Woman Sentenced To Life In Prison With No Parole For Killing Her Co-Worker
ROCKVILLE, Md. (WJZ)-- Brittany Norwood is headed to prison. She will spend her life behind bars for murdering 30-year-old Jayna Murray inside the Lululemon clothing shop where the two worked.
Mike Hellgren has more on the Murray family's search for closure.
Brittany Norwood will spend the rest of her life in prison for one of the most notorious, brutal and bizarre murders ever in Montgomery County. Norwood stabbed her co-worker, former Johns Hopkins student Jayna Murray, more than 300 times last year at the Lululemon store in Bethesda where they worked.
She then concocted a story that masked men attacked and raped them. It quickly fell apart under mounting forensic evidence.
"With Brittany not being allowed to walk on the streets, that is one person that, as a society, we don't have to worry about," Jayna Murray's mother, Phyllis Murray, said.
Jayna Murray's father told the judge he would never forgive Norwood, that he has not moved away from rage. He asked that Norwood never be allowed to walk the streets.
"It was absolutely the right sentence under Maryland law," David Murray, Jayna Murray's father, said.
Norwood was in tears when she addressed the court for the first time. She told the victim's family she was sorry and she said she knew there was nothing she could do to take their pain away.
As many in the courtroom wept, Murray's mother described how the killing plunged her family into deep despair. And Norwood's loved ones described how the murder shattered their family as they begged the judge for lenience.
"I was shocked and thought that in the light of the tragedy, they had admitted to some extent that she had done this crime," State Attorney John McCarthy said. "She virtually took no responsibility for this crime today. To me, that is another aggravating factor that makes the sentence from Judge Greenberg absolutely appropriate."
McCarthy called Norwood a pathological liar. The judge said he had few doubts she could be rehabilitated.
Norwood's brother also spoke at the sentencing Friday, and he said his sister was not a horrible person. He prayed for some glimmer of hope but the judge did not show Brittany Norwood any mercy.
Murray's family says she will always be alive in their hearts and they miss her more than words can say.
