May 1, 2023 • 27 mins
A seemingly normal closing shift at a Bethesda Maryland Lululemon would turn out to be one of the most elaborate robbery scenes you may ever hear and have you and everyone else wondering… how is that even true? With one young woman dead and the other only lightly scratched, police will begin to question the survivors story. This episode contains discussion or murder and sexual assault.
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(00:00):
A seemingly normal closing shift at a Bethesda, Maryland lululemon would turn out to be one
(00:09):
of the most elaborate robbery scenes you may ever hear.
And have you and everyone else wondering, how is that even true?
With one young woman dead and the other seemingly lightly scratched, police will begin to question
the survivor's story.
This episode contains discussion of murder and sexual assault.
(00:34):
Welcome to an easy, a podcast hosted by Lexi and Cecilia.
This podcast is a collection of research based on haunting and mysterious events that will
leave you feeling genuinely uneasy.
Discretion is advised.
The lululemon store in Bethesda, Maryland is located in Bethesda Row, which is a nice
(00:57):
shopping community lined with lights and ample sidewalk space.
And Bethesda is considered one of the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
But it's located still in Maryland.
And it's a pretty affluent and nice area, not known for high crime or anything like
that.
(01:17):
On March 12th, 2011, the manager, whose name is Rachel, was arriving at about 8 a.m. to
open the store for the day.
And she noticed that the door was already unlocked, which was strange considering she
was the one scheduled to open the store that day, but she thought maybe someone had came
in early to help her out or forgot to lock up for the night.
(01:41):
And so she just proceeded to enter into the store.
And she's at this point going in through the front doors.
As she entered the store, it looked as if someone had destroyed the place.
The lights were on, but clothes were everywhere.
And she quickly looked for her phone and called out to see if there was another employee or
(02:01):
anyone in the store, despite the store looking like somebody had ransacked it.
And at that point, she hears a strange kind of moaning sound coming from the back of the
store that sounds like someone's in trouble.
And that causes her to get scared, obviously, and leave immediately.
I would do the same thing.
Oh, 100 percent.
(02:23):
Yeah.
She calls 911 and she goes next door to the Apple store and finds a man named Ryan to
go back inside with her to make sure that no one was hurt, which was smart on her part.
I would probably man or woman just find a buddy, use the buddy system to go back in.
Rachel waited up front as Ryan went to look in the back of the store.
(02:46):
A few minutes later, he was calling out to Rachel to call the police again.
When Ryan went to the back of the store, he found a body laying face down and he told
Rachel that there was another person who was a woman and was tied up in the bathroom.
And immediately he's saying that she's barely breathing and that they may have been
(03:09):
assaulted.
And then Rachel called 911 again.
During this call, she told police, quote, there's two people in the back of my store.
One person seems dead and the other person is breathing.
At this point, Montgomery County police responded to the 911 calls and arrived to discover the
store in its complete mess that it was left in.
(03:32):
And on the floor, which was covered in blood, they found two sets of footprints from somebody
walking through puddles of blood and then walking around the store.
One of these sets of footprints was large and the other one was pretty small.
The scene was also covered in blood and case experts later suggest that this points to
(03:55):
extreme rage.
The non-responsive body in the back belonged to a 30 year old woman named Jaina Murray.
Jaina was the employee of the Lululemon store and she had worked the closing shift the night
before.
Jaina suffered 331 wounds to her body.
(04:17):
Oh my goodness.
Yeah I would say that's extreme rage.
That is so hard to fathom.
That many wounds.
That's so much work to do to someone else.
That takes a lot of energy to stab someone 331 times.
(04:43):
I cannot imagine what the other person was feeling.
You have completely decimated someone.
I will say it's later reported that about 100 of these wounds on her body are in defensive
nature.
So she was fighting back.
So that leaves about 200 wounds.
(05:05):
Well knock off 100.
200 wounds then that she got from the perpetrator.
Still oh my goodness.
Also that's so sad that 100 of those were self defense.
Like oh that poor woman.
Police also discovered a badly shaken 28 year old Brittany Norwood and she had her hands
(05:27):
and feet zip tied in the bathroom.
Her hands were kind of above her head which was odd to the police when they found her
and she had cuts all over her chest, arms, legs, face and abdomen.
So does she have like a significant amount of wounds as well or?
(05:47):
Nothing to compare to what Jaina like endured.
She was rushed to the hospital and once she was stable she was able to recount the night
and this is when she has her first interview with police and she explains to the police
that the previous night on March 11th she and Jaina were closing the store together.
(06:11):
And once they left Brittany realized that she forgot her wallet inside and she contacted
Jaina and asked her to come back and unlock the store so that she could retrieve it.
