Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Basketball star murdered by 'GOLD DIGGER?'

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

Former NBA player Lorenzen Wright made millions of dollars during his basketball career, but he also lost millions of dollars. His bullet-riddled body was found in a swampy field in suburban Memphis. He had been missing for 10 days. Who killed the NBA star?Joining Nancy Grace Today: Troy Slaten - Criminal Defense Attorney, Los Angeles California  Bobby Chacon - Former Special Agent FBI, screenwriter on "Criminal Minds" Dr. Angela Arnold - Psychiatrist, Atlanta Ga www.angelaarnoldmd.com Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics Jacksonville State University, Author,"Blood Beneath My Feet" featured on "Poisonous Liaisons" on True Crime Network Levi Page - Investigative reporter Crime Online Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. We see them on TV. We read about them in the tabloids. They're famous. They're young. They're athletic. They got it all, right? Well, not this NBA star who ends up dead. Why? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. At nearly seven feet tall, Lorenzen Wright was a giant in his hometown.

First as a local high school star, then at the University of Memphis, and finally in the NBA with the Memphis Grizzlies. Lorenzen was the hometown boy that makes good. Former Memphis Police Director Tony Armstrong says Wright's impact was big. You can imagine with all of the lives that he had touched, not only here in this city, but all across the world, it was a phenomenal story. Lorenzen, an NBA great. Joining me, an all-star panel to break it down and put it back together again.

First of all, renowned criminal defense attorney joining us out of L.A., Troy Slayton. Bobby Chacon, former special agent FBI screenwriter on Criminal Minds. Dr. Angela Arnold, you know her well. Psychiatrist joining us out of Atlanta and you can find her at AngelaArnoldMD.com. Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, and now the star of an e-show, Poisonous Liaisons on the True Crime Network, and CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, Levi Page. Levi, tell me about Lorenzen Wright's NBA career. So, Nancy, Lorenzen Wright grew up in Mississippi,

but when he was in high school, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and he was a breakout high school basketball star. He went on to play for the University of Memphis. Then he went into the NBA, and he played 13 seasons in the NBA. He played for the LA Clippers, the Memphis Grizzlies, which is where he became a star. He was beloved in Memphis. He played for the Atlanta Hawks, Sacramento Kings, and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Yeah, yeah. I remember when he played for the Hawks. He was a superstar at the time. They needed it the most. We were talking about a guy that comes from very, very humble beginnings

in Mississippi. Family moves to Memphis, and that is where he broke into basketball in a major way. How did a superstar like Lorenzen Wright end up dead? And why has the case languished for so long? Take a listen to our friend Melissa McCartney at Crime Watch Daily. This woman accompanied Lorenzen on his road to stardom. His wife, Shira, the daughter of one of his youth coaches. Shira was with him basically from the very beginning yeah sure was five years older than Lorenzen which is beautiful young lady the Wrights built quite the brood along the way six kids in fact enough for a basketball team plus one

how was he as a father oh my god I'd say is this the number one thing they care about most of his world where his. He always put them ahead of anything, everything he did. Lorenzen was crushed by the tragic death of a seventh child, a baby girl who fell victim to sudden infant death syndrome. The Hoop star established a scholarship in her name and got deeply involved in philanthropy. She just always gave and gave and gave. You were hearing first our friend James Brown at CBS News and then from Melissa McCartney at Crime Watch Daily. So not only did Lorenzen Wright have this incredible, stellar career in the NBA, which, you know, most of us can only dream of, he had the happy home too.

The wife that had been with him for years and years, he didn't turn his back on her when he hit stardom. And seven children, six of them healthy and well, the seventh passing away was Sid's. But the family picture as well, you know, that's very rare to Dr. Angela Arnold, psychiatrist joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction, for someone that is so consumed with their career, him being an NBA star, but still is a devoted family man, too, with six children and a gorgeous wife. Seems like he had it all.

