LOS ANGELES _ Sherra Wright guided the silver Cadillac SUV through the darkness on a mild night, seven years after search and rescue dogs found her ex-husband's body in a Memphis field.
The remains of Lorenzen Wright weighed 57 pounds. The coroner needed dental records to identify the man the Clippers had picked in the first round of the 1996 NBA draft. Five gunshot wounds were visible in the withered corpse. Two in the head. Two in the torso. One in the right forearm.
The killing remained unsolved, but by last December a long-dormant police investigation had taken on new life. And a task force of federal marshals and Riverside County sheriff's deputies was tracking the Cadillac on Interstate 15 near Norco.
As Sherra drove south with her twin 17-year-old boys, Lamar and Shamar, she relived the Murrieta Mesa High basketball team's five-point win earlier that night. The twins combined to score 32 points. Sherra told her oldest son, Lorenzen Jr., all about the game on the phone.
Then red and blue lights flashed behind them. The SUV pulled over and a voice amplified by a loudspeaker ordered Sherra to exit the car with her hands up. She started shaking.
More cruisers zoomed up. Guns were drawn, Lamar said. The twins begged their mother to keep her hands up.