Brittany was a newer employee so she didn't really know Jaina as well so she had to contact
somebody else and then get Jaina's number but she knew that Jaina was the manager so
(06:33):
she would have the keys and be able to get her wallet.
While they were inside to unlock the store Brittany said two masked men barged in, attacked
her and Jaina and proceeded to tie them up and sexually assault them.
When Jaina resisted the men began beating her and eventually stabbed her to death.
(06:54):
So that's Brittany's story.
She said at that point when she realized that Jaina was dead she knew she had to do whatever
these two masked men asked and she was bitten and cut with a knife.
But mercifully she survived with only superficial wounds.
(07:16):
Which that's a bit of a red flag if one, I mean unless the one victim was the one they
were truly targeting but she was able to stay alive and if with that case it's like now
she can ID you, now she can like help police try to figure out who you are.
(07:40):
Which those are all things that are starting to come up in police's mind as they're investigating
this case.
Also, I always get super suspicious about superficial wounds because it's really hard
to like she very well could be the incident in this but as a police officer it seems a
(08:03):
lot more suspicious to just have superficial wounds especially when someone else has been
stabbed over 200 times because it's harder to stab yourself and like you, your brain
doesn't want you to hurt yourself so you're going to not go as deep or as far, as close
to as many vital organs as you would when attacking someone else.
(08:25):
Yeah, so she claims that the attackers left her tied up in the bathroom and that's where
she stayed until Rachel came that morning to unlock the door for her shift.
And so while they're at the hospital, police go ahead and ask the hospital to perform a
medical exam on her and this is for two reasons.
(08:46):
One because of what she just endured but two because she's claiming sexual assault as well
so they just want to make sure that she's okay and get her checked out and also that
can provide DNA evidence as well.
So they went on along with their investigation which was beginning to shape up as a very
suspicious case for them.
(09:10):
I want to take a moment to dive into Brittany Norwood herself.
She was one of nine children and her father owned an upholstery business.
Growing up she had the values to work hard and you know get a good education instilled
in her so she grew up very skilled in athletics.
Brittany was recruited to Stony Brook University in New York to play soccer.
(09:33):
She started her collegiate career in 2000 and played until 2003 after being accused
by her teammates and others that she was stealing from them.
She's known to have some sticky hands and basically girls would be like, hey keep your
stuff locked up around that girl.
I think we've all known somebody like that.
(09:56):
Those are literally the most annoying people to have in your life.
You don't even want to invite them to your house because you're worried that they might
take something.
So apparently she would try to play it off as a joke that she was stealing.
People would be like, oh she's just like that.
She just like, no people aren't just like that.
(10:17):
No.
That's not a thing.
So she lost valuable friendships over her stealing habits.
And she was ultimately expelled from the school after some of the girls came forward.
So she lost her scholarship and she was expelled.
I feel like that's actually pretty intense.
(10:38):
Petty theft, I don't feel like you get expelled from school.
There definitely had to be something big that you took.
Or it's just like multiple, multiple occurrences.
I feel like you're held to a different standard when you're a student athlete as well.
That's true.
I do like Target, how they like, everyone says that they wait until you collect a certain,
(10:59):
like you steal a certain amount and then they arrest you.
Same vibe.
Yeah.
She also in the past has allegedly walked out on a hair appointment without paying as
well.
So she claimed as soon as her install was done that her wallet had been like the cash
(11:21):
out of her wallet had been stolen in this woman's salon.
So the woman felt so terrible and was like, oh my gosh, girl, like I feel so bad.
Please just bring the money by like another day.
And eventually Brittany just stopped responding to her and blocked her and never paid her
for this like expensive install for her hair.
(11:43):
Yeah.
Especially in DC.
Oh yeah.
Don't even.
That's expensive.
It reminds me of those like people you have at restaurants where they're like, I hated
the food, I'm not paying for it.
And there's literally not a drop left on the plate.
The service is done.
Like you ate the food, you got the service.
(12:03):
Now you have to pay.
Anyways, after this, she moved to DC to live with her sister and worked at Willard Intercontinental
Hotel, which fun little history fact, this hotel is known for being the residence of
the presidents because every president since the 1850s has either stayed or visited it.
(12:24):
So it's a pretty affluent hotel.
It's cool.
A little fun.
That's where I'm going to stay next time I go to DC so I can be on the list.
Okay.
She quickly moved up in her job here and was handling the VIP clientele.
So like I said, VIP clientele can be pretty important people.
(12:45):
After a while, she ended up leaving as she knew that she wanted to do something with
athletics.
