Next week, 20 violent criminals serving life sentences will be back on the streets of North Carolina.

Among them is one woman.

Faye Brown was convicted of the murder of a state trooper following a 1975 bank robbery. Although she didn't pull the trigger, she was an accomplice to the crime.

For the last few years, Brown has actually been out of prison during the daytime on work release, employed at a Raleigh company.

Brown has told her employer, Wanda Short, she makes no excuses for the crime that occurred 31 years ago which left the trooper dead.

But, Brown's employer says the 56-year-old convict has taken steps over the years to rehabilitate herself and regrets the pain and loss she has caused Trooper Guy Davis' family.

Short says originally, all she knew about Brown was that she was on work-release.

“I did not know why she was incarcerated,” said Short. “Then, about a year later as we got to know each other, she confided in me as to the nature of her crime.”

Because she’s still in the correctional system, Brown can’t do interviews. But, her employer says Brown has shown genuine remorse telling her, “You can’t really understand how I feel. I’m the one who was involved in it and I’m the one that feels it everyday; what happened to this (trooper’s) family.”

Although Brown may show remorse and has turned her life around, the State Highway Patrol sees it differently.

“We believe the sentence that the court handed down earlier is the sentence that she should be held to,” said State Highway Patrol spokesman Sgt. Jeff Gordon.

He adds, “We’re hoping that something will change between now and the release date to keep her in custody.”

With Brown’s probable release now days away, her supporter believes Brown can use her life story as a deterrent.

“She can be the voice to tell others that this is not the way,” said Short. “She can make a big difference to hopefully change a young person’s life so someone else won’t fall victim.”

Currently, the state corrections department takes $20 a day out of Brown's work release paycheck to help defray the cost of her incarceration.

When she's finally released from state custody, she'll be under the oversight of federal probation officials because her crime involved a bank robbery.