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Murder Victim's Brother: Murray Would Have Been 'Insulted' To Learn Another Employee Was Stealing

But Lululemon victim Jayna Murray would likely not have started a confrontation, brother said.

Before her Jayna Murray had plans on applying to the Lululemon corporate office in Vancouver, according to her brother. The move would have also brought her closer to her longtime boyfriend, a student in Washington state, who had asked Murray’s parents for permission to propose to Murray shortly before her death.

The proposal was still pending when Murray was stabbed and beaten to death at the Lululemon store, where she was an employee, said her brother, Hugh Murray. Her 28-year-old co-worker Brittany Norwood, initially described as the surviving victim of an attack by two masked men at the store,

Hugh Murray, a 39-year-old attorney for the U.S. Army based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, spoke with Patch as he was preparing to return to Iraq.

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A 2003 graduate of George Washington University, Jayna Murray had been working on a dual masters degree in communications and business at Johns Hopkins University at the time she died. Before returning to school, she left a career at Halliburton.

“She already had a real job, a conventional career, and here she was wanting to get more education,” Hugh Murray said. “I was very moved by that and proud that she wasn’t just going to stick with something that was comfortable and secure. I was always kind of impressed with how ambitious she was and willing to approach change, which most people are very leery of – she was willing to take it head on.”

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Murray had first become interested in the Lululemon company when she was out running with a friend who had a Lululemon bag. She later became so intrigued by the corporation’s culture – with a focus on healthy living and sustainability – that it became the focus of the first research project she did for her master’s degree. A professor asked to forward on her resume to a contact at the company, but at first, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to take on a job along with her studies, Hugh Murray said.

“She initially started working for Lululemon part-time and really started to fall in love with the company,” Murray said. “All of her research and everything throughout her master’s degree program then focused on the Lululemon company –their products, marketing, everything. Most recently she was talking about sending her resume and requesting to work at the Lululemon corporate office. At first, it started out as a minor interest – she didn’t know where it would lead – and by the end she was very much a part of the Lululemon family.”

Murray recalled receiving Lululemon gear every Christmas from his sister.

When asked to speak to what could have happened the night of March 11, Murray said he had often tried to re-create the scene in his own mind.  Montgomery County prosecutors have said a dispute likely arose between Murray and Norwood after Murray called store management to report suspicions that Norwood had been stealing. Murray was instructed to search Norwood’s bag, where she found merchandise that may have been stolen, prosecutors have said.

“I think if Jayna knew someone was stealing from the store she worked at, she would be insulted by that,” Murray said. “I think it would hurt her more to know an employee was stealing from the store [as opposed to a customer], because the company was so good to its employees. They reimbursed people for going to work out, they provided a lot of benefits, they worked with you on hours – in Jayna’s case, she was in school, and they encouraged that type of thing, they wanted people to continue to grow – it was so much of what Jayna believed in, I think if she found out another employee was stealing from the store she would take even more of a personal affront to it. That’s like stealing from your own family.”

Their upbringing, he said, revolved around right and wrong and doing the right thing. But he said his sister would likely not have started a confrontation with Norwood.

“Jayna was not an aggressive person – she would not have been confrontational,” Murray said. “I could see if somebody had said, ‘Did this happen, did you say anything?’ she would not have lied. She would have said, ‘Yes, I already contacted management.’ She would not have shied away, but she would not have gone in there and said, ‘I just told on you.’”

Like many city-dwelling women, Murray said, his sister was careful when it came to her own safety. “Jayna was athletic, she was smart, she was cautious,” Murray said.

Murray said he believed his sister would have tried to flee any attack unless she was incapacitated to the point where it wouldn’t have been possible.

 “I can’t understand how Jayna would not have – if [Norwood] had an instrument in her hand of any sort, why Jayna would have stuck around,” Murray said. “I think she would have tried to leave… the only thing that makes sense is if she was basically sucker punched to a point where it created confusion or possibly even knocked out.”

The last time he saw his sister, Murray said, was in January as he was preparing to deploy to Iraq. As he left, his sister was there to wish him well.

“Even though she was extremely busy coming up on finals and working on a thesis paper and really packing in a lot to each day, when I was deploying to Iraq she drove down from D.C. to North Carolina where I was leaving from – she was only going to be there for about six hours, but she wanted to make sure she was here to see me off,” Murray said. “She went out on the airfield when I was leaving, and that was the last time I saw her. I gave her a big hug and she told me she was really proud and that I should stay safe…we were able to tell each other that we loved each other, and that when I got back in a year we would have a great reunion party.”


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