So she ended up working at Lulu, which I'm like, okay, maybe she wanted to do athletic
retail and that's why she went to Lulu, but she did leave the Willard on her own accords.
Leading back to the police investigation, they continued to try and track down any leaves.
(13:08):
However, there were no eyewitness reports, no security camera footage that they found
to be helpful and no signs of break-ins because the doors were left unlocked.
But there was a report that there were the sound of two women arguing according to an
Apple store worker next door.
In addition, there was a pretty hefty reward put up for anyone that could help the police
(13:32):
find and convict the two male suspects and this reward was $150,000.
So the community was pretty invested in this.
There are interviews from news stations that are interviewing people within Bethesda Row
and they're young girls just being scared and also saying that they can't believe that
(13:57):
it happened there because of the area it's at.
The store was boarded up.
There's flowers laying out for the victims.
I mean people really were invested in this case.
Police asked Brittany to come in for DNA samples and then for questioning after she claimed
(14:18):
to be withholding information and fear that the attackers would find her.
So one of the new details that she provided was that in the middle of the attack, the
suspects untied her and forced her to go outside and get in Jaina's car and move it and then
(14:38):
come back in.
And what?
Yeah, which it was interesting that she provided that information because at the time police
already had her DNA in the car, which is like after they got the DNA samples from her and
(14:59):
they matched it, they knew that...
Why was she in the car?
Oh, you just wait.
You just wait.
They knew that she had been in the car.
So at this point, police also knew that they had not been sexually assaulted.
(15:20):
There was no indication that either of the girls had been raped and Brittany's wounds
were superficial like Cecilia pointed out and they had all the characteristics of self-inflicted
injuries.
So the police just kept keeping these little tabs on her story that just were not making
(15:41):
sense when matched up with evidence.
And there was a detective that said that he was skeptical from the start, quote, it's just
this little voice in the back of my head.
Something's just not right.
The way Brittany's describing these two guys, they're racists, they're rapists, they're robbers,
they're murderers.
It's like the worst human being that you could possibly describe, right?
(16:04):
So police are very like suspicious of her because she is describing this completely
elaborate concocted plan that just sounds kind of too awful to be true.
Were any of these two ladies of a minority race?
(16:25):
Brittany's African American.
So that is where she's claiming that.
She said that they came in and were yelling racist slurs at her.
Gotcha.
Well, then I would think if she was the only one that was of minority race and they were
yelling racist slurs at her, then she would have the brunt of the crime and they wouldn't
(16:49):
let her waddy-doddy out and get in a car and move it around.
No, the suspect would do that while they're both tied up.
Oh, for sure.
And the police from the jump thought the position that she was found in was suspicious.
And so police end up arresting Brittany and charge her with first degree murder.
(17:10):
And they do not go lightly on her in the interrogation.
They basically tell her, look, no one's going to believe you.
I don't believe you.
My boss doesn't believe you.
They're pointing out the wounds being superficial, her posing being...
He basically, the interrogator puts his hands over his head and mocks the way she was posing
(17:31):
when she was found.
Oh my God.
Because he's like, there's no way you stayed like that all night.
There's no way because she had her hands over her head and she almost looked like she was
like...
I don't know how to explain it.
Trying to look graceful in a way.
It just looks so fake.
I will have to post a picture of it.
(17:52):
It just looks so fake.
And he even goes as far as to say that her mother and father would call, quote, bullshit
if he were to tell them the story against the evidence that he had.
So he's really going in on Brittany, trying to get her to just go ahead and confess so
that this case can move along and he can get justice for the victim.
(18:17):
Eventually they bring the brother in and she refuses to talk to him as well, which is smart
on her part because she was being recorded, but ultimately she was still arrested and
charged with first degree murder.
So the truth of this night finally comes to a head during the trial and we start to piece
(18:37):
together what of the story is true and what is a complete fabrication.
Mary Ripple, which is the deputy chief medical examiner for the state of Maryland, told jurors
that Jaina had no fewer than 331 injuries to her body.
So that stays true.
(18:58):
Her head and face were badly bruised and covered in cuts and the blow had ultimately killed
her was a stab wound to the back of her neck that severed her spinal cord and went all
the way through to her brain.
Oh my gosh, that's so sad.
Yeah, pretty gruesome.
I should have put a little warning there.
(19:20):
It was literally so terrible that they couldn't have an open casket funeral at all.
I feel so bad for her parents because they definitely had to identify her.
Oh yeah.
And seeing your child like that.
Oh my goodness.
So it was also determined that she was murdered using the store's toolkit, including a hammer,
(19:45):
a knife.
And then in addition, it was a merchandise peg, a rope and a box cutter.
