The March 2011 homicide of Jayna Murray at a Bethesda, Md. Lululemon store left area residents shocked and terrified as police set out to find the perpetrators. Her co-worker was found bound and beaten, and described the men who came in and assaulted the women as they closed up the store. With or without knowing how the twisted case played out, the facts read stranger than fiction in Peter Ross Range’s Murder In The Yoga Store: The True Story of the Lululemon Killing (Hawthorne Books, $7). Range will discuss the book at Politics & Prose on Friday, August 16 at 7 p.m.
Considering that at the time, only a few days passed before the true suspect was arrested, Range succeeds in keeping readers in suspense for the relatively brief book. But all bases are covered: The backgrounds of Murray and her killer, their unique personalities and viewpoints, the events that escalated slowly then quickly, and the lies that unraveled afterward.
Despite what the title might imply, Murder in the Yoga Store doesn’t sensationalize what happened to Murray. Range pays homage to her memory and captures the connection he and other locals felt to the crime that rocked their ritzy and normally very safe neighborhood. His interviews and insider information add context and detail not previously released, along with tragic irony in a friend’s final text to Murray after a long workday: “Hope you survived!”
The gripping story also addresses what could have been a turning point the night of the murder: the utter failure of two employees in the next-door Apple store to call 911 after hearing distinctive cries for help. Surveillance video shows them holding their ears to the shared wall, then walking away. The lesson on taking action rather than standing by bears repeating. As one DCist commenter wrote during the trial coverage, “I have been an emergency responder, and … the wasted calls were people calling because they had a cold or a doctor’s appointment and thought the [ambulance] would get them past the line at the ER. Quick rule of thumb: if it crosses your mind that perhaps you are wasting police/fire/EMS time with your call, you are not the kind of person who makes wasteful calls to police/fire/EMS.”
Range is a magazine journalist in Washington, D.C. He served as a White House correspondent for U.S. News & World Report and as an overseas bureau chief for Time. He was in Bethesda the morning that the “yoga store murder” was discovered, became transfixed by the case and penned this thorough account.
The talk is free and open to the public, and will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Beer and wine will be available.
