The ex-wife of murdered NBA star Lorenzen Wright, 34, claimed that he put a hit out on her, said her cousin in testimony on Tuesday.
“It’s him or me,” Sherra Wright allegedly said. “He has a hit on me. He has to be gone.”
Someone shot and killed Lorenzen Wright on the early morning of July 19, 2010. Prosecutors said the victim’s former spouse Sherra Wright and her lover Billy Ray Turner, 51, who is currently on trial for allegedly murdering Wright. Sherra threw away her gun in a moment of fear, but Turner shot the retired Memphis Grizzlies center multiple times, cutting short the victim’s 911 call to authorities in Germantown, Tennessee, prosecutor Paul Hagerman said in opening statements on Tuesday.
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.
The state said she manipulated Turner and her cousin Jimmie Martin into helping her plot, execute, and cover up the murder so she could get insurance money.
Her cousin Claudia Robinson claimed she was in the kitchen preparing lunch for Sherra’s children when Sherra and Billy entered.
“Sherra was irate, saying Lorenzen had a hit on her,” she said. “She had been told he had a hit on her.”
Sherra Wright would repeat herself, so she said it multiple times. “‘He has a hit on me. I can’t believe he has a hit on me. He has a hit on me.'”
“I said, ‘Surely, that’s not so. It’s no way you believe that.’ But she insisted. ‘He has a hit on me,'” Robinson said.
According to Robinson, Turner was standing there, asking what Sherra wanted to do about it. “‘Okay, Sherra. What?'”
Turner’s defense lawyer John Keith Perry attacked Robinson’s credibility, bringing up hush money, and pointing out she did not tell authorities about this alleged conversation until 2017.
CROSS EXAM: Sherra Wright’s cousin is asked if she told police she was given $10K in hush money. Claudia Robinson denies this. #BillyRayTurner pic.twitter.com/E5lEQWlyhJ
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) March 15, 2022
The attorney has also argued that Martin, who was convicted in 2012 of murdering girlfriend Martha Jean Bownes, lied about Turner’s involvement.
Robinson insisted that she did not initially tell authorities about the hit allegation because she was afraid. If Sherra would have this done to the father of her children, then what would she do to Robinson?
“Of course I didn’t,” Robinson said, when asked if she spoke about the incident before 2017. “Why would you?”
[Screenshot via Law&Crime Network]
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