was larger than life. he was a hometown hero. very humble beginnings to the nba, and then he's murdered. i mean, this is lorenzen wright. it was as if an explosion went off. 911 dispatcher: hello?

[gunshots] lorenzen wright (on recording): hey! damn! someone is running for their life, and there's multiple gunshots. it made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. andrea canning: you and lorenzen were so close. life wasn't worth living after they killed my firstborn. who would do this to him? you look at everybody. every friend, every family member. the divorced spouse, she was the last person known to have seen him. we had to dig into that. marc perrusquia: there were these mysterious gunmen showing up looking for lorenzen. phil dotson: who were these people that came by the house? kontji anthony: gosh, do you think they'll ever figure this out? andrea canning: fame, fortune, and a fatal plot, who killed the basketball star? how is this possible? it just blew me away. andrea canning: he was under everybody's noses the whole time. phil dotson: yeah. how's that for a kicker? just, the ultimate evil.

andrea canning: it was just after midnight in memphis, as sunday turned into monday. [blues music] on beale street, the blues clubs were blaring. barbecue joints still sizzling. even the lights of nearby graceland were aglow. but just outside of town in this tree-lined field, it was quiet, peaceful, not a soul in sight. then suddenly, an unmistakable sound echoed through the trees. [gunshots] that's the actual sound of a murder in progress caught on audio tape. the crime conceived weeks earlier was now complete. it all began in july 2010 when one

of the city's favorite sons returned to town. lorenzen wright, or simply ren, played high school and college basketball here in memphis, then later starred for the hometown nba grizzlies. just 34 years old, ren was larger than life, according to close friend bill adkins. how popular was he here in memphis? bill adkins: oh, extremely, extremely. everybody loved lorenzen. he was just popular. i mean, you couldn't-- you had to notice him. i mean, 6 foot 11, 6' 10". he walks in the door, everybody knows it's him. andrea canning: charismatic, yet humble. ren was as generous as he was outgoing. he was kind to everyone. i never saw a time when he would shun people away or say crude or rude things to people. the guy would give you the shirt off his back. movie star looks? oh, yeah, charming. quite charming. handsome guy. andrea canning: lorenzen was at the end of a solid nba career. now divorced and living in atlanta,

but he would often come back to memphis to visit. so on a sunday in late july, ren arrived and spent part of the day with close buddy phil dotson and some other old friends. phil dotson: the perfect sunday afternoon of just, you know, the guys hanging and bonding. andrea canning: a few hours later, phil took ren to pick up his oldest son at a local gym. and then dropped them off at the home of sherra wright, lorenzen's ex-wife, where ren sometimes visited when he was in town. he said, i'll call you later. and so that being about 10:00 pm, i left. and i get home, and i-- i never heard from him. andrea canning: sunday night passed, but no call from ren. phil dotson: and so i shot him a text, and he didn't reply. andrea canning: so i'm sure you tried to reach him the next day. the next day. andrea canning: and? and nothing. was that odd? or still thinking, he's just busy with the family? phil dotson: well, i just thought he was still busy with the family. it wasn't a-- a big deal. andrea canning: ren was known to go

off the grid occasionally. plus, he had a scheduled trip to las vegas later that week. maybe he just left early. phil dotson: when you're in vegas in the casino, you don't get a signal. i thought it was kind of weird that he didn't text me back, but i didn't think anything about it. but ren's mother, deborah marion, was already worrying. she'd been trying to reach him all week. deborah marion: he'd never not answered my call. he'd never not called me back. did you just think maybe he's in vegas having a really good time? - nope. not my child. he ain't called me? uh-uh. andrea canning: lorenzen's mother filed a missing persons report with police while phil sounded his own personal alarm. phil dotson: i'm sending him our sos code that we had for each other when we really needed one another, and i didn't hear anything from him. was this where things turned for you, when he didn't respond to that? phil dotson: yes, i started getting worried. i was like, man, where is he? andrea canning: he just basically, has like vanished-- vanished from the face of the earth, yes. yes. which is totally unlike him--

