The Yoga Store Murder: The Shocking True Account of the Lululemon Athletica Killing Mass Market Paperback

by Dan Morse

  Lululemon espoused their ethos in a thirty-one-part manifesto printed on its shopping bags, water bottles, and various merchandise. Number 11: “The world is changing at such a rapid rate that waiting to implement changes will leave you 2 steps behind. DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW!” Number 25: “Nature wants us to be mediocre because we have a greater chance to survive and reproduce. Mediocrity is as close to the bottom as it is to the top, and will give you a lousy life.”

  Central to the company’s success were its saleswomen, called “educators,” whose mission it was to teach customers, called “guests,” about the technical specifications and design elements of the apparel, and allow them to decide what to buy. The ideal educators were fit and high-achieving women themselves; guests wanted to see themselves reflected when they spoke with them.

  So when Brittany first met the manager of lululemon athletica’s store in Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown section, the manager saw a seemingly perfect employee. Brittany knew style. She knew high-end athletics. She had spent more than three years disarming the demanding guests of a luxury hotel. And with her petite but chiseled frame, Brittany clearly looked the part. She started the same day she filled out her application.

  When she completed the forms, Brittany created a fictitious paper trail in keeping with this persona, indicating not only that she’d graduated from Stony Brook but that she’d posted a 3.4 GPA while there (considerably higher than her real one of 1.98). Brittany reported that she’d been making $55,000 a year at the Willard, quite a bit more than the lululemon job, which started at $11 an hour. With commissions, that could translate to about $30,000 a year. Brittany wrote that a desire for a “career change” was what prompted her to leave the Willard.

  As she made the transition, a friend from high school caught up with her over the phone. Brittany was as encouraging as ever: “I’m so happy that you’re doing well.” Brittany told her friend that leaving the Willard reflected her attempts to appreciate life more. She talked about trying to get to Haiti to help the earthquake survivors. “Life is too short to miss opportunities,” Brittany said, sounding content and happy, and signed off as always: “I miss you and I love you.”

  Brittany was a natural on the sales floor—spirited, energetic, fun to be around. Like her colleagues, she enjoyed benefits that for an hourly retail job were good. Lulu paid for health-care insurance, yoga classes, and fitness-club visits, and offered its employees the pricey merchandise at a steep discount—good news, since employees were expected to wear the form-fitting garb not just to work, but also out to yoga classes and fitness clubs, talking up its benefits as part of lulu’s brilliant, grassroots marketing strategies. The Georgetown store also sent Brittany to help organize Sunday sessions of “Beach Bums & Bellinis” at the well-known W Washington hotel. For $39, participants got a workout followed by brunch overlooking the White House.

  Lulu could be an unusual place to work—one that reflected the same Zen-to-attain message to its employees as it did to customers. Employees read a handbook called pramana, a Sanskrit term used for “obtaining knowledge,” and were expected to follow asteya, another Sanskrit term used for “not stealing and not coveting.” They were encouraged to watch DVDs by self-help guru Brian Tracy, be part of a mission to “elevate the world from mediocrity to greatness,” and publically document their personal one-year, five-year, and ten-year goals for their lives and careers.

  Brittany tried to lock in on becoming a personal trainer and opening her own gym. In December 2010, at her brother Jay’s wedding, she spoke to her brother Chris about how during her childhood, she’d thought she was fat and hated the way people looked at her. Being a personal trainer was a way she could help people. To Chris, this was welcome news. He’d long felt Brittany lacked professional focus.

  Meanwhile, back at the Georgetown store, employees were reporting incidents of missing cash, of money taken from wallets in the back room and registers coming up short. Brittany said that she, too, was missing money. Still, the store manager grew suspicious—no one ever accused Brittany of stealing, but she had worked all the shifts reporting problems.

