News4’s Chris Gordon is at Lululemon store in Bethesda. The store was the site of a horrific crime that left an employee, Jayna Murray, dead. A window memorial erected in Murray’s honor will be given to her family.
The Lululemon store where a woman was murdered in 2011 is moving to a new location -- and giving the slain woman's family a stained glass window that was put up in her honor.
The stained glass window above the current store in Bethesda, Maryland, is a memorial to Jayna Murray, a store employee who was killed by a coworker she expected was stealing.
"It obviously means a lot to use, as it represents Jayna," Murray's brother Hugh Murray told News4. "We definitely wanted to preserve that and have it in our home."
The "love window," which features a colorful mosaic with the word "love" scrawled across several feet, has become a distinctive part of the Bethesda shopping district. One shopper told News4 the window is a local landmark.
But the store said it won't fit with the decor in the new location.
Lululemon plans to ship the window to to Hugh Murray, who lives in Richmond with his three children, who were born after Jayna died.
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The Lululemon is closing the location at 4856 Bethesda Ave. nearly seven years after Brittany Norwood attacked and murdered Murray inside the store.
On March 12, 2011, police found an injured Norwood inside the Lululemon store, bound by a zip tie. She told police two masked men dressed in black attacked and sexually assaulted Murray and herself the previous night after they closed the store.
But police quickly charged Norwood with the crime a few days later.
During her trial, investigators said Murray found store property in Norwood's bag and accused her of shoplifting. Norwood called Murray back to the store after she left, saying she had left her wallet inside and needed to be let back in to get it. That's when Norwood attacked Murray, authorities said.
Murray suffered at least 331 wounds from various weapons -- a knife, a hammer, a wrench, a rope and a box cutter, at least -- including 107 defensive wounds.
Norwood then bound herself and staged the scene, putting on men's size 14 sneakers to make large bloody footprints in the store to represent the tall man she said attacked them, the prosecution alleged.
In his closing argument, Norwood's trial attorney admitted his client killed her coworker but insisted the murder was not premeditated. He said an argument escalated into a fight and Norwood lost control.
Norwood asked for a new trial, claiming she was improperly questioned by police, but Maryland courts upheld her first-degree murder conviction, The Washington Post reported.
The new Lululemon store will be near the current location on Bethesda Row. It opens Friday.
