She said it was self-defense. What she did next made that nearly impossible to believe.
An Oklahoma woman has been convicted of manslaughter after shooting and killing her girlfriend during a late-night argument — but it was what she did after the shooting that may have sealed her fate in court.
Rana Sievert, 27, was found guilty last week by an Oklahoma County jury in the 2022 death of Brianne Torres, 24. Jurors recommended a 35-year prison sentence. A judge will formally hand it down on June 11.
What happened that night
Just after midnight on October 7, 2022, police were called to an apartment on Rockwell Avenue in Oklahoma City. They found Torres naked on the bedroom floor, shot once in the chest.
Sievert told investigators the two had been fighting — first arguing, then getting physical. She said Torres put her in a headlock in the kitchen. She said she broke free, went for the bedroom nightstand where she knew a gun was kept, and that both women struggled toward it down the hallway.
Sievert said she got to the gun first. She said the two stepped back, about six to eight feet apart. Then she cocked it and fired.
She said she was afraid.
Then came the part nobody expected
Sievert didn’t call 911 right away. Instead, she paced around the apartment for somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes. She did not try to help Torres.
At some point during that window, she cut Torres’ leg — leaving a large laceration above the victim’s right knee, which medical examiners confirmed was made after Torres was already dead.
When detectives asked her about it, Sievert said she did it out of anger over the fight. She also blamed the weed she had smoked earlier in the night, saying it made her paranoid.
The leg-cutting almost didn’t make it to trial
Prosecutors wanted jurors to hear about the mutilation. The trial judge initially blocked it, ruling the evidence wasn’t directly tied to the manslaughter itself.
The state appealed. An Oklahoma appellate court reversed the decision, ruling the post-mortem cutting was fair game — not as shock value, but as evidence of Sievert’s state of mind and intent at the time of the shooting.
“The evidence of her fury and her actions of harm toward the deceased victim in the aftermath of the shooting is circumstantial evidence bearing on Sievert’s intent to kill the victim and consciousness of guilt,” the court wrote.
With that ruling in place, jurors heard the full picture — and rejected the self-defense argument.
“A measure of justice”
Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Zemp Behenna called the verdict and recommended sentence fitting for what happened 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,” she said.
Torres’ family has not yet publicly commented on the conviction.
Sievert’s formal sentencing is scheduled for June 11.