  It was around this time that lululemon ran its nationwide, employees-only “Shop Night,” where workers could purchase apparel at 70 percent off, an even steeper discount than normal. To ward off depletion of inventory, the company set purchase limits at $1,000. At the Georgetown store, Brittany asked the manager on duty if she could go over the limit. The manager agreed, but would later say she thought Brittany was talking about a relatively minor amount. Yet Brittany more than doubled the purchase limit, racking up $2,196 worth of purchases—which, with the discount, cost her only $659.

  The manager felt her goodwill had been taken advantage of. And her suspicions about Brittany only grew. By now, she more strongly suspected Brittany of the thefts. On December 29, 2010, she brought Brittany in for a meeting and asked her about going over the $1,000 “Shop Night” limit. Brittany questioned why the rules were suddenly so strict. The manager fired her on the spot, citing “discount abuse” on her termination letter.

  For Brittany, it was a big blow. Lululemon wasn’t just a paycheck; it was a pathway to success—a ticket into high-end health clubs, a way to make valuable connections—that could make up for stumbles in her life and match the accomplishments of those around her. Brittany called a friend who also worked at lulu, and learned workers at other stores had likely gone over the limit, too. She complained and a regional manager got involved.

  The company’s handling of her firing was, to some extent, a product of its success. Just like other fast-growth retailers, lulu had expanded quickly and profitably by granting autonomy to the store managers. It made for creative and energetic places to work. But the fast growth meant the company didn’t always have time-tested systems in place. In this case, the company didn’t follow a structured process for handling the trickiest of personnel matters—suspecting thievery but lacking proof—and had carried out a termination citing different reasons, one that had created more problems than it solved.

  The company’s regional office launched an internal investigation. It turned out that across North America, twenty-seven other lululemon workers had topped the $1,000 limit on the end-of-year discounts. Brittany talked to friends about hiring a lawyer. It was never clear if she told people at lululemon that she was considering legal action, but perhaps she didn’t have to—given the issues with other employees from “Shop Night,” and given lululemon’s relentless attention to its corporate image.

  The store manager’s decision was overturned. Within two weeks, Brittany met with a regional manager who told her she would be reinstated, and gave her a choice of stores to work at. But rather than appreciate the company’s gesture, Brittany groused about how the whole thing had played out in texts to another lulu worker: “It totally went how I expected and I swear the apology wasn’t even genuine!”

  “Jeeze! I’m so sorry! Are you ok? What do you want to do?”

  “I will prolly end up at Bethesda, but haven’t fully made up my mind yet . . . It’s definitely unfortunate, but now all I can do is try and make the best of it!”

  Brittany had a couple more weeks off, and fell back on the enjoyable parts in her life—friends, family, and fitness. “Today, just doing the relaxing thing. Massage, manicure, then dinner w/the girls,” she texted to a friend, laying out weekend plans that included watching her beloved Seattle Seahawks. “Tomorrow, yoga in the A.M. then football!!!!! Hopefully the Seahawks will kick some Bears Ass :)”

  Brittany also reconnected with a U.S. Secret Service agent whom she’d dated six months earlier, joking with him about how she’d been playing with one of her nephews and her cell phone fell into a sewer. “Ahh the joys of kids,” the agent replied. The two had lunch the next day and hung out at Brittany’s place.

  She was also hitting trendy bars and dance clubs with friends, and used the time to hang out with her young relatives. Brittany and her three sisters looked out for e
ach other—texting and calling during snowstorms to make sure everyone made it home from work safely. Brittany organized a thirtieth birthday dinner for her sister Marissa.

  The next morning, she heard by text from her mother in Washington State. “Good morning sweetie, How are you this morning? Did you go out to dinner yesterday for Missy’s Birthday? I’m glad all of you have each other there, and you are there with the little people. Have a wonderful day. I love you very much, Mom.”

  Brittany responded, saying they’d all gone to the Carlyle. “I’m pretty sure you’ve been there with us too. Enjoy the Rest of your Day. Love You!”

  Out in Washington, Brittany’s parents talked proudly about their children. “All the kids are doing great,” Earl Norwood told his friend Don Brown.

