Lorenzen Wright was a star basketball player and met his future wife Sherra while attending Booker T. Washington High School here in Memphis. Their marriage seemed to be pretty good for a long time. They even had seven kids together. Wright played for five different NBA teams including two stints with the Atlanta Hawks and several seasons with his hometown Memphis Grizzlies after being drafted 7th overall by the Los Angeles Clippers in 1996.
Lorenzen made a lot of money and the couple spent it just as quickly as it came in. As the money dried up so did the marriage and by February of 2010 their divorce had been finalized. As part of the divorce agreement Lorenzen was ordered to buy a one million dollar life insurance policy meant for their children in case of his death.
On July 22, 2010, just five months after their divorce, Sherra reported Lorenzen missing. His body was found in this area here on July 28.
Several people who lived in the neighborhood Sherra lived in at the time of the murder were suspicious of her right away.
Sherra told police she had been threatened at her home by three men carrying guns trying to find Lorenzen six weeks before his murder. She said she hadn’t reported it because she feared for her life.
She also told police Lorenzen had left her house with an unknown man and a box of drugs he was looking to sell on the night of his murder.
She received the one million dollar life insurance money about a year after Lorenzen’s death. It’s normal for a life insurance company to hold the money back for a while when there is a suspicious death.
Sherra blew threw almost all of the money right away buying a house, furniture, fancy cars and going on trips. Finally a family member stepped in and sued her to slow down the spending so some would be left for the children who the money was meant for to begin with.
For the next seven years no one was charged with Lorenzen’s murder. Sherra moved to Houston and lived with a journalist by the name of Kelvin Cowans for a while. When they broke up she moved to California with her children.
Meanwhile Sherra’s cousin Jimmie Martin was convicted of second-degree murder in a different case. When it came time for sentencing he told detectives he had some information for them in the Lorenzen Wright case. He said he along with Billy Ray Turner who was a landscaper and a deacon at the church Sherra went to at the time had been asked by Sherra to kill Lorenzen while he was in Atlanta. Their attempt failed, but he said after Lorenzen was killed he was contacted by both of them to help clean up the crime scene, which he agreed to do, and he also said he knew where the gun used in the murder was.
He said they had driven to Mississippi and dropped the gun in a lake. Police searched the lake, found the murder weapon and arrested Sherra on December 15, 2017. They also arrested Turner.
On July 25, 2019 Sherra plead guilty to facilitation of first degree murder and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Turner is still awaiting trial.
Former NBA player Lorenzen Wright was found dead in a wooded desolate area of Memphis, Tennesse on July 28, 2010. On July 22, 2010, just five months after their divorce, Lorenzen's wife Sherra reported him missing. For seven years the murder was unsolved until police got a break in the case from a man who himself was convicted in another murder. Please subscribe! Find us on the web: https://www.facebook.com/mcandrewtravels https://www.mcandrewtravels.com https://twitter.com/McAndrewTravels https://www.instagram.com/mcandrew_travels
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