NFL Player Fred Lane Shot To Death In Dispute With Wife, Police Say

Indianapolis Colts running back Fred Lane, 24, was fatally shot recently by his wife during an argument at their Charlotte, NC, home, according to police.

Investigators questioned Deidra Lane, 25, after the shooting for several hours before she was released. Deidra Lane had not been charged at JET press time and police are determining whether the shooting was justified.

"At this point in the investigation, it's not probably strong one way or the other," said Mark Corwin, the lead investigator in the case for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police. "Everybody has a theory, but what can be proved, at this point, it's not one way or the other."

Family, friends and former teammates of the former Carolina Panthers running back said Lane was broke and that Deidra Lane was concealing the location of their money.

"He was going to sell [al motorcycle so he would have some money," said Fred Lane's father, Fred Sr. "She wouldn't tell him where [the couple's money] was."

He said his son and daughter-in-law had been having difficulties recently and that his son left Charlotte and spent the past few weeks at the family home in Nashville, TN, after a pair of gun-related incidents that involved Deidra Lane.

In one, the father said, his son claimed his wife fired a shotgun through a wall while he was in another room. In the other, Fred Lane Sr. said, his son told him Deidra Lane pointed a handgun at him. After both incidents, he said, his son took the gun and gave it to a friend.

Fred Lane Jr. did not report the gun incidents because of an earlier domestic violence complaint filed by Deidra Lane against her husband and due to his own arrest in February in Tennessee, Fred Lane Sr. said. He faced a misdemeanor drug charge at the time of his death. Lane had returned to Charlotte a few hours before the shooting.

The (Nashville) Tennessean recently reported that Lane's former teammates William Floyd, Chris Terry and Muhsin Muhammad set up a meeting with police to tell what they knew of the situation.

"As far as I'm concerned he could have called the police on her several times for domestic violence," Floyd said. "I've seen stuff with my own eyes ... He's come around my house with knots on him and all scratched up and telling me about her throwing stuff at him and trying to hit him."

Deidra Lane, who recently gave birth to the couple's daughter, released a statement through her attorney in which she said she loved her husband and shares his family's grief over his death.

"At his best, Fred could be very good," she said. "At his worst, Fred was very different. I choose to remember Fred at his best. I want to help all of our children to remember Fred at his best." The couple also has a 5-year-old son.