So there was multiple different kinds of murder weapons, which I found so interesting because
you have had to like put down and then pick up and then.
Did she bring like the little toolkit with her?
Like she was about ready to like build something.
(20:08):
I'm not sure.
And it's just honestly unnecessary.
Like there's no need for all of that.
And also shows that it was definitely someone that worked at Lululemon because a random
intruder is not going to know where the store's toolkit is and everything.
Yeah, exactly.
The state also points out that Brittany left the store and moved Jaina's car three blocks
(20:36):
away.
And so at this point, Brittany's freaking out and she is trying to figure out what she's
going to do because she is the one who stopped Jaina.
She is the one who moved that car.
And at this point in the night, she's saying, how do I get away with this?
So she sits in the car that she just moved for 90 minutes while she's three blocks away.
(21:02):
And she's just trying to figure out what to do.
And she decides to go back to the store with the plan to stage it like they had been attacked
by two men.
And so she took money from the cash registers to stage a robbery.
She sliced her own forehead and cut a gash in and cut a gash in Jaina's pants to make
(21:23):
it look like she had been sexually assaulted.
She also put on a pair of men's 14 shoes and walked around in the store to make it look
like there had been a man in the store because she walks through the blood pedals.
And those are the footprints that we see initially on the 12th when they're going into the store.
(21:46):
Finally, she tied her own fins and feet with zip ties and settled into the bathroom to
wait for the morning.
So I think the investigator was right in making fun of her for that a little bit.
So you're probably wondering why Brittany was so upset that she's decided to brutally
(22:08):
kill her.
So Jaina confronted Brittany for shoplifting via bag check, which is pretty common in retail
stores to do bag checks on people, which I didn't know that, but I never really worked
in retail, but I guess it's pretty common.
And she found a stolen pair of Lulu leggings in her bag, which for those of you who don't
(22:33):
know, those can run you the nice price of $110 these days.
So I'm not sure they were that expensive in 2011, but still expensive.
With Brittany barely knowing her, she calls a coworker, gets the number, and then is able
to ask her to come back to the store because she forgot her wallet.
(22:55):
This proved premeditation to the defense.
I just cannot fathom being accused of shoplifting.
Okay, whatever, you lose your job.
That's one thing.
But to have so much rage over someone not even just accusing you, you clearly did it.
Pointing out something that you did that you stabbed them hundreds of times.
(23:21):
Over a pair of leggings, leggings.
That much rage is something that I would compare to...
Buy an Amazon dupe online.
I know, I would just compare this to such a more meaningful murder that I just am like,
(23:42):
girl, this is why?
I don't know.
As a manager, this is something she does a bag check literally every night with every
employee.
And for this to happen to her over a pair of leggings, it's not fair to her regardless,
but this is just ridiculous.
(24:03):
It is ridiculous.
The defense also really digs in on the fact that DNA was found in Jaina's car, and prosecutors
show the jury all of the evidence, including phone calls and video footage of Britney claiming
not to know the type of car that Jaina even drove.
And so it's like, she's just lying this entire time.
(24:25):
And the evidence was so overwhelming and damning that Britney changed her guilty plea to one
of self-defense.
Geez.
And this doesn't really stick because the jury deliberated for 21 minutes before finding
her guilty.
Oh my gosh.
21 minutes.
That's like everyone just sitting down, signing the paper and you walking back.
(24:51):
That's literally all 21 minutes is essentially.
They're eating their boxed lunch that the court provides in 21 minutes.
And then during sentencing, the family of Jaina were so emotional that they insisted
that Britney serve her full sentence, not being eligible for parole.
(25:12):
Britney was sentenced to life in prison without the opportunity for parole because the judge
completely agreed with the family.
In 2015, Britney contested her conviction using a Maryland state law that guarantees
circuit court defendants the right to appeal.
However, the court rejected this even though her lawyers were claiming that she didn't
(25:35):
receive Miranda warning early enough in the investigation.
So she was basically improperly questioned by detectives.
However, that's just not true.
And today she remains incarcerated at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women.
(25:56):
I just honestly feel like she needs to receive a mental health, like a mental evaluation
if she is that triggered that quickly.
Yeah, it is very interesting to see that something so small and seemingly trivial could have
somebody react in that way.
(26:16):
And I think that's why prosecution really pushed for her to be put away for a long time
because she truly is a danger to society if something like that can set you off to the
point that you stab someone that many times and they now have over 300 wounds to their
body.
(26:41):
There have been 376 school shootings since Columbine.
And on February 12, 2010, it was just another one to add to the list.
Most school shootings are usually done by white males.
However, on this day, a professor at the University of Alabama Huntsville actually took the lives
(27:01):
of her own colleagues.
