MEMPHIS, United States Sherra Wright, the ex-wife of slain basketball player Lorenzen Wright, is competent to stand trial for his murder after a mental evaluation requested by her attorneys was unsealed on Friday.
Sherra Wright was arrested in December, seven years after Wright's body was found decomposing in a Tennessee suburb, and is being held on $20 million bond. "I can't explain why it's just been given to us today," Juni Ganguli, one of her attorneys said, noting that the evaluation had been completed September 27.
Wright had been shot several times. The case had been idle for years but police found a murder weapon alongside a lake in Walnut, Missouri, which is about 75 miles from Memphis, in November. A personal assistant for Lorenzen Wright discovered audio tapes claiming to hold threats made by Sherra Wright. The couple divorced months before Lorenzen Wright died.
Billy Turner, a deacon at the church where Lorenzen and Sherra were members, was also arrested and charged with first-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty and is in jail on a $15 million bond. The pair faces charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder.
Lorenzen Wright was 34 when he was brutally executed in Germantown, Tennessee, with gunshot wounds to his chest, right forearm and skull. Police dispatch received a call from Wright's cell phone during the early morning hours of July 19 and heard noises consistent with gunshots. The call was dropped and the location of the phone couldn't be traced, and patrol officers did not inform Memphis police for several days.
He was last seen July 18, 2010 and not until July 22, 2010, did Wright's mother file a missing-person report. In the summer heat, Wright's body decomposed rapidly, complicating the investigation. Wright played basketball at Memphis and spent 13 seasons in the NBA before retiring in 2009.
Doctor says Sherra Wright passed mental evaluation and was sane at the time of Lorenzen Wright’s Murder. @3onyourside pic.twitter.com/AFE9y6eqeI
— April Thompson (@AThompson_WREG3) October 5, 2018