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Download the Amazon Music app today. Just after midnight on July 19th, 2010, former professional basketball player Lorenzen Wright stepped out of a car and began walking down a dirt path into the woods just outside of Memphis, Tennessee.
Then suddenly, Lorenzen heard a strange sound coming from somewhere out in the darkness in front of him, and as he strained his eyes to see what it was, he suddenly saw the thing that was making the noise, and it was rushing right towards him.
And so in a panic, Lorenzen just turned and began running blindly into the dark forest as fast as he possibly could, and as he ran, he fumbled for his phone to call for help.
But eventually, the thing he saw would catch up to him.
It would take authorities years to figure out what actually happened in the woods that night.
But once the mystery was solved, it would shock not only the city of Memphis, but also the millions and millions of people across the country who watch professional basketball.
But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.
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On the night of July 18, 2010, 34-year-old former NBA basketball player Lorenzen Wright, along with his old friend Phil Dodson, were driving in Phil's car through Memphis, Tennessee.
Lorenzen lived in Atlanta, Georgia, but he'd grown up in Memphis, and so he was back in town to catch up with friends and family and to really spend some time with his six children who lived there with his ex-wife, Shara.
Phil and Lorenzen drove down a residential street, laughing together and talking about some of their best memories from when they were younger.
And then Phil pulled into the parking lot of a local gym and parked out front.
As Lorenzen got outside the car, he had to duck way down so he didn't bump his head on the roof of the car.
Lorenzen was huge. He was 6 foot 11 inches tall with long arms covered in tattoos.
And even though he was retired from playing basketball professionally, he was still built like a world-class athlete.
Lorenzen and Phil made their way into the gym and headed towards one of the basketball courts inside where a group of teenage boys were playing a pickup game.
And as Lorenzen got closer, he heard the sound of a basketball hitting the rim and the boys shouting at each other and shoes squeaking on the court as the boys scrambled to grab the loose ball and immediately Lorenzen smiled because he loved the sound of basketball being played.
Lorenzen and Phil moved around to the side of the court and sat down to watch the game.
And as they sat there, Lorenzen began to smile even wider because he noticed his oldest son was one of the young men who was playing.
Lorenzen didn't want to distract any of the kids, so he stepped back a little from the court and tried his best to stay out of sight.
But at almost seven feet tall, there was no way for him to hide.
And so eventually, one of the boys spotted him and shouted Lorenzen's name, and immediately the game came to a complete stop.
And within seconds, Lorenzen's son and all the other boys rushed off the court, gathered around Lorenzen, and stared up at him in awe, because Lorenzen was a Memphis sports hero.
Lorenzen's friends and family believed that he had been born to play basketball.
His father had been a really good college player, and from the time Lorenzen was just a baby, his father had wanted him to follow in his footsteps.
In fact, when Lorenzen was only a few days old and had only just come home from the hospital, his father had put Lorenzen's hands around a basketball. because his father believed that the more his son saw the basketball, the more likely it would be that Lorenzen would grow up to become a great basketball player.
And as Lorenzen got older, he didn't let his father down.
As a young man, Lorenzen had committed most of his time and energy to playing basketball.
And when he grew to be 6 foot 11 inches as a teenager, his father and his coaches started to believe Lorenzen had a real chance to play professionally.
Lorenzen would have an incredible senior year playing for his Memphis high school basketball team, and then he would go on to play college ball at the big-time program of the University of Memphis.
But even on this big college team of all great players from around the country, Lorenzen stood out, and he was so good that after just his sophomore year, he left college, entered the NBA draft, and got drafted by the Los Angeles Clippers.
So, at just 20 years old, Lorenzen had become an NBA player and had started making millions and millions of dollars a year.
But Lorenzen's biggest joy playing professional basketball, even more than the money and the accolades, had come when he got traded to the Memphis Grizzlies in 2001 and he got to come home and play in the city he grew up in and loved.
And even after Lorenzen had retired from the NBA several years later, he had made his home in Memphis with his wife and kids.
And in his retirement, he quickly began running basketball camps for kids, he headed up charity events, and basically did anything he could to give back to the city that he believed had given him so much.