That's very rare. Yes. And it's rare for him to have had the time as he was rising in his career to care for all of these children and form good relationships with them. The marriage going on very, very happily with the six children, the mansion, the beautiful wife, almost picture perfect. But take a listen to Crime Watch Daily. He had a long career, but very profitable as well. How much did he net over that time? According to court records, he earned $55 million over the course of, I think it was 13 years that he was in the NBA.

But by the time Lorenzen Wright's hoop days hit the final buzzer, his rags-to-riches story and brilliant career had dimmed to a familiar cliche, too much fame, too much fortune, much too soon. By the time he was done playing, he was broke, pretty much. I mean, he had two expensive homes that were in foreclosure. And according to Sheriff, they had a lot of creditors after them. He's got a lot of family and people coming at you as well, too. You know, you got this money and fame and success at you. So the problem was he was a giver. He gave to anybody who put

their hand out. It's that dangerous two headed monster that stalks the unsuspecting sports superstar, luring him down a path of self-destruction, money and women. Uh oh. Why is that to you, Troy Slayton, a renowned attorney out of LA? You're in the thick of it in LA, where all the stars and the athletes choose to live. All the money seems to destroy everything. And here this guy had $55 million and he was going broke. How does that happen with these stars? Well, this may surprise you, Nancy, but not everything is sunshine and lollipops with superstars. And he went through his $55 million, and it may not be the rosy picture that you paint

between him and his wife and six children. Things may have been very dark back at home. Well, if my husband ran through $55 million, I can tell you, it's going to be dark when he walks in the door at home. Oh, yes. I just don't get it. To Bobby Chacon, former special agent with the FBI, screenwriter on Criminal Minds. Bobby, $55 million they ran through?

Yeah, you know, these young men make so much money on their, really, their God-given talent, and they're not provided a lot of times with the tools they need to manage that kind of fame and that kind of wealth that's thrust upon them so quickly in life. I mean, it's a challenge for anybody. But if you don't have the skill sets and you don't have the support system around you to deal with that kind of celebrity status and the attention and not only not always positive attention that comes with it, you get many grifters coming at you, you get many family members and friends. And it's really it can be quite overwhelming to get that kind of fame and that kind of wealth so early in life. Well, you left out something.

Hoochie Mamas. The women that come at the professional sports stars, they want money. They think the way to get it is sex and to potentially have a baby with the star because then the star is on the hook for life paying for the little baby so long story short he had women throwing themselves at him and you know i disagree dr angela arnold you hear troy slayton you know basically sucking up to celebrities oh they're not equipped to handle it too much, too fast. Same thing with Chacon. He knew

he wasn't supposed to be cheating with other women and giving them money. You don't need a financial advisor from SunTrust to come tell you that. That's BS. Sorry, Slayton and Chacon, but you're just, you're wrong. No, I mean, you know, maybe he could

have used a good therapist. Maybe he could have used zipping up his pants. That probably would have helped things a lot. But long story short, forget about the women for a minute. We got to figure out what happened to this NBA star. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. We are talking about a guy who had it all. Young, many people think attractive, healthy, NBA star, gorgeous wife,

had been with him from the get-go, six healthy children, the mansion, the cars, everything, right? Wrong, because he ends up dead. How the heck this family family, this man ran through $55 million, I do not know. I don't get it. Now Slayton and Chacon, Troy Slayton and Bobby Chacon say, oh, it's classic, too much, too soon. Levi Page with me, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Any

idea what he did with all that money? You know, Nancy, of course people talk about infidelity, but also he was very charitable. There was actually an orphan that was a native to Memphis who was a little kid and his mother died in the home. And he lived in that home with his mother's corpse for a month. And his story made national news. And Lorenzen Wright, when he found out about this story, donated thousands of dollars to this little boy, and so did other Hawks players as well. So he was very charitable, very involved in his community, especially with children volunteering his time as well.