That woman's name is Amy Bishop.
Tune in next week as we discuss the how and the why to her gruesome act.
You can listen wherever you listen to your favorite podcast.
A seemingly normal closing shift at a Bethesda, Maryland lululemon would turn out to be one
(00:09):
of the most elaborate robbery scenes you may ever hear.
And have you and everyone else wondering, how is that even true?
With one young woman dead and the other seemingly lightly scratched, police will begin to question
the survivor's story.
This episode contains discussion of murder and sexual assault.
(00:34):
Welcome to an easy, a podcast hosted by Lexi and Cecilia.
This podcast is a collection of research based on haunting and mysterious events that will
leave you feeling genuinely uneasy.
Discretion is advised.
The lululemon store in Bethesda, Maryland is located in Bethesda Row, which is a nice
(00:57):
shopping community lined with lights and ample sidewalk space.
And Bethesda is considered one of the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
But it's located still in Maryland.
And it's a pretty affluent and nice area, not known for high crime or anything like
that.
(01:17):
On March 12th, 2011, the manager, whose name is Rachel, was arriving at about 8 a.m. to
open the store for the day.
And she noticed that the door was already unlocked, which was strange considering she
was the one scheduled to open the store that day, but she thought maybe someone had came
in early to help her out or forgot to lock up for the night.
(01:41):
And so she just proceeded to enter into the store.
And she's at this point going in through the front doors.
As she entered the store, it looked as if someone had destroyed the place.
The lights were on, but clothes were everywhere.
And she quickly looked for her phone and called out to see if there was another employee or
(02:01):
anyone in the store, despite the store looking like somebody had ransacked it.
And at that point, she hears a strange kind of moaning sound coming from the back of the
store that sounds like someone's in trouble.
And that causes her to get scared, obviously, and leave immediately.
I would do the same thing.
Oh, 100 percent.
(02:23):
Yeah.
She calls 911 and she goes next door to the Apple store and finds a man named Ryan to
go back inside with her to make sure that no one was hurt, which was smart on her part.
I would probably man or woman just find a buddy, use the buddy system to go back in.
Rachel waited up front as Ryan went to look in the back of the store.
(02:46):
A few minutes later, he was calling out to Rachel to call the police again.
When Ryan went to the back of the store, he found a body laying face down and he told
Rachel that there was another person who was a woman and was tied up in the bathroom.
And immediately he's saying that she's barely breathing and that they may have been
(03:09):
assaulted.
And then Rachel called 911 again.
During this call, she told police, quote, there's two people in the back of my store.
One person seems dead and the other person is breathing.
At this point, Montgomery County police responded to the 911 calls and arrived to discover the
store in its complete mess that it was left in.
(03:32):
And on the floor, which was covered in blood, they found two sets of footprints from somebody
walking through puddles of blood and then walking around the store.
One of these sets of footprints was large and the other one was pretty small.
The scene was also covered in blood and case experts later suggest that this points to
(03:55):
extreme rage.
The non-responsive body in the back belonged to a 30 year old woman named Jaina Murray.
Jaina was the employee of the Lululemon store and she had worked the closing shift the night
before.
Jaina suffered 331 wounds to her body.
(04:17):
Oh my goodness.
Yeah I would say that's extreme rage.
That is so hard to fathom.
That many wounds.
That's so much work to do to someone else.
That takes a lot of energy to stab someone 331 times.
(04:43):
I cannot imagine what the other person was feeling.
You have completely decimated someone.
I will say it's later reported that about 100 of these wounds on her body are in defensive
nature.
So she was fighting back.
So that leaves about 200 wounds.
(05:05):
Well knock off 100.
200 wounds then that she got from the perpetrator.
Still oh my goodness.
Also that's so sad that 100 of those were self defense.
Like oh that poor woman.
Police also discovered a badly shaken 28 year old Brittany Norwood and she had her hands
(05:27):
and feet zip tied in the bathroom.
Her hands were kind of above her head which was odd to the police when they found her
and she had cuts all over her chest, arms, legs, face and abdomen.
So does she have like a significant amount of wounds as well or?
(05:47):
Nothing to compare to what Jaina like endured.
She was rushed to the hospital and once she was stable she was able to recount the night
and this is when she has her first interview with police and she explains to the police
that the previous night on March 11th she and Jaina were closing the store together.
(06:11):
And once they left Brittany realized that she forgot her wallet inside and she contacted
Jaina and asked her to come back and unlock the store so that she could retrieve it.
Brittany was a newer employee so she didn't really know Jaina as well so she had to contact
somebody else and then get Jaina's number but she knew that Jaina was the manager so
(06:33):
she would have the keys and be able to get her wallet.