So, as Lorenzen stood in that gym, talking to his son and his son's friends about basketball and playing in the NBA and anything else they wanted to know, he couldn't help but start to really miss living in Memphis.
After talking to the kids on the basketball court for a while, Lorenzen and his son headed out of the gym with Phil, and Phil drove them to Lorenzen's ex-wife Shara's house in a wealthy Memphis suburb.
Outside the house, Lorenzen thanked Phil for driving him around, and then he told Phil he'd text him in the next few days so they could hang out again before Lorenzen had to go back to Atlanta.
Then Lorenzen and his son turned around and headed up a long walkway past the beautifully landscaped front lawn, opened the front door, and stepped into Shara's large two-story house.
And as soon as Lorenzen walked inside, he heard his other children yelling for him as they rushed to the door to see their dad.
And Lorenzen crouched down and wrapped his long arms all around them in a big hug.
And that night, Lorenzen just spent time talking to his kids, playing games with them, and catching up with Shara about what was going on in her life.
Lorenzen had known Shara since they were in high school.
She was the daughter of one of his basketball coaches at the time, and she was a few years older than Lorenzen.
Shara was 5 foot 10 inches tall, had long dark hair, and in Lorenzen's mind, a perfect smile.
And when Lorenzen had first laid eyes on her, he thought she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.
And so, not long after they met, Lorenzen and Shara had started dating, and then they had basically grown up together while Lorenzen went from being a college athlete to playing in the NBA.
And for a long time, everything in their lives had seemed perfect.
But then, after 13 years of marriage, Shara and Lorenzen had started to drift apart, and eventually they had gotten divorced and Lorenzen had moved to Atlanta.
But even after the divorce, Lorenzen and Shara remained close, and they worked hard to give their kids the best life possible.
And whenever Lorenzen came to town, he always stayed with Shara and the kids at her house.
So, sitting on the couch together, Shara and Lorenzen began to work out plans for their kids to go down to Atlanta with Lorenzen when he left later that week.
And then, Lorenzen told Shara he really wanted to hear all about the church where she had recently started serving as a pastor. shara had always been religious but she admitted to lorenzen that it was actually really hard to lead a congregation but she said she did love being a pastor and she loved the church and the people who went there and as they talked again lorenzen felt this sudden wave of just really missing memphis and now really missing being a part of this family living with his kids and living with shara and suddenly all he wanted to do was find a way to repair his relationship with Shara and move back in with her permanently in Memphis.
And Lorenzen suspected that that actually might be a real possibility because Shara had made it clear that she missed him too.
So later that night when Lorenzen said goodnight to the kids as they headed up to bed, he imagined a time, hopefully soon, when this would be his everyday life again.
A little before midnight on July 18th, 2010, so a couple of hours after the kids had gone to bed, Lorenzen crept downstairs at Shara's house in the dark.
He slid his hand down the banister, took slow steps and tried to walk as quietly as possible so he wouldn't wake anybody up.
Lorenzen made it to the first floor, he walked across the large entryway, he opened the front door and stepped outside.
And once he was outside, he closed the door behind him as quietly as possible.
Outside, Lorenzen could already feel sweat dripping down his forehead.
Even though it was almost midnight, the temperature was over 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Lorenzen wiped the sweat away and then looked out across the yard, and he saw a car pull up out front.
Lorenzen glanced back at the house where his kids and Shara were sleeping, and then he turned and walked quickly to the car, opened the passenger side door, ducked way down, and climbed inside.
The driver smiled at him, and then they pulled away from the house.
And less than a half hour later, not long after midnight on the morning of July 19th, Lorenzen looked out the passenger side window and he watched the lights from Memphis disappear behind them.
And soon after that, the driver turned the car onto a road that was surrounded by woods on both sides and that was about 15 miles south of downtown Memphis.
Then, after looking in the rearview mirror to make sure nobody was behind them, the driver pulled onto a dirt path that led into the woods.
They drove the car only a few yards down that path before they stopped and parked the car.
Then the driver looked over at Lorenzen, nodded to him, and then the driver stepped out of the car.
So Lorenzen ducked down and stepped out of the car as well and began to follow the driver who was walking deeper and deeper into the forest.
And as Lorenzen walked, he could almost feel the trees closing in on him.
