MEMPHIS – The mother of former NBA player Lorenzen Wright stood up Thursday during a court hearing for a man charged with killing him and shouted, “How could you have murdered my son?”
Wearing a red sweater with a drawing of her son’s face on it, Deborah Marion made the outburst during an arraignment for Billy R. Turner in a Memphis courtroom. Judge Lee Coffee told her he would not allow another such interruption, but he did not charge her with contempt of court.
Turner was indicted Tuesday on a first-degree murder charge. His bail is set at $1 million. Turner told the judge he was planning to hire an attorney and Coffee set a hearing for Tuesday.
Wright’s body was found in a swampy field in suburban Memphis on July 28, 2010, 10 days after the 34-year-old was reported missing. He was shot multiple times. The seven-year investigation into his death has been one of the Memphis Police Department’s most high-profile unsolved cases.
Prosecutors and police have declined to say much about the case. Police said last month they found a gun used in the killing in a lake near the small town of Walnut, Miss., about 75 miles east of Memphis.