The Yoga Store Murder (15 page)

About 6:00 P.M., a regular customer named Janay Carlson walked in. Jayna and another saleswoman, named Rachel LaMarca, helped her look through running shorts and jackets. Janay spent nearly an hour in the store, at times the only customer. Brittany approached her and complimented the lulu top she already was wearing, one purchased previously from the shop. “When that shirt first came out, I wasn’t sure about it. You’re changing my mind,” Brittany told her.

To Janay, the three lulu employees were the same typically polite, energetic women she always encountered at the store. She walked out with more than $200 worth of garb: running pants, a running jacket, a shirt, and a headband. As Rachel got ready to leave at 7:00 P.M., Jayna was replenishing displays with new apparel and Brittany was standing over a table in the fitting area, taping up a box of items that needed to be shipped to another store. They both seemed happy as Rachel said good-bye.

Courtney was working her second job at a bakery several miles away, and sent a text message to Jayna. “If I get out of work before you, do you want me to stop by?” Jayna didn’t respond, which wasn’t unusual. Lulu workers were not allowed to use their phones on the sales floor. Courtney tried again at 8:36 P.M., making reference to having to work alone with someone who—if she really had taken the items—seemed above all to be completely strange. “Hey just got done with work. I’m exhausted and have to be back at 7. I’m headed home. :( Sorry. Hope you survived!”

Inside lululemon, two more customers walked through the doors at 8:45 P.M., fifteen minutes before closing. Paul Rodriguez and Elizabeth Schlappal were making their second stop of the night in Bethesda. They’d started at Sweetgreen for a couple of organic salads, then Paul offered to buy Elizabeth a pair of running shorts. They were greeted by Jayna, who made an immediate impression—at once bubbly and laid-back. Jayna helped Elizabeth pick out a pair of shorts and walked her toward a fitting room. By the time she came out, it was Brittany who was in the fitting area, folding a garment on a table, and also friendly. “Those look good on you,” Brittany said.

Elizabeth tried on another pair as well, eventually made her choice, and walked toward the cash registers at the front of the store. Brittany followed and passed her, walked behind the counter next to Jayna, and rang up the sale. One pair of black “Speed” shorts, $57.24, including tax. It was 8:57 P.M. The two saleswomen pleasantly said their good-byes to the couple. Brittany led them to the door and locked it behind them—an indication to Paul and Elizabeth that the saleswomen were eager to shut things down before another customer came in. The store now closed for business, Brittany and Jayna counted money, finished reports, made sure the displays and racks were lined up, swept the floors, and shut down the computerized cash registers. Around 9:30, they performed a final duty: checking each other’s bags. Both had plenty of items inside. Jayna’s held a digital camera, battery charger, black leather datebook, a leadership book, and a bottle of red Argentinean wine her coworker had left for her for agreeing to switch shifts. Brittany’s had a black makeup pouch, workout clothes, the flip-flops, a candle, and a curling iron.

As Jayna looked through Brittany’s bag, though, she also spotted a pair of “crops”-style workout pants with a price tag still on them. She asked Brittany if she had a receipt. Brittany said she’d thrown the slip away, something employees often did because they couldn’t return the merchandise they purchased at a discount anyway. But Jayna had more questions. “Who rang you out?”

“Chioma,” Brittany said, referring to the floor supervisor and mathematics graduate who’d spoken with Jayna earlier in the day.

Jayna wanted to check Brittany’s explanation. “I can just go into the computer,” Jayna said. But she couldn’t boot up the system; it was programmed to stay off once it was shut down for the night. “It’s no big deal,” Jayna said. “We’ll deal with it later.”

She set the burglar alarm at 9:45 P.M., and the two dashed out before the sensors engaged. Jayna locked the door from the outside. She and Brittany said their good-byes and walked in opposite directions—Jayna toward her parked car, Brittany toward the subway station.

It took Jayna less than three minutes to turn the corner, cross Arlington Road, and descend seventeen steps into a parking garage. By then, she’d taken out her BlackBerry and called Chioma. Jayna asked if she’d sold Brittany anything that day. “Nope, I sure didn’t,” her colleague said.

