Why Lorenzen Wright Was Murdered By His Ex

Hey, Goddamn! Gunshots…silence.

These are the last words ever recorded of former NBA center Lorenzen Wright, whose lifeless body was found riddled with bullets on July 22, 2010, in his adopted hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.

How did Lorenzen wind up here and why did his ex-wife plot to have him murdered?

A Southside Story

Lorenzen Wright was born in a college town about 75 miles southeast of Memphis, but it would be in Grind City where he would make his mark.

As a 6 foot 9 senior at Booker T. Washington High School on the Southside of Memphis in the early ’90s, his over-grown man-child size immediately made him stand out. However, he did enough to be named a McDonald’s All-American and Parade Second-Team All-American, which meant he could pretty much pick where he wanted to play college ball.

Lorenzen’s game more closely resembled today’s athletic, jump-shooting big men than that era’s gritty low-post play and defense-first mentality.

It was also during this time that “Ren” as he was known to friends, met his high school sweetheart Sherra Robinson, the daughter of his AAU basketball coach.

Wright apparently liked Sherra and his mom’s spaghetti enough, that he decided to remain stateside and attend the University of Memphis.

It was here that his and Sherra’s life would change forever.

Moving On Up

By the time Lorenzen Wright finished his freshman season as a Memphis Tiger, he was already a father.

Sherra giving birth to Lorenzen Jr. played a role in Ren declaring for the NBA draft following his sophomore season, in which he averaged a solid 17 points and 10 rebounds per game.

Wright was still a raw prospect, but his size and athleticism gave him enough upside that a semi-professional team, the LA Clippers, selected him with the seventh overall pick in the 1996 NBA Draft.

The Wrights were now moving on up like the Jeffersons, with NBA money in tow, Ren and Sherra got married, relocated to a swanky suburb in Tennessee, and began assembling a starting roster of their own.

By 2002 the couple had seven children, four boys and three girls, including an infant daughter who tragically passed away just a few months after being born.

According to family friend, Dr. Bill Adkins, this tragedy changed everything.

Money, Drugs, and Murder

Lorenzen Wright formally retired from the NBA in 2009 after 13 seasons, got divorced in early 2010, and was pronounced dead five months later in July.

Coping with the untimely death of their daughter took its toll on the formerly happy couple, with frequent heated arguments and extramarital affairs from both sides becoming the norm.

According to Memphis police records, the Wrights also “had cars repossessed and may not have been in a good place financially.”

In the end, this was enough of a motive to have Lorenzen Wright murdered.

See, Sherra, like many NBA wags, had become accustomed to a certain lifestyle. This is a nice way of saying she liked to spend money…lots of it and she wasn’t about to downgrade once her divorce from Lorenzen was finalized.

Ren’s family believed her spending was the cause of any financial trouble the former couple was experiencing.

A $1 million life insurance policy Lorenzen had taken out for his family would solve much of these woes.

On July 18, 2010, Lorenzen Wright left his home in Atlanta to come to Memphis for his sister’s baby shower and to catch his oldest son, Lorenzen Jr.’s basketball game.

The next night at 12:12 AM, a call to 911 from Lorenzen’s subpoenaed phone records captured his last words:

Hey, Goddamn! Gunshots…silence.

Despite Lorenzen Wright’s decomposing body being found in a wooded area ten days later, ravaged by heat, rain, feral animals, and 11 gunshot wounds to his head, heart, and forearm. It would take law enforcement seven whole years to make any arrests in the case.

Sherra was quick to provide an alibi, telling police she had last seen Ren on the night of July 18 and allegedly overheard him on his cellphone saying he was going out to “flip something, possibly drugs, for $110,000.”

However, little did she know that she was already a police suspect at this point.

A Greedy Ex, a Wannabe Rapper, and One Landscaper with Two Firearms

This sounds like the title of a Guy Ritchie film, but it’s what Lorenzen Wright’s murder boiled down to.

In her greed or perhaps desperation, phone records show Sherra Wright had been trying to lure Lorenzen back to Memphis with sexts for weeks and set him up to be murdered by two men, Jimmie Martin and Billy Ray Turner.  

The former was Sherra’s cousin and a wannabe rapper, who was out on bail for the second-degree murder of his girlfriend. The latter, her landscaper whom she had met at church. He also had a prior criminal record.

To the three stooges credit, Sherra and her accomplices had been careful enough not to mention anything about their plot electronically, so what ended up breaking the cold case was Jimmie Martin being found guilty of an unrelated second-degree murder in 2013.

In exchange for immunity, Martin agreed to cooperate with investigators about his involvement in the murder of Lorenzen Wright.

It was he who alerted authorities to the whereabouts of the gun used to murder Lorenzen Wright and that Sherra subsequently told him she and Turner had gone through with the murder.

In the end, a greedy ex-wife out for insurance money, a wannabe rapper out on bail, and a landscaper with a penchant for murder killed Lorenzen Wright.

After pleading guilty, Sherra Wright is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville, Tennessee. She is next eligible for parole in 2027.

Her former landscaper, love interest, and accomplice, Billy Ray Turner, was found guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

Jimmie Martin is currently serving a 20-year sentence for the unrelated second-degree murder charge of his former girlfriend at the Hardeman County Correctional Facility in Whiteville, Tennessee.

Lorenzen is survived by his six children, Lorenzen Wright Jr. Lawson Wright, his eldest daughter Loren Wright, twins Lamar and Shamar Wright, and his youngest daughter, Sofia Wright.

All six maintain their mother’s innocence to this day.

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