Sherra Wright-Robinson and Billy Turner.

Developments in the case of former NBA star Lorenzen Wright’s 2010 death have now led to the arrest of his ex-wife. Last week, a man named Billy Turner (seen at right above) was arrested in Colliersville, Tennessee, where Wright lived, and charged with first-degree murder in the Wright case.

Now, Wright’s ex-wife, Sherra Wright-Robinson (seen at left above), was arrested Friday night in Riverside, California and charged with conspiracy, first-degree murder and criminal attempt first degree murder, with the attempted murder charge revolving around a prior attempt to kill Wright. The Memphis Commercial Appeal has more details:

Memphis Police Major Darren Goods, head of the Multi-Agency Gang Unit, said last May or early June the gang unit received information about the case.

“We looked through this case and we did one thing, we followed the evidence and the evidence led us to Billy Turner and Sherra Wright,” Goods said. “We wanted to investigate it as if it had just happened. We went to the crime scene and walked in Lorenzen’s final steps.”

He said they called the investigation “Operation Rebound.”

“We coined this case ‘Operation Rebound’ and the basketball connection is undeniable,” Goods said. “Lorenzen Wright was a homegrown young man. He played basketball in this city, came back to play professional basketball in this city and he lost his life in this city.”

Goods added, “In basketball a rebound gives you a chance to win the game. This will give us a second chance to bring closure to this case and give the grieiving family some relief.”

…“Thank you Jesus! Thank you Jesus! They got her! They got her!’’ Lorenzen Wright’s mother, Deborah Marion, said Friday. “They need to bury her.’’

Here’s a clip of the Memphis police news conference about Wright-Robinson’s arrest, from Fox 13 Memphis:

Wright-Robinson and Turner attended the same church, where he was a deacon. And there had long been talk about Wright-Robinson’s potential involvement in her ex-husband’s death, starting when the police searched her home in August 2010 and found burned pieces of metal and remnants of a letter addressed to her and Wright in an outside firepit. Some questioned why she had a fire the night Wright disappeared, which was on one of the hottest days of the year, and there was talk about her walking around their neighborhood shouting on a cell phone and demanding money. Speculation about her only grew in 2013, when a court battle discussing how she spent $973,000 of Wright’s $1 million life insurance policy within 10 months (on purchases including homes and luxury cars) was resolved with a confidential settlement. And the 2015 Sports Illustrated-Fox Sports 1 joint investigation into Wright’s murder had plenty to say about Sherra, including that Wright’s assistant turned audio recordings of Sherra threatening him over to police. That investigation led to quite the on-camera exchange:

At one point Matt Schlef, a Fox Sports producer, asked Sherra, “Did you have any part in Lorenzen’s murder?”

After a pause, she responded, “At first, I’m a wife, then I’m a mother, and then thirdly I’m an author. The law enforcement should do what’s best to find out who’s the killer.”

Schlef: “You understand obviously why I had to ask that?”

Sherra: “I do. But I’m a wife, a mother, an author, uh, I let people do what, what, what they’re good at doing and I’m just going to do what I’m good at doing. Um, they need to spend time and focus and find out what happened to him. We all need to know.”

And speaking of that work as an author, that came up in a Commercial Appeal piece last week:

Though published as fiction, her book, “Mr. Tell Me Anything,” the story of a deceitful, philandering basketball player who grows up in Mississippi, moves to Memphis, marries an older woman and becomes a top pro draft pick, bears an uncanny resemblance to the real-life story of Lorenzen and Sherra Wright. Indeed, Wright-Robinson, who by then had remarried, said “99.99 percent’’ of the book involves true stories from her life with Wright. That includes graphic scenes of domestic battles and one in which the book’s heroine catches the basketball star in bed with another woman. Wright-Robinson said she fictionalized some things and shielded identities for “legal purposes.’’

Wright-Robinson also said she was “90 percent done’’ with a sequel to “Mr. Tell Me Anything.’’

“It’s going to take you all the way up to Mr. Tell Me Anything’s death. And just a little bit past it,’’ she said. Asked if the Mr. Tell Me Anything character is killed in the sequel, she confirmed he is.

“Oh yes. He is. He’s murdered. But you’ll find in the book that so many different factors had killed him already before he actually physically died. …

“We break it down to every emotion. Every feeling. Everything the children went through, the calls, to who’s showing up. And what we were hearing from the police.’’

Wright-Robinson has a court date in Riverside Monday. The Shelby County sheriff’s office said they are working on her extradition to Tennessee.

[The Memphis Commercial Appeal; photo from Fox 13 Memphis]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.