CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Sobbing and apologizing to the family of NFL running back Fred Lane, Deidra Lane pleaded guilty Thursday to voluntary manslaughter for gunning her husband down as he walked through the front door of their home.

Deidra Lane, 28, faces more than 19 years in prison, but prosecutors said she likely will get a sentence of about 10 years.

"I would like to apologize to the Lane family," she said in tears at Thursday's hearing. "I'm sorry for the loss and the pain this has caused."

She was originally charged with first-degree murder, and a brief statement issued jointly by prosecutors and Lane's defense team didn't explain why the charge was downgraded.

Mecklenburg County assistant district attorney Glenn Cole also refused to explain, though he said a plea bargain had been discussed by attorneys for months.

"Things came to a head rapidly and it resulted in this plea today," he said.

District attorney Peter Gilchrist also declined to elaborate.

"I think it's appropriate to get in all the facts in the courtroom," which he said will happen at the sentencing hearing when Superior Court Judge Timothy Patti's docket is clear.

Deidra Lane pleaded guilty last year to an unrelated federal charge of conspiracy to commit bank larceny, and was sentenced to four months in jail, which she has served, and a $41,200 fine.

Prosecutor Marsha Goodenow said Lane appeared before Patti and answered a series of questions posed by the judge.

"She admitted in open court that she was indeed guilty of the voluntary manslaughter of her husband," Goodenow said.

Her 24-year-old husband, a running back for the Carolina Panthers who had recently been traded to Indianapolis, was shot to death as he came home from visiting his family in Tennessee. Police found Fred Lane's body just inside the front door of his house. His packed bag lay nearby, and his keys were in the door lock.

Prosecutors portrayed Deidra Lane as a cold-blooded and abusive woman who murdered her husband in hopes of collecting on a $5 million life insurance policy.

They said she waited for her husband to get home, shot him in the chest with a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, then walked through his blood and shot him again in the back of the head.

But the defense said Lane was a battered wife who killed in self-defense. Her lawyer said that during a three-day period while Lane was nine months pregnant, Fred Lane rammed his wife's head into a wall, broke open her lip 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 he was shot. "I kept telling him to stop."

Deidra Lane was charged with murder in August 2000 and was free on $100,000 bond until she was arrested the following month for a 1998 bank larceny. She has been in jail ever since.

Fred Lane spent three seasons with Carolina. He was the team's second-leading career rusher, finishing with 2,001 yards before he was traded to the Colts in April 2000.

His father, Fred Lane Sr., said shortly after the killing that his son and daughter-in-law had been having marital problems, and Lane Jr. had been living at the family home in Nashville.

Lane Sr. was at Thursday's hearing.