Lorenzen Wright’s children defend mother in LA Times article
The ever-evolving drama surrounding the shooting death of former NBA star Lorenzen Wright, allegedly at the hands of his ex-wife, Sherra Wright, is still explosive reading.
On Thursday the L.A. Times revisited the tragedy, this time talking to others in the couple’s life, including two of their now adult children. They believe their mother played no role in their father’s violent death.
Sherra Wright is jailed on a $20 million bond on first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder charges. Last month her attorney filed a motion asking for a mental evaluation.
Her co-defendant, Billy Ray Turner, a deacon at the Collierville church where Sherra Wright attended, is jailed on a $15 million bond.
The Wright children have started a GoFundMe account on their mother’s behalf.
The newspaper’s story chronicles the couple’s history as young sweethearts, their volatile marriage and Sherra Wright’s subsequent marriages.
It also quotes The Commercial Appeal:
“A handful of violent incidents between the two main characters in ‘Mr. Tell Me Anything’ are folded in with allegations of infidelity and explicit descriptions of sexual encounters. Sherra told the Memphis Commercial Appeal in July 2015 that ‘99.99 percent’ of the book contained true stories from her relationship with Lorenzen. She described it on social media as ‘my story.’ Lorenzen Jr. said his mother ‘wrote about things that really happened in her life.’”
Lorenzen Wright was counted among the Bluff City’s favorite sons, a muchloved standout at the University of Memphis, during his years in the NBA and when he played in front of a hometown crowd with the Memphis Grizzlies.
But by 2010, the Wrights’ were divorced, Lorenzen Wright’s NBA career was over and he was living in Atlanta.
He was visiting Memphis when in the evening on July 18 he left Sherra Wright’s house in Collierville. On July 22, his mother Deborah Marion, reported him missing.
Sherra Wright told police he left with people she didn’t know and would later tell investigators that her ex-husband was involved in criminal activity.
It was nine days after a 911 call that had landed in Germantown surfaced, leading investigators to a grassy field in southeast Shelby County and Lorenzen Wright’s badly decomposed body.
The case was cold for years, until tips led to the discovery of the murder weapon in a lake in Walnut, Mississippi.
Sherra Wright’s cousin, Jimmie Martin, serving 20 years for murdering his girlfriend, was the tipster named in court documents as an “unindicted coconspirator” who led police to the gun in Mississippi.
Martin told them that in April 2010, Sherra Wright and Turner failed in their first attempt to kill Lorenzen Wright in Atlanta, how they confessed to him about the killing here and how he helped Turner and Sherra Wright clean up the crime scene and destroy evidence.
Turner was arrested on Dec. 5 in Collierville, while Sherra Wright was picked up in Riverside, California days later.
Both have entered not guilty pleas. Their next court appearance is Oct. 5, but no trial date has been set.