Crimehub: A True Crime Podcast · Crimehub Studios

Blood, Lies, and Lululemon Leggings

·55 min·3 clips

Investigators conclude there were never any masked men inside the Bethesda Row store.

1. Crimehub: A True Crime Podcast centers on the March 2011 killing of Jaina Troxell Murray at the Bethesda Row Lululemon in Bethesda, Maryland. 2. The story follows Jaina Troxell Murray, 30, a Johns Hopkins University student, and Brittany Norwood, 28, her coworker and the surviving witness at first. 3. The episode asks how a bag check over Lululemon leggings turned into a homicide and a staged crime scene. 4. Jaina’s background moves from St. Louis University in Madrid to George Washington University and then Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. 5. Brittany’s background runs from Federal Way, Washington, through Stony Brook University, where she played soccer, to a front-desk job at the Willard Intercontinental in Arlington. 6. The two women were working the night shift when customer Janae Carlson came in around 6 p.m. on March 11. 7. The store closed around 9 p.m., and by the next morning Rachel Ortley found overturned racks, broken mannequins, and blood in the back hallway. 8. A man who entered the store with Rachel found Jaina dead and Brittany bound in the bathroom. 9. Mary Ripple, the deputy chief medical examiner for Maryland, testified that Jaina had 331 distinct injuries. 10. Ripple said the cause of death was a stab wound to the back of Jaina’s neck that severed her spinal cord and pierced her brain. 11. Investigators also identified five store tools used in the attack, including a hammer, box cutter, metal clothing peg, utility knife, and rope. 12. A pair of bloody men’s size 14 Reebok sneakers and matching footprints became key evidence at the scene. 13. Brittany told detectives that two masked men attacked both women after she returned to the store for her purse. 14. She later changed parts of that account after police confronted her with Jaina’s car, which was found three blocks away near a farmer’s market. 15. Blood spatter evidence and inconsistencies in Brittany’s injuries made detectives question whether she had been upright and moving during the night. 16. The prosecution later argued that Brittany staged the scene with stolen cash, cut clothing, self-inflicted injuries, and the Reeboks to support the masked-men story. 17. The courtroom also heard from Apple store employees who said they heard shouting, grunting, and a plea of “God help me!” through the shared wall. 18. The episode’s style is chronological, forensic, and courtroom-driven, with detailed narration and police, medical, and trial testimony. 19. Listeners interested in forensic timelines and courtroom reconstruction would likely stay engaged. 20. Listeners seeking a light, fast, or low-detail true-crime story would probably skip it.

As heard by us

A measured, hard-edged murder case story that keeps Jaina Troxell Murray at the center.

Blood, Lies, and Lululemon Leggings treats Jaina Troxell Murray's murder as more than a case file. It spends real time on her path from Madrid to Washington, D.C., and then to Johns Hopkins, which makes the loss feel like a life cut off midstream instead of a headline.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a slow-burn true-crime case that starts with a woman, not a wound.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Crimehub: A True Crime Podcast