Brenda Duran, the former Corvallis woman who confessed to fatally shooting her husband nearly 24 years ago, is expected to plead guilty to a related charge this month, attorneys involved in the case said Thursday.

Neither Duran’s defense lawyers nor the Benton County District Attorney’s Office would discuss the details of the plea bargain. Attorneys are expected to finalize the deal during a May 12 hearing.

Duran told investigators in 1982 that an “East Indian” man robbed the couple’s downtown Corvallis shoe repair store and shot her husband, Greg Kirkelie. The couple’s 6-month-old daughter was in the store at the time of the shooting.

Kirkelie, who was 29, died a short time later at Good Samaritan Hospital.

For years, detectives followed leads in the case, but arrested no one. Then, in 2001, Duran’s second ex-husband came forward with shotgun shells that allegedly were among Duran’s belongings and, FBI tests showed, were from the same batch used to kill Greg Kirkilie.

On Thursday, Carolee Kirkelie, Greg’s sister, called the expected plea bargain “a step, for once, in the right direction.”

After nearly a quarter-century with few answers in the case, she said it was difficult to believe “that we’re on the cusp of closure.”

Duran, 53, confessed to the shooting during an Oct. 12 interview with Corvallis police detectives in Oklahoma, where she had been living.

“After I gave him a hug and told him I loved him, I took the gun and put it between the shelves … and shot him,” Duran said, according to a transcript of the interview.

She also told the detectives that, just after the June 10, 1982, murder, she began an affair with a Corvallis Police officer who was assigned to the case.

A Benton County grand jury charged Duran in October with one count of murder with a firearm. Duran, who pleaded not guilty in November, is being held in the Benton County jail.

She told detectives that her husband had been abusive, but authorities said last year that they suspect a financial motive in the shooting. Duran kept track of the family’s finances, and $25,000 had disappeared from two bank accounts. Greg Kirkelie was scheduled to meet with an attorney to get to the bottom of the matter the day he was killed.

Duran’s lawyers filed a motion in February to suppress her statements, arguing that she had been duped into confessing and that she had not been read her Miranda rights until after she talked.

Attorneys began arguing the matter April 24 before a circuit court judge. A hearing on the issue was expected to resume Thursday.

But, shortly before Thursday’s hearing, lawyers disappeared into Judge David Connell’s chambers. The attorneys surfaced again a short time later, and Connell set a date for later this month to formalize the plea bargain.

Pat Birmingham, one of the Portland attorneys representing Duran, said he had discussed a plea bargain with the district attorney’s office early in the case. The possibility arose again last week, he said.

He declined to say whether his motion to suppress Duran’s statements played a role in the deal.

“A lot of times plea agreements are met the night before trial or after litigation has taken place,” he said.