Then Lorenzen heard a rustling sound in the trees ahead of them.
He and the driver froze for a moment, and Lorenzen strained his eyes to try to see what had made the noise.
But it was so dark, Lorenzen just couldn't tell what it was.
And so a moment later, the driver and Lorenzen were walking again, but just a second later, Lorenzen heard the sound again.
But this time Lorenzen saw what was causing the noise and he saw it was coming straight towards him.
And so suddenly in a terrified panic, Lorenzen darted off the dirt path, grabbed his phone out of his pocket, put his head down and just started running as fast as he could into the dark woods.
On July 22nd, so three days after Lorenzen had gone into the woods, his friend Phil Dotson was sitting on the couch at home watching TV when his phone rang.
Phil grabbed his phone, thinking it might be Lorenzen, but he saw Shara was calling.
Phil had been waiting to hear back from Lorenzen so they could maybe hang out again before Lorenzen went back to Atlanta, but he knew Lorenzen was busy with the kids and seeing his parents, so he hadn't thought much about it.
But as soon as he answered the phone, he could tell something was wrong.
Because when Shara heard Phil's voice, she didn't even say hi.
She just immediately asked if he had seen or heard from Lorenzen.
Phil was totally confused and told Shara he didn't understand because he thought Lorenzen was staying with her and her kids.
She said that he had, but a few nights earlier, Lorenzen had left the house to meet up with someone and he had never come back.
Shara didn't say anything about this meetup, but Phil secretly wondered if she thought Lorenzen had gone to meet up with a woman.
Because since the divorce, Lorenzen often had a few different women he was seeing at one time.
But Shara just said she thought it was strange that it had been a couple of days now and that Lorenzen had not called to at least check on the kids.
Phil said he agreed and that he would try to track Lorenzen down.
So Phil hung up and immediately called Lorenzen and when Lorenzen didn't answer, Phil sent him a text saying that it was really important for Lorenzen to get back to him as soon as possible.
After that, Phil called Lorenzen's mom and it turned out she hadn't heard from him either and she was getting really worried too and thought something was wrong and she was thinking about calling the police.
Phil tried to keep her calm, but he knew it was no use.
Lorenzen's mom was maybe closer to Lorenzen than anybody in the world, and if she was worried about her son, nobody could say anything to change her mind.
After several more hours of not hearing anything from Lorenzen, and discovering that no friends or family had heard from him since he left Shara's house a few nights earlier, Phil wound up calling Lorenzen's mom back again, and he told her that he too was now very worried.
So Lorenzen's mom called the police in the suburb where Shara lived and reported that her son was missing.
But the police response was not nearly as urgent as the people close to Lorenzen had hoped it would be.
And over the next few days, there didn't seem to be any real progress made in trying to find Lorenzen.
But the police would say that they had no reason to believe there was any foul play involved in Lorenzen's supposed disappearance, which was part of the reason why there was not a lot of urgency here.
But Lorenzen's mom kept calling the police over and over and over again, asking for updates and putting pressure on them, and she even contacted the press.
She said her son was a former professional basketball star who was 6 foot 11 inches tall, and so it just didn't make any sense that nobody had seen or recognized him over the past few days.
And then finally, on July 27th, so eight days after Lorenzen had gone into the woods, Memphis police took over the case because they had been notified about a 911 call that had been received by a small-town emergency dispatcher early in the morning on July 19th, not that long after Lorenzen had left Shara's house.
The 911 dispatcher said the call had been dropped so quickly that they couldn't locate where it was coming from at the time, but Memphis police still didn't understand why nobody had done anything to follow up on that call until over a week after it had been made.
Still, there was no use arguing over what could or should have been done, and now Memphis police just wanted to figure out if this 911 call was connected to their missing hometown hero, Lorenzen Wright.
And using cell phone tracking data, Memphis police were able to trace the 911 call to Lorenzen's phone number, and they discovered the call had come from somewhere either in or close to the woods, located about 15 miles outside of downtown Memphis.
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Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. I'm excited to tell you about something special.
For the first time, my show, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted, Declassified Mysteries with Luke LaManna, to tell a story so complex it required our combined storytelling styles.