  On January 18, 2011, Brittany met with Rachel Oertli, manager of the Bethesda lululemon athletica store. It couldn’t have been an entirely comfortable talk. Several months earlier, she’d applied for a management job at Rachel’s store—hoping that her years at the Willard would make up for her lack of retail experience—but Rachel had turned her down. Still, for Brittany, the new meeting went well, and she sent a text to one of her future coworkers: “You have such a solid team. I know it’ll be a great experience.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A Narrow Gray Zone

  A key member of lululemon athletica’s solid team in Bethesda, Maryland, was Jayna Murray, a gregarious thirty-year-old Texan poised to start a new chapter in her life.

  As 2011 opened, she was closing in on dual master’s degrees in business administration and communication, and looking for a corporate marketing job in the Pacific Northwest, where her longtime boyfriend, Fraser Bocell, was getting a PhD in educational statistics at the University of Washington. The two had started looking at engagement rings. One of the companies interested in hiring Jayna, at its corporate headquarters in Vancouver, Canada, was lululemon athletica.

  As lulu executives knew, Jayna could fill a room with her personality—her laugh, her confidence, her penchant for asking thoughtful questions. She collected friends everywhere she went: people she’d met at college, on jobs, or during trips she’d taken to places around the world. She bungee jumped, scuba dived, skydived, drank margaritas, and danced salsa until 3:00 in the morning. “If you’re afraid to do something,” Jayna liked to say, “go do it.”

  But she had her struggles, too. As a senior in high school, Jayna drifted away from clear ambitions, and refused to fill out college applications. As she got older and moved from city to city, she’d often go through months of private sadness before forming new friendships.

  Her father, David Murray, grew up the son of a military officer and earned a scholarship to play linebacker at what was then a full-time military school, Texas A&M University. Her mother, Phyllis, was raised in Manly, Iowa, population 1,500, and eventually attended Texas Lutheran University, which is how she and David met. In 1966, he went to the U.S. Army’s Airborne and Ranger schools. He learned a relatively new style of combat: flying aboard helicopters into hot spots and either jumping out or sliding down zip lines. David shipped off to Vietnam and led a platoon of soldiers into battle. As they hacked through the jungle one day, a booby-trapped land mine erupted, killing three of his men and badly injuring David’s legs. He recovered in a military hospital and charged back into battle, this time leading a Special Forces unit. When David came home, in 1969, he and Phyllis married.

  Both went on to pick up postgraduate degrees, Phyllis in family and child development, with a specialty in family counseling, and David in geological engineering and international affairs. Phyllis worked briefly as a therapist before pursuing a career as a flight attendant for TWA. David went to work for Phillips Petroleum, even as Vietnam continued to weigh on his mind. He struggled with anger and vivid flashbacks of friends killed next to him, often having trouble sleeping. David tried talking to counselors, but that didn’t do much.

  What did, and what kept his rage in check, was to smile at all he had. A big part of that was his wife, Phyllis; their two sons; and, as of November 22, 1980, their daughter, Jayna. Jayna was strong-willed from the get-go. At age two, she already hated their weekly family ritual of splitting up sections of the Sunday newspaper for everyone to go through. Jayna knew the other four were reading but couldn’t understand why she wasn’t able to do so—a contradiction that sent her off crying to her room. A couple of years later, she tried to escape a spanking by hiding every wooden spoon in the house.

  “With guidance, she’ll set the world on fire,” a swimming instructor once told her mother. “Without guidance, she’ll destroy herself.”

  Phyllis and David took that advice to heart. Her father began taking Jayna along on Boy Scout campouts for the troop he led. Jayna carried her own backpack, helped her dad pitch their tent, and rolled out their sleeping bags. She learned to tie knots and start campfires—the same activities that the older boys, including Jayna’s two brothers, did to collect merit badges. Jayna also went to Boy Scout meetings, said the Pledge of Allegiance alongside them, and watched the boys receive their badges. David told Jayna the rules said she couldn’t officially receive badges—but he gave them to her at home, away from the troop.

