Only months after 2013 Oklahoma trial of Rebecca Bryan The Dateline episode that aired revolved around her husband’s death and the ensuing “mystery in the Mustang.”
But according to the prosecution and the jury, there wasn’t much of a mystery after the evidence was gathered.
Here’s what you need to know about the murder of Keith Bryan, and who was convicted of killing him.
Keith Bryan shot himself in the head, and how Rebecca Bryan became the prime suspect
Keith Bryan was shot in the side of the head The night of September 20, 2011. He died the next morning at OU Medical Center.
Brian worked for the Nicholls Hills Fire Department for 31 years and was its chief at the time of his death.
Rebecca Bryan called police the night of the shooting, claiming an intruder entered their home through the garage and shot her husband. She told police the shooter was taking revenge for not hiring Brian to the fire department.
But the Nicholls Hills Fire Department has not hired anyone in the past four years. This, combined with the wife’s vague description of the intruder and evidence found in the house, led police to identify Rebecca Bryan as a prime suspect.
Investigators found a gun matching the bullet used to shoot Keith Bryan, a spent shell casing, and a left-handed rubber glove with Rebecca Bryan’s DNA wrapped in a bullet-riddled blanket in the dryer in her utility room.
The gun also matched the serial number to the gun box found under Rebecca Bryan’s mattress, and she was known to carry the gun in her purse. The utility room was also not on the path that Rebecca Bryan repeatedly said the killer took when entering and leaving the house.
Rebecca Bryan was convicted of murdering her husband in 2011
During the trial of Rebecca Bryan. The evidence wasn’t just stacked against her storyBut witnesses testified to her repeated infidelity with her husband.
According to testimony, she bragged to friends about having sex with strangers in the days before the shootings at a wedding in Dallas and a business conference in Tulsa. Another man testified that she stopped at his home in McCloud on her way home from Tulsa and they had sex hours before the shooting.
Several friends and family members testified that Rebecca Bryan showed them a photo of a man’s penis and bragged about the experience as she drove with them to the hospital to see her husband after he was shot.
Mark Holbrook, of Hugo, also testified about his relationship with Rebecca Bryan, which ended in January 2010. Holbrook testified that in voicemails and text messages less than three hours before the shooting, she said she still loved him and was expected to receive a large inheritance. . Soon and planned to buy a house so she could be near him.
It took jurors about four hours to find Bryan, 54, guilty of murdering Nicholls Hills Fire Chief Keith Bryan over her obsession with a former lover. She was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
Previous writers Michael Kimball and Brian Dean contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared in The Oklahoman: What to know: Rebecca Bryan’s conviction in a 2013 murder case
