The basketball star is believed to have visited his ex-wife’s home before mysteriously disappearing and was later found dead.
Although police and the victim’s family always suspected the involvement of his ex-wife in the murder case, they couldn’t do anything until a man was convicted of killing his girlfriend.
Unhappy Marriage
Lorenzen Vern-Gagne Wright was born in 1975 in Oxford, Mississippi, before moving to Memphis, Tennessee. Lorenzen’s father, Herb Wright, was a former professional basketball player before becoming a police officer for the Memphis Police Department.
When Lorenzen was 7, his father was paralyzed due to a gunshot wound and had to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life. However, Herb never let the wheelchair hold him back. He became his son’s first basketball coach.
With towering height, Lorenzen had a natural advantage and exceptional basketball talent. He was a star even in high school.
During this time, Lorenzen met Sherra Robinson, the daughter of his coach. In 1994, Sherra became pregnant with their child. And as Lorenzen began his NBA career, the two welcomed their first child.
Lorenzen and Sherra married in 1998, welcoming their second child in 1999. In 2001, Lorenzen moved to the Memphis Grizzlies, the team he would play for the next 5 years. Sherra and the children followed him to an affluent area in Collierville, Tennessee. By 2002, they had seven children, three girls and four boys.
Tragedy struck the Wright family in 2003 when their daughter suddenly died from sudden infant death syndrome. The relationship between the couple became strained, unstable, and filled with frequent arguments.
After playing 13 seasons with 5 different clubs, Lorenzen retired in 2009. It was also the time when his marriage ended. In 2010, the couple divorced. Lorenzen moved to Atlanta while Sherra remained in Memphis, where their children were attending school.
Decomposed Body in a Field
On July 22, 2010, Lorenzen’s mother, Deborah Marion, called the police to report her son missing after he failed to show up at a family gathering and couldn’t be reached.
Before his disappearance, Lorenzen flew to Tennessee that weekend to spend time with family. Each time he came, he stayed at his ex-wife’s home with the children. When Lorenzen’s relatives tried to contact him, Sherra showed no interest.
Meanwhile, close friend Phil Dotson revealed that he and Lorenzen were together all day on July 18, 2010. “He said he would call me later. I left around 10 p.m., went home, and never heard from him again,” Phil recounted their last encounter with Lorenzen before he went to his ex-wife’s house. Family and friends searched everywhere for Lorenzen but to no avail.
After examining Lorenzen’s phone records, police discovered that his last outgoing call was to the 911 dispatch in Germantown, a suburb of Memphis, on July 19.
“Hey, damn it!” Lorenzen exclaimed in the call before a series of gunshots rang out in the background. The call then abruptly ended. At that time, the dispatcher heard nothing but gunshots and couldn’t determine the call’s location.
Investigators then attempted to trace the call. Eventually, they pinpointed it was made in the southeast Memphis area.
On July 28, 2010, ten days after Lorenzen went missing, his heavily decomposed body with multiple gunshot wounds was found in a marshy field. Lorenzen passed away at the age of 34.
Nude Photos
On July 28, 2010, ten days after Lorenzen Vern-Gagne Wright went missing, his heavily decomposed body with multiple gunshot wounds was discovered in a marshy field.
At the scene, investigators found shell casings from a small-caliber handgun and a revolver, indicating multiple shooters. Lorenzen was still wearing jewelry and had a large sum of cash on him, which ruled out the possibility of a robbery turned homicide.
An autopsy revealed that the 34-year-old victim was shot five times, including two shots to the head, two to the chest, and one to the forearm.
Friends revealed that on July 18, 2010, Lorenzen had dinner with old friends and then went to watch his son play basketball. During this time, Lorenzen received a series of texts from his ex-wife, Sherra Robinson. They were nude photos of Sherra.
Around 10 p.m. that night, Lorenzen and his son went to Sherra’s house. After four days passed without any word from him, the family contacted authorities.