“I didn’t think you did,” Jayna said, “because when I bag-checked Brittany, I found a pair of crops in there that still had the tag on.” Jayna wrapped up her call, saying she needed to get in touch with the store manager, Rachel. Seven seconds later, she did.

The two were very close. Rachel considered Jayna smart, sassy, and honest. Brittany, on the other hand, was someone Rachel hadn’t had a good feeling about—she’d passed on hiring her in the first place a year earlier, but was forced to take her on after the Georgetown dustup.

“We caught the bitch,” Jayna said.

“I’m going to fire her in the morning,” Rachel said.

Six minutes after leaving the store, Brittany made a call of her own, telling coworker Eila Rab that she’d left her wallet in the store and needed Jayna’s number so she could come back and unlock the door for her. Eila suggested Brittany call their store manager, Rachel Oertli, who lived across the street from the store and also had a key.

“Well, Jayna was just here,” Brittany said. “Can I just get her number?”

“I can give it to you now,” Eila said.

“No, just text it to me,” Brittany said.

A moment later the text arrived, and Brittany called Jayna, leaving her a voice mail. As Brittany waited, she dashed off a quick text to the coworker: “Thank you!” She tried calling Jayna again, couldn’t get through, and followed that with a text: “Hey Jayna it’s Britt I think I forgot my wallet in the store.”

Jayna called back, spoke with Brittany briefly and said she could come back to the store. “I noticed I didn’t have my laptop anyway, so that’s fine.” Ten minutes later, Jayna pulled her silver, two-door Pontiac G5 up near the front of the store. Brittany was waiting for her at the teak bench. It was 10:05 P.M. They opened the door and walked inside.

SECTION III

ZEROING IN

Piling On

By the evening of Monday, March 14, 2011, detectives had spent three days piecing together what happened after Brittany Norwood and Jayna Murray returned to the lululemon athletica store. At first, they’d been alarmed at the idea that two men could have been so bold as to slip into a popular nightlife area and unleash mayhem. Then they became wary, as parts of Brittany’s story didn’t add up, but backed off, swayed by the parking-lot video that seemed to back up her story, and the discovery of a bloodied homeless man, Keith Lockett, who seemed to know about the case.

But the prospect of Keith being the killer had fizzled. And even if he was, the statements he’d given in the wee hours of the morning had been so incoherent as to be useless. The only way to tie Keith to the crime would be through DNA analysis, and those results were at least several days away. Detective Jim Drewry, one of the two lead detectives on the case, wasn’t even sure whether to ask the crime lab to analyze Keith’s blood yet. He knew they’d be bombarding the lab with such requests in the case, and wanted to maintain goodwill. Citizens had continued to call in with tips, which other detectives checked out, but none were leading anywhere.

Drewry and Detective Dimitry Ruvin, the other lead detective, didn’t know much about the two victims, and had yet to meet Brittany personally. There’d been no immediate need to hit their stunned friends and family members with questions about them, and what information about the women that was available online and in law enforcement databases offered only broad overviews. Still, they’d been able to form some initial impressions. Jayna Murray was obviously a go-getter. Her LinkedIn profile showed that she was getting two master’s degrees at Johns Hopkins University, and before that listed her as having held an international marketing position at Halliburton. She had no criminal history. Brittany Norwood was less visible on the Internet, though she, too, had a clean criminal history. She’d clearly been a star soccer player in high school, good enough to earn a college scholarship. A Google search of her home address indicated that she lived in an apartment unit of a large renovated town house owned by her sister and her sister’s fiancé.

“What do we have? Do we have any credible tips?” Ruvin asked Drewry, before answering his own question: “No. We have nothing.”

They knew Brittany was out of the hospital now, resting at home. Maybe they should go introduce themselves, see if she was relaxed enough to offer more details and better descriptions of the suspects. Drewry had her sister Marissa’s cell-phone number and called her. Marissa said it would be fine to stop by that evening.

Drewry and Ruvin climbed into Drewry’s Dodge Intrepid and headed south. The detectives enjoyed each other’s company, despite their differences: Ruvin the gadget freak; Drewry the man twice his age with no Facebook account. As Ruvin liked to tell him: “You’re the only guy around here who can say you were a cop before I was born and not be lying about it.”