Well, needless to say, running through 55 mil, And I appreciate that. I really do. Levi Page, the generous nature. And he did give to a ton of charities. He had a very tender heart there in his new hometown of Memphis. He was always unasked, giving thousands of dollars where he thought it was needed and it was needed. You know, have you ever noticed this about rich people, Dr. Angela Arnold, the richer they get, the more stingy they get. Have you ever noticed that?

I completely agree with you. We talk about that at our house all the time. Can I tell you a story, Joe Scott Morgan? You may know this judge. All right, I tried a couple of cases in front of her, and she was no picnic. So this judge is married to a named partner in one of the biggest law firms in the South, really in the world. I mean, in the country, now that I'm thinking about it. It's huge. And her staff went to the Christmas party at their house. All they had was chip and dip.

That's it. There was a bowl of chips and a bowl of dip. That was it. In this mansion. Chip, dip, Joe Scott. That's it. And we laughed. They told that story. They're still telling the story. Chip and dip. They're millionaires. This is your staff Christmas party. Help me, Joe Scott.

What happens to rich people? What are they thinking? Well, since I ain't never been one, I can't really tell you. However, I got to tell you. Well, you can have chip and dip at my house anytime you want well thank you very much because i gotta tell you chips and dip i'm gonna be following these folks around maybe it was a homemade hunt with sour cream and french onion dip mix go ahead yeah i mean you know the baked salmon and the caviar and that sort of thing that's that that doesn't agree with my palate as much as the chips and dip. I bet you could get used to it, Jay Scott. I know what it's like to be poor, and I know what it's like to grow up in the South.

And I can tell you this. When you come into that kind of money, I can only begin to imagine that it would knock you for a loop, that you would become disoriented because all those things that you wanted for all those years are suddenly laid at your feet. You got people giving you everything and everybody, I mean, everybody wants to be your friend. You know, another thing I'm going to throw a bone to Bobby Chacon and Troy Slayton, first to you Slayton, there's also the feeling of invincibility. Like you don't think you're ever, you don't really think about, hey, one day I'm going to die. I don't. I never think about it.

I don't want to think about it. I've got so much to do. I don't want that to happen. But also, in that frame of mind, Troy, he probably wasn't thinking, hey, one day I'm not going to be an NBA star and have all this money rolling in. So it was probably just like running water. He never thought it was going to end. There is a certain feeling of invincibility with celebrities, whether it be in the sports or entertainment spaces

where they've got everybody around them telling them how amazing they are. And many people can be philanthropic. They can give a lot of money to charity, but they can have dark things going on inside their home. There's a lot of stress with six children. I have two children, and I know how stressful it is. I can't imagine the stress on a family when there are six children, and there's that fame and celebrity, and you're being pulled in a million directions. I'm in a lot of stress, Bobby Chacon.

You start to blame your family for all the stuff that's going bad in your life. Bobby Chacon, come on. With 55 mil, they could have babysitters, nannies, you name it. Please. Yeah. And I think he might have seen a little bit of that. I think he did actually start a couple of businesses. Now, oftentimes these aren't the best conceived business plans that these guys try to execute. But I think he had an auto body shop. So I think he had a couple of other businesses that he thought maybe I'll need some kind of, you know, income or some kind of business after retirement.

And I think he had some thoughts of that. I just don't know how well they did or how well conceived these business plans were. Running through $55 million, having women throwing themselves at him, and he certainly did not shy away from it, leads to one thing. Take a listen to our longtime friend Ryan Smith at ABC. Even though Shara and Lorenzen were divorced, they had certainly a physical relationship. They still had an intimate relationship. But it was more than just sex. People who know them say they were still in love and were even thinking of starting over.

Lorenzen did propose to Shara after they were divorced. The children saw him ask her to marry him and Shara had said yes so on this one particular weekend that summer Lorenzen's coming back to Memphis to visit Shara calls him and asks him to go to a dance recital for their daughter Lauren and it turns out his sister Denotra is having a baby shower that weekend too so he's got a lot going on. I drove Lorenzo to the airport in a flyer to Memphis. As I look back now, I think that something was going on because Lorenzo was always on edge that whole week,

which I thought was unusual. So the family is split apart. All the fame, the fortune, the losing the fortune, the women. It ends the marriage with six children at stake. But these two could not stay away from each other. They decided to rekindle their romance and decided to remarry. You know, to Dr. Angela Arnold, isn't it true that your second marriage has less of a chance of success? What's the stat on that? I'm not sure.