Investigators spoke with Sherra. The woman claimed the last time she saw her ex-husband was on the night of July 18 when he left her house with two armed men, carrying money and drugs.
Sherra alleged that she overheard Lorenzen’s phone conversation, stating that he would exchange something for $110,000.
Sherra suggested that Lorenzen was murdered in a failed drug deal. However, loved ones insisted Lorenzen had never used drugs. Investigators also found no evidence to support this claim.
Clues from cell phones
Friends and relatives of Lorenzen revealed that both Sherra and Lorenzen had extramarital affairs. They also faced financial difficulties after Lorenzen’s retirement, largely due to Sherra’s extravagant spending habits.
In 2010, the couple divorced but remained connected in life. As per the divorce agreement, Lorenzen purchased a $1 million life insurance policy, with six children as beneficiaries, and Sherra served as the custodian of the funds.
Immediately following Lorenzen’s death, Sherra received this insurance money. However, within just 10 months, she had spent $970,000 of it.
Investigators sought to question Sherra about inconsistencies in her story, but she hired a lawyer and refused to speak to the police.
Analyzing Sherra’s cell phone records, investigators found that in the weeks leading up to her ex-husband’s murder, Sherra repeatedly enticed him to visit Memphis through sexually explicit messages.
Meanwhile, Sherra also communicated with two men named Jimmie Martin and Billy Ray Turner.
Jimmie is Sherra’s cousin, currently on parole for second-degree murder. His victim was his girlfriend – Martha Jean Bownes. On the other hand, Billy works as a gardener in Atlanta and meets Sherra at church. The two had an extramarital relationship.
The Ex-Wife’s Scheme
Analyzing the cell phone records of Sherra Robinson – the wife of the victim Lorenzen Wright, investigators found that in the weeks leading up to her ex-husband’s murder, Sherra contacted two men, her cousin Jimmie Martin, and her lover Billy Ray Turner.
In particular, Sherra exchanged a series of seemingly encrypted messages with Jimmie in the days leading up to the murder. Additionally, checking Billy’s phone data, police also discovered he was in the same area as the victim Lorenzen on the night of the murder.
Although investigators suspected all three individuals, the case remained stalled due to a lack of concrete evidence.
A breakthrough came in 2013 when Jimmie Martin was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend in 2007 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Hoping for a lighter sentence, Jimmie agreed to disclose his involvement in Lorenzen Wright’s murder. The man testified that Sherra, his cousin, hired him to kill her ex-husband along with her lover Billy. All three then met to plan the murder.
The Gun under the Lake
According to Jimmie’s confession, initially, he and Billy brought a handgun to Lorenzen’s Atlanta apartment to shoot him. However, after breaking into the apartment through the window, they found someone sleeping on the sofa in the living room who was not Lorenzen. They quickly left the apartment with their plan thwarted.
Sherra decided to lure Lorenzen to Memphis by sending him a series of seductive messages. Next, the woman enticed her ex-husband to the field where Billy was waiting.
According to Jimmie, he was in Mississippi on the night of the actual murder. Sherra then claimed that she and Billy successfully carried out the murder. Billy fired the gun as soon as Lorenzen appeared. The victim tried to flee and jumped over a fence but could not escape the gunfire.
When Sherra asked for help to dispose of the murder weapon, Jimmie and Billy threw the handgun used in the crime into a lake in Mississippi.
However, despite Jimmie’s confession, investigators still lacked sufficient evidence to arrest the suspects. The initial search at the lake yielded no results. It wasn’t until several years later that FBI divers organized another search and this time managed to recover the murder weapon.
Jimmie was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the murder of his girlfriend but was granted immunity in Lorenzen’s case for testifying against Sherra and Billy.
Meanwhile, on December 5, 2017, 46-year-old Billy Ray Turner was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in Lorenzen Wright’s death. A week later, Sherra Wright was arrested near her home in Riverside, California, and charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
