Memphis Jury Takes Eight Minutes to Convict the Man Who Killed Musician Blake Rhea

Eight minutes. That is how long a Shelby County jury needed, the district attorney's office said Monday, to decide that Edward Wurl murdered Blake Rhea — the Memphis bassist whose playing anchored the Grammy-nominated soul-blues band Southern Avenue and half the rooms on Beale Street at one time or another.

Wurl, 53, was convicted of first-degree murder and of being a felon in possession of a handgun, the DA's office said in an October 12 press release. He had been arrested on November 7, 2024, the day after Rhea was killed.

An argument that followed him outside

Memphis police were called to Louis Connelly's Bar for Fun Times & Friendship at 1:13 a.m. on November 6, 2024, and found Rhea dead. According to the police account, Wurl ran from the scene. Investigators said the two men had been involved in a verbal altercation inside the bar before it moved outside.

The case against Wurl rested heavily on what the cameras saw. A police affidavit said the bar's security guard heard several gunshots and saw that Rhea had been shot inside a car, and that surveillance footage reviewed by officers showed the shooting itself: Rhea walking toward his car across the street, Wurl behind him holding a knife behind his back, then the two struggling at the open driver's door — and, as Wurl backed away, a series of flashes from his raised right hand, consistent with muzzle flashes from a firearm.

A fixture of Memphis music

Rhea was the bass player for Southern Avenue, the Memphis soul-blues group whose rise from Beale Street bars to a Grammy nomination carried the city's sound with it. He played with other local groups as well, one of those musicians whose name appears in the credits of a scene rather than above the title — and whose absence is felt in every room he used to hold down.

The jury's speed tells its own story about the evidence: video, witnesses, and a defendant who fled. With the verdict in, the case moves to sentencing, where the court will set the punishment on the first-degree murder conviction. What the eight minutes cannot settle is the arithmetic Memphis keeps doing — another working musician, another argument, another gun.