Yes, it is. I think about a third of second marriages go belly up. First of all, if you already had one divorce, Nancy, there's no stigma about it in your mind anymore, is there? So that's a way out. And people, just like children of divorced parents, it's a way out. It's something that they know. It's something they're familiar with.

So it's not going to stop you necessarily if things start to go south to have another divorce. But these two had already rekindled their relationship. They were sleeping together. They loved being together. They decided to remarry. But something was bothering Lorenzen Wright. And then this.

Jordan 9-1-1, where's your emergency? Hello? Hello? Hello? I don't have nothing but gunshots. Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? That's all the 911 dispatch heard.

Nothing else. Just gunshots. It sounds as if she's actually hearing the murder as it occurs. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we are talking about the death of an NBA star, Lorenzen Wright. I want you to listen one more time to that 911 call. Same call. Listen.

Jordan, 911, where's your emergency? Hello? Hello? Hello? I don't have nothing but gunshots. Hello? I don't have nothing but gunshots. Hello? Hello? Straight out to Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor of Forensic, Jackson State University.

What do you do in a case like that? You hear, those were the gunshots. Yeah, yeah. And it's kind of telltale, isn't it, Nancy? There is there's initially one gunshot wound, one gunfire shot that you hear. And then there's a pause. And then suddenly you've got two or three that are fired. And then you've got even more.

I can tell you this just from listening to the sound of this. We're talking about a weapon that sounds as though, to me at least, by ear, that this is a semi-automatic handgun more than likely, which is something that will – it's not like a revolver that spins around. This is launching rounds by just simply merely pulling the trigger repetitively. And I've got some thoughts about this later down the tracks, but I got to tell you, that's an indication for us as investigators that we know if we find a body, we're going to be able to match it up perhaps with this number of gunshot wounds at minimum. To Bobby Giacome, former special agent FBI screenwriter on Criminal Minds, Bobby Giacome, just hearing that 911 call where you hear one gunshot, there's no mistaking the gunshot.

As I always say, it's like when you hear a rattlesnake for the first time or a racking a shotgun. You know it when you hear it. I know that is not fireworks. That is a gunshot. Why couldn't cops trace the call? Well, that's a good question. And there was some questioning of the 911 handling of this call, why they didn't. Now, this 911 call comes into a jurisdiction, which is a suburb of Memphis. It's a smaller town. And there was some discussion about how they handled that call, whether or not they should have immediately jumped on it,

tried to triangulate it with cell towers and see where that call was coming from. Initially, apparently that was not done. The department says that the 911 operators handled it properly per their policy. But there is some question about that because, quite frankly, when you hear that, those shots, to me, I can hear the movement. So when you hear a pause in gunshots, it means the shooter is usually moving either at their target or, you know, in a position to get to a better shot to the target. And then later on in the call, you hear a succession of shots in a row. That means the shooter has now gotten a position where they're firing directly at their target.

They've got a good sight picture and they're firing directly in. So the pause is usually movement of the shooter towards his target. And then when you hear them, the rapid fire, they're at where they need to be and they're shooting their target directly. When you say, I need you to reinterpret for all of us regular folks, 911 took the call, you hear gunshots, and to me, someone dialing 911 with gunshots in the background, nothing good. When you say they should have triangulated the call, explain. So when a call comes in to 911, it's a cell phone call. It bounces off of a cell tower.

