Lane's Wife: He Choked, Hit Me
C H A R L O T T E, Aug. 30, 2000 -- Fred Lane’s wife told a 911 operator that herhusband choked and hit her and said her baby wasn’t his childbefore she shot the NFL running back in their home, according to arecording released Tuesday.
The 11-minute tape of the June 6 telephone conversation betweenDeidra Lane and the operator was released by Charlotte-Mecklenburgpolice one week after murder warrants were issued against her inher husband’s death.
Shot Husband Twice
Deidra Lane told an operator that she shot her husband twice,minutes after he walked through the front door of their suburbanCharlotte home.
“I was standing here and he came in. I just had the baby sevendays ago,” Lane says on the tape, screaming and sobbing. “And hecame in and he started choking me. He was like, ‘That baby’s notmine.’ He started hitting me. He just got shot because he wouldn’tleave me alone. I kept telling him to stop.”
Deidra Lane, 25, turned herself in to police Aug. 23. She isfree on $100,000 bond while she awaits a murder trial in the deathof the former Carolina Panthers player. She could receive life inprison or the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder.
Police had been fighting a judge’s order to release the tape tothe media, but they decided to make it public Tuesday.
“We thought it was just time,” police attorney Mark Newboldsaid, declining to elaborate.
Deidra Lane’s attorney, Henderson Hill, and Mecklenburg CountyAssistant District Attorney Marsha Goodenow, who is prosecuting thecase, both declined comment on the tape.
The tape covered the time from when she called 911 until policewere inside her home. After she spoke with the 911 operator, DeidraLane spent several hours giving police a voluntary statement aboutthe shooting.
‘There is Blood Everywhere’
The 911 operator on the tape repeatedly tells a hystericalDeidra Lane to take a deep breath, calm down and tell her whathappened.
“I think I shot him in the chest or stomach and I think I justshot him again. I don’t know. Please send somebody. There is bloodeverywhere. 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’msorry, Pilarr. I’m sorry,” she says, speaking to her baby, born aweek before the shooting. She tells the operator that she’s nursingthe baby.
Later, she told the operator: “He just walked in the door liketwo or three or four minutes ago. He wasn’t even here that long. Iwas just coming back from the kitchen and he just said, ‘Someonetold me that’s not my baby.’ I don’t even know if he dropped hisluggage or not.”
Prosecutors: She Eyed $5M
Prosecutors said last week during a bond hearing that DeidraLane shot her husband to collect on a $5 million life insurancepolicy. They accuse Deidra Lane of walking through her husband’sblood on the floor, putting the shotgun to the back of his head andfiring again.
Defense attorney Henderson Hill said after the hearing DeidraLane will present a much different picture of the facts at trial.
On the 911 tape, she says, “I was so scared, I just shot himagain.”
She also tells the operator her husband had assaulted herbefore.
“It was in the paper once, but I denied it. I mean I didn’treally tell my friends know. But I was so embarrassed because ofwho 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 complaintagainst Fred Lane, accusing her husband of snatching a necklacefrom her neck during an argument. But she later said her husband“never put his hands on me.”