While they were inside to unlock the store Brittany said two masked men barged in, attacked
her and Jaina and proceeded to tie them up and sexually assault them.
When Jaina resisted the men began beating her and eventually stabbed her to death.
(06:54):
So that's Brittany's story.
She said at that point when she realized that Jaina was dead she knew she had to do whatever
these two masked men asked and she was bitten and cut with a knife.
But mercifully she survived with only superficial wounds.
(07:16):
Which that's a bit of a red flag if one, I mean unless the one victim was the one they
were truly targeting but she was able to stay alive and if with that case it's like now
she can ID you, now she can like help police try to figure out who you are.
(07:40):
Which those are all things that are starting to come up in police's mind as they're investigating
this case.
Also, I always get super suspicious about superficial wounds because it's really hard
to like she very well could be the incident in this but as a police officer it seems a
(08:03):
lot more suspicious to just have superficial wounds especially when someone else has been
stabbed over 200 times because it's harder to stab yourself and like you, your brain
doesn't want you to hurt yourself so you're going to not go as deep or as far, as close
to as many vital organs as you would when attacking someone else.
(08:25):
Yeah, so she claims that the attackers left her tied up in the bathroom and that's where
she stayed until Rachel came that morning to unlock the door for her shift.
And so while they're at the hospital, police go ahead and ask the hospital to perform a
medical exam on her and this is for two reasons.
(08:46):
One because of what she just endured but two because she's claiming sexual assault as well
so they just want to make sure that she's okay and get her checked out and also that
can provide DNA evidence as well.
So they went on along with their investigation which was beginning to shape up as a very
suspicious case for them.
(09:10):
I want to take a moment to dive into Brittany Norwood herself.
She was one of nine children and her father owned an upholstery business.
Growing up she had the values to work hard and you know get a good education instilled
in her so she grew up very skilled in athletics.
Brittany was recruited to Stony Brook University in New York to play soccer.
(09:33):
She started her collegiate career in 2000 and played until 2003 after being accused
by her teammates and others that she was stealing from them.
She's known to have some sticky hands and basically girls would be like, hey keep your
stuff locked up around that girl.
I think we've all known somebody like that.
(09:56):
Those are literally the most annoying people to have in your life.
You don't even want to invite them to your house because you're worried that they might
take something.
So apparently she would try to play it off as a joke that she was stealing.
People would be like, oh she's just like that.
She just like, no people aren't just like that.
(10:17):
No.
That's not a thing.
So she lost valuable friendships over her stealing habits.
And she was ultimately expelled from the school after some of the girls came forward.
So she lost her scholarship and she was expelled.
I feel like that's actually pretty intense.
(10:38):
Petty theft, I don't feel like you get expelled from school.
There definitely had to be something big that you took.
Or it's just like multiple, multiple occurrences.
I feel like you're held to a different standard when you're a student athlete as well.
That's true.
I do like Target, how they like, everyone says that they wait until you collect a certain,
(10:59):
like you steal a certain amount and then they arrest you.
Same vibe.
Yeah.
She also in the past has allegedly walked out on a hair appointment without paying as
well.
So she claimed as soon as her install was done that her wallet had been like the cash
(11:21):
out of her wallet had been stolen in this woman's salon.
So the woman felt so terrible and was like, oh my gosh, girl, like I feel so bad.
Please just bring the money by like another day.
And eventually Brittany just stopped responding to her and blocked her and never paid her
for this like expensive install for her hair.
(11:43):
Yeah.
Especially in DC.
Oh yeah.
Don't even.
That's expensive.
It reminds me of those like people you have at restaurants where they're like, I hated
the food, I'm not paying for it.
And there's literally not a drop left on the plate.
The service is done.
Like you ate the food, you got the service.
(12:03):
Now you have to pay.
Anyways, after this, she moved to DC to live with her sister and worked at Willard Intercontinental
Hotel, which fun little history fact, this hotel is known for being the residence of
the presidents because every president since the 1850s has either stayed or visited it.
(12:24):
So it's a pretty affluent hotel.
It's cool.
A little fun.
That's where I'm going to stay next time I go to DC so I can be on the list.
Okay.
She quickly moved up in her job here and was handling the VIP clientele.
So like I said, VIP clientele can be pretty important people.
(12:45):
After a while, she ended up leaving as she knew that she wanted to do something with
athletics.
So she ended up working at Lulu, which I'm like, okay, maybe she wanted to do athletic
retail and that's why she went to Lulu, but she did leave the Willard on her own accords.
Leading back to the police investigation, they continued to try and track down any leaves.