So you can get that information. You can find out where that tower is. Now, there's a way that they can figure out from the call, and this is more of a technical matter, but they can find the nearest three towers to that call where it came in, and they can get a very kind of a localized area where that call came from. You can get a general area, and then obviously you can have police units respond into that area and see, because you heard a succession of shots. You know, I mean, the 911 operator says they're gunshots. You can hear her say they're gunshots. So, I mean, they should have flooded that whole area with police looking for what happened. But they didn't. Take a listen to our friend James Brown at CBS. By 2010, Wright was 34 years old and at the end of a long NBA career.

But then one night in July, he suddenly went missing. He had disappeared and he was gone over all of these days and nobody knew anything. This is April from Channel 3. Investigative reporter April Thompson covered the story for the Memphis CBS affiliate. His mother, Deborah, really kind of pushed that something's not right. He checked all his friends from here to Atlanta, Mississippi, everywhere, so I don't have a clue. Ten days later, the shocking news. Lorenzen Wright's mother runs toward investigators. Police in Memphis, Tennessee have found the body of Homer. The police found Wright's body near a backwoods road

some 20 miles outside of Memphis. He was shot five times. This was Lorenzen Wright. Who would be hating him that much? As Memphis mourned, months turned into years, and the city became obsessed with solving the murder of its favorite son. There was a lot of pressure to solve it because of who Lorenzen Wright was and what he meant to the city. Well, all that pressure didn't amount to a hill

of beans because the case goes unsolved. In the meantime, listen to our friends at Sports Illustrated and Fox Sports. Wright struggled financially in his final year, jobless with mounting child support and four closed homes. But five months before his death, Wright took out a $1 million life insurance policy during the divorce. It was part of a permanent parenting plan for his six kids. And on July 1, 2011, Wright's kids were set to inherit the $1 million. As I recall, somewhere in the time frame of about 10 months, she spent almost all of that million dollars. There are indications of frivolous spending. There were some luxury cars bought.

There was a very expensive trip to New York for a couple of days. But then, too, she bought a house and did some renovation to the tune of something like $350,000. How I take care of my children, that's nobody's business but mine and Lorenzo's. And he had it outlined how he wanted them to be taken care of. And that's what I've done. Okay. You were hearing the wife, Shira Wright, speaking very coherently about what her plan was to take care of the children after her husband, soon to be new husband, had been found dead. A $1 million life insurance policy. And remember, he took out the policy, not her. But then her spending came under question.

Levi Page, what happened? What was she spending the money on? So she had got that $1 million payout. And in 10 months, she had spent $973,000 of it. She took trips to New York. She purchased cars. She bought a new home. She was buying new clothes and jewelry. Whoa, whoa,000 of it. She took trips to New York. She purchased cars. She bought a new home. She was buying new clothes and jewelry. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, wait, wait. I thought she said it was

part of a family, permanent family plan. Wait a minute. Cars. Do you know how many cars? Two. Do you know what they were? Do not know the brand. I'm very curious. I'm very curious, Jackie. I'm sure they were lucky. Get on it. A new home and then $350,000 of renovations plus a new home? Did you say jewelry? Yes, clothes, things like that. She had been taking trips, too, to New York. For what?

Shopping? Hasn't she heard of Target? It's right up the street. What do you mean? Why did she go to New York? She went to New York to shop. You know, Jackie, have you ever heard of people that go to Paris to shop? It's not me.

It's not us. It's not us. I mean, you know, Troy Slayton, I'm sure some of your clients out there in L.A. will just hop on over to Paris to go shopping, but isn't that a little extravagant, Troy? Sometimes people buy things. Sometimes people do drugs to cover up pain and hurt in their lives. And so there's no playbook on how somebody is supposed to act when the father of her children are gone. She's now responsible for six children and trying to put them in a lifestyle that they had become accustomed to during the life of their superstar father. So to put the children back in the lifestyle to which they were accustomed, she bought herself expensive clothes, expensive cars, and jewelry.

