Jury convicts man in Memphis killing of former NBA player Lorenzen Wright

Case one of most shocking in Memphis history

NBA Player Killed Basketball (AP2008)

A Tennessee jury has convicted a man in the killing of former NBA player Lorenzen Wright, whose bullet-ridden body was found decomposing in a field in Memphis in 2010.

The 15-person jury convicted Billy Ray Turner of killing the former Memphis Grizzlies center, one of the most highly publicised cases in city history.

Turner, who had pleaded not guilty, was sentenced to life in prison.

The trial began on Monday, 14 March, and attracted outsized attention.

Wright, a Memphis native, was a hometown hero and father of six, playing for both the University of Memphis and the Grizzlies, as well as four other teams during his 13-season career.

Turner, 51, and Sherra Wright, the retired player’s ex-wife, were charged in the slaying in December of 2017.

According to Jimmie Martin, Sherra Wright’s cousin, the NBA player’s ex-wife recruited Martin and Turner, a local landscaper she knew from church, to kill Lorenzen Wright. Prosecutors also allege Martin and Sherra Wright had a relationship.

Martin testified that he and Turner snuck into Lorenzen Wright’s condo in Atlanta to shoot the former NBA player, but didn’t find him.

Later, when Lorenzen Wright was back visiting Atlanta in July of 2010, Sherra Wright lured him to the field where the killing took place with a phony story that she was going there to meet someone and get money, Martin testified.

There, Sherra Wright and Turner ambushed Lorenzen, according to the testimony. Before being killed, Lorenzen Wright hopped a fence, and jurors heard a 911 call he made with gunshots in the background.

Then, Sherra Wright and Turner disposed of the weapons in a lake in Mississippi, according to Martin, and Sherra Wright largely confessed to the crime when speaking with her cousin days later. FBI divers later located the weapons.

Ms Wright entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2019.

Turner, who was found with two guns during the 2017 arrest, was sentenced to 16 years for possessing a weapon as a convicted felon.

Martin, who was facing charges of killing his girlfriend at the time of Lorenzen Wright’s death, was granted immunity from prosecution in the case of the NBA player, and is currently serving time in his separate murder case.

Defence attorney John Kieth Perry argued during closing arguments that Martin’s account of what happened was “crazy” and “contrived.”