Judge To Mull Lane Case Issues
Prosecutors filed a motion Friday asking a judge to decide if Deidra Lane can face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of her husband, NFL running back Fred Lane.
Mecklenburg County Superior Court Judge Shirley Fulton scheduled a Sept. 18 hearing on the state's motion.
Telephone messages left with lead prosecutor Marsha Goodenow and defense attorney Henderson Hill were not immediately returned.
Deidra Lane, 25, is out of jail after posting a $100,000 bond last week.
On a recording of her 911 call July 6, Deidra Lane said her husband choked and hit her and said her baby wasn't his child before she fatally shot him in their southeast Charlotte home.
The 11-minute tape of the telephone conversation between Deidra Lane and the operator was released by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police on Tuesday, one week after murder warrants were issued against her.
"I was standing here and he came in. I just had the baby seven days ago," Deidra Lane says on the tape, screaming and sobbing. "And he came in and he started choking me. He was like, 'That baby's not mine.' He started hitting me. He just got shot because he wouldn't leave me alone. I kept telling him to stop."
Deidra Lane surrendered to police on Aug. 23.
Prosecutors said Deidra Lane shot her husband to collect on a $5 million life insurance policy. At a bond hearing last week, they accused Deidra Lane of walking through her husband's blood on the floor, putting the shotgun to the back of his head and firing again.
Hill said after the bond hearing the defense will present another side of the story at trial.
On the 911 tape, Deidra Lane says, "I was so scared, I just shot him again."
In March, Deidra Lane filed a domestic violence complaint against Fred Lane, accusing her husband of snatching a necklace from her neck during an argument. She later said her husband "never put his hands on me."
Lane played three seasons with the Carolina Panthers before being traded to the Indianapolis Colts in April.
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