A jury on Monday convicted a man from Tennessee in the murder of former NBA player Lorenzen Wright, whose body was found in a field nearly 12 years ago in his hometown of Memphis.
After a two-hour deliberation by the jury, 51-year-old Billy Ray Turner was found guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy in the death of Wright, who played 13 seasons in the NBA before retiring after the 2008-2009 season.
Tennessee man gets life in prison for murder of former NBA star Lorenzen Wright https://t.co/qQcOE0DPhL pic.twitter.com/9ThOposPaG
— New York Post (@nypost) March 21, 2022
Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Lee Coffee sentenced Turner to life in prison for the murder of Wright. He will be sentenced for the other charges at a later date.
Coffee called Wright “a sacred son” of Memphis and told his mother, Deborah Marion, that the trial might not bring her closure but should “celebrate the good” about her son.
“It’ll never be closure, because I’ll never see my son again,” said Marion, who was elated with the verdict. “This is just some satisfaction for me and my family.”
Wright’s slaying is one of the most highly publicized murder cases in Memphis. His body was found with bullet wounds in a swampy field in east Memphis on July 28, 2010. Wright had been missing for days before his body was discovered.
Prosecutors allege Wright’s ex-wife, Sherra Wright, to have been behind his murder and recruited Turner and her cousin, Jimmie Martin, to assist her.
Turner and Sherra were indicted in December 2017 and the latter entered a surprise guilty plea to the facilitation of murder in July 2019. Sherra was sentenced to 30 years in prison, while Turner had already been serving a 16-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to possessing a weapon in 2017.
Martin said during his testimony that he was in Batesville, Mississippi, at the time of the shooting and that Sherra and Turner chased Wright before they shot him in the field.
He also told prosecutors that Sherra and Turner got rid of the evidence from the shooting scene and he went with Turner to dispose of the weapon by dumping it in a lake in Mississippi lake, which was later found by the FBI.
However, defense attorney John Keith Perry contested Martin’s story, saying that it was “crazy, contrived,” as Martin was actually in Memphis the night Wright was shot.
