The investigation into the murder of former Memphis Grizzlies player Lorenzen Wright has produced some startling revelations about the events leading up to his death.
Wright, first reported missing on July 19, was found dead in a wooded area of southeast Memphis on July 28 as a result of multiple gunshot wounds.
It was reported that Wright had been seen in the late afternoon of July 19 at a local barbershop.
“He was in a pretty good mood, just came in stopped by briefly in town for a moment see his family got his hair cut,” said Kelvin Lott of New Era.
It’s unknown if Lott was confused about the date or if the statement he made was intentionally misleading.
Wright’s mother, Deborah Marion, reported his disappearance to Collierville police on July 21 and officially filed a missing persons report on July 22.
The report said that the day he disappeared, he had been dropped off at a restaurant by a woman and later taken to his ex-wife’s house in Collierville.
The ex-wife, Sherra Robinson-Wright, told officers that Wright left her home in the middle of the night with an unidentified person.
According to reports, Wright was in Memphis to pick up his six children and bring them back to Atlanta.
“I saw him on the Sunday before he went missing,” Adrian Bond, a friend of Wright’s, told The Commercial Appeal.
“He was the same Lorenzen you always knew. He was getting ready to go to Israel to play ball.”
Late Wednesday, the local FOX network affiliate reported that Wright had made a 911 call to the Germantown police around 1:00 a.m. on July 19.
The unidentified police dispatcher who took the call heard a scared male voice utter two expletives, then “dozens of gunshots”.
The dispatcher said, “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?” but the phone went dead. The dispatcher called back but no one answered.
On Thursday, the Fox affiliate reported that Wright had financial dealings with a man connected to Memphis drug kingpin Craig Petties.
Court documents from 2008 show Wright sold two vehicles, a Cadillac SUV and Mercedes Benz to Bobby Cole, who at the time was under indictment on drug distribution charges in a case in Atlanta.
Cole admitted to FBI agents that he was associated with a drug ring connected to Petties. The cars were ultimately seized by the government.
The FBI cleared Wright of any wrongdoing after determining he had no knowledge of Cole’s association with Petties.
On Friday, The Commercial Appeal reported that the 911 call made from Wright’s phone wasn’t reported to Collierville or Memphis police.
Germantown police chief Richard Hall said he wasn’t aware of the 911 call until July 27 – eight days after the call was made.
Hall said that his department was conducting a formal administrative review of the actions of the unidentified dispatcher.
The Commercial Appeal also reported on Friday that three armed men visited the home of Wright’s ex-wife prior to his murder.
Robinson-Wright informed her divorce attorney Gail Mathes about the armed men looking for her ex-husband six weeks before he was shot to death.
However, she didn’t report the incident to Collierville police during an interview on July 26 and didn’t make the information known until a July 30 meeting with Memphis police.
According to interviews conducted by local media with Mathes, Wright’s ex-wife didn’t report the incident because the men threatened they’d harm her and her kids if she told anyone about the visit.
It remains unknown if Wright’s ex-wife informed him about the armed men during his visit to her Collierville home on July 18.
Mathes speculated that Robinson-Wright did inform her ex-husband, saying that his reaction apparently was not one of panic.
No one has questioned Mathes about her involvement in Wright’s death, specifically why she didn’t inform law enforcement officials about the visit from the armed men after he’d been reported missing.
Mathes has attempted to paint her client as someone who was still in love with Wright and needed him alive for financial reasons.
“I had a court order, a judgment entered with the court that he was to pay her $10,000 a month and the children $16,000 and he never paid any of that,” Mathes stated.
“There is absolutely no motive here. I mean she needed him terribly to help her, and all the debts that they have would wipe out any insurance she’d receive.”
Despite Mathes’ assertions, her client’s actions over the past 10 days have contradicted the facts that have become known.
Robinson-Wright’s emotional pleas for information into the disappearance of her ex-husband appeared feigned and contrived.
On Sunday, further suspicions were raised when homicide detectives spent the afternoon at Robinson-Wright’s Collierville home collecting evidence.
They spent an hour in the backyard, which doesn’t come as a surprise when neighbors said she started a fire on one of the hottest nights of the year and on the same day her ex-husband went missing.
Neighbor Tim Coleman said it’s not the only bizarre behavior he’s noticed from Robinson-Wright over the past several weeks.
While in his front yard he heard Robinson-Wright on the phone. “I just heard her talking to somebody about needing her money. I don’t know anymore than that. I really try not to listen to it but when she’s screaming it’s hard not to hear stuff.”
So far no one has been charged in connection with Lorenzen Wright’s death, but with law enforcement officials working feverishly that could change quickly.
