McKinney Wright of Memphis pleaded guilty to second-degree murder charges in the 2018 shooting of businessman Phil Trenary on Monday, accepting the lower charge in a plea agreement that saw additional charges against him dropped.
Wright entered his guilty plea on Monday morning, with local media reporting his agreement saw prosecutors drop drug charges against him. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but already spent five years in a Memphis jail that will count toward his sentence.
Trenary, 64, then the president and chief executive officer of the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce, was traveling between his home, located in a high-end South Front neighborhood, when he was fatally shot in 2018.
Wright, his sister Ricanisha Wright, and Quandarius Richardson were all arrested after the crime. As the case stretched into 2020, WREG reports it was repeatedly delayed by COVID-19, but Daily Memphian reported the case against Wright and Richardson was severed in October, allowing them to be prosecuted individually.
Richardson is expected in court on Tuesday, though prosecutors have not revealed whether they expect him to enter into a plea agreement.
Wright’s sister, Ricanisha, was 16 at the time he murdered Trenary. A juvenile court released her from confinement about six months after Trenary’s death, and claimed they were unable to provide information about the case due to her status as a minor.
No new information was learned about why she was released until 2022, when Action News 5 revealed that its reporters spoke to Wright’s mother, who explained her daughter was required to wear an ankle monitor for six months after the murder. The charges were dropped after that period.
In 2022, the outlet reported she was charged with attempted first-degree murder in 2022 after police claim she flagged down a brother so her brother could shoot driver, allegedly over a neighborhood argument from days prior.
Memphis is currently struggling with a 9.6 increase in overall crime that has provoked both federal and state responses. Governor Bill Lee (R) ordered increased Tennessee Highway Patrol officers in the state, while the Department of Justice unveiled a new suite of resources of Shelby County and Memphis to help identify and prosecute criminals.
Memphis suffered a 22.6 percent decrease in the number of police officers in its department in just one decade, decreasing from 2,449 officers in 2011 to 1,895 in 2022, despite the city growing by about 3.8 percent over the same period.
Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner similarly recently told local media that his office needs to hire an additional 150 sheriff’s deputies, and 375 jailers, adding that those working at Shelby County jails are working “10-hour shifts” for four day stretches.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “McKinney Wright” by Shelby County Sheriff’s Office.