Okay, I'll let Dr. Angela Arnold work that one out. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace guys what happened to lorenzen right the nba star take a listen to our friends at sports illustrated fox sports did you have any part in Lorenzen's murder? I'm at first a wife, then I'm a mother, and then thirdly, I'm an author. The law enforcement should do what's best to find out who's the killer. And you understand obviously why I had to ask that. I do, but I'm a wife, a mother, and an author. And you understand obviously why I had to ask that. I do, but I'm a wife, a mother, and an author.

I let people do what they're good at doing, and I'm just going to do what I'm good at doing. They need to spend time and focus and find out what happened to him. We all need to know. Shara has since remarried, recently moved to Houston, become a minister, and wrote a self-help novel for abused women based loosely on her marriage to a basketball star. Okay, guys, Jackie got the answer for me. Levi, did you hear that? 32 grand for a Cadillac Escalade and a Lexus. Whoa. About 12,000 for a lavish trip to New York City. 8,000 for, oh my goodness, for a swimming pool, just as a deposit, a new pool, new furniture for 70 grand. Oh,

and five grand for a motorized lawnmower. You know what? When I was growing up, Joe Scott, I don't know if you had this or not, but you know, we grew up on a red dirt road in middle Georgia and we actually had the lawnmower that was not motorized. That's a nice way. That's a euphemism. It had a blade that turned around it just turned around and you pushed it over and over for the whole front and back are you showing me more expenditures oh oh okay about four hundred thousand dollars on property she placed in her children's name i mean it just goes on and on do you remember those lawnmowers? They still exist. They're not that old, Joe Scott Morgan. But she spent five grand on a motorized riding lawnmower.

Five grand. Wow. Yeah, I started out. Those are called real lawnmowers. I started out on one of those, R-E-E-L. And, yeah, they're the devil to push through high grass. And you have to stay on top of the grass or you'll wind up losing about 50 pounds of water weight out in the hot southern sun. Yeah, I'm very familiar with those, Nancy.

Five thousand dollars. OK, Troy Slayton would tell you she's just expressing her grief. But take a listen to the real woman in Lorenzen Wright's life. Take a listen to our friend Ryan Smith at ABC 2020. It was almost like he was just blind with love, right? Yes. That girl crazy. She put moves on him like karate chop that they don't do in Mississippi.

I was hearing that Cheryl was wanting to get pregnant and to marry Lorenzen. Assuming that he was going to be this great NBA basketball player. When she saw Lorenzen, she saw a future with a millionaire. Some of the people closest to Lorenzen see Shara as a gold digger. So were you concerned? Very. He was listening on us, and I kind of like cooled down because I said, if I got to like her a little bit, you know, to keep my son close to me.

You didn't try to disrupt the relationship because he loved her. Exactly. So, there's the dilemma, Dr. Angela Arnold. You're the psychiatrist. When the mother does not like the daughter-in-law at all, that keeps up a relationship to stay close to the son and vice versa. But you know what, Nancy? Not all gold diggers are murderers. Let's be honest.

True. Very true. We can't, you know, just because, okay, so she wanted a nice life. Nancy, who doesn't want a nice life? I don't know anything about their relationship. I don't know Angela Arnold, Dr. Angie, because I never grew up wanting a $5,000 motorized lawnmower or fancy clothes or expensive jewelry. Didn't think about that.

Well, she had a taste of that. Or four vehicles. And she got a taste of that. I mean... How is that part of a permanent parenting plan? I know. I agree with you, Nancy. But just because she's a gold digger

doesn't mean that she would become a murderer. You know what? I've got a feeling that Troy Slayton is about to put you on retainer, Dr. Angela Arnold. Go ahead, Troy Slayton. I'm sure you're chomping at the bit. Let me guess. She runs through a million dollars on herself. And the mother always says she was a gold digger. But that does not a murder make, right?

Absolutely. There's something called battered woman syndrome. And I'm sure Dr. Angie could tell us all about it. It's interesting you say that because nobody else ever heard about that battered woman syndrome. Her face was so damaged by this NBA star that she has permanent disfigurement and fractures in her skull. Hold on one moment. Let's hear cut 19, please. Alexa Lorenzo, Fox 13. Through the years, the shock turned into sorrow for each of Lorenzen's family members as they kept up with the case.

