Last week, when Aiken County Sheriff's Office investigators searched the home of accused murderer Franklin Wright, it wasn't the first time they were inside the family's Oliver Drive residence. While scouring the home for clues and evidence of the murders that claimed the lives of 75-year-old Yana Schenker and 28-year-old Shalamar Byrd, investigators came across items stolen years ago when two of Franklin Wright's younger brothers, Emerson Wright and Tyrone Wright, were linked to a 2003-04 spree of burglaries and arsons in the area. Franklin Wright, who is currently being held in Augusta for an assault on an Augusta woman two weeks after the murders in Aiken County, is one of more than a dozen siblings who grew up in Beech Island. He has spent more than 30 of his 55 years in the S.C. state prison system for rape, armed robberies, burglaries and assaults. While he served the most recent 17-year-stint (1989-2006) for two armed robberies and a first degree burglary in Columbia, local authorities were having run-ins with his younger brothers, the late Emerson Wright and Tyrone Wright, now 33. Between 2003 and 2004, both Emerson Wright and Tyrone Wright committed crimes in the area that led police from the City of North Augusta to the front door of their Oliver Drive home. Police elsewhere in the state also say that Emerson Wright may have been involved in the May 16, 2003, armed robbery and triple homicide at Blue Ridge Savings Bank in Greer. He was believed to have stolen a red Oldsmobile Alero from the airport in Columbia only days before the shootings. Investigators in Greer said this week that they were never able to call Emerson Wright a "suspect" but did identify him as a person of interest, and the deaths of the teller and a couple banking inside are still unsolved. In 2004, officials said the "jig was up" for the younger Wright brothers, and their crimes between 2003 and 2004 were brought to light. On May 12, 2004, Tyrone Wright was caught stealing from a check-cashing business in North Augusta. As a result, officers searched the Wright's three-bedroom family home, and inside investigators found a cache of firearms, computer equipment and other items that had been stolen from multiple businesses. Tyrone Wright was charged with breaking into the check cashing business, and evidence from the home linked both him and Emerson Wright to break-ins at Industrial Tool and Engineering, Cold Creek Nurseries, Worksite Preparation, Baynham Ornamental Iron, Kenwood Plastics and Compucar. The brothers were also charged with burglary and arson at Building Surplus and Salvage (BSS). Tyrone Wright was held at the Aiken County detention center until August 2007, when he pleaded guilty to grand larceny. He was sentenced to time served for the three years and three months he was held at the detention center awaiting trail. Emerson Wright fled police, and warrants were issued for his arrest for his alleged role in the burglaries and arson. A year later, in Aug. 2005, Emerson Wright was still on the run and got tangled in a high-speed chase with Georgia troopers that ended in Eatonton, Ga., when he got out of a vehicle and shot himself. He was airlifted to an Atlanta hospital where he later died. Aiken County Sheriff's Office investigator Stacey Prince said Emerson and Tyrone Wright had stolen hundreds of items during the Aiken County crime spree. In addition to the computer equipment, money and guns, they took a pickup truck and shrubbery from Cold Creek Nurseries. He said they stole toilets, interior doors, a water heater and light fixtures from BSS before they set fire to the building in November 2003 and burned the building down. "They basically remodeled their Oliver Drive home with the stuff," he said. Shrubbery stolen from Cold Creek was planted outside the residence, and the stolen water heater and toilet had been installed at the residence. "Actually, the toilet still had the BSS price sticker on it," Prince said. Last week, when investigators went to search for Franklin Wright, they returned to Oliver Drive. Some of the stolen items were still crammed inside. Investigators said there so many items stolen in 2003- 2004, they knew they were unable to fully access what had been taken. Contact Karen Daily at kdaily@aikenstandard.com.
