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Deidra Lane seemed set for
life. She was married to the career-leading running back for the
Carolina Panthers; she had a big new house in suburban Charlotte, a
five-year-old son and a life most 25-year-olds would envy.
But with a new baby on the way and Fred traded to the Indianapolis
Colts at the beginning of 2000, there were big changes in store for
the young couple. Deidra and Fred began fighting over money and over
the amount of time he spent on the road. Police had been called to the
house over at least one incident of domestic violence.
Then on July 6th, 2000, just days after the birth of Deidra's second
child, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Department received a frantic
911 call from the Lane residence. Deidra Lane had just shot her
husband.
She claimed she killed Fred in self-defense, but when Mecklenburg
County deputies arrived at the house, something about Deidra's story
didn't seem quite right. Fred's keys were still in the lock and Fred
had been shot twice with a 12-gauge shotgun - once in the chest and a
second time in the back of the head, apparently at point blank range.
Several weeks later, Deidra was arrested and charged with murder. But
before she could face those charges, she was charged by federal
authorities for a 1998 bank robbery, which she orchestrated with a
friend, one of the bank's tellers. Deidra pled guilty to the larceny
charges.
Then, she pled guilty to the involuntary manslaughter of her husband.
At the lengthy sentencing hearing, her attorneys alleged she was a
battered spouse. But, prosecutors said it was Deidra who was violent
and abusive. After hearing the evidence, the judge sentenced Deidra to
8 years in prison, the maximum sentence allowed.
Woman who killed former Panther released from
prison
News-Record.com
March 3, 2009
RALEIGH (AP) — The widow of slain Carolina Panthers running back Fred
Lane walked out of prison Tuesday after serving nearly six years for
his shotgun death.
Deidra Lane, 33, was released from the Raleigh Correctional Center for
Women on the city's south side at 9:25 a.m. and walked out the front
door into a BMW, where relatives waited to take her home. She did not
stop to speak to reporters.
A message left for Fred
Lane Sr., Fred Lane's father, was not immediately returned.
Deidra Lane pleaded
guilty to voluntary manslaughter in 2003, three years after her
estranged husband was found fatally shot inside their home. Fred Lane
played for the Carolina Panthers for three years and had been traded
to the Indianapolis Colts before his death.
Prosecutors at her
sentencing described Deidra Lane as an abusive woman who killed her
husband for insurance money. Defense attorneys called her a battered
wife who killed in self defense.
A judge sentenced Deidra
Lane to seven years and 11 months, ruling her actions were
premeditated and deliberate, that she acted with malice and shot him a
second time after he'd already been rendered helpless. She received
credit for jail time served waiting on a federal charge of conspiracy
to commit bank larceny. She pleaded guilty and served four months for
that charge.
The Lanes had been having
difficulties before the shooting. In March 2000, Deidra Lane filed a
domestic complaint saying her husband had snatched a necklace from
around her neck, causing her to fall. She never pressed charges. Fred
Lane also had spent several weeks in late June and early July of that
year staying with his family in Nashville.
Authorities said Deidra
Lane waited for her husband on July 6 as he returned from his family
home. They said she shot him once as he walked through the door, then
walked through his blood and shot him a second time in the back of the
head.
Police found him dead
inside the front door of the couple's Charlotte home. His keys were
still in the door.
"He just got shot because
he wouldn't leave me alone," a sobbing and screaming Lane told a 911
operator the day of the shooting. "I kept telling him to stop."
Fred Lane, 24, was a
running back for the Carolina Panthers from 1997 to 2000, when he was
traded to the Indianapolis Colts. The 5-foot-10, 205-pound Lane is the
Panthers' fifth-leading all-time rusher, finishing with 2,001 yards
before his April 2000 trade.
Widow jailed for killing NFL husband
CNN.com
Wednesday, November 5,
2003
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (AP) -- The widow of NFL
running back Fred Lane was sentenced to nearly eight years in prison
Wednesday for shooting her husband to death three years ago as he
walked in the front door.
Deidra Lane, 28, broke down in tears as the judge
read the sentence. She pleaded guilty in August to voluntary
manslaughter.
She said her husband had abused her physically and
emotionally. "I loved Fred dearly ... but at times he scared me and I
didn't know him then," she said.
