In the summer of 2010, the life of Lorenzen Vern-Gagne Wright, a 34-year-old African-American male and former professional basketball player, was tragically cut short in his beloved city of Memphis, Tennessee. On the night of July 18, he was last seen leaving the Collierville home of his ex-wife, Sherra Wright-Robinson. In the dark, early hours of July 19, a chilling 911 call was made from Lorenzen's cell phone to a dispatcher in Germantown, Tennessee.
Before the line went dead, the dispatcher heard a man's voice utter an expletive, followed by the unmistakable and horrifying sound of at least eleven gunshots. Tragically, the call was not immediately reported to a supervisor, a delay that would have profound consequences for the investigation to come.
Days turned into a week with no word from Lorenzen. His family, growing increasingly worried after being unable to contact him, filed a missing person's report on July 22. The search culminated in a grim discovery on July 28, ten days after he was last seen. In a remote, swampy field in southeast Memphis, a location off Callis-Cutoff Road, authorities found Wright's decomposing body. The Tennessee summer heat had taken a severe toll; his 6-foot-11 frame was so badly decomposed that it weighed only 57 pounds, and identification had to be confirmed through dental records. An autopsy would later reveal the brutal details of his death: he had been shot at least five times, with bullet fragments found in his skull, chest, and right forearm. His death was officially ruled a homicide.
For years, the high-profile murder of the hometown hero remained one of Memphis's most perplexing cold cases. Investigators were initially met with a wall of silence, with no clear suspects or motives. A reward was offered for information, but the trail seemed to have gone cold. The break in the case finally came in November 2017, when the murder weapon was recovered from a lake in Walnut, Mississippi, following a tip. This crucial piece of evidence led investigators to Billy Ray Turner, a landscaper and church deacon who attended the same church as Sherra Wright-Robinson. On December 5, 2017, Turner was arrested and indicted on first-degree murder charges. Just ten days later, the investigation took an even more shocking turn when Lorenzen's ex-wife, Sherra, was arrested in California and charged with orchestrating the murder of the father of her six children.
Prosecutors laid out a sinister plot fueled by a one-million-dollar life insurance policy in Sherra's name. They detailed how Sherra, along with Turner, had previously attempted to kill Lorenzen in Atlanta. The successful and fatal ambush was carried out in the secluded Memphis field. A third co-conspirator, Sherra's cousin Jimmie Martin, became a key witness for the prosecution. Martin testified that Sherra had lured Lorenzen to the field under the pretense of meeting someone for a financial transaction. He claimed that Sherra and Turner then ambushed and gunned down the former NBA star as he tried to run for his life. In July 2019, facing a trial, Sherra Wright-Robinson made a surprise move, pleading guilty to the facilitation of first-degree murder. She was sentenced to 30 years in prison. In March 2022, a jury found Billy Ray Turner guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and attempted first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison, finally bringing a measure of justice to the family of Lorenzen Wright nearly twelve years after his brutal murder.