(13:08):
However, there were no eyewitness reports, no security camera footage that they found
to be helpful and no signs of break-ins because the doors were left unlocked.
But there was a report that there were the sound of two women arguing according to an
Apple store worker next door.
In addition, there was a pretty hefty reward put up for anyone that could help the police
(13:32):
find and convict the two male suspects and this reward was $150,000.
So the community was pretty invested in this.
There are interviews from news stations that are interviewing people within Bethesda Row
and they're young girls just being scared and also saying that they can't believe that
(13:57):
it happened there because of the area it's at.
The store was boarded up.
There's flowers laying out for the victims.
I mean people really were invested in this case.
Police asked Brittany to come in for DNA samples and then for questioning after she claimed
(14:18):
to be withholding information and fear that the attackers would find her.
So one of the new details that she provided was that in the middle of the attack, the
suspects untied her and forced her to go outside and get in Jaina's car and move it and then
(14:38):
come back in.
And what?
Yeah, which it was interesting that she provided that information because at the time police
already had her DNA in the car, which is like after they got the DNA samples from her and
(14:59):
they matched it, they knew that...
Why was she in the car?
Oh, you just wait.
You just wait.
They knew that she had been in the car.
So at this point, police also knew that they had not been sexually assaulted.
(15:20):
There was no indication that either of the girls had been raped and Brittany's wounds
were superficial like Cecilia pointed out and they had all the characteristics of self-inflicted
injuries.
So the police just kept keeping these little tabs on her story that just were not making
(15:41):
sense when matched up with evidence.
And there was a detective that said that he was skeptical from the start, quote, it's just
this little voice in the back of my head.
Something's just not right.
The way Brittany's describing these two guys, they're racists, they're rapists, they're robbers,
they're murderers.
It's like the worst human being that you could possibly describe, right?
(16:04):
So police are very like suspicious of her because she is describing this completely
elaborate concocted plan that just sounds kind of too awful to be true.
Were any of these two ladies of a minority race?
(16:25):
Brittany's African American.
So that is where she's claiming that.
She said that they came in and were yelling racist slurs at her.
Gotcha.
Well, then I would think if she was the only one that was of minority race and they were
yelling racist slurs at her, then she would have the brunt of the crime and they wouldn't
(16:49):
let her waddy-doddy out and get in a car and move it around.
No, the suspect would do that while they're both tied up.
Oh, for sure.
And the police from the jump thought the position that she was found in was suspicious.
And so police end up arresting Brittany and charge her with first degree murder.
(17:10):
And they do not go lightly on her in the interrogation.
They basically tell her, look, no one's going to believe you.
I don't believe you.
My boss doesn't believe you.
They're pointing out the wounds being superficial, her posing being...
He basically, the interrogator puts his hands over his head and mocks the way she was posing
(17:31):
when she was found.
Oh my God.
Because he's like, there's no way you stayed like that all night.
There's no way because she had her hands over her head and she almost looked like she was
like...
I don't know how to explain it.
Trying to look graceful in a way.
It just looks so fake.
I will have to post a picture of it.
(17:52):
It just looks so fake.
And he even goes as far as to say that her mother and father would call, quote, bullshit
if he were to tell them the story against the evidence that he had.
So he's really going in on Brittany, trying to get her to just go ahead and confess so
that this case can move along and he can get justice for the victim.
(18:17):
Eventually they bring the brother in and she refuses to talk to him as well, which is smart
on her part because she was being recorded, but ultimately she was still arrested and
charged with first degree murder.
So the truth of this night finally comes to a head during the trial and we start to piece
(18:37):
together what of the story is true and what is a complete fabrication.
Mary Ripple, which is the deputy chief medical examiner for the state of Maryland, told jurors
that Jaina had no fewer than 331 injuries to her body.
So that stays true.
(18:58):
Her head and face were badly bruised and covered in cuts and the blow had ultimately killed
her was a stab wound to the back of her neck that severed her spinal cord and went all
the way through to her brain.
Oh my gosh, that's so sad.
Yeah, pretty gruesome.
I should have put a little warning there.
(19:20):
It was literally so terrible that they couldn't have an open casket funeral at all.
I feel so bad for her parents because they definitely had to identify her.
Oh yeah.
And seeing your child like that.
Oh my goodness.
So it was also determined that she was murdered using the store's toolkit, including a hammer,
(19:45):
a knife.
And then in addition, it was a merchandise peg, a rope and a box cutter.
So there was multiple different kinds of murder weapons, which I found so interesting because
you have had to like put down and then pick up and then.
Did she bring like the little toolkit with her?
Like she was about ready to like build something.
