Lorenzen Wright Found Dead
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DancingBarry
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 11:18 am    Post subject: Lorenzen Wright Found Dead

Let's try this again...

Quote:

Link missed between 911 call, disappearance
The Commercial Appeal


For more than a week, suburban police did not make the connection between a 911 call in which gunshots were heard and the disappearance of Memphis basketball star Lorenzen Wright.

Sources have told The Commercial Appeal that the call came to Germantown in the early morning hours of July 19. A male voice could be heard uttering an expletive. Then at least 10 gunshots were heard in the background.

The call came from a cell phone in the possession of Wright, whose body was found Wednesday in a wooded area in Southeast Memphis.

The newspaper has been unable to determine who owned the phone and, as a result, how it registered at the 911 center. The Germantown dispatcher called the number back, but no one answered. It is not known whether she reported the incident and a further investigation ensued.

Three days later, on July 22, Wright’s family reported the former NBA star missing to Collierville police. For days, police officials there said they did not believe “foul play” was involved.

However, sources told the newspaper that once the 911 call was disclosed, and investigators from Memphis and Shelby County were called to assist, Wright’s body was quickly located by cadaver dogs from the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department.

That information apparently came late Tuesday and the agencies met Wednesday — 9 days after the 911 call. Wright’s body was discovered a few hours later.

Early today, a team of roughly 70 officers from the Memphis Police Department trudged through the site where Wright’s body was found, looking for evidence. Yellow police tape kept onlookers and reporters at least two football fields away from the crime scene. A police helicopter landed at the scene around 12:30 p.m.

Wright’s mother also was on the scene.

“I wanted to see the last steps of my son, the last steps my son ever took. He was my first born child. I really wanted to see his last steps,” said Deborah Marion.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/jul/29/police-missed-connection-911-call-lorenzen-wright/
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 11:46 am    Post subject:

RIP Lo Wright
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 11:50 am    Post subject:

Dang, I had missed the part about the 911 call from his cell (with the gunshots heard) being from 9 days earlier, in the early morning hours after the day he was last seen.

Sounds like he left his kids with his ex, decided to head to Memphis to visit his mom maybe and ran into the wrong person(s).

RIP
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 11:53 am    Post subject:



Just playing.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 11:54 am    Post subject:

I hate that they have to pry for a quote from the mother. Give the woman some peace, her child was just found dead for (bleep) sakes...
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 11:54 am    Post subject:

Jeez... if they would of made the connection, they might have been able to trace his whereabouts or the killer(s) via the cellphone...

Kind of crazy that someone can call 911, have gunshots go off in the background and hang up, and there not be a follow up.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 11:57 am    Post subject:

rip
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 12:54 pm    Post subject:

My first NBA game in an arena was a MEM-NYK where LW played.

I liked him, and 13years in the league, where he averaged 8p 6r prove he was a decent player.
I remember a game in his 2nd season where he scored 20p and got 29 rebounds, when the clips were about to tie some loss record (and won).

Apart form that, it is sad to see a young man have this end, no matter what he did. Hope some lessons can be derived from his mistakes, if any are relevant here , but there is no reason that he could not have turned his life around.

My memory from LW will always be of hustling sober and team oriented player. Not flashy (though he did some brutal stuff when at college) but professional.

May he RIP.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 1:36 pm    Post subject:

They're not investigating this as a homicide(I figured after being shot 12 times)
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 1:55 pm    Post subject:

He is still in much better shape than Ratliff.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 2:21 pm    Post subject:

iggyk8 wrote:
He is still in much better shape than Ratliff.


I was gonna stay out of this one but.......... that's just wrong.
Pot calling the kettle black I know.

Seriously, why did it take 9 days for the police to link the cell call to LW? Common sense would suggest that if a dispatcher hears gun shots on a 911 call they would have taken it a bit more seriously? Doesn't get it

Better take than the last thread I ruined? Reputation restored?
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 2:56 pm    Post subject:

^^ time for DB to close down this thread too.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 6:07 pm    Post subject:

That's terrible. Probably murdered by some thugs for some jewelry and a few dollars.

R.I.P.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 6:28 pm    Post subject:

These guys will get caught.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 7:47 pm    Post subject:

TACH wrote:

Kind of crazy that someone can call 911, have gunshots go off in the background and hang up, and there not be a follow up.


Sadly, that kinda thing is not surprising at all, at least not anymore.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 8:34 pm    Post subject:

I believe it was robbery. I vaguely remember reading he had a large sum of money on him. I haven't read anything about it being found.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:28 pm    Post subject:

(bleep)
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 10:46 am    Post subject:

Sherra Robinson Wright opened her front door one day in recent weeks to find three men she had never seen before, each with guns tucked in their waistbands.

They looked serious and wanted to know if her ex-husband, former NBA star Lorenzen Wright, 34, happened to be inside the Whisperwood Drive home visiting his six children.

No, she assured them, and they drove away.

The frightened Collierville mom rushed to tell her divorce attorney, Gail Mathes, about the scary ordeal and her fears for herself, her children and the ex-husband she still loved, Mathes said.