This special episode is called A Redacted Medical Mystery.
In it, unexplained symptoms after a routine surgery quickly unravel into something much darker, leading straight to classified government operations hidden for decades.
To listen and uncover the truth alongside us, head to either the Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries or Redacted show pages right now. or search for A Redacted Medical Mystery in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're fascinated by unexplained medical stories, well, stick around on Medical Mysteries.
Every week, we dive deep into cases that will leave you questioning everything you know about the human body.
And if government conspiracies are more your style, Redacted is your go-to for stories that unravel secrets never meant to see the light of day.
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That's amazon.com slash b-a-l-l-e-n. Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. For the first time, my show, Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted for a special episode.
A Redacted Medical Mystery uncovers how routine surgery leads to classified government operations.
Listen now on the Medical Mysteries or Redacted feeds, or search A Redacted Medical Mystery wherever you get your podcasts.
On July 28th, nine days after Lorenzen had last been seen by anyone, Memphis police officers and police dogs searched the woods and fields in the general location where they believed the 911 call had come from and what they were looking for were any clues that might lead them to Lorenzen.
The sun was blazing overhead and members of the search party who were looking through an open field near the woods were hot, exhausted, and frustrated that they had not found anything.
Then suddenly one of the police dogs caught a scent.
It put its nose to the ground and started off through the field.
And the officer who was the dog's handler followed close behind.
The dog pushed its way through some dried grass and then came to a stop and started barking. and the dog's handler crouched down to get a better look at whatever the dog had discovered, and when the officer saw what was on the ground, his stomach began to turn.
The officer had been at a number of crime scenes, but nothing in his past had prepared him for what he was looking at on the ground right in front of him.
He was sure it was a human body and from the looks of it, there could be bullet wounds on it.
But the summer heat and the natural elements had withered the body down to almost nothing.
So it was basically just bones and only a little bit of weathered skin, which made it impossible to tell who this person was.
The officer stepped back from the body and took a deep breath.
Then he called out to the others on the scene and they quickly joined him and his dog.
And then the officer called into the station to say the search party believed they had discovered a murder scene.
Not long after that call, forensics and ballistics experts swarmed the area and combed the scene for evidence.
And by the end of the day, they had located multiple shell casings from a nine millimeter pistol, not far from the body.
However, they couldn't find a gun. And later, the body was finally removed from the field and taken to the coroner.
And during the autopsy, the body only weighed about 55 pounds.
But dental records confirmed that the victim was the 6'11", 225-pound former professional basketball player Lorenzen Wright.
The news of Lorenzen's death sent the city of Memphis into shock, and some of his former NBA teammates, community leaders, and closest friends like Phil Dotson went on TV to express how upset they were.
And all of them talked about how good of a person Lorenzen had been and how much of a loss this really was. but nobody was as heartbroken as Lorenzen's mother.
She went on the local news to talk about how amazing her son was and to beg anyone who had information about what had happened to Lorenzen to come forward and share it with police.
And so it quickly became clear to Memphis Police Director Tony Armstrong that his department was dealing with one of its most high-profile cases in years.
And so Armstrong decided to get directly involved in the investigation because he wanted to make sure everything was done by the book.
But Armstrong also wanted to be involved because he had really liked Lorenzen.
Over the years, Lorenzen had been a part of so many community programs and charity fundraisers in Memphis that Armstrong had seen him speak on multiple occasions.
And Armstrong thought Lorenzen had been a great role model for young people and that he demonstrated how someone should use their money and fame to better the lives of those around them.
And so Armstrong wanted to close the case as quickly as possible so he would be able to tell the people of Memphis that police had found justice for one of their city's heroes.
But Armstrong felt like his investigative team was already starting at a disadvantage because the fact that Lorenzen's 911 call had gone unreported for over a week meant that vital evidence at the scene could have been wiped away by the elements.
And the killer had been given ample time to travel anywhere in the world before the body was even discovered.
But regardless of all that, Armstrong and his lead detectives first had to try to figure out why a former NBA star who was worth millions of dollars had gone into the woods in the middle of the night.
And so on August 1st, four days after Lorenzen's body had been found, Armstrong and members of his team headed to Sharer's house in the suburbs.
