it was a sad day in the summer of 2010 when the city paid its last respects to lorenzen wright. e 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 wa

lorenzen wright: she's in heaven with god, and i know that.just going to work harder on trying to get myself there. andrea canning: did it cause a strain in his marriage? phil dotson: i think it did. he was on the road when it happened. and not being able to get there and protect his daughter. awful. phil dotson: and i think he always regretted that. andrea canning: ren's friend said that two years later, the couple's problems escalated to a whole new and now, dangerous level. there was a situation that happened and lorenzen went to the house where supposedly, she was there with another guy. he knew the gentleman. he went ballistic. and i think he had a gun. andrea canning: the story made the local newspapers, which reported that ren threatened the man and also, attacked sherra. marc perrusquia: she had some marks on her face. he hit her. and the police were going to arrest him, but she would not testify against him. lorenzen had a public image to uphold. she didn't want to expose that part of him. andrea canning: no charges were filed. in a n

reporter: seven years ago to the day, these family members reported lorenzen wright missing. andrea canning: once again, lorenzen's family and friends gathered to pay their respects. another year, another vigil to keep hope alive that his murder might somehow be solved. we're going to keep this thing going year after year because i know that's what he would want us to do. we love you, lorenzen! it's getting colder by the day. and were no closer to finding out who did it. there's not a day that goes by that i don't think about him and what happened to him. i always kept the detectives' phone numbers just in case. they always said, let us know if you come up with anything. andrea canning: by now, many in memphis were losing patience with those detectives. seven long years. still no arrest. no justice. lorenzen's mom had been hounding police the whole time, calling, showing up at the station. her sole mission in life was solving her son's murder. did you feel like there's never going to be an arrest in this case? no. because i got to stay alive. because before i die, they were go

laurie hall: absolutely two sides to lorenzen wright. there's the public persona, very positive, community-oriented. privately, he had a very tumultuous marriage, many affairs, and get angry and beat sherra wright. andrea canning: in fact, sherra mentioned abuse during a call to her son, which police secretly recorded. sherra wright (on phone): you've been there a lot of times when your daddy beat the living hell out of me. andrea canning: and there was that incident when ren allegedly got violent with sherra after finding her with another man, a story he denied. ren was never charged then or at any time for abusing sherra. juni ganguli: it's fairly common that victims of domestic violence don't report their abusers to the police. andrea canning: by the time of the murder, ren and sherra had been divorced for five months and living nearly 400 miles apart. her attorney said, despite all that, she was still scared. he was telling the children, in the summer of 2010, words to the effect of your mother and i are going to get back together. an

i mean, this is lorenzen wright. it was as if an explosion went off. 911 dispatcher: hello?