally, Brittany tried to make herself look like a victim, but she
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couldn't quite bring herself to injure herself as extensively as she'd injured Jana. Instead,
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she used a knife to cut her own forehead and then used zip ties
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to bind her wrists and ankles. On the twenty seventh of January twenty twelve,
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Brittany was found guilty of her co worker's murder and sentenced to life in
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prison. It only took the jury twenty one minutes to make their decision.
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That's ten minute Murder for today brief and binge able true crime. My name
9:09
is Joe. I'm the host, and I really appreciate you listening. If
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All right, email question for today. Hello, mister Joe. I
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kind of like being called mister Joe. That makes me feel important. This
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is Sydney in LA. I have a question. I'm curious about what court
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case do you think gets attention but for the wrong reasons. Hi, Sidney,
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thanks for the email. This is a tough one and I had to
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think about this a little bit. And since you didn't specify a murder case,
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this is my answer. Okay, so we all know the story about
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the lady that sued McDonald's because her coffee was too hot. If someone mentions
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about how people just sue anyone for anything, this case usually gets mentioned in
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some derogatory way. Let me tell you her lawsuit is so legitimate. I've
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done research on this that no one asked me to do. The coffee was
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being served at like one hundred and ninety degrees, the spill costs third degree
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burns, and it was so hot that it fused parts of her female area
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together. She required skin grafting. She was in the hospital for eight days
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for spilled coffee. She initially asked for twenty thousand dollars to cover medical expenses.
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McDonald said, now, we're not going to do that. So they
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went to court and the jury awarded her one hundred and sixty thousand dollars in
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compensatory damages to cover medicals, lost wages, then another two point seven million
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dollars impunitive damages. Now that was later reduced, and then they even ended
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up settling for an undisclosed figure. But my point is, so many people
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have absolutely trashed this lady over the years about suing for stupid things. That's
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not the case in this In this situation, many more people would have absolutely
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been hurt for years to come if they hadn't been forced to change the temperature
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that they serve their coffee. And that's it. Thanks for listening to another
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ten minute Murder Podcast episode. I will see you on the next one. Goodbye.