And after investigators did a thorough search of the house, Armstrong asked if Shara would mind answering some questions to see if she could help police piece together what had happened on the night Lorenzen had left her house and didn't come back.
Shara said she would answer anything she could, so she led Armstrong and a detective into the dining room, and they all sat down at the table, and then Armstrong asked her what she remembered about the night Lorenzen disappeared.
Shara looked around the room and then in a quiet voice, she said she didn't want any of the children to hear what she was about to say.
Armstrong glanced over at the other detective and both men nodded and then leaned in close to listen to Shara.
And when she started talking, Armstrong's eyes got wide and he looked like he was in shock.
Shara said in a whisper that a little before midnight on July 18th, Lorenzen had gotten a phone call and he had started pacing around her bedroom and he was excited and talking loudly to the person on the other line and she heard him say something about making $110,000 really fast.
And at first, Shara had no idea what he was talking about.
But then Lorenzen had hung up the phone and walked over to the bags he'd brought with him to the house.
And Shara had watched as Lorenzen reached into one of the bags and pulled out a stash of drugs and a wad of cash.
She had asked him what was going on, but Lorenzen just said he had some work he needed to take care of.
And then he had put the drugs in a box, pocketed the cash, walked out of the room, and headed downstairs.
And not long after that, Shara had heard a car driving away from the house.
At the dining room table, Armstrong and the detective sat there with stunned looks still on their faces because Chera's story just made no sense to them.
Armstrong knew that Lorenzen had made close to $55 million during his basketball career and he owned multiple properties in different cities and Armstrong couldn't understand why a man with that kind of wealth would have anything to do with dealing drugs or why he would need to make some fast money.
And so, Armstrong asked Shara if she was really sure about what she had heard and seen that night, and Shara just nodded and said, yes, I'm sure.
Then, Shara looked around again to make sure none of her kids were close by, and in barely above a whisper, she told them that she felt terrible for what she was about to say, and she hoped it would not ruin their image of Lorenzen.
But Armstrong said if she had important information, they needed to hear it no matter what it was.
So, Shara looked Armstrong in the eye and told him that Lorenzen had blown almost all of the money he'd made from playing in the NBA.
She said he'd used a lot of it to help friends and family because he was a good man who could never say no to people who asked him for help.
But she said he'd also had trouble controlling his own spending, especially when it came to buying luxury cars and properties.
And then she said at least one of Lorenzen's houses was going into foreclosure because he couldn't make the mortgage payments.
And so, recently, Lorenzen had begun selling drugs to make ends meet.
Armstrong thanked Shara for talking to them and said police would be in touch with her if they needed anything else.
Then Armstrong and the other detective headed out of the house, got in their cars, and drove back to the station.
And when he got there, Armstrong could not help but feel like this case had already taken a turn he did not see coming.
At the police station, Armstrong met with the investigators who had searched Shara's house and they told him that they had not found anything of interest there.
So Armstrong stepped into his office and sat down at his desk.
He still couldn't get over what Shara had told him.
Her story just did not reflect who Armstrong thought Lorenzen was, a young man who went out of his way to give back to the community whenever he could.
But Armstrong knew that the fame and fortune of professional athletes was a world he could never fully understand.
And so he put his personal feelings aside, and over the next couple of days, he and his team started looking into any connections Lorenzen might have had to known drug dealers in the area, and what Armstrong discovered shocked him all over again.
It turned out that in 2009, a year before Lorenzen's body was found in the woods, he had been mentioned in an FBI investigation involving an international drug smuggling ring that had been operating out of Memphis.
Armstrong learned that Lorenzen had never been charged with any crimes based on that investigation, but that investigation showed there was a possibility that Lorenzen had ties to one of the largest cocaine dealers in Memphis.
And so all of a sudden, Shara's story started to make a lot of sense.
And Armstrong also discovered that one of Lorenzen's homes was indeed going into foreclosure, just like Shara had said.
And so now Armstrong believed that the chance to make a lot of money from a drug deal could definitely explain what Lorenzen had been doing in the woods the night he died.
So the Memphis police decided to focus in on this new potential lead and to track down the big-time cocaine dealer who Lorenzen had possibly known.
