Lorenzen Wright's voice was last heard on a desperate 911 call in July of 2010, but his story — and the path that led him to that moment — began long before that fateful night.
WREG TV began covering Wright from the time he emerged on the local high school basketball scene in Memphis in the early 1990s, through his college playing days at the University of Memphis and his 13-year run in the NBA, including playing on his home turf with the Memphis Grizzlies. He was considered by many to be a shining star.
Killing Lorenzen: Love | Basketball | Murder is an investigative podcast by WREG's investigative team about the life and death of Lorenzen Wright, and his ex-wife Sherra Wright, now sitting behind bars after pleading guilty to facilitating his murder, nearly nine years to the day later.
In August of 2010, just weeks after her ex-husband was found brutally murdered, his body left rotting in a field near southeast Memphis, Sherra Wright packed up and moved out of her Collierville home.
But on her way, out, Sherra gave law enforcement somewhat of a trail of evidence to follow in Lorenzen’s murder investigation.
By November of 2010, another NBA basketball season had started, Lorenzen would have celebrated his 35th birthday. and as the days turned to weeks, and weeks to months, many wondered if police would ever find out who killed Lorenzen Wright.
Despite the time that passed, Deborah Marion was relentless in her quest to find out who killed her first-born son. There was no question, or day of the week that was off limits.
But for all the information provided to, or gathered by investigators, we’ve learned police might have missed other, crucial evidence along the way, because of people they reportedly didn’t talk to.
So there were those who said they wanted to talk to police and didn’t. And then there was Sherra, who eventually stopped talking to police — but she did decide to sit down with us.