phil dotson: totally unlike him. --because he's mr. social-- phil dotson: right. --mr. awesome guy friend. phil dotson: somebody was going to have spoken with him. and lorenzen had, like, groups of friends. he had his family, his sisters, his brother. he had his fraternity brothers. and nobody had heard anything, so everybody's really, really nervous at this point. somebody called me in the middle of the night and said, hey, did you know lorenzen wright was missing? andrea canning: former memphis police chief tony armstrong worked on the case. and i'm going, what do you mean, missing? how does a guy that's 6' 11" and how can a guy that's been on tv every week for most of his adult life go missing? that's impossible. [music playing] reporter: at 6" 11" and 255 pounds, lorenzen wright is hard to miss, but he has been missing for a week. reporter: police are searching for former memphis basketball player-- andrea canning: by now, the local media was all over the story. reporter: he hasn't surfaced anywhere. reporter: the disappearance of lorenzen wright. reporter: investigators say there is nothing to suggest

that wright is not alive. however, as time passes, the situation grows more worrisome. it was shocking. it was just, what do you mean lorenzen wright is missing? kontji anthony covered the story for nbc affiliate wmc-tv in memphis. the whole town was abuzz. andrea canning: lorenzen's former wife sherra told reporters he was fine the last night she saw him. i'm not going to believe anything other than that he's fine now. i just need somebody to call if they see him or hear anything from him. andrea canning: but ren's mother was already expecting the worst. i told the police when i first reported him missing, y'all, my son is not going to be good when you all find him your intuition was telling you-- deborah marion: i wasn't feeling him nowhere. he wasn't nowhere. and you must normally feel kind of a spiritual connection-- - yes --to your son or. yes. i told the police, i don't know how to explain it to you all, but he's dead. andrea canning: memphis police needed more than a mother's intuition. then, they found that terrifying recording.

[gunshots] tony armstrong: he was literally running for his life at that point. i have active psoriatic arthritis. but with skyrizi to treat my skin and joints, count me in. along with clearer skin, skyrizi helps me move with less joint pain, stiffness, swelling, and fatigue. and is just 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine, or plan to. there's nothing like clearer skin and better movement and that means everything! ask your doctor about skyrizi today. learn how abbvie could help you save.

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isn't that better? ask your doctor about dupixent, the most prescribed biologic in asthma. and now approved as an add-on treatment for adults with inadequately controlled copd with a specific marker of inflammation. with inadequately controlled copd reporter: tonight, police are searching for former memphis basketball player lorenzen wright. andrea canning: seven long days and still no sign of lorenzen wright. one of the last to see him alive was his ex-wife, sherra. there are no new leads or anything. it's mind boggling. we're hopeful. today is one of the worst days for me because it's an entire week. andrea canning: with each passing day, ren's mother became more fearful. you must be frantic. deborah marion: yes. i've called everybody everywhere that he would be associated with, nobody knew nothing. andrea canning: but police did find a clue, a big one,

buried in ren's phone records. the last call lorenzen wright ever made was to 911. 911 dispatcher: germantown 911, where's your emergency? andrea canning: detectives trace that call to germantown, a memphis suburb. police there were not able to geolocate the call and never followed up on it. [gunshots] lorenzen wright (on recording): hey! damn! andrea canning: that's the voice of lorenzen wright as he faced his killer. 911 dispatcher: hello? [gunshots] andrea canning: it would take eight days from the time he went missing for memphis police to find that recording. it made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. that was probably his last spoken words. and listening to that tape, it just kind of brought it all home that you knew that he was beyond distressed. how does something like that happen? how does that go unreported? for whatever reason on that particular night, that particular dispatcher just didn't follow-up and just didn't send anybody to that area. that's no joke when someone is running for their life and there's multiple gunshots being fired. i've heard people call 911 in distress before.

i've heard people that call say, hey, there's a burglar in my house. i'm hiding in a closet. i've heard people that say, hey, i'm at a mall, and there's a shooting. and a whole lot of other circumstances. i had never heard of 911 call like that one before. [music playing] reporter: live pictures here from chopper 5. police are not saying anything official at this point. andrea canning: police were able to trace the 911 call from nearby cell phone towers and soon swarmed a field on the outskirts of town looking for lorenzen. reporter: the information led a shelby county sheriff search crew to a wooded area near hacks cross and winchester road. andrea canning: and it didn't take long. a search team suddenly noticed something very disturbing. reporter: breaking news-- memphis police are in southeast memphis, where a body has been found. kontji anthony: that day, when his body was discovered, i was in the newsroom. the phones start buzzing at the assignment desk. we sent everyone.