On August 4th, 2010, a week after Lorenzen's body was discovered, Armstrong and his team were still following leads that might connect Lorenzen to a large-scale drug operation in Memphis.
But while the police were at work, hundreds of Lorenzen's fans, teammates, friends, and family gathered at the arena where the Memphis Grizzlies play basketball for Lorenzen's memorial service.
Shara, the children, and Lorenzen's parents led a long procession across the arena floor to Lorenzen's closed silver casket.
Each of Lorenzen's children wore a cap with a logo on it from one of the NBA teams Lorenzen had played for, and they all took a moment to say their last goodbyes to their dad.
The memorial service was a chance for Memphis to celebrate and honor one of their most loved sports figures, and the service was even televised on local channels for people who could not attend in person.
And during the memorial, Lorenzen's mom was visibly shaken and too upset to speak at times, so Lorenzen's younger brother did most of the talking for the family. and he told the crowd how much they all had loved Lorenzen and how proud they were of everything he had accomplished, and then, as he fought back tears, he said he'd always thought his big brother was invincible, so he couldn't believe Lorenzen was now gone.
Not long after Lorenzen's brother finished speaking, the mayor of Memphis stepped up to the mic and he promised Lorenzen's family and everyone in the arena that authorities would track down whoever had killed Lorenzen and they would bring that person to justice.
And in the days following that memorial service, police director Armstrong felt the pressure building on his investigative team.
Lorenzen's murder was now national news, and local news ran stories on Lorenzen and asked for updates on the investigation constantly.
And in addition to that, the mayor had just made a public claim that the killer would soon be brought to justice.
But all of the added pressure did not mean Memphis Police would get any closer to solving the case, and Armstrong's team could only follow the leads they had.
So, based on what Shara had told them, and on information from the past FBI investigation, Memphis Police continued to aggressively pursue any leads that could tie Lorenzen to the drug trade in Memphis.
But they quickly discovered that the cocaine dealer Lorenzen possibly had links to had been in prison at the time of Lorenzen's murder.
And police couldn't find any evidence connecting Lorenzen to any other known drug dealers in the area.
And so this drug deal theory that police hoped would lead them right to Lorenzen's killer ended up leading them nowhere.
And now Armstrong found himself back at square one.
And so Armstrong sent his investigators back out to the crime scene to look for more evidence, but throughout all those new searches, they didn't find anything new.
All they had were the shell casings that had been found when the body had been found, and that was it.
So, without anything to go on, Armstrong just re-interviewed Lorenzen's friend Phil, Lorenzen's ex-wife Shara, and all of Lorenzen's closest family members and friends, but they didn't find anything new in those conversations either.
And so, even as pressure continued to mount on the police from the public, the victim's friends and family, and Memphis politicians, Lorenzen's murder case started to go cold, and it stayed that way for years.
In the summer of 2012, two years after Lorenzen's body was found, his mother decided to go on a public crusade to find justice for her son.
Over time, she had watched Lorenzen's story fade from the news and she had seen the investigation into his murder almost completely stall out and there was no way she was going to stand for that.
And so she started reaching out to local and national press and talking to anybody in the media who would listen.
And she told them that she wouldn't just let Lorenzen's memory be forgotten.
And she demanded that the police do their job and find Lorenzen's killer.
And she said as long as she had blood running through her veins, she was going to keep fighting until her son could finally rest in peace.
Now, Director Armstrong saw all of this happening and he knew that Lorenzen's mom and others in the Memphis community were angry at him and the police for not being able to solve this case.
And so Armstrong tried to jumpstart the investigation by assigning a series of new lead detectives to the case, but unfortunately, none of them made any headway.
And as more time went by with no new leads and seemingly no hope, Lorenzen's mom started to feel like nobody cared about this case anymore.
But then, after years of the investigation barely moving forward, Memphis police would finally catch a break that seemed to come completely out of nowhere.
Fast forward to January of 2015, almost five years after Lorenzen's murder.
Lorenzen's mom continued her media crusade, but she felt like she was the only one who was still fighting for her son.
But on a cold winter afternoon, Armstrong was sitting in his office when one of his detectives walked in.
This detective had an excited look on his face and he started talking really fast.
