According to Living Magazine, the medical examiner said the injuries Brittany Norwood inflicted on Jayna Murray were done with a “tremendous amount of force,” akin to injuries sustained during an intense car accident. Prosecutors said there was no doubt Murray was tortured and in tremendous pain. When addressing the jury, they said, “Think about how long this took. Jayna is alive through almost all of this. This was not slow. This was not painless. This woman struggled to survive.”
Prosecutors argued that the attack was premeditated. However, as reported by Crime Scene Cleanup, Norwood’s defense team insisted the attack occurred in the midst of a verbal argument between the two women. Prosecutors countered that the sheer number and severity of the wounds, which included crushed bones and a severed spinal cord, prove Norwood planned the assault. Per WJLA and The Washington Post, customers at an Apple store, which was next to the Lululemon store in the shopping plaza, said they heard a woman screaming, “Talk to me. Don’t do this. … What’s going on? … Oh God, please help me.” However, they said they did not contact authorities because they assumed the screaming was “just drama.”
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Norwood’s murder trial lasted six days. At the conclusion of the trial, Living Magazine reports the jury unanimously ruled that Norwood was guilty of first-degree murder. She was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