all the manpower in our newsroom went out to that scene. the police chopper was up, the street was packed, and the word went around town like wildfire. anyone who knew lorenzen literally hopped into their car and drove to that scene. reporter: news of the discovery spread quickly, and crowds of wright's friends on and off the court steadily grew. andrea canning: it was still a full-on crime scene when lorenzen's mother arrived. then crossed the police line to where the body was being recovered. deborah marion: i wanted to walk in his last walk, so i could get that feeling, like what happened. just let me walk the last path he walked. why did you want to do that? deborah marion: because i wanted to feel what he left for me. because i knew. andrea canning: of course, she knew. it was her first born son, lorenzen.

reporter: police have notified immediate family that lorenzen wright was found dead here. we are not-- andrea canning: by now, a large crowd was holding an impromptu memorial at the grim site. among them was ren's friend and nba star penny hardaway. it's just a great loss for the city of memphis, for his family. such an early age. i mean, it's just senseless. andrea canning: then lorenzen's body, which had been left in the searing memphis sun for 10 long days, was taken in for an autopsy. i've seen decomposed bodies before, but i wasn't ready for that. i wasn't ready for lorenzen's remains. i would not have known that, that was him. andrea canning: lorenzen wright was just 34. the father of six young children. now police confirm the horrible news with the rest of his family and close friends. phil dotson: i literally remembered freezing,

i dropped the phone, and my mind went blank. i'm like, what do you mean, he's dead? and then he told me, he's been in a field for some days, and it was bad. it was bad. and i hung the phone up, and i cried. i cried. all i could think of, i just started having flashbacks of all the things that we had done together. you know, best man at my wedding. my children's godfather. being at his wedding. i felt like someone had pulled my heart out of my chest and just stomped on it. this was your best friend. yeah. yeah. andrea canning: word also spreads south to atlanta where ren's old friend and roommate mike gipson was anxiously awaiting any news. when i found out about it, i just dropped to my knees. i couldn't-- i couldn't walk.

i was like, paralyzed. i'm like this can't be true. andrea canning: at first, nobody knew what exactly had happened to ren. was there any thought that perhaps, lorenzen had been robbed? he's a really rich guy. he is a rich guy. but at the time of his death, there was jewelry recovered. other personal belongings recovered. andrea canning: then there was what the autopsy revealed. he had been shot multiple times with wounds to the chest and even his face. it was an assassination. he was murdered. phil dotson: i read the autopsy report. and just trying to make sense of how gruesome it was, but how could somebody do that to him? and when you listen to the 911 tape, the number of times that he was shot. and then to know that those shots were to his face-- that's personal. phil dotson: --that's personal.

that's a deep-rooted hate. andrea canning: so hateful and so personal, which suggested the killer might have actually known lorenzen. i just could not imagine anybody wanting to harm him. andrea canning: did you think he was targeted? no, i thought maybe somebody wanted to rob him. but who would do this to him? andrea canning: and why? a few tiny clues left behind at the crime scene would provide a huge lead. because it appeared not only did someone want lorenzen dead, maybe there was more than one person involved in his murder. when i was diagnosed with h-i-v, i didn't know who i would be. but here i am... being me. keep being you... and ask your healthcare provider about the number one prescribed h-i-v treatment, biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in many people whether you're 18 or 80. with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v

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biktarvy can go with you. sounded like a constant train whistle i couldn't escape. then i started taking lipo flavonoid. with 60 years of clinical experience, it's the number one doctor recommended brand for ear ringing. and now i'm finally free. take back control with lipo flavonoid. memphis was in mourning. it was a sad day in the summer of 2010 when the city paid its last respects to lorenzen wright. the funeral was such a big deal,

it was televised by several local stations. kontji anthony: his funeral, oh, boy. [exhale] well, it was, pretty much, the who's who of memphis. andrea canning: lorenzen's mother could barely keep it together. never imagining, she'd have to bury her oldest child. deborah marion: i just didn't want to live. andrea canning: you and lorenzen were so close. deborah marion: i promise you, life wasn't worth living after they killed my first born. it just-- you two had been through so much together. deborah marion: mm-hmm. yes, indeed. and see, i was young when i had him, so we kind of like grew up together. andrea canning: ren's ex-wife sherra and their children all came to say farewell, too. six young children now suddenly left without a father. kontji anthony: it was just surreal. i mean, the town had already been through the shock that he was missing. and then he was killed so brutally, murdered,

and now here you are, and it's his funeral. and the mourning was just a little bit deeper. the loss of such a great person in the fabric of memphis society was just so tragic and painful. and you could see that on people's faces. all the tears. the hugging. andrea canning: to help the city heal, the memphis mayor made a promise. justice will be done. that's our pledge. [applause] [music playing] andrea canning: justice, of course, depended on a thorough police investigation. detectives were now playing catch up, given how long it had taken to find ren's body after he was murdered. but at the crime scene, clues were already emerging. reporter: police found different types of shell casings at the scene. andrea canning: different casings, which meant more than one gun was used to murder ren. which indicated there could have possibly been two suspects responsible for the shooting.