Drewry parked near the town house, and the detectives walked up the single flight of stairs to the door of Marissa’s immaculately renovated, century-old home, where they were greeted warmly. Many of Brittany’s family were there, including those who’d flown in from the West Coast to rally around her. The whole scene—big home, successful African American family, everyone sticking together—seemed to Drewry like something right out of
The Cosby Show
. As he and Ruvin introduced themselves, a diminutive young woman walked in from another room. “Hi, I’m Brittany.” She spoke softly and said she lived downstairs. “That will probably be the best place to talk.”

The detectives walked down the outside flight of stairs, entering a tidy apartment and taking seats around a dining table. Ruvin got out a legal pad to take notes. Brittany’s roommate, Lisa, made a brief appearance before ducking back out of sight. Brittany told the detectives her family wanted her to move back to Seattle. “They’re very concerned for me.”

But Brittany said she wasn’t going to let the attackers scare her into leaving. “Before this all happened, I was talking to Equinox gym. I was looking for a job. They reached out to me since it happened and said the job is mine when I’m better. I can come work there anytime.”

Ruvin knew the gym was just two blocks from the yoga store, and thought she was brave to consider going back to the area in such a visible job. His partner tried to put Brittany at ease. “We just want to go over the story one more time,” Drewry said. “A lot of times, a couple of days later, people remember a small detail that may be important to us.”

Brittany told them the same thing she’d earlier told Detective Deana Mackie in the hospital, adding in more details. Friday evening had been fairly slow in the store. She and Jayna closed at 9:00 P.M., cleaned up and left, heading in opposite directions. Brittany realized she’d left her wallet behind and called Jayna to ask if she could come back to let her in. “I noticed I didn’t have my laptop anyway, so that’s fine,” Brittany recalled Jayna saying. “So I’ll just meet you at the store and we’ll walk in together.”

Brittany said there weren’t many people left on Bethesda Avenue when she’d waited for Jayna. The fancy bakery, Georgetown Cupcake, was closed, as was the Apple Store. When Jayna arrived, the two went inside but couldn’t find Brittany’s wallet. Jayna offered Brittany her plastic subway fare card so she could board the subway. “Why don’t you just take mine, and we’ll look for it in the morning?” Brittany recalled Jayna saying.

Drewry pulled out his digital recorder. She told him how she and Jayna were walking out when the two men suddenly appeared, with one of them striking Jayna. Drewry asked Brittany where the man was who attacked her.

“Behind one of our clothing racks.”

“Okay,” Drewry said. “And what did he do?”

“When I noticed him is when he jumped up. When I tried to turn around, he yanked me back by my hair and was telling me to shut up. At this point, Jayna and I are both yelling for help.”

Brittany spoke clearly. She said both men wore dark clothes, gloves, ski masks with narrow slits cut around the eyes, and hoodies over the masks. “My suspect was taller than me by a couple of inches, maybe five five,” she said, adding that “Jayna’s suspect” was taller. He dragged Jayna by her hair. The two men laughed, almost as if they were acting out a violent video game, Brittany said, the name of which she couldn’t place.

“
Grand Theft Auto
?” Ruvin asked.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Brittany said. Her hands started to shake, tears sprang to her eyes. She told the detectives that her attacker forced her to the cash registers to get money, whacked her across the head, pushed her to the back of the store, then shoved her onto Jayna’s bloody, dead body.

Ruvin was stunned at the horrific scene Brittany described, and his own emotion took over. He stopped writing.
We will find these assholes
, he told himself.
I don’t care how long it’s going to take
.

Brittany suddenly paused, looked down, then back up at the detectives. She said there was something she hadn’t told the female detective back at the hospital. “They know where I live.”

“Well, how would they know?” Drewry asked.

“I don’t know. They probably looked in my purse and maybe found my bills. I had Comcast bills and a gas bill.”

Drewry tried to get more detailed descriptions of the attackers.

“Okay. And describe the guy that assaulted you.”

Brittany was vague, saying he was covered from head to toe.

“Okay. And from his voice, how old do you think he was?”

“I guess, I’d say midtwenties.”

“And from his voice, can you give me a race or an ethnicity?”