The woman accused of killing her co-worker at an upscale Bethesda yoga store described a savage attack during an initial statement to police, according to a tape of the interview played in court Thursday.
Brittany Norwood told a Montgomery County police detective that two masked men attacked her and 30-year-old Jayna Murray at the Lululemon Athletica where the pair worked.
As the two screamed for help, one man repeatedly struck Murray; the other grabbed Norwood’s hair “and told me if I said another word he’d slit my throat,” Norwood told Detective Deana Mackie a few hours after police found the pair the morning of March 12.
Norwood, 29, is charged with first-degree murder in Murray’s death. Prosecutors say she lured Murray back to the yoga store to kill her, then posed as a victim to cover up the slaying; her defense attorney said in his opening statement that Norwood “lost it” during a fight and “unfortunately and stupidly” killed Murray.
In the nearly hour-long interview, which took place at Suburban Hospital, Norwood told Mackie through tears that Murray “was just screaming and yelling and I couldn’t do anything.”
The masked men, she said, were laughing throughout the attack.
But she could provide few details about the assailants. She said one tied up her feet and arms, then cut her arms, stomach and chest. But she didn’t know what weapon he used.
“I wasn’t looking, I couldn’t see, I wanted it to stop,” she said.
Norwood described a man dragging Murray through the store. The other attacker raped her, then sexually assaulted her with a hanger, she told the detective.
She said she tried to get away to help Murray, but “there was so much blood” that she almost slipped.
Prosecutors played the tape in an effort to show that Norwood lied extensively to try to hide her role in the slaying. Her first words to the detective were: “Can you tell me how my friend is doing?”
Mackie testified that she was treating Norwood as a victim. On the tape, she is reassuring and repeatedly tells Norwood that she understands the woman has been through a traumatic event and is doing a “great job.”
A nurse who treated Norwood at Suburban testified Thursday that Norwood primarily suffered “very superficial” wounds that weren’t deep and only received stitches for cosmetic reasons.
