One of the men charged with killing Memphis businessman and former Greater Memphis Chamber CEO Phil Trenary received a 25-year sentence via a plea deal Monday, court records show.
The plea comes over five years after Trenary was shot and killed walking home from a chamber event at Loflin Yard.
The man, 26-year-old McKinney Wright, was indicted by a grand jury in June 2019. He was charged with first-degree murder and attempted especially aggravated robbery. His plea dropped the robbery charge and lessened the murder charge to second-degree murder.
Wright’s 25-year sentence, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office said, will be served without the possibility of parole, and he is expected to be released in 2043 — 20 years from the sentencing due to the five years he has already served in jail prior to the guilty plea.
Wright was arrested and charged alongside Quandarius Richardson, now 23, and an arrest affidavit said Wright told offices the two had been discussing “possible robbery targets as they drove around downtown Memphis” the evening of Sep. 27, 2018. Witnesses would later tell Memphis police investigators they saw someone pull up and exit a white truck, walk towards Trenary and shoot him in the back of the head.
By the time police arrived at the shooting scene, they “observed Trenary lying in the street unresponsive with citizens attempting to render aid,” according to the affidavit. Officers were called around 7:30 p.m., and Trenary was pronounced dead by staff at Regional One Medical Center about half an hour later.
The event Trenary had left that night was the chamber’s Move it Memphis run. Though he was not running in the event himself, he spoke highly of the city before starting the half-mile walk back to his property on South Front Street.
“It was just pretty tough knowing that he was just sharing his excitement about his team, the city, and as always, just really positive and bullish on Memphis,” Memphis-Shelby County Schools board member Kevin Woods told The Commercial Appeal in 2018. “His belief in Memphis had never been stronger. And then, moments later, he was gone.”
Following his death, a fund was set up in his honor through the Community Foundation. The fund stood as an ongoing tribute for a man who adopted Memphis as his home for over two decades and was consistently looking for ways to spread wealth around the city.
He was posthumously honored by the Memphis City Council in 2018 with a Humanitarian Award received by Brittney Rowe, his daughter.
“He didn’t pursue progress for recognition, he pursued it because it was part of his fabric,” Rowe said. “He could visualize the best in each person, and if he was having a conversation with you, you were the only person in the room.”
Trenary was recalled as the “tip-of-the-spear” on many initiatives the chamber pursued, leading on fighting poverty and persuading businesses to create summer jobs for young people — the route he told The CA in mid-2017 that could best lower poverty rates in the city.
“We talk about breaking the cycle of poverty, which is not saying you’re going to end poverty, but if you’re the first person in that family to have a solid middle-class job, and you have a sustained family, you have a car, you have a home, you have all those things, you’ve broken the cycle of poverty,” Trenary said. “So, that’s what we’re talking about. Breaking the cycle of poverty in that family. If you do that ten times, we’re talking about breaking the cycle of poverty in that community.”
Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at [email protected], or (901)208-3922, and followed on X, formerly known as Twitter, @LucasFinton.
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