Naman Shrestha
In Investigation Discovery’s ‘Game Day Murders: Million Dollar Motive,’ the primary focus is on the mysterious death of NBA star Lorenzen Wright in the summer of 2010. Given his influence and popularity, when the news of the doting father’s passing broke out, the entire community was left shell-shocked. The investigation tied his death to cartel connections and debts, but the detectives eventually uncovered a shocking truth that led them to the perpetrator/s.
Lorenzen Wright’s Remains Were Found Nearly Ten Days After His Disappearance
A professional basketball player named Herbert Wright Jr., who also worked for the Memphis Police Department, and his wife, Deborah Marion, gave birth to their beloved son, Lorenzen Vern-Gagne Wright, on November 4, 1975, in Oxford, Mississippi. Lorenzen was only seven years old when his father was struck by a gunshot to the back on duty, leaving him paralyzed. Following in his father’s footsteps, he began playing basketball at a young age, representing Lafayette High School in Oxford, Mississippi and Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis, Tennessee. He also played for the University of Memphis, where he was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi. As for his professional career, Lorenzen played 13 seasons in the NBA for different teams, including the Los Angeles Clippers, Memphis Grizzlies, Cleveland Cavaliers, Sacramento Kings, and Atlanta Hawks.
On the personal front, he got married to Sherra Robinson on June 6, 1998. In the following years, the couple gave birth to a total of seven children — Lorenzen Wright Jr., Loren, twins Lamar and Shamar, Sierra, Sofia, and Lawson. On March 1, 2003, they suffered a huge loss when their daughter, Sierra, died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. However, more than a decade after their marriage, Lorenzen and Sherra parted ways in February 2010 when Sherra filed for divorce. A few months later, the professional basketball player’s life was suddenly ended, leaving his children without a father.
On July 19, 2010, around 12:18 am, the police received a 911 call from Lorenzen’s phone, but it was interrupted by multiple gunshots. However, the dispatcher didn’t report the call to the supervisor until it was too late. When his family couldn’t get in touch with him for several days, they reported him missing on July 22. After six days of search, on July 28, 2010, the police discovered skeletal remains of the 34-year-old basketballer in a wooded area near a golf course on Callis-Cutoff Road in Memphis, Tennessee, with the help of cadaver dogs. The autopsy revealed his cause of death to be multiple gunshot wounds, as he had been shot multiple times — twice in the head, twice on the chest, and once in his forearm. It was also concluded that he had been dead for about nine days when his remains were recovered.
Someone From Lorenzen Wright’s Past Orchestrated His Murder
As part of the investigation, the detectives interviewed Lorenzen Wright’s ex-wife, Sherra Wright, who claimed that he visited her home in Collierville, Tennessee, on July 18, 2010. She told the investigators that he left the house with some money to conduct an alleged drug deal and was never seen again. As she was considered a person of interest, the Memphis PD conducted a search of her home, where they found a letter addressed to Lorenzen and her, and some burned metal pieces. Following the basketball player’s death, Sherra received $1 million of insurance money for the benefit of their children. More than seven years after the murder, on November 9, 2017, the police recovered the firearm used to commit the crime from a lake in Walnut, Mississippi, after a valuable tip from Sherra’s cousin, Jimmie Martin.
Within the following month, the police began connecting the dots as they linked Billy Ray Turner to Lorenzen’s homicide. On December 5, 2017, he was arrested and indicted on first-degree murder charges. As per investigative reports, Billy was a landscaper and church deacon at Mt. Olive No. 1 Missionary Baptist Church in Collierville, where he met Sherra. The two allegedly shared a secret sexual relationship, and Sherra masterminded the murder of her ex-husband by hiring Billy and her cousin, Jimmie, who was accused of killing his girlfriend at the time. During his interview, Martin claimed that he was with Billy when they got rid of the gun in a north Mississippi lake.
Admitting that he was at the meeting where Sherra and Billy planned the former NBA star’s killing, Martin also told the detectives that Sherra planned another attempt to kill Lorenzen in Atlanta, Georgia. Claiming that he was in Batesville, Mississippi, at the time of the shooting, he claimed that Sherra confessed to killing her ex-husband a few days later. As per his account, she lured Lorenzen to a Memphis field, where she and Billy ambushed him and shot him to death. Armed with enough evidence against her, the police arrested Sherra at her Riverside, California, home on December 15, 2017. She was charged with first-degree murder, premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and attempted first-degree murder.
Sherra Wright-Robinson is Awaiting Her Parole Hearing at a Tennessee Prison Facility
Jimmie Martin, who had been convicted of killing his girlfriend and sentenced to 20 years in prison, was unindicted as he agreed to serve as a witness against Sherra Right-Robinson and Billy Ray Turner. About one and a half years after her arrest, on July 25, 2019, Sherra pleaded guilty to facilitation of first-degree murder in connection with the killing of her ex-husband, Lorenzen Wright. Consequently, she was sentenced to 30 years in prison. A couple of years later, she claimed innocence and denied having any involvement in the basketball player’s murder.
On May 11, 2022, Sherra sought an early release from the Tennessee Board of Parole, claiming that she regretted her actions and had done well in her prison classes. However, her request was denied a couple of weeks later by three of the seven board members, given the seriousness of her crime. That same year, in March 2022, her coconspirator, Billy Ray Turner, was convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and attempted first-degree murder. In July of the same year, he was sentenced to life in prison for the murder conviction and an additional 41 years for his other convictions. As of today, 55-year-old Sherra Wright-Robinson is serving her sentence at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville, Tennessee, with her parole hearing scheduled for May 2027.
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