Ex-wife of slain former NBA player pleads guilty

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — The ex-wife of slain former NBA player Lorenzen Wright agreed to a deal Thursday in which she pleads guilty to facilitation to first-degree murder and receives a 30-year prison sentence.

Sherra Wright entered the plea during a hearing in Shelby County Criminal Court.

Lorenzen Wright’s body was found in a swampy field in Memphis in July 2010. He had been missing for 10 days before his body was found riddled with bullet wounds. Sherra Wright and co-defendant Billy Turner were charged with first-degree murder and had been scheduled to go to trial Sept. 16.

Turner, a landscaper in the Memphis suburb of Collierville, and Sherra Wright attended the same church. Witnesses said Sherra Wright masterminded a plan to have two men kill Lorenzen Wright at his home in Atlanta, but that attempt failed, according to an affidavit read by a prosecutor in a previous court hearing. She and Turner then conspired to kill him in Memphis, authorities have said.