A few weeks later, the athlete made an impromptu visit from his Atlanta-area home to Memphis. A day after his flight arrived, he was gunned down.

Memphis police released a statement Thursday verifying Wright's July 19 death was a homicide caused by gunfire, but they haven't said if they have any suspects or how many bullets struck him.

It's unknown whether the gunmen who were reportedly looking for Wright at his ex-wife's home had any involvement in his death or whether the incident she described to her attorney was ever reported to police.

It's also unknown whether Sherra Wright has given a statement since her ex-husband's body was discovered Wednesday afternoon.

Early Thursday, about 70 officers trudged over the site where the body was found, hunting for evidence while a police helicopter circled above. Yellow police tape kept reporters and onlookers a distance the length of two football fields away.

The victim's mother, Deborah Marion, went to the scene.

"I wanted to see the last steps of my son, the last steps my son ever took. He was my first-born child. I really wanted to see his last steps," she said.

It has been tough, she said: "It's crazy. It's like I'm in a dream."

Marion walked a couple hundred yards up a winding road near the site.

"I was wondering how they would get a 6-11 guy inside of the fence," she said, referring to her son's height.

By afternoon, police allowed reporters to walk closer to the crime scene, around the bend of a long driveway, past high grass and weeds and into a clearing about 70 yards wide. Atop a small hill, just short of a wooded area, a cadaver dog found the remains, initially hidden from view by thick brush.

A black patch of grass in the outline of Wright's body suggested he was lying with his knees bent and one arm near his face.

At Wright's mother's house, relatives and friends crowded in to comfort one another.

Lorenzo Searcy, Wright's great-uncle and namesake, said community support and the family's faith in God is helping them cope.

"We would love to thank everybody for the love and their consideration and their condolences," he said. "Everybody is holding up pretty good.

"If you believe in God then you must believe that He lets nothing happen without His will."

Searcy has fond memories of Wright.

"Since I can remember -- when I was taller than he, and I'm 6-2, and when I used to hug him and he came up to my chest -- he always wanted to play in the NBA. He realized his dream ... and that's something a lot of us don't get a chance to do."

Despite Lorenzen Wright's success, his uncle said he remained down-to-earth.

"He was good. He was kind. He was gentle. ... Anybody could approach him," he said.

Wright's roommate in Smyrna, Ga., a northern suburb of Atlanta, said Wright never told him about an incident with gunmen or anyone he may have feared.

"I never heard anything like that," Michael Gipson said Thursday, a day after learning of his roommate's slaying.

"I'm not worried about the 'why' right now," Gipson said. "He's with God. The 'why' will come out later."

Wright openly talked about his faith, often reading devotionals before games during his five-year stint with the Memphis Grizzlies.

During one out-of-town game in 2003, Wright told a reporter how it helped him gear up for battle on the court: "This Scripture is about understanding your ability over the devil."
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 11:12 am    Post subject:

RIP Lorenzen
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 1:41 pm    Post subject:

The Wife's story is shady. Why didn't she report that right when LW went missing? Why wait till after he's dead? And if she knew three armed men were after him, why the (bleep) do you not tell the man they're after, give him a heads up? I think Lorenzen was set up, story seems real fishy.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 1:46 pm    Post subject:

Ted wrote:
The Wife's story is shady. Why didn't she report that right when LW went missing? Why wait till after he's dead? And if she knew three armed men were after him, why the (bleep) do you not tell the man they're after, give him a heads up? I think Lorenzen was set up, story seems real fishy.
Its possible she did, and its just not being reported, for her own safety as she can ID these guys if in fact they are the killers...
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 5:23 pm    Post subject:

I'm not super impressed with the Memphis police department. I watched a special on Steve McNair's killing and they rushed to close that one too. Maybe it was as cut and dried as they said but they sure didn't look at it very closely.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 5:34 pm    Post subject:

Ted wrote:
The Wife's story is shady. Why didn't she report that right when LW went missing? Why wait till after he's dead? And if she knew three armed men were after him, why the (bleep) do you not tell the man they're after, give him a heads up? I think Lorenzen was set up, story seems real fishy.


Maybe she told LW but didn't tell the police. And since he was still missing, maybe she feared for her life by going public.

Even now, she probably said this only b/c the police actually questioned her.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 5:41 pm    Post subject:

Ted wrote:
The Wife's story is shady. Why didn't she report that right when LW went missing? Why wait till after he's dead? And if she knew three armed men were after him, why the (bleep) do you not tell the man they're after, give him a heads up? I think Lorenzen was set up, story seems real fishy.

We're not sure when she informed anyone. If she did, he should have had body guards.

Hell, I would have gotten my family out of there. Still, I wonder why this news is coming out now.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 8:04 pm    Post subject:

targetman wrote:
I'm not super impressed with the Memphis police department. I watched a special on Steve McNair's killing and they rushed to close that one too. Maybe it was as cut and dried as they said but they sure didn't look at it very closely.



Actually McNair's murder was in Nashville not Memphis.
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