Deidra Lane could face 19 years in prison for manslaughter.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) – The widow of NFL running back Fred Lane pleaded guilty Thursday to voluntary manslaughter for shooting him to death three years ago as he walked into his home.

Deidra Lane could get more than 19 years in prison. Sentencing was set for an unspecified date in September.

“I would like to apologize to the Lane family,” a weeping Lane, 28, said at the hearing Thursday. “I’m sorry for the loss and the pain this has caused.”

Authorities said she ambushed her 24-year-old husband at their Charlotte home in July 6, 2000, hoping to cash a $5 million life insurance policy. Lane and her attorney had said she was a battered wife who acted in self-defense.

Deidra Lane was charged with murder a month later and was free on $100,000 bond until she was arrested in an unrelated bank case.

She pleaded guilty last October to a federal conspiracy charge for a 1998 scheme in which she and a teller stole more than $41,200 from a bank and was sentenced to the minimum four months in prison. She has been in jail ever since.

Fred Lane, a 5-foot-10, 205-pound running back, was the Carolina Panthers’ second-leading all-time rusher, finishing with 2,001 yards before he was traded to the Indianapolis Colts in April 2000.

Prosecutors said Deidra Lane had waited for her husband to get home from visiting relatives in Tennessee, then shot him in the chest with a shotgun, walked through the blood and shot him again in the back of the head.

Police found his body just inside the front door. His packed bag lay nearby, and his keys were in the door lock. The defense said Lane was a battered wife who killed in self-defense. They said that while Lane was nine months pregnant, Fred Lane rammed his wife’s head into a wall and threw her down a flight of steps.

“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.”

The football player’s father, Fred Lane Sr., said shortly after the killing that his son and daughter-in-law were having problems.

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