Jeremy Arias/The Gazette Phyllis and David Murray, parents of Jayna Murray, said Friday that the judge’s sentence of life in prison without parole for their daughter’s killer was appropriate.

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Jeremy Arias/The Gazette “It was fair, it was just and it was appropriate,” Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said Friday of Brittany Norwood’s sentence of life in prison without parole for killing Jayna Murray in Bethesda last year.
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Jeremy Arias/The Gazette Phyllis and David Murray, parents of Jayna Murray, said Friday that the judge’s sentence of life in prison without parole for their daughter’s killer was appropriate.
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Jeremy Arias/The Gazette It was fair, it was just and it was appropriate,” Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said Friday of Brittany Norwood’s sentence of life in prison without parole for killing Jayna Murray in Bethesda last year.

Jeremy Arias/The Gazette Phyllis and David Murray, parents of Jayna Murray, said Friday that the judge’s sentence of life in prison without parole for their daughter’s killer was appropriate.

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This story was updated at 7:45 p.m. Jan. 27, 2012.

The man who received permission from Jayna Murray’s parents to marry her told a judge Friday that her killer does not deserve to be released from prison.

“Not only was Jayna taken away from me, but so was my future,” said Fraser Bocell, who met Jayna in eighth grade. “Hope is not a right of those who have taken a life unjustly.”

A Montgomery County Circuit Court judge sentenced Brittany Norwood, 29, to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing her coworker, Murray, 30, at the lululemon athletica clothing store in Bethesda in March. Norwood’s attorney said he will appeal the sentence.

Norwood, who remained silent for most of the hearing and did not testify in her own defense at trial, cried as she addressed Murray’s and her own families before hearing her sentence.

“I know that whatever I say to you today won’t take the pain away over the loss of Jayna,” Norwood said. “... But I wanted to say, before I go to prison, that I am truly sorry.”

Douglas Wood, Norwood’s defense attorney, had asked Judge Robert A. Greenberg to sentence Norwood to life in prison with the possibility of parole, which he said would have allowed Norwood to appeal for parole and release from prison after about 30 years and give her a reason to try to rehabilitate herself.

“Life with the possibility of parole would have been a much more appropriate sentence, even under that scheme, the chances of her ever getting out of jail would have been slim to none,” Wood said.

Norwood’s oldest brother, Andre Norwood, also took the stand Friday to ask Greenberg to give his sister some hope of early release.

“Brittany was made out to be a horrible person [at trial] ... I know a different person than the one who was brought out at trial,” he said.

Greenberg was unmoved, citing the brutal nature of the murder — in which Norwood struck Murray more than 300 times with various objects — and Norwood’s attempts to cover up her guilt.

“In my view, a person who would commit a crime such as this stands very little chance of rehabilitation,” Greenberg told Norwood. “My sympathy for your plight ma’am, does not begin — it does not begin — to approach what I feel for the Murray family.”

Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy, who prosecuted the case with Assistant State’s Attorney Marybeth Ayres, was pleased with the sentence, calling it the only appropriate decision for the crime.

“It was fair, it was just and it was appropriate” McCarthy said.

Murray was found dead inside the Bethesda Row store March 12. Norwood originally told police that two men attacked her and Murray. But Norwood’s story quickly crumbled, and Norwood was arrested and charged in the brutal killing by March 19.

Murray’s family asked Greenberg to sentence Norwood to life in prison without parole.

“There is not a day that I do not think of her as she was,” Murray’s father, David Murray said in court. “She was more than a daughter, she was one of my four best friends.”

Jayna Murray’s mother noted the grief is always with her.

“I know that Jayna does not want us to shed a tear, she wants us to drive on with the goals that she had,” Phyllis Murray said. “It’s just a whole lot harder to do it than to put words to it.”

The sentencing draws to a close a case that gripped the community.

Prosecutors said during the trial that Norwood may have used as many as eight weapons in the attack, including a hammer and a rope, which was found around Murray’s neck. A medical examiner said there were at least 331 blows to the body of Murray before a stab wound to the back of her head ended her life.

Norwood’s attorney maintained throughout the trial that his client “lost it” in the attack against Murray, while prosecutors contested that Norwood lured Murray back to the store to kill her.

But prosecutors said the case was open and shut. The women left work and Norwood concocted a story to lure Murray back to the store. Murray had found a pair of pants in Norwood’s bag and reported the theft to a store manager, a motive that the jury was not permitted to hear last year because the conversations are hearsay.

jarias@gazette.net

dgaines@gazette.net

Stay with Gazette.Net for more on Brittany Norwood’s sentencing.