andrea canning: tony armstrong was already feeling the heat to crack one of the biggest cases of his career. this case was personal to you. tony armstrong: it was. the mayor of the city at that time had vowed to the public that we were going to solve it. i wanted to be able to tell his mom that we got the person that's responsible for this. andrea canning: but who would do such a thing? and why? run came from humble beginnings in mississippi, where he was born and first started playing basketball. but it was here in memphis where he became a star during his high school days. sports commentator: down court, lorenzen wright. andrea canning: and was showcased at tournaments broadcast on local cable tv. sports commentator: pretty shot, lorenzen wright. andrea canning: that's when he met his future wife sherra, whose father was his coach at the time. memphis investigative reporter marc perrusquia. marc perrusquia: a lot of people didn't know about him until he played aau ball for sherra wright's dad. and sherra's dad brought him up to memphis.

and he played his last season of high school ball here in memphis and was a high school all-american. the coaches were like, i don't know what this boy is doing, but he can make some money one day. andrea canning: sherra, also, liked what she saw, and the two began dating, even though she was almost five years older, as ren's friend bill adkins immediately noticed. she was different. you could tell she was quite mature. quite savvy. sexy-- can i use that word, sexy? absolutely. she was the kind of girl that guys looked at. andrea canning: lorenzen, the country kid, was smitten with the more sophisticated city gal. what was it about sherra that he fell so fast for her? well, let me see, how can i put this nicely? sex. uh-huh. he was 17. she was 22. so she lured him in. he had a little girlfriend, but they weren't doing all that stuff sherra was doing. she was a lady, and he was a kid. andrea canning: the romance with ren flourished.

and so did his basketball career. in college at the university of memphis, his star continued to rise. two years of college and then he had a meeting with me and his dad. told me he's fixing to get ready to go to the nba. i said, no, you're not. you got two more years. he said mama, think about when i graduate and get a degree. who's going to pay me $1 million for my first job? i thought about that for about 15 minutes, and i said, when you say you're leaving? andrea canning: then in 1996, after a sophomore season, lorenzen hit the nba jackpot. at the tender age of 20, ren was an instant millionaire. by now, sherra had given birth to their first baby, lorenzen jr. the three settled in la and immediately began living the southern california high life. after his second season, ren and sherra got married. phil dotson: i was one of the groomsmen. and it was an awesome affair.

the wedding was beautiful. it looked like a fairy tale. andrea canning: phil even lived with lorenzen and sherra for over a year when ren played with the clippers. and sherra didn't mind you being the houseguest? no. no. she didn't. they were always known for having you huge hearts. andrea canning: ren played three seasons with the clippers, then moved on to atlanta and signed another multi-million dollar contract, before being traded to his hometown team the memphis grizzlies in 2001. to local fans, it was like the return of elvis. [cheering] back home, ren re-immersed himself in the community. he opened a restaurant while committing to local charities and children. phil dotson: he would do a summer camp here. it was always huge. thousands of kids would attend. giving back to his community was one of the things that really made him happy. andrea canning: over his career, lorenzen earned some $55 million,

which he lavished on his friends and growing family. oh, my god, trips. buying anything he wants-- houses, cars. took care of his friends. took care of his family. anybody who put a hand out, he virtually gave to them. he never could say no to people. marc perrusquia: they actually built a home beyond the suburbs. it was a huge 13,000 square foot home. cost several million dollars. andrea canning: and inside their giant garage-- they had a couple of ferrari's. and he loved cars. he had bought two bentley's in one month. andrea canning: and sherra? phil dotson: she loved jewelry. andrea canning: are we talking diamonds and? watches. rings. earrings. bracelets. she loved to decorate her home. custom drapes and custom upholstery on couches. and then a couple of months go by and then she'd change everything up again. andrea canning: it was an embarrassment of riches. but behind the gates of their memphis mansion,

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