Cops: Ex-SBU athlete faces murder charge

A onetime Stony Brook University soccer star killed her co-worker in a Maryland yoga clothing store and concocted a story that they had been sexually assaulted by masked men, authorities said.

Investigators on Friday arrested Brittany E. Norwood, 28, a week after the beating and stabbing of Janya Troxel Murray inside Lululemon Athletica in Bethesda. Norwood was charged with first-degree murder and is due in court Monday.

Murray, 30, was found dead in the back of the store by a manager early March 12, with Norwood -- bound and wounded -- nearby. Police say that the suspect staged the scene and inflicted her own injuries after attacking the victim late the night before.

"It's likely that it was a workplace dispute," Montgomery County Police Capt. Paul Starks said in an interview Sunday, responding to reports that Norwood had been suspected of stealing from the store.

The brutal attack had roiled the community with fears of the masked and gloved assailants. But police say Norwood and Murray were heard arguing before the killing and that neither had been sexually assaulted, as Norwood first told them. Investigators also concluded that the store had only two sets of bloody footprints: Norwood's, and a pair of shoes customers use for sizing pants.

Two sources confirmed to Newsday that the suspect played for Stony Brook from 2000 to 2003. Her family could not be reached Sunday, and it wasn't known if she had retained an attorney.

A native of Federal Way, Wash., Norwood was a backfielder for the Seawolves women's soccer team. She assisted on Stony Brook's lone goal in her debut in 2001 and was named Holiday Inn Express Invitational Defensive MVP in 2003.

Stony Brook athletics spokesman Thomas Chen said he could not make coach Sue Ryan available for an interview. Chen also declined to comment. In a telephone interview, former teammate Megan Healey, 27, now a television reporter outside Harrisburg, Pa., said, "Your first thought is 'Is this real?' Is this the real Brittany Norwood?' This is crazy."

In a 2002 interview, Ryan said Norwood, the team's only junior, had the mental makeup required to be a top defender. "Brittany hates losing more than she likes winning," he told a campus website. "That is a common trait among all great defenders."