A conviction of first-degree manslaughter came down for Rana Sievert in the 2022 death of Brianne Torres.

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — An Oklahoma County jury convicted Rana Sievert of first-degree manslaughter in the fatal shooting of her girlfriend, Brianne Torres, and recommended that she spend 35 years in prison for the October 2022 killing.

The verdict closed a trial centered on one bedroom, one gun and a claim that fear drove the fatal shot. Prosecutors said Sievert, now 27, shot Torres, 24, during a fight at an apartment complex on North Rockwell Avenue. The jury did not convict Sievert of murder, but it found her guilty of manslaughter after hearing evidence about the shooting, her statements to police and what happened before she called 911.

Formal sentencing is scheduled for June 11, when a judge will decide whether to impose the sentence recommended by jurors. Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Zemp Behenna said the verdict reflected “the seriousness of the defendant’s actions and the devastating consequences of that night.” She said no outcome could undo the loss suffered by Torres’ loved ones but added that prosecutors hoped the verdict brought “a measure of justice for Bree.” The case began on Oct. 7, 2022, when Oklahoma City police were sent to an apartment complex in the 8200 block of North Rockwell Avenue for a domestic-related shooting. Officers found Torres dead inside the apartment and arrested Sievert at the scene.

Police listed the incident as Homicide No. 61 of 2022 and said officers were called at 1:18 a.m. The department identified Torres as the victim and Sievert as the person arrested. Early records said Sievert was booked into the Oklahoma County Detention Center on a first-degree manslaughter complaint, though later court coverage said she initially faced a murder charge before the jury returned the manslaughter verdict. The case turned on Sievert’s own account as well as physical evidence found in the apartment. She told investigators that she and Torres had been in a dating relationship and that an argument became physical. According to court records summarized in local reports, Sievert said Torres grabbed her and choked her during the fight.

Sievert told police she got away from the chokehold, went to Torres’ bedroom and took Torres’ handgun from a nightstand. She admitted firing once, striking Torres in the chest. The defense position, as described in pretrial records, was tied to fear during the fight. But prosecutors argued that the events after the shot mattered to the jury’s view of intent and credibility. An appellate opinion said Torres was found naked on her back on the bedroom floor with a gunshot wound to the chest and a large post-mortem injury above her right knee. The same opinion said Sievert placed the gun on the bed, paced in the apartment and did not call 911 for 60 to 90 minutes.

That delay became one of the state’s clearest answers to Sievert’s fear-based account. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals said Sievert admitted cutting Torres’ leg during a police interview. The court said Sievert linked the act to paranoia from marijuana she said she had smoked and to anger at Torres over the fight. Prosecutors had fought to let jurors hear that evidence after a trial judge first limited it. The trial court had said the evidence could be used only to rebut a self-defense claim, not as part of the state’s main case. Prosecutors appealed, and the higher court ruled that evidence of Sievert’s conduct after the shooting could be presented as part of the case.

The appellate ruling reshaped the trial before it began. The court said the alleged post-mortem cutting was tied closely enough to the shooting to help jurors understand Sievert’s state of mind. It also said the evidence could bear on intent to kill and consciousness of guilt. That ruling cleared the way for jurors to hear a fuller account of what police said happened inside the apartment. The evidence gave prosecutors a way to argue that Sievert’s conduct after the shot did not fit a clean self-defense narrative. It also gave the defense a harder task: explaining both the fatal gunshot and the long gap before the emergency call.

Local trial coverage said Sievert admitted she pulled Torres’ handgun from the nightstand and shot her during the fight. The jury found her guilty of first-degree manslaughter, not murder, and reports said the verdict cited a crime of passion. First-degree manslaughter in Oklahoma can cover killings committed without a design to cause death but in the heat of passion or under certain other circumstances. The distinction mattered because jurors rejected the murder count but still found that the shooting was criminal and severe enough to warrant a long prison term. The recommended 35-year sentence now goes to the judge for final action.

Torres was born Sept. 7, 1998, and died Oct. 7, 2022. She was 24. Police said the investigation began as a domestic-related shooting, and public records described Sievert and Torres as on-again, off-again girlfriends. The apartment complex on Rockwell Avenue became the center of a case that moved from a 2022 emergency call to a 2026 jury trial. Investigators recovered evidence from inside the apartment, including the handgun and a kitchen knife described in court coverage. Officers also took two security cameras into custody as part of the investigation. What, if anything, those cameras recorded has not been publicly detailed in the coverage reviewed.

As of Thursday, Sievert remained convicted of first-degree manslaughter and was awaiting formal sentencing. The next milestone is the June 11 hearing, when the court is expected to decide whether the jury’s 35-year recommendation will become the final sentence.

Author note: Last updated June 4, 2026.