And Armstrong looked up and said, wait, wait, wait, what's going on here?
What's going on? And the detective slowed down and then just said there was a novel that had just been published that Armstrong had to read.
Armstrong stared at the detective like this might be some kind of prank because he couldn't understand why any new book would warrant this much excitement.
But then the detective told him that even though the book was fiction, he thought it might be connected to the murder of Lorenzen Wright.
Armstrong just sat there in silence for a minute.
He never imagined he'd have to turn to a work of fiction for possible evidence in a five-year-long murder investigation.
But soon after this meeting, Armstrong and other members of the investigative team read parts of this new book.
And what they found didn't provide any hard proof about what had happened to Lorenzen, but it did spark their interest in one particular suspect.
And eventually, that newfound interest would help lead to a full-scale relaunch of the investigation, and with more resources behind them, Memphis police would finally uncover who had killed Lorenzen years earlier in the woods.
Based on evidence found throughout the investigation, cell phone data, and interviews conducted over the course of seven years, here is a reconstruction of what authorities believe happened to Lorenzen Wright on the day he died, July 19th, 2010.
Just after midnight on July 19th, 2010, the killer stood behind a tree at the end of a dirt path leading into the woods.
The heat and their own nerves were making the killer sweat.
So they wiped their hands dry on the side of their black pants.
Then they drew a nine millimeter pistol from their waistband and clutched it tight.
Then the killer saw headlights cutting through the darkness and they heard a car slowly driving towards them.
The car parked a few yards away and the killer saw the driver step outside.
Then they watched Lorenzen get out of the car on the passenger side.
Even in the darkness, Lorenzen looked huge and the killer felt a little bit afraid.
So the killer took a steadying breath and then huddled a little bit closer to the tree.
A moment later, the driver began walking down the path towards the killer and Lorenzen followed them.
So the killer, at this point, squinted in the darkness and stepped out from their hiding place and raised their gun right at Lorenzen.
But the killer hesitated. And when Lorenzen saw this person with the gun standing there, Lorenzen immediately grabbed his phone, turned off the path, and started running deep into the woods.
The killer fired the gun at Lorenzen, but they missed.
So they took off running after Lorenzen.
But Lorenzen was so fast, it was almost impossible for the killer to even stay close.
But the killer could see the light from Lorenzen's phone.
And so they just kept following that light and they fired another shot generally in the direction of the phone.
Then the woods started to clear and the moonlight and stars made it easier for the killer to see what was ahead of them and to keep Lorenzen in their sight.
And then the killer heard Lorenzen shouting into his phone, desperately asking the police for help.
And so the killer fired off a few more shots. and Lorenzen stopped talking, but he kept running.
The killer could feel a pain in their side and they were gasping for air by this point, but they kept pushing as hard as they could to try to keep up with Lorenzen.
Then the killer saw Lorenzen running towards a high barbed wire fence that separated the woods from a field on the other side.
And the killer just watched dumbfounded as Lorenzen leapt clear over the fence in stride.
But as Lorenzen jumped, he must have caught his back foot on the fence because when he landed, he fell to the ground and kind of tumbled forward.
And the killer knew this was likely their only chance.
So they ran as fast as they could towards the fence.
And when they saw Lorenzen trying to get back up, they fired multiple shots through the opening in the barbed wire.
And the killer heard Lorenzen scream and they saw him fall to the ground again.
Then the killer managed to get over the barbed wire fence to the other side.
And once they got there, they saw Lorenzen laying on the ground, bleeding and struggling to breathe.
The killer stood there for a moment watching Lorenzen.
Then they took a deep breath, aimed their pistol at Lorenzen's chest and they fired.
Then they raised their gun slightly and aimed it at Lorenzen's face and they fired again.
At this point, Lorenzen's body went limp and he died right there in the field.
The killer stood over Lorenzen's body and they felt like they wanted to throw up, but they took another deep breath, turned around, made their way back over the barbed wire fence and back into the dark woods.
And finally, after what felt like hours, but had only been a few minutes, the killer found their way back to the dirt path and saw that the car was still parked there.
Then they heard something behind them and the driver of the car stepped out of the darkness and approached the killer.