(20:08):
I'm not sure.
And it's just honestly unnecessary.
Like there's no need for all of that.
And also shows that it was definitely someone that worked at Lululemon because a random
intruder is not going to know where the store's toolkit is and everything.
Yeah, exactly.
The state also points out that Brittany left the store and moved Jaina's car three blocks
(20:36):
away.
And so at this point, Brittany's freaking out and she is trying to figure out what she's
going to do because she is the one who stopped Jaina.
She is the one who moved that car.
And at this point in the night, she's saying, how do I get away with this?
So she sits in the car that she just moved for 90 minutes while she's three blocks away.
(21:02):
And she's just trying to figure out what to do.
And she decides to go back to the store with the plan to stage it like they had been attacked
by two men.
And so she took money from the cash registers to stage a robbery.
She sliced her own forehead and cut a gash in and cut a gash in Jaina's pants to make
(21:23):
it look like she had been sexually assaulted.
She also put on a pair of men's 14 shoes and walked around in the store to make it look
like there had been a man in the store because she walks through the blood pedals.
And those are the footprints that we see initially on the 12th when they're going into the store.
(21:46):
Finally, she tied her own fins and feet with zip ties and settled into the bathroom to
wait for the morning.
So I think the investigator was right in making fun of her for that a little bit.
So you're probably wondering why Brittany was so upset that she's decided to brutally
(22:08):
kill her.
So Jaina confronted Brittany for shoplifting via bag check, which is pretty common in retail
stores to do bag checks on people, which I didn't know that, but I never really worked
in retail, but I guess it's pretty common.
And she found a stolen pair of Lulu leggings in her bag, which for those of you who don't
(22:33):
know, those can run you the nice price of $110 these days.
So I'm not sure they were that expensive in 2011, but still expensive.
With Brittany barely knowing her, she calls a coworker, gets the number, and then is able
to ask her to come back to the store because she forgot her wallet.
(22:55):
This proved premeditation to the defense.
I just cannot fathom being accused of shoplifting.
Okay, whatever, you lose your job.
That's one thing.
But to have so much rage over someone not even just accusing you, you clearly did it.
Pointing out something that you did that you stabbed them hundreds of times.
(23:21):
Over a pair of leggings, leggings.
That much rage is something that I would compare to...
Buy an Amazon dupe online.
I know, I would just compare this to such a more meaningful murder that I just am like,
(23:42):
girl, this is why?
I don't know.
As a manager, this is something she does a bag check literally every night with every
employee.
And for this to happen to her over a pair of leggings, it's not fair to her regardless,
but this is just ridiculous.
(24:03):
It is ridiculous.
The defense also really digs in on the fact that DNA was found in Jaina's car, and prosecutors
show the jury all of the evidence, including phone calls and video footage of Britney claiming
not to know the type of car that Jaina even drove.
And so it's like, she's just lying this entire time.
(24:25):
And the evidence was so overwhelming and damning that Britney changed her guilty plea to one
of self-defense.
Geez.
And this doesn't really stick because the jury deliberated for 21 minutes before finding
her guilty.
Oh my gosh.
21 minutes.
That's like everyone just sitting down, signing the paper and you walking back.
(24:51):
That's literally all 21 minutes is essentially.
They're eating their boxed lunch that the court provides in 21 minutes.
And then during sentencing, the family of Jaina were so emotional that they insisted
that Britney serve her full sentence, not being eligible for parole.
(25:12):
Britney was sentenced to life in prison without the opportunity for parole because the judge
completely agreed with the family.
In 2015, Britney contested her conviction using a Maryland state law that guarantees
circuit court defendants the right to appeal.
However, the court rejected this even though her lawyers were claiming that she didn't
(25:35):
receive Miranda warning early enough in the investigation.
So she was basically improperly questioned by detectives.
However, that's just not true.
And today she remains incarcerated at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women.
(25:56):
I just honestly feel like she needs to receive a mental health, like a mental evaluation
if she is that triggered that quickly.
Yeah, it is very interesting to see that something so small and seemingly trivial could have
somebody react in that way.
(26:16):
And I think that's why prosecution really pushed for her to be put away for a long time
because she truly is a danger to society if something like that can set you off to the
point that you stab someone that many times and they now have over 300 wounds to their
body.
(26:41):
There have been 376 school shootings since Columbine.
And on February 12, 2010, it was just another one to add to the list.
Most school shootings are usually done by white males.
However, on this day, a professor at the University of Alabama Huntsville actually took the lives
(27:01):
of her own colleagues.
That woman's name is Amy Bishop.
Tune in next week as we discuss the how and the why to her gruesome act.
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