Judge Timothy Patti gave her the maximum sentence,
ruling that the slaying was premeditated and deliberate, that Lane
acted with malice, and that she shot her husband a second time after
the first shot rendered him helpless. Those factors outweighed the
alleged abuse, the judge said.
Fred Lane, a 24-year-old running back for the
Carolina Panthers who had recently been traded to Indianapolis, was
found dead just inside the front door of his Charlotte home in 2000,
his keys still in the lock.
Deidra Lane also pleaded guilty last year to
unrelated charges of conspiracy to commit bank larceny. She was
sentenced to four months in jail, which she has served, and fined
$41,200.
Medical examiner: First
shotgun blast left Lane unconscious
Chronicle.Augusta.com
October 31, 2003
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A tearful Deidra Lane left the
courtroom twice Wednesday, avoiding graphic testimony about her
shooting of her late husband, NFL running back Fred Lane.
Prosecutors concluded their case in the sentencing
hearing for Deidra Lane, 28, who pleaded guilty to voluntary
manslaughter in August.
Lawyers for Lane, who faces a sentence of up to
eight years, presented their first witness, an obstetrician who said
Lane told her three weeks before the shooting that she had been
physically and verbally abused by her husband.
Deidra Lane spent most of the day slumped in her
chair at the defense table, eyes cast downward and frequently crying.
She first left the courtroom during morning testimony by Mecklenburg
County's medical examiner, Dr. Michael Sullivan, about his autopsy of
Fred Lane.
Lane left again just before a police department
firearms expert showed the heavily bloodstained yellow shirt Fred Lane
was wearing when he was killed on July 6, 2000.
In both cases, Superior Court Judge Timothy Patti
allowed Lane to leave after reminding her that she was waiving her
constitutional right to be present.
Both the firearms expert, Bill McBrayer, and
Sullivan testified that they concluded Fred Lane was shot from
distances of 8 feet or less.
Sullivan said that the first shot fired at Fred
Lane, which struck him in the chest and ripped apart his heart, "would
cause a loss of consciousness very rapidly, within seconds, certainly
less than a minute."
Deidra Lane told police investigators her husband
was still moving after she fired the first shot and that she fired a
second time because she "(thought) he was going to get up and come
back at me."
The prosecution concluded its case by showing Patti
photographs of the crime scene and a videotaped re-enactment of the
shooting as it was described by Deidra Lane to police investigators.
The tape, made two months after the shooting,
featured police detectives playing the roles of Fred and Deidra Lane.
Among other things, the tape showed Deidra Lane
would have had to be standing almost directly over her husband's prone
body to have fired the second shot from 3 feet away, as Sullivan
concluded. That could raise doubt about her claim that Fred Lane still
threatened her when she shot him in the back of the head.
Fred Lane, who played for the Carolina Panthers and
was traded to Indianapolis shortly before his death, was shot as he
entered his south Charlotte home. His body was found face down in a
pool of blood in the entryway.
Prosecutors believe Deidra Lane, who had given
birth to a daughter one week earlier, shot Fred Lane as he walked
through the door, then walked through a pool of his blood to shoot him
a second time.
Defense lawyers say Fred Lane entered the house in
a rage and that Deidra Lane killed him in self-defense.
Dr. Devon Delaney, who was Deidra Lane's
obstetrician, testified that Lane told her at a June 14, 2000, office
visit that Fred Lane had physically and verbally abused her. On June
28, Delaney said, Lane asked to have her pregnancy induced so that she
could give birth before Fred Lane returned to Charlotte from an
out-of-town trip.
The baby was born the following day.
Defense documents filed in the case have argued
that Fred Lane's abuse of his wife grew more frequent and severe in
the weeks before his death. Fred Lane is alleged to have pushed Deidra
Lane out of a car as he accelerated away and to have grabbed her by
the throat, lifted her off the ground and thrown her into a sink.
Under cross-examination, Delaney acknowledged that
she never saw bruises or other physical signs of abuse or injury on
Lane beyond a cut lip that Lane told her was an accident.
The hearing is expected to last more than a week,
unusual for a sentencing. But no evidence was put on before Deidra
Lane entered her guilty plea, and the agreement leaves sentencing up
to Patti.