  Phyllis’s degree in family and child development also played a role in Jayna’s upbringing. If Jayna or her brothers wanted to try a sport or a musical instrument, they had to agree to commit to it for a certain amount of time, such as six months or a year. Their parents didn’t want them to quit before they understood if they really liked something. “Always moving forward” was the way David thought about it. “And the only way to do that was through self-awareness and self-improvement.”

  He had worked his way up at Phillips and began managing drilling sites around the world. Phyllis, too, of course, traveled a lot for her flight-attendant job. The result: heavy rotations of single-parent duty. But they found ways to make their schedules work with the kids’ interests. For example, one of them would take Jayna to dance class at the Houston Metropolitan Dance Company, where for three hours, six days a week, she eagerly worked through the paces. Her teachers started telling her she had a good chance to make it on Broadway.

  For her parents—with the family home more than an hour away—it made little sense to drive back and return for pickup. David spent much of his three hours outside in their Ford Aerostar, reading technical journals, writing drilling plans, or watching ball games on a portable television. One night, on the way home, Jayna, about thirteen at the time, looked up from the homework she was doing under the dome light and asked him about it.

  “Dad, why don’t you come inside?”

  “Well, sometimes I do.”

  “You don’t come inside all the time.”

  “I’m just more comfortable out in the car.”

  “What do you mean you’re more comfortable out in the car? It’s dark out in the car.”

  “The car’s got lights. I read. I watch baseball.”

  “Well, you need to come inside the studio.”

  As Jayna kept pushing, David realized his daughter had figured out the real reason behind his reluctance. He felt uncomfortable around Jayna’s dance instructors, at least two of whom he thought were gay.

  “Dad, they’re not interested in you,” Jayna continued. “They don’t care about you. You’re married.”

  David didn’t have a comeback. He talked to his wife about it. She told him his daughter was right. He began spending the full three hours inside the studio. As he got to know the instructors, he saw how much they cared for his daughter, how athletic they were, how foolish he’d been, how lucky he was to have a daughter who would speak her mind and teach him things.

  Jayna did well academically—low As—but had trouble finding the right school. By the time she was in her senior year, Jayna had been to four different high schools, including one year spent in Norway, when her father was transferred there. About the same time, she realized that dancing, even on Broadway, was a t
ough way to make a living. Her parents took her to two days of aptitude testing, which revealed she seemed built for a career in sales or marketing. “I don’t want to do that,” she told them. Phyllis and David took her to visit nearly ten colleges. Many had dance programs. But Jayna always put off filling out the applications.

  Her parents had long ago figured the best way for them to parent a strong-willed daughter with ambitions was to suggest this, talk about that, nudge this. But now they had a daughter exerting her will to not really do anything. They decided to meet force with force. The night before her high school graduation, Phyllis told Jayna she had six weeks to either get accepted to a college or secure a full-time job. “If not, you’re going to be out of this house,” Phyllis said.

  Jayna stormed out, passing a brother’s girlfriend in the driveway. “Mom and Dad are kicking me out!” she cried.

  She quickly applied to two colleges: the University of Central Florida, where she thought she could get a job dancing at Walt Disney World, and Saint Louis University, which appealed for two reasons: it was in the city of TWA’s hub, from which Jayna could use family benefit miles to travel around the world, and it had a study-abroad program. Jayna flew to Saint Louis for a student orientation and convinced the administrators to let her start right away—in Madrid. Suddenly, she had a plan.

  * * *

  Jayna and her classmates took an orientation trip to the Pyrenees mountains, on the border of Spain and France. Things got off to a tense start, with students either too shy or homesick to say much. On their first night, they all went to sleep on the floor in one room. Jayna had a trick up her sleeve. She knew how to throw her voice.

  “Help, I’m trapped in the closet,” she said softly. “I’m trapped in the closet.”