As the fifth anniversary of Lorenzen Wright’s unsolved homicide loomed, freelance journalist Kelvin Cowans reached out to Wright’s widow for an interview. She agreed.
They met at a coffee shop, did the interview and then talked for hours afterwards. The interview, which coincided with Wright’s desire to pitch her book, produced a series with three front-page stories.
Now Cowans has written “The Whispering Woods of Sherra Wright,” a book about his relationship with Sherra Wright, who is locked up in the Shelby County jail accused of murdering her ex-husband. Billy Ray Turner, an associate, faces the same charges.
On Saturday, Cowans will be signing his book at the Crosstown Concourse in the Cheryl Pesce Suite 125 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Wright and Cowans “clicked” after their 2015 introduction, moved to Houston and lived as a family with her six children. They’d been broken up about nine months when he saw breaking news of her arrest.
And said, Cowans, “It all is leading back to the woods.”
Even before he came into her life, the woods had been whispering, he said.
“That’s where they found Lorenzen’s body. They find the murder weapon, the woods have never stopped whispering. She lived on Whisper Woods Drive, that is the last known address that Lorenzen actually left before he was murdered.”
The woods are whispering even now, he said.
“Just like everybody else, every time they put something on the news, I’m looking and I’m seeing yet more missing pieces coming into place and the woods are gonna whisper until the last gavel pops.”
Cowans has done two national network interviews that are set to air as the trial approaches.
“They wanted my side of the story. America’s fascinated with murder and murder mysteries and these companies felt like that I was a missing piece to a lot of the story. …a former NBA wife charged with the murder of her husband.”
So is he capitalizing off of the relationship and the experience?
“I’m a writer . …Are you capitalizing? …It’s my life. I was living my life as well as she was living hers. I just didn’t have this shadow hanging over me of being suspected of someone’s murder.”
So as he prepares for his book signing, Sherra wright is locked down. Is she guilty?
“From the things that I’ve gathered, and … a lot the public doesn’t know, all signs point toward her having her hands in his crime. It’s ugly, of course. …And things don’t turn off for me. When the public watches the show, and trust me, this is a big-top event, when they watch it and they’re there in court and they say what they gotta say, and Sherra and Billy, they leave back out of the court room, it doesn’t turn off for me because I’ve been behind those bars.”
Cowans, who did a prison stint, winced and said, “I know what they’re going through, I know what they’re thinking. Sherra was a queen. She’s not doing well in there, I’m positive of it. …”
He hasn’t tired to see and doesn’t plan to attend the trial. When they split – for various reasons explored in the book – he came home to Memphis. Wright went to Riverside, Calif.
“That was the end of that chapter he said.
Did she love him. “Yeah,” he said.
What must she think of him now?
“I’m not sure what she think about me. I know the last phone call we had, I let her know that I’d be praying for her and the kids of course.”
The last call was in December of 2017, about three hours before her Riverside arrest. She called him.
“She had called me heavily that day. I believe that she knows how I always felt about her and the kids even after our departure and stuff. And I just always tried to be honest with her and of course now, the missing piece is the woods are whispering.”
The last phone call was a hectic one, he said.
“The urgency in her voice, it just was unbalanced,” he said.
Did he ever think he was in danger?
“In the book, I go in hindsight mode and I do bring myself present. It’s hard for me to feel sorry for myself because there are six victims that are most important. … The kids. … Who loses their father to murder. And their mother’s arrested for that murder.”
One day they’ll need the book and hopefully find it helpful, he said.
“As they grow older, (hopefully) they’re able to go to that (last) chapter (to them) and get a real life experience from someone they knew knew them and loved them.”
