For the jurors deciding Brittany Norwood’s fate, some of the most gruesome testimony about the March attack that left 30-year-old Jayna Murray dead lies ahead. The jury has already seen the bloodied rope found around Murray’s neck at the Lululemon Athletica where she was killed in a brutal fight with Norwood, her co-worker, in March. The jury has seen photographs of the Bethesda store’s white floors turned red by blood. Jurors have viewed full-body photographs of Murray’s slain body, and heard from the man who found her dead in the store.
But the testimony at Norwood’s first-degree murder trial is expected to become even more grisly this week, when a medical examiner is slated to testify about the hundreds of injuries Murray suffered.
Prosecutors say 29-year-old Norwood lured Murray back to the yoga shop to kill her, then staged the crime scene and pretended to be a victim. In his opening statement, defense attorney Douglas Wood said Norwood “lost it” during a “horrific” fight and killed Murray, but the slaying was not premeditated.
Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said in his opening statement that Murray suffered 322 “distinct, separate, identifiable injuries,” including 107 defensive wounds, from seven or eight different weapons.
The medical examiner’s testimony is expected to detail those wounds.
Prosecutors are also planning to have experts testify about shoe prints, blood spatter and other physical evidence from the crime scene this week.
Testimony began Wednesday after two-and-a-half days of jury selection. That took much longer than usual because of the case’s notoriety — both the slaying and Norwood’s arrest garnered national attention. Six men and six women were chosen to decide the case; another three men and two women are serving as alternate jurors.
Key testimony from the trial’s first week included:
» A tape of Norwood’s initial interview with a detective, in which she described two masked men beating Murray and cutting and sexually assaulting her.
» A nurse who testified that Norwood suffered only superficial wounds.
» Another nurse who said Norwood didn’t have injuries consistent with having been raped, as she claimed.
» A Lululemon manager testified that she found the door unlocked and called 911.
» A passer-by who said he went inside and saw a “big streak of blood” leading to Murray’s body.
