According to Shelby County prosecutor Paul Hagerman during the opening statements on Tuesday, the basketball star Lorenzen Wright’s ex-wife Sherra Wright hired her lover and cousin Jimmy Martin to murder him. “She had her own gun and fired it, but she tossed it into bushes when she was excited and scared.”
Law and Order has the details:
Sherra Wrightwas there when defendant Billy Ray Turner, 51, shot and killed her former husband, according to Shelby County prosecutor Paul Hagerman. Tennessee authorities say Sherra Wright got Turner and her cousin Jimmie Martinto help plot, execute and cover up the murder, though Martin did not show up when the couple chased Lorenzen Wright around midnight early July 19, 2010 in a remote part of Shelby County.
In his last moments, Lorenzen Wright managed to reach Germantown 911 on his cell phone, but gunshots rang out. According to the prosecution, Sherra Wright’s “evil heart” manipulated both her lover Turner and younger cousin Martin to carry out the plot.
“It wasn’t a great team,” Hagerman said. “It wasn’t a great team. But it was her team.” She had paid for Martin’s attorney at the time and got him out on bond while he was facing a then-pending case for murdering his girlfriend Martha Jean Bownes.
Sherra Wright is currently serving 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to facilitation to commit murder and facilitation to commit attempted first-degree murder. Now, the prosecution is working to secure Turner’s conviction. But Turner’s attorney John Keith Perrysays his client is innocent. Martin only implicated Turner after getting convicted of murdering Bownes. Martin reached out to authorities and told them the location of the murder weapon—a lake near Walnut, Mississippi. There’s no dispute there, but Perry asserted that Martin lied about Turner’s involvement and not being at the murder scene.
They didn’t even mention that her boyfriend was also a Pastor at the time.
Flip to the next page for more of the gruesome killing.