The driver asked if it was done and the killer just nodded and said, yes.
So the driver smiled, climbed back into their car and drove back home.
And when they got inside their house, the driver went from room to room checking on all six of their sleeping children.
Lorenzen's ex-wife, Shara, had not actually pulled the trigger, but she was the one behind Lorenzen's murder.
She had hired a deacon at the church where she was a pastor to kill her ex-husband. because it would turn out that Shara was the one who really had the huge spending problem.
And she had decided that the $26,000 a month that Lorenzen paid in alimony and child support was not enough money for her to live on.
And she wanted the payout from Lorenzen's $1 million life insurance policy and his sizable pension from the MBA.
So Shara had decided Lorenzen needed to die.
And it turned out that Lorenzen had been right to believe he had a real chance to repair his marriage with Shara and to move back in with his family in Memphis because Shara had told him how much she missed him.
But that wasn't all she had done. In the days leading up to the murder, she had sent Lorenzen a series of sexually explicit text messages telling him how badly she wanted him back.
And she had used those messages to lure Lorenzen from Atlanta back to Memphis.
And so, late at night on July 18th, 2010, when Lorenzen was staying with Shara in her bedroom, she told him that she had to go meet someone who owed her money.
But she said she didn't really want to go alone because they were meeting outside of the city.
And so Lorenzen said he would go with her, and that's how Shara had gotten Lorenzen out to the woods where the gunman was waiting for him.
Shara knew that Lorenzen had been mentioned in an investigation concerning a drug smuggling ring, and even though Lorenzen had never been found guilty of any crime in that case, she figured if she told police Lorenzen had been dealing drugs, they would discover the past investigation and come to believe the murder was indeed drug-related.
And for years, it looked like Shara was going to get away with it.
But then in 2015, she had decided to become an author, and so she self-published a novel.
And Shara barely disguised the fact that she wanted people who read the book to believe it was about her own life.
And in the book, the main character is married to a basketball player who is abusive, violent, and a terrible husband.
So, when Armstrong and other investigators read the book, they thought it came off like an attack on Lorenzen.
And even though nobody is killed in this book, some investigators thought that at times the book read like Shara was trying to justify Lorenzen's murder.
Now, the police were not going to use a work of fiction as proof of Shara's guilt, but her book and a new round of pressure that came from Lorenzen's friends and family after the book was published led police to re-examine Shara as a potential suspect.
As Lorenzen's ex-wife, she had always been a person of interest in the case, but police never felt like they had any evidence tying her to the crime.
But once the investigation was relaunched in full, Memphis police received direct help from the FBI, and both agencies focused their energy on people directly connected to Shara.
And in 2017, seven years after Lorenzen's murder, investigators spoke to a woman who had babysat Shara's children on several occasions, and that woman told investigators that she had once overheard Shara say that she had gotten rid of a gun by throwing it into a lake outside of the city.
And so an FBI dive team searched a lake that fit that description and they found a 9mm pistol in the water that ended up matching the shell casings that had been found near Lorenzen's body.
And that gun led investigators to the man from Shara's church who had pulled the trigger.
And eventually that man led them directly to Shara and exposed her involvement in her ex-husband's murder.
The man who actually killed Lorenzen was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison plus 41 years.
Shara signed a plea deal, and as part of that deal, she was convicted of facilitation of first-degree murder and was only sentenced to 30 years in prison with the possibility of parole after seven years.
Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast.
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Hey, listeners, Mr. Ballin here. What if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories happening right now are all connected to what might be the biggest crime of our generation?
You know I'm always on the hunt for the most chilling and perplexing tales out there.
Well, I've discovered a new podcast that uncovers real-world mysteries unfolding right now. much like how another Ballin' Studios podcast, Redacted Declassified Mysteries, brings hidden government secrets to light.
And it's called Lawless Planet. Host Zach Goldbaum reveals how shocking tales of murder, cover-ups, and mysterious deaths are all part of something bigger. the systematic destruction of our planet.
From activists who vanish in the Amazon to whistleblowers uncovering billion-dollar environmental crimes, these aren't just stories about the environment.
They're real-life thrillers about people caught between powerful forces willing to kill to keep their secrets buried.
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