MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Emotions were high on the first day of testimony in the trial of a man accused of shooting and killing Memphis basketball star Lorenzen Wright in 2010: Billy Ray Turner.
Turner has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder and conspiracy.
It's one of the most highly publicized murder cases in Memphis history, drawing local and national media attention.
Wright's decomposing body was found riddled with bullet wounds in Southeast Memphis on July 28, 2010. Wright, 34, had been missing for 10 days before his body was discovered.
Turner, a convicted felon, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for possessing two guns at the time of his 2017 arrest. Another gun police said was the murder weapon in Wright's killing was found in a north Mississippi lake about two months before Turner and Lorenzen's ex-wife Sherra Wright were charged and arrested.
Witnesses said Sherra Wright masterminded a plan to have two men kill her ex-husband at his home in Atlanta in the spring of 2010, but that attempt failed, according to an affidavit.
She and Turner then conspired to kill him in Memphis, authorities have said. Turner, a landscaper in the Memphis suburb of Collierville, and Sherra Wright attended the same church.
A witness, Jimmie Martin, told authorities about the Atlanta plot and that he helped Turner and Sherra Wright clean the crime scene, authorities said in the affidavit. Martin was convicted of murder in a separate case and could testify during the trial.
During his opening statement, Shelby County prosecutor Paul Hagerman said of the crime: "It didn't take courage, it didn't take strength, it didn't take bravery. Instead, it took two things. The first thing it took was a plan. First, Lorenzen had to be lured to Memphis and then he had to be lured in the middle of the night to a little road he had no place being, where there'd be no witnesses. There was a plan to get them there, where he's vulnerable and there's no witness. The second thing it took was evil."
Hagerman added in his opening statement that in the years when the Lorenzen Wright murder case was a cold case: "Hard to hire a conspiracy and a murder like this completely. So through those six year, 2010 to 2016, bits of the truth do start popping out, investigators do get phone records from Sherra and Billy."
Hagerman said that evidence will also show of phone texts between Sherra Wright and Billy Turner right before the crime and extensive phone calls after the murder weapon was found in 2017.
Turner's attorney - John Keith Perry - challenged Martin's credibility during his opening statement and said the jury will have to jump over hurdles to find Turner guilty.
"Three or four witnesses that will tell you that on the evening of July 18th, 2010 Billy was here, Billy was doing x, y z that evening, you'll see pictures of Billy Turner that evening," Perry said during his opening statement. "Ain't no one sitting up trying to plan an alibi because he had nothing to alibi but you'll see where he is during the evening, leading into the midnight hour."
A Memphis native, the 6-foot, 11-inch Wright played 13 seasons for the Memphis Grizzlies and four other NBA teams, after playing college basketball at the University of Memphis. He was retired from the league when he was killed.
Turner, 51, and Wright's ex-wife, Sherra Wright, were charged in December 2017 in the killing. She entered a surprise guilty plea to facilitation of murder in July 2019 and Judge Lee Coffee sentenced her to 30 years in prison.
After the lunch recess, three witnesses called by the state testified: Lorenzen Wright's mother Deborah Marion, Sherra Wright's cousin Claudia Robinson and Memphis Police Detective Jesse Browning.
Marion battled tears as she took the stand.
Robinson testified to the jury new details about what she said she overheard between Sherra and Turner before Lorenzen's murder.
"She insisted that he had a hit on me (Prosecutor: and what did she say she was going to do about it?)," Robinson said. "Well, Billy was standing there and was just like, OK, Sherra, like, what and she said it was him or me, like what do you mean, he has a hit on me, he has to be gone. (Prosecutor: Was it very clear when she talking about it?) It was."
"(Lorenzen) always returns my calls, mine and Laura's, that's why I waited until the end to call Laura because I know if he hadn't called her back something wasn't right because she always talks to her," Marion testified.
Detective Browning outlined evidence his team uncovered around Wright's crime scene, including bullet casings.
Prosecutor Paul Hagerman said the trial was expected to take a week to 10 days. The jury will be sequestered.
"I imagine it will be a long, hard trial," he said.