In Oklahoma, Rana Sievert faces formal sentencing June 11 after jurors recommended a 35-year term.
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — Nearly four years after Brianne Torres was found dead in a Rockwell Avenue apartment, an Oklahoma County jury convicted her girlfriend, Rana Sievert, of first-degree manslaughter in the fatal shooting.
The verdict brought the case from an early police bulletin to a sentencing hearing now set for June 11. Torres was 24 when she died Oct. 7, 2022. Sievert, also 24 at the time, was arrested at the apartment and later tried in a case that raised questions about self-defense, passion, intent and the meaning of conduct after a killing. Jurors recommended 35 years in prison after choosing manslaughter rather than murder.
Torres’ name first appeared in the public record that morning in an Oklahoma City police notice labeled Homicide No. 61 of 2022. The bulletin said officers were called at 1:18 a.m. to 8235 N. Rockwell Ave. after a domestic-related shooting. Police said they found Torres dead inside the apartment and arrested Sievert at the scene. The notice gave no details about the women’s relationship beyond the domestic setting. Later court records and news reports identified them as girlfriends. Torres had turned 24 on Sept. 7. Her obituary page lists her full name as Brianne Nicole Torres and gives her date of death as Oct. 7, 2022.
In the first days after the shooting, investigators described a scene that began as a suspicious death and quickly became a homicide case. Court documents summarized in local coverage said Sievert admitted to police that she shot Torres once in the chest. She said the women were in a physical fight and that Torres had grabbed her and choked her. Sievert said she broke free, went into the bedroom, took Torres’ handgun from a nightstand and fired. Police also said Sievert tried to cut off one of Torres’ legs before she called 911. Investigators recovered a kitchen knife from the apartment and took two security cameras as evidence.
The facts later reviewed by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals added more detail to that account. The court said Sievert and Torres had argued about relationship issues before the fight moved through the apartment. Sievert said both women reached for the nightstand drawer, but she got the gun first. The court said they were six to eight feet apart when Sievert pointed the pistol, cocked it and fired. It also said Torres was found on the bedroom floor with a gunshot wound to the chest and a large post-mortem injury above her right knee. The account did not resolve every unknown, including how long the physical fight lasted before the shot.
The case became legally complicated because of what jurors would be allowed to hear. A trial judge first ruled that evidence about the injury to Torres’ leg could not be used in the state’s main case. The judge said it was not central enough to the shooting and could be saved for rebuttal if Sievert claimed self-defense. Prosecutors appealed. In April 2026, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the trial court and allowed the evidence. The court said Sievert’s admitted conduct after the shooting, including her explanation that she acted out of marijuana-related paranoia and anger from the fight, could help jurors decide intent and consciousness of guilt.
That ruling set the stage for a broader trial. Prosecutors could tell jurors not only that Sievert fired the fatal shot, but also that she put the gun on the bed, paced inside the apartment, gave no aid and waited 60 to 90 minutes before calling 911. The state argued those facts did not fit an account built only on immediate fear. The defense position, as reflected in the court record, rested on Sievert’s claim that the fight had turned dangerous and that she acted because she was afraid. The jury had to decide what weight to give her description of the fight and what weight to give her actions afterward.
Jurors returned a first-degree manslaughter verdict in May. Local trial coverage said the jury cited a crime of passion. That result meant jurors did not convict Sievert of murder, but they did find her criminally responsible for Torres’ death. District Attorney Vicki Zemp Behenna said the recommended sentence reflected the seriousness of Sievert’s actions and the damage caused that night. “While no outcome can undo the loss suffered by the victim’s loved ones, we hope this verdict brings them a measure of justice for Bree,” Behenna said. The statement used a nickname for Torres, whose death had remained pending in court since 2022.
The Rockwell Avenue case now sits at its final trial-stage step. The jury has spoken, but the judge still must pronounce sentence. The public record leaves some matters unanswered, including whether any additional evidence from the security cameras was used at trial and how the court will treat the jury’s recommendation at sentencing. What is clear is that a domestic-related call that began before dawn on Oct. 7, 2022, ended with a conviction in a case shaped by both the gunshot and the time that followed it.
Currently, Sievert is scheduled to return to court June 11 for formal sentencing. Until then, the jury’s 35-year recommendation remains the central outcome in the manslaughter case over Torres’ death.
Author note: Last updated June 4, 2026.