Before Shara's 2017 arrest, she published a book. It was love and hate at the very first sight she wrote in the 2015 publication. The LA Times says the book details several violent instances and infidelity between the two main characters. In an interview with the Commercial Appeal, Shara said 99.9% of the book was made up of true stories of the couple's relationship. But Lorenzen Wright's mother says her son never laid a hand on anyone, not Shara and not the kids. A tell-all book came out in 2018. It was written by Shara's last boyfriend

and detailed everything Shara had told him about her and Lorenzen's relationship and death. I went through it today and couldn't find any allegations of domestic abuse. The domestic abuse contested, but it is true, is it not, Bobby Chacon, that typically the first person you look at in a homicide is the spouse. That's just standard operating procedure. Yeah, it certainly is. And so you start looking at all the different issues and problems that could come up in a marriage.

So, you know, these two obviously had gotten divorced. So, and, you know, obviously then they tried to get back together again. So you look at all of those issues in a marriage that could cause stress and strain and, you know, and anger towards each other. And so sure, you're always going to look at the spouse, you know, in the initial round of success and the things that they do and their behavior either lead you towards them or away from them. Speculation was high until a guy named Jimmy Martin steps into the spotlight. Listen to Paul Hagerman. Homicide investigators interviewed Jimmy Martin, who stated that he had a role in the murder of Lorenzen Wright. Jimmy Martin stated that in the days before the murder of Lorenzen Wright, he was present during a meeting in which Cheryl Wright, Billy Turner, and he planned the murder of Lorenzen

Wright. Jimmy Martin stated that he participated in the planning of the murder of Cheryl Wright and Billy Turner, and he received payment for this by Shera Wright. Jimmy Martin then stated in the days after the murder of Lorenzen Wright he was picked up by Shera Wright at his home in Batesville, Mississippi. Jimmy stated that Shera Wright borrowed a metal detector from his mother Edna Robinson and they then left. Jimmy Martin stated that he rode to Memphis, Tennessee with Shera Wright, where they picked up Billy Turner,

and they confessed to him that they had just murdered Lorenzen Wright. Okay, that cracks the case wide open when this guy comes forward claiming that he was paid by Lorenzen's wife, Shera, to commit a murder. Listen to this. Jimmy Martin said that he assisted Shira Wright and Billy Turner in cleaning up the crime scene and destroying evidence from the murder. Jimmy Martin stated that the metal detector was used in an attempt to locate a firearm that was dropped during the murder. Jimmy Martin stated he accompanied Billy Turner to a lake located on Highway 72 in Walnut, Mississippi, where Billy Turner disposed of a handgun that was used to murder Williams and Wright.

On May 31, 2012, investigators took Jimmy Martin to a lake near 2491 County Road, number 302 in Walnut, Mississippi. So we've got the wife, Jimmy Martin and Billy Turner, allegedly involved. Billy Turner, a church deacon. Levi Page, the one sings like a bird. What happened to the other two,

the church deacon and Shira Wright? So, Nancy, actually, Jimmy Martin is Lorenzen's cousin who participated in his own cousin's murder. And after he was arrested for murder in a separate case, he told police, he said, Cheryl Wright wanted me to kill Lorenzen Wright. She wanted him dead.

He gave police of the names of people involved, including Turner, who was a landscaper in a Memphis suburb, and Cheryl Wright, they attended the same church. They masterminded this plot, and they had done so not only in Memphis where he was killed, but they had tried unsuccessfully to do it a year earlier in Atlanta where he lived, and she has actually pled guilty to that, Nancy. She is eligible for parole after serving 30 percent of her sentence, which will be in about nine years. Nine years she could walk. She was paid a gold digger who planned to take Lorenzen Wright's money from the first moment they met. And she could walk free in a matter of nine years. That is not justice. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.