MEMPHIS, Tenn. — After 12 years, two people are now behind bars, and an entire city is ready to move forward after the final piece to the puzzle of Lorenzen Wright's murder was put in place Monday with the conviction and sentencing of Billy Ray Turner.
"It's a celebration for me because we've got somebody else...you know for actually doing what they did," Said Deborah Marion, Lorenzen's mother, after the guilty verdict was delivered. "Not just facilitation, he got charged with the real deal crime, Murder, first degree."
Marion was present for the entire trial, giving her testimony on the first day, waiting patiently for justice to be served.
She said that patience paid off in the end.
"I'm just glad we got him, it took 12 years, I don't care if it took 24, if he was guilty at the end I wouldn't mind," Marion said. "But we got him now."
The conviction for first-degree murder will see Turner behind bars for at least 51 years, joining fellow murder conspirator Sherra Wright, Lorenzen's ex-wife, who is serving a 30 year sentence for conspiring to murder the basketball star.
The case of Lorenzen Wright's murder has taken many twists and turns since 2010, and ABC24 took a look back to see exactly what led up to today's decision.
July 19, 2010: Lorenzen Wright murdered
Around midnight on July 19, 2010, Germantown Police received a fateful 911 call from Lorenzen Wright.
According to police, Wright had been lured into a road next to a field when he ran into Sherra Wright and Billy Ray Turner.
The Memphis basketball star could be heard shouting as shots were fired. The 911 operator initially dismissed the call and never reported it, as no information could be obtained.
Lorenzen was shot 11 times that night.
Memphis Police Sgt. Dennis Evans outlined phone records and deleted messages between Turner and Sherra Wright in the weeks before and after Lorenzen Wright's death.
It showed Turner making calls near Sherra Wright's home hours before the shooting.
Then, investigators said Turner's calls moved to a spot near the crime
"At 12:12, Mr. [Jimmie] Martin's phone is calling Mr. Turner's phone at the same that Mr. Lorenzen is calling 911," Sgt. Evans told the courtroom.
Martin was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the crime, providing information to investigators in exchange for immunity.
According to police, Martin and Turner cleaned up the crime scene, and threw the murder weapon into a lake in Walnut, Mississippi.
July 28, 2010: Lorenzen's body found
Wright was missing for nine days before his severely decomposed body was found on July 28, in a field near the TPC Southwind Golf Course.
Memphis police initially called the case a "death investigation," and it would be some time before foul play was reported.
According to Bleacher Report, Sherra Wright said at the time Lorenzen was carrying a "considerable sum of money."
Spectators gathered around the scene of the crime, including Lorenzen's former teammates Penny Hardaway and Elliot Perry.
2012: Jimmie Martin strikes deal with investigators; immunity for intel
Sometime in 2012, an affidavit claims Jimmie Martin, serving time in prison for an unrelated second-degree murder charge, struck a deal with the FBI for immunity in the Lorenzen Wright case in exchange for information leading to Sherra Wright and Billy Ray Turner, at the time unnamed suspects.
Sherra's and Turner's later defense would center heavily around Martin's credibility as a witness, Sherra going as far as to claim Martin had more evidence pointing to him as the killer than she did.
2013: Sherra Wright sued over spending Lorenzen's life insurance money
Lorenzen's father sued Sherra Wright after finding that Sherra had spent all but $5.05 of Lorenzen's $1 million life insurance payment on "luxury expenses" within months of Lorenzen's passing.
The suit claimed that Lorenzen had directed the money be spent on their six children, but the Commercial Appeal reported at the time that Sherra had spent the money on expenses including:
• $32,000 for a Cadillac Escalade
• $26,000 for a Lexus
• $69,000 on furniture
• $11,750 for a New York trip
• $339,000 for purchase and improvement to a new home
• $7,100 for a pool deposit
• $5,000 for lawn equipment
• $34,000 on legal fees
A judge presiding over the lawsuit ordered a trust fund be set up in the children's names, with Sherra as their trustee.
At the time, Sherra said the family was financially sound, with $1.4 million in "assets on hand."
2017: Police find the murder weapon; Sherra, Turner indicted
In November, 2017, Jimmie Martin led police to the lake in Walnut, Mississippi, where the murder weapon had been dumped.
Divers pulled the gun out almost immediately.
"I feel like jumping for joy every time I think about what they said, 'We found the gun in Walnut, Mississippi,'" Deborah Marion said at the time.
Kelvin Cowans, Sherra's ex-boyfriend who dated her after Lorenzen's death, called Wright in California to tell her police had found the murder weapon.
Cowans said Wright’s response had him second-guessing everything about their relationship. Instead of being excited, Cowans said Wright was evasive and nervous, and doubted the gun really had been found.
He quoted Wright as saying, “I think it’s all a ploy. And, you know, what’s it going to do. He’s not going to come back anyway.”
