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Rebecca Bryan sentenced to life without parole

Rebecca Bryan sat silently throughout the 35-minute sentencing Tuesday in El Reno, OK. Her attorney said she still maintains she is innocent, and she still claims that an intruder killed her husband.

By Nolan Clay - NewsOK.com

July 9, 2013

EL RENO — Despite her murder conviction, Rebecca Bryan still claims she is innocent of the 2011 fatal shooting of her husband, the Nichols Hills fire chief.

“What she had said early on of an intruder who fired these shots is still her position,” her attorney, Gary James, told a judge Tuesday at her sentencing. “She is an innocent woman.”

Canadian County District Judge Gary E. Miller ordered the widow to serve a life term in prison without the possibility of parole.

The judge refused Tuesday to suspend any of her prison time.

“The tragedy won't end for the family,” the judge said. “I wish I could fix that. I can't.”

Bryan, 54, plans to appeal. The former real estate agent sat silently throughout the 35-minute sentencing Tuesday.

She showed no emotion, even when a prosecutor read out loud a statement from one of her two sons about how much he misses his dad.

“I wish this would have never happened or there was something I could have done to prevent it but I must face reality & try to move forward,” Trent Bryan wrote.

“I miss my dad everyday and I miss the family I once knew everyday.”

About the trial

A jury May 21 rejected Rebecca Bryan's claim of an intruder and found her guilty of first-degree murder. Jurors chose for her the harshest punishment possible in the case — life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

Keith Bryan was fatally shot inside their Mustang home the night of Sept. 20, 2011. He died at the hospital the next day. He was 52.

Keith and Rebecca Bryan had been married 33 years.

Prosecutor Paul Hesse told the judge she executed her husband without provocation, shooting him in the side of the head with her own pistol as he relaxed on a couch watching TV.

Her only reason “was to free herself from the confines of her marriage,” the prosecutor said.

Rebecca Bryan had a brief extramarital affair that ended in early 2010. Prosecutors put on evidence at the trial she wanted to reunite with a former lover, Mark Holbrook, of Hugo.

The former lover testified at the trial that she left a voice message for him hours before the shooting. In the message, she said she still loved him, was about to get a large inheritance and was thinking about buying a home in Hugo to be near him, according to his testimony.

Another man, a real estate client, testified she had sex with him at his home in McLoud on the day of the shooting. While on the way to the hospital after the shooting, she showed friends a cellphone photo of the man's penis, according to other testimony.

One friend testified at the trial that she admitted to having sex with a man she met at a bar in Texas four days before the shooting.

She was arrested after the gun used in the shooting and other evidence was found inside a clothes dryer at the home.

Son's words

In the victim impact statement, Trent Bryan also wrote about his embarrassment over the revelations of his mother's affairs.

“I have a hard time facing it most days,” Trent Bryan wrote. “I am hopeful with time my dad will only be remembered for the man he was and not for the details behind his death.”

He wrote that he has been emotionally torn.

“I have struggled with knowing what the right thing to do is, and I have been pulled in many directions,” he wrote. “I have wanted to protect my mom from hurt & suffering but at the same time I wanted justice for my dad & knew he deserved that.”

He also wrote, “My 5-year-old son Jackson frequently asks questions and I don't know how to respond or what to say to him. I don't want him to forget his Pappy but at the same time I want to avoid the question of where his grandma is and why she is there.”

Rebecca Bryan did not testify at the trial. Jurors did hear a recording of the interview she had with police at the hospital a few hours after the shooting.

“We were quite in love,” she said in the interview. “He's like the most amazing husband.”

After the sentencing Tuesday, the current Nichols Hills fire chief said he was just glad the case is over.

“That's the main feeling,” Terry Hamilton said.

He said the tragedy brought Nichols Hills firefighters together.

“It has really made us closer as a fire department,” Hamilton said. “The first three or four months were real difficult. They were hard to cope with and deal with, with a thousand things that we had to do, but we got through that.”

Rebecca Bryan guilty of murdering her husband in 2011

Rebecca Bryan was convicted Tuesday of murdering Nichols Hills Fire Chief Keith Bryan in their Mustang home. The jury recommended a sentence of life without parole.

By Bryan Dean - NewsOK.com

May 21, 2013

EL RENO — Rebecca Bryan shed no tears Tuesday when jurors found her guilty of murdering her husband, just as friends testified she didn't cry after he was shot in their Mustang home.

It took jurors about four hours to find Bryan, 54, guilty of killing Nichols Hills Fire Chief Keith Bryan because of her obsession with a former lover.

The jury recommended a sentence of life without parole.

Bryan got a hug and an apology from her attorney, Gary James, after the verdict was read.

Evidence found in the dryer in her utility room — including her Ruger .380 LCP pistol — convinced jurors her story of an intruder shooting Keith Bryan for not hiring him was fiction.

The case went to the jury about 1 p.m. after both sides made their closing statements. Assistant District Attorney Paul Hesse focused on inconsistencies in the story Rebecca Bryan gave investigators after the shooting and her behavior both before and after Keith Bryan's death.

The items found in the dryer were the key evidence in the case. The gun, which was matched to the bullet used to shoot Keith Bryan, a spent shell casing and a left-handed rubber glove were found wrapped in a bullet-riddled blanket.

The gun was matched by serial number to the gun box kept under her mattress. She was known to carry the gun in her purse. The utility room was not on the path Rebecca Bryan repeatedly said the killer took as he entered and exited the home.

She said she followed the intruder out her garage door after he shot her husband and saw him get into a small dark pickup.

“If this person immediately after shooting Keith Bryan departed the house out the garage door, how could they have deposited that gun, the blanket and the casing in the dryer without the defendant knowing about it?” Hesse asked.

James tried to raise doubt by citing mistakes made by Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents as they searched the Bryan home in the hours after the shooting.

Agents didn't fingerprint or DNA test many items, including the gun and the dryer door.

“All of these things are not done because of tunnel vision,” James said. “There is so much reasonable doubt in this case from the physical evidence. This case is a rush to judgment.”

James' arguments couldn't convince jurors. Bryan's story about an intruder was implausible from the beginning because all the evidence in the dryer came from her home. The gun was hers. The blanket was a fire-themed throw blanket kept on the back of their couch. And the glove had her DNA in it.

Jurors were swayed by prosecutors' arguments that an intruder bent on killing Keith Bryan would have brought his own tools and especially his own gun.

Rebecca Bryan's repeated infidