Community Corner

Murray Family Bungee Jumps In Honor Of Slain Sister

Murray family speaks to Patch about celebrating Jayna Murray's life following an emotional homicide trial.

A year to the day after Jayna Murray bungee jumped from 191-foot Pacific Northwest Bridge south of Seattle to celebrate her 30th birthday, her family made the same jump in her honor.

Murray, who would have turned 31 on Nov. 22, was March 11. Her co-worker, Brittany Norwood, was

Murray was known for her adventurous nature and encouraging others to push the limits of their comfort zone to accomplish their goals. Now, her family hopes to continue on that tradition in her spirit – both through her memorial foundation and in their own lives.

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 “I’m not a thrill seeker – I wouldn’t have done this if it weren’t to pay tribute to Jayna,” said Kate Murray, Jayna’s sister-in-law, of the Nov. 26 jump. “You were freefalling for what seemed like an eternity – my eyes were closed the entire time, and I screamed all the way down, and probably on every single rebound.”

Just a few days before, Kate and her husband Hugh, Jayna’s brother, marked Jayna’s birthday with her favorite – Mexican food and margaritas. Friends and family across the country did the same. The next day, they boarded a flight to Seattle to spend Thanksgiving with family, and made the jump that weekend along with a few other friends.

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“For me, I wanted to do it for my own healing and to have the kind of experience Jayna was so happy about from the year before,” said Hugh Murray, a lawyer for the U.S. Army.  “I’ve done all the Army paratrooper type jumps and this was completely different – you really felt yourself fall.”

Both frequently watch a YouTube video, aired on national news following the homicide, in which Jayna makes the jump -- smiling confidently at the camera before hurtling backwards off the ledge. “It was the first time she’d ever done it …and she just looked like she’d done it a thousand times. Her form is perfect, it looks like she was a pro,” Kate Murray said.

 “We tried to emulate it, but I think failed,” she added.

The experience was a healing one for Jayna’s family following an emotional homicide trial that revealed gruesome details about her death – including that the young woman suffered at least 331 injuries, all while alive.

“I was really hoping the trial would be a closure point and that we would be able to start healing, but in fact it didn’t do that for us,” Hugh Murray said. “…It opened a lot of scars and provided us with a lot more facts about her death and brought out some very difficult emotions – anger, hurt. I think we were all hoping we would get some facts to indicate she might have had at least some moment of peace before she died, even though we had been warned her death was very horrific. I think we all wanted to find something out that would provide us with some comfort to the opposite effect, and it didn’t happen.”

Despite the painful trial, Murray said he did find comfort in that justice was won for his sister and the community.

“It brought us back to the very first time we got the news, and yet, at the same time, I’d go through it all again because I know how important it is to finish doing what’s right for Jayna and finish the fight that was bought to her,” Murray said. “The entire Bethesda community who stood behind us, [prosecutor] John [McCarthy], [prosecutor] Mary Beth [Ayres], everyone that showed up and provided support, we all took a criminal off the street that in my opinion would have done a serious criminal act again in the future.”

With the trial behind them, the family hopes to move on celebrating Jayna’s life. They expect the bungee jump will become an annual family event.

“We spent those two weeks focusing on Jayna’s death and focusing on those 20 minutes specifically. I think it was the second most traumatic thing that will occur in any of our lives, the first being March 12,” Kate Murray said. “Now that we’re beyond it…the focus is on celebrating Jayna’s life. The bungee jump was a great start, and those are the sorts of things that will really help heal us -- focusing on her life and trying to live life the way she lived hers.”


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