Cowans said murder investigators paid him a visit he’d never forget. When asked if he thought Sherra killed Lorenzen, Cowans said at the time, “I’m not going to jeopardize anything they got going with that case because they asked me not to talk about the particulars of what we talked about. But I left the meeting with a whole lot of information I didn’t know.”
A little over a month later, Sherra Wright was arrested in California, along with Billy Ray Turner in Memphis. Sherra was later extradited to the Shelby County Jail.
2018: Sherra Wright's bond set to $20 million after incidents in jail
Judge Lee Coffee ensured now-accused killer Sherra Wright wouldn't be walking free before her trial, setting a bond of $20 million.
With that bond, Sherra sat in jail for the entirety of her trial until her conviction. Previous violations while at the Shelby County Jail played a role in the judge setting that bond amount.
"Miss Wright does appear to be an ongoing danger to Shelby County, Tennessee," said Coffee at the time.
The $20 million bond amount is tied to both the murder allegations of Lorenzen Wright and her behavior in jail. According to staff, Wright berated workers, stripped off her clothes, and flooded a toilet.
2019: Sherra Wright pleads guilty; trial set for Billy Ray Turner
Wright pleaded guilty to facilitation to commit first degree murder in Lorenzen's death July 25, 2019.
She also pleaded guilty to facilitation to commit attempted first degree murder, and sentenced to a total of 38 years in jail.
The guilty pleas allowed her to avoid a first-degree murder conviction.
Sherra Wright would be eligible for parole after 30% of the sentence is served, after 9 years. She will get credit for time served (nearly two years).
The plea was a surprise move to some, who saw Sherra maintain innocence during pre-trial hearings.
Billy Ray Turner remained in prison, and saw his trial set for September, 2019, but that initial date continued to be pushed, eventually into 2020.
2020-2021: COVID forces constant delays in Turner's trial as Sherra sues Sheriff's Office for $12 million
As Turner continued to await a trial date, the COVID-19 pandemic raged in the Mid-South, and forced constant delays in his trial.
Judge Lee Coffee said he had to first meet with Shelby County Health Department’s Bureau of Infectious Diseases for approval to try any case.
RELATED: COVID delays trial for Billy Ray Turner, accused of killing former NBA star Lorenzen Wright
The bureau and the court had to work out how to move forward with trials during the pandemic - considering how many people could be allowed in a courtroom, social distancing, seating, etc.
Judge Coffee said the county’s courtroom setups had been an ongoing issue that he had previously brought to the mayor’s attention.
He said Shelby County courtrooms were not suitable for trying many cases, and certainly not cases during a pandemic.
Eventually, a trial date was set for October, 2021, but Turner's lawyers filed 15 motions to have his trial reset to when it eventually was held; March, 2022.
Meanwhile, Sherra Wright sued the Shelby County Sheriff's Office from her jail cell in December, 2020.
Sherra listed four defendants, two sergeants and two correctional officers, and claimed she suffered “cruel and unusual punishment.” The lawsuit claimed that she “suffered extreme mental anguish and distress.”
However, she did not appear in court for the suit, and a judge threw out the case.
March, 2022: The trial of Billy Ray Turner
Billy Ray Turner's first-degree murder trial of Lorenzen Wright, nearly 12 years in the making, finally kicked off on March 14, 2022, with Judge Coffee selecting a jury.
The prosecution, led by Shelby County Assistant District Attorney Paul Hagerman, named Jimmie Martin as one of its key witnesses, drawing complaints from the defense.
Martin, still serving time for the unrelated murder charge, provided damning new testimony in the trial.
Martin testified Thursday that Sherra Wright recruited him and Turner to kill Lorenzen, in a plot to receive the over $1 million in life insurance benefits after Lorenzen died.
Prosecutors alleged Sherra asked Turner and Martin to kill Lorenzen in Atlanta, then Memphis, in 2010.
The state rested its case late Saturday morning after calling its final witness - an undercover law enforcement member who testified about surveilling Turner and Sherra Wright after authorities announced a murder weapon had been found.
After the state rested, Judge Coffee said there was more than enough corroborating evidence of conspiracy, first degree murder, and attempted first degree murder, including items and bullet casings recovered at crime scene. He then denied a motion of acquittal made by the defense.
Following that ruling, Billy Ray Turner took the stand without the jury present, and told the judge he did not want to testify.
The defense called one witness - Jennifer Bogan - who testified that Turner attended a cookout at her Collierville home the evening of July 18, 2010 - roughly two hours before Lorenzen Wright made the 911 amid gunshots.
Closing arguments were made Monday, and the jury was excused for deliberation.
After roughly two hours, they returned with a unanimous guilty verdict, sending Turner to jail likely for the rest of his life, and marking the end of one of the highest-profile murder cases in Memphis history.
Judge Coffee spoke directly to Deborah Marion, who was present at the trial Monday, like every day before that. Coffee urged Marion to remember the good things and celebrate Lorenzen's life, as she nodded in agreement with Coffee's words.
Now that Lorenzen's murder has finally been solved, Memphis can move forward, towards remembering the good times with their hometown star.
