Rana Sievert said she acted in fear, but prosecutors focused on what happened next.
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — A fatal shot inside a northwest Oklahoma City apartment was followed by a 60- to 90-minute delay before Rana Sievert called 911, a gap that later became central to her manslaughter conviction.
The shooting killed Brianne Torres, 24, during the early hours of Oct. 7, 2022. Sievert told police she acted after a fight turned physical, but prosecutors used the delay, her lack of aid and her admitted actions after the shooting to challenge that account. An Oklahoma County jury convicted Sievert of first-degree manslaughter in May and recommended 35 years in prison. Her formal sentencing is set for June 11.
The police clock began at 1:18 a.m., when officers were sent to an apartment complex at 8235 N. Rockwell Ave. for a domestic-related shooting. Oklahoma City police later called it Homicide No. 61 of 2022. Officers found Torres dead inside the apartment and arrested Sievert at the scene. The department’s first public notice identified Torres as the victim and said Sievert was booked into the Oklahoma County Detention Center on a first-degree manslaughter complaint. At that early stage, police said the investigation was still developing. The first notice did not describe the argument, the gun or the later evidence that would make the case far more complicated.
Those details came through court records. Sievert told investigators that she and Torres had argued over relationship issues. She said the fight moved from words to pushing and shoving, then into the kitchen, where Torres got her in a headlock. Sievert said she escaped and moved toward the bedroom because she knew Torres kept a gun in the nightstand. According to an appellate opinion, the women struggled down the hallway and both reached for the drawer. Sievert got control of the pistol. The court said both women stepped back and were six to eight feet apart when Sievert pointed the gun, cocked it and fired one shot.
Torres was hit in the chest. Police later found her naked on her back on the bedroom floor. The appellate record said officers also found a large post-mortem laceration above her right knee. Sievert told police she put the gun on the bed and paced around the apartment before calling 911. She admitted cutting Torres’ leg during her police interview, according to the opinion. She said the act was tied to paranoia from marijuana and anger at Torres over the fight. The court later described those facts as evidence prosecutors could use to argue intent and consciousness of guilt.
The 911 delay gave prosecutors a way to connect the physical scene with Sievert’s state of mind. A self-defense claim often turns on what a person reasonably believed in the moment force was used. In this case, the state argued jurors also needed to hear about the period after the shot, when Torres was dead or dying and Sievert had time to act. The trial judge first limited the leg-cutting evidence, saying it could come in only if the defense raised self-defense and the state needed to rebut it. Prosecutors appealed that ruling before trial, arguing the evidence belonged in their main case.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals sided with prosecutors in April. The court said the post-shooting evidence was closely connected to the homicide and would help jurors understand the sequence of events. It also said Sievert’s admitted anger and conduct toward Torres after death could support the state’s position on intent. That decision changed what jurors could hear when the case went to trial in May. Instead of a case limited to a fight and a single gunshot, jurors heard a fuller timeline, including the silence before the 911 call and the acts prosecutors said followed the killing.
At trial, local coverage said Sievert admitted she pulled Torres’ handgun from a nightstand and shot her while the two were fighting. Jurors found her guilty Thursday, May 7, of first-degree manslaughter. They did not return the murder conviction that had been part of the case, and reports said the verdict cited a crime of passion. The sentence recommendation was still severe. Jurors recommended 35 years in prison. District Attorney Vicki Zemp Behenna said the verdict and recommended sentence reflected the seriousness of what happened and the consequences for Torres’ loved ones.
The case also left a public record of a relationship that ended inside the apartment where both women had been moments before the shooting. Public reporting described Sievert and Torres as girlfriends and, in court language, on-again, off-again partners. Torres was born Sept. 7, 1998, and died exactly one month after her 24th birthday. Investigators said they recovered the handgun, a kitchen knife and two security cameras from the apartment. The public record does not fully answer every question about the argument, including what led to the first physical contact or whether either camera captured anything useful.
For now, Sievert’s next court date is June 11, when the judge is expected to impose a formal sentence. The jury’s 35-year recommendation now stands as the guidepost for the final punishment in Torres’ death.
Author note: Last updated June 4, 2026.