Police Release Lane 911 Tape
CBSNews.com
Fred Lane's wife told a 911 operator that her
husband choked and hit her and said her baby wasn't his child before
she fatally shot the NFL running back in their home, according to a
police recording released Tuesday.
The 11-minute tape of the July 6 telephone
conversation between Deidra Lane and the operator was released by
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police one week after murder charges were filed
against her in her husband's death.
Deidra Lane told an operator that she shot her
husband twice, minutes after he walked through the door of their
suburban Charlotte home, according to tapes released to the
Charlotte Observer.
"I was standing here and he came in. I just had
the baby seven days ago," 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, 25, turned herself in to police Aug.
23. She is free on $100,000 bond while she awaits a murder trial in
the death of the former Carolina Panthers player. She could receive
life in prison or the death penalty if convicted of first-degree
murder.
Police had been fighting a judge's order to release
the tape to the media, but they decided to make it public Tuesday.
"We thought it was just time," police
attorney Mark Newbold told the Observer, declining to
elaborate.
Deidra Lane's attorney, Henderson Hill, and
Mecklenburg County Assistant District Attorney Marsha Goodenow, who is
prosecuting the case, both declined comment on the tape.
The tape covered the time from when she called 911
until police were inside her home. After she spoke with the 911
operator, Deidra Lane spent several hours giving police a voluntary
statement about the shooting.
The 911 operator on the tape repeatedly tells a
hysterical Deidra Lane to take a deep breath, calm down and tell her
what happened.
"I think I shot him in the chest or stomach and
I think I just shot him again. I don't know. Please send somebody.
There is blood everywhere. There is blood all over me."
The operator asks if he is breathing.
"I don't know. I didn't go near him," she
responds. "I'm sorry Pilarr. ... I'm sorry," she says, speaking
to her baby, born a week before the shooting. She told the operator
that she's nursing the baby.
Later, she told the operator: "He just walked in
the door like two or three or four minutes ago. He wasn't even here
that long. I was just coming back from the kitchen and he just said,
`Someone told me that's not my baby.' I don't even know if he dropped
his luggage or not."
Prosecutors said last week uring a bond hearing
that Deidra Lane shot her husband to collect on a $5 million life
insurance policy. They said Deidra Lane of walking through her
husband's blood on the floor, putting the shotgun to the back of his
head and firing again.
Defense attorney Henderson Hill said after the
hearing Deidra Lane will present a much different picture of the facts
at trial.
On the 911 tape, she says, "I was so scared, I
just shot him again."
She also tells the operator her husband had
assaulted her before.
"It was in the paper once, but I denied it. I
mean I didn't really tell my friends know. But I was so embarrassed
because of who he is," she said. "He always told me if I ever
told anybody, he'd make it worse and I'd ruin his career."
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. But she later said her
husband "never put his hands on me.·
Prosecutor Says
Widow of NFL Player Planned Slaying; Judge Allows Bond
By Paul Nowell - Vawa4all.org
Friday, August 25,
2000
CHARLOTTE —
NFL running back Fred
Lane was killed by an estranged wife who waited for him to return home
and blew his body to shreds with two shotgun blasts, the prosecutor in
the case said Friday.
Deidra Lane, 25, planned her husband's
death to collect on a $5 million life insurance policy taken out
between 30 and 45 days before the shooting, assistant district
attorney Gentry Caudill said at a bond hearing.
Mecklenburg County Superior Court
Judge Richard Boner ruled Deidra Lane could be released on $100,000
secured bond.
Caudill said prosecutors had not
decided on whether to pursue the death penalty, but told the judge
Mrs. Lane's premeditation could qualify as a capital offense.
"Fred lane had no value to Deidra
Lane while he was alive," Caudill said. "The state contends this was
first-degree murder. She laid in wait to kill him."
Defense attorney Henderson Hill
told the judge that Deidra Lane posed no risk of flight or danger to
anyone in the community.
"There is just tragedy all over
this case, there's no question about that," Hill said.
In addition, she is nursing the
couple's eight-week-old daughter. Deidra Lane's 4-year-old son from a
previous relationship is suffering from the loss of his father figure
and his mother's arrest, Hill said.
"I think the emotional health of
this young 25-year-old and her two young children are very important
factors that should weigh heavily on your decision on whether she
should be released," Hill said.
Deidra Lane hung her head and
sobbed heavily as Hill spoke.
Boner offered no reason why he
decided to set bond.
He ordered Deidra Lane not to
leave Mecklenburg County. He warned that the $100,000 in cash or
assets posted as bond would be forfeit if she failed to appear at
future hearings.
Fred Lane, 24, was shot and
killed July 6 during an argument with his wife at the couple's home.
She was charged with murder this week.
Caudill had opposed the bond,
saying the couple had separated two weeks before the slaying after
Deidra Lane pointed a pistol at her husband. He moved in with
relatives in Nashville, Tenn., after training with the Indianapolis
Colts. The running back had been traded from the Carolina Panthers to
the Colts in April.
"They separated because Deidra
Lane was going through all his money," Caudill said. "He was making
$600,000 a year but when he went back to Nashville he was almost
penniless because Deidra Lane controlled all of their money."
Deidra Lane bought the plane
ticket for her husband to fly from Nashville to Charlotte and arranged
for her brother to pick Fred Lane up at airport, Caudill said. Mrs.
Lane's mother, who had been living with her in the couple's home, and
Deidra Lane's 4-year-old son from a previous relationship, were not at
home at the time of the shooting.
"When police arrived at the
residence, Fred Lane's keys were in the door. His bags were still in
the foyer and a 12-gauge shotgun was on the floor," Caudill said.
Blood splatter patterns indicated
that the first shotgun blast hit Fred Lane in the chest, the
prosecutor said.
"That shot in effect blew out
Fred Lane's heart," Caudill said. "As Fred Lane lay there dying.
Deidra Lane walked through his blood and put the shotgun up to his
head and blew his skull off."
An autopsy released Thursday said
showed one gun blast struck him behind the right ear. It traveled
upward, slightly to the left and slightly forward, injuring the skull
and brain. An X-ray revealed about 16 shotgun pellets, most of which
were recovered from the skull and scalp, the autopsy said.
The other blast struck Lane in
the upper right chest, traveling to the left and slightly downward and
injuring his heart, lungs and other internal organs.
Fred Lane's father, Fred Lane
Sr., watched the hearing from the front row of courtroom seats
directly behind Deidra Lane. He put head down and placed a hand over
his eyes as the judge said he would allow Mrs. Lane free on bond.
Fred Lane Sr. declined to speak
to reporters after the hearing.
Deidra Lane's parents also left
without commenting.
Lane's death came eight months
after former Carolina teammate Rae Carruth and three other men were
charged with killing Carruth's pregnant girlfriend. Carruth, 26, is
being held without bond awaiting trial for first-degree murder.
Lane, a 5-foot-10, 205-pound
running back, played for three seasons with Carolina and became the
Panthers' leading career rusher in November.
The Panthers re-signed Lane
before the 1999 season to a two-year, $1.276 million contract with a
$300,000 signing bonus. Lane shared rushing duties with Biakabutuka
but played largely as a backup late in the season.
Fred Lane found shot to death
Chronicle.Augusta.com
July 7, 2000
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Indianapolis Colts running back
Fred Lane, whose brushes with the law increased as his career faded,
was shot to death Thursday by his wife, police said.
Lane was pronounced dead at his Charlotte home at
3:15 p.m. after an argument with his wife, 25-year-old Deidra. No
charges were immediately filed.
Lane, a 5-foot-10, 205-pound running back, was the
leading career rusher for the Carolina Panthers, who traded him to the
Colts in April.
Police questioned Deidra Lane, along with family
members and neighbors.
"The investigation to this point has revealed that
Deidra Lane shot her husband during a domestic dispute," the police
said in a statement.
A 7-day-old infant was with Deidra Lane at the
police station. Their house was decorated with pink balloons and a
pink stork. The Lanes also have a 5-year-old son.
The Colts released a statement that said the team
was "shocked and saddened" by news of Lane's death.
Lane's father, Fred Lane Sr., said his son and
daughter-in-law had been having difficulties recently. Lane had spent
the past couple of weeks at the family home in Nashville, Tenn., but
visited Charlotte briefly a week ago, his father said.
He had left Tennessee on a flight to Charlotte
about two hours before he was shot, the elder Lane said.
Deidra Lane filed a complaint against her husband
in March, saying he snatched a necklace from around her neck during an
argument, causing her to fall. She did not press charges.
Lane, 24, also had a case pending against him
related to his Feb. 3 arrest in Tennessee. A grand jury in Jackson,
Tenn., indicted him Monday on the misdemeanor drug charges, but
prosecutors dropped weapons charges against him, saying there wasn't
enough evidence to support it.
The Panthers suspended Lane for one game in 1998
when he made a lewd gesture to fans at Giants Stadium after scoring a
touchdown against the New York Jets. The same season, he was demoted
to special teams duty after missing a team flight to Dallas, and later
apologized for refusing to stand for the national anthem at a game in
Buffalo.
The 5-foot-10, 205-pound Lane was the leading
career rusher for the Panthers.
At the time of his trade, Carolina coach George
Seifert said team owner Jerry Richardson never ordered him to drop
Lane, but he knew the Panthers had to cut their ties with troublesome
players.
Lane spent three seasons with Carolina and finished
with 2,004 yards rushing.
Lane Sr. said his son had been training in
Indianapolis before visiting Tennessee. "Everything was going great,"
in his son's life, he said.
Lane is one of two former Panthers to face legal
troubles in recent months.
Rae Carruth, the Panthers' top 1997 draft pick, was
charged last fall with fatally shooting his pregnant girlfriend,
Cherica Adams. Carruth is being held without bond in Charlotte, while
he awaits trial.
The Panthers re-signed Lane before the 1999 season
to a two-year, $1.276 million contract with a $300,000 signing bonus.
Lane shared rushing duties with Tshimanga Biakabutuka but played
largely as a backup late in the season.
In what would be his last game for Carolina, Lane
started for an injured Biakabutuka and rushed for a season-high 90
yards and his only touchdown of the season in a loss at Pittsburgh.
Fred Brown Lane, Jr.
(September 6, 1975 – July 6, 2000) was an American football running
back in the NFL for the Carolina Panthers.
Early life
Lane was born and raised in Franklin, Tennessee.
His father, Fred Lane, Sr., was a star at the old Natchez High School
(which later desegregated with Franklin High). Attending Franklin
Junior High School, it was noticed that Lane possessed uncommon speed
and agility for such a young player.
Lane attended Franklin High School, amassing over
1,000 yards his senior year, while averaging 7.5 yards per carry. His
number, 28, is retired by the school.
College career
Lane attended Lane College in
Jackson, Tennessee. He finished his career with 3,612 rushing yards,
just ten yards behind Tre Rowland.
Pro career
Lane was signed as an undrafted free agent by the
Panthers before the 1997 NFL season. He set a then-team record that
year with a 147 rushing yard performance. During his three years with
the Panthers, he accumulated 2,001 rushing yards (the most in
franchise history at the time) and 13 touchdowns.
In 1998, Lane was late for the team's charter plane
to Dallas, and was benched as punishment. Later that season, he
celebrated a touchdown by grabbing his crotch. The gesture was not
seen on national television, but was captured by WBTV in Charlotte.
When the Panthers saw it, they benched Lane for the next week's game.
Lane also embarrassed himself and the Panthers by putting on another
elaborate celebration of a touchdown—in a game where the New York Jets
defeated Carolina 52-24.
In April 2000, his wife Deidra Lane filed a
complaint against him for domestic violence. Shortly thereafter, he
was traded to the Indianapolis Colts, where he was set to back up
Edgerrin James.
Death
On July 5, 2000, Lane made a phone call to his
father telling him that he wanted to sell his motorcycle because he
needed the cash. On July 6, 2000, he was shot and killed by his wife
Deidra during an alleged domestic dispute. Law enforcement
investigators believe Deidra Lane shot her husband moments after he
arrived at their Mecklenburg home for the $5 million in life insurance
he carried.
Deidra pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter. She
claimed that Fred emotionally and physically abused her; however, the
judge ruled that the shooting was premeditated and that she
deliberately shot Fred twice, even though the first shot rendered him
helpless. The judge determined that those factors outweighed the
alleged abuse and gave her eight years in prison, the maximum sentence
allowed. She served her sentence at Raleigh Correctional Center for
Women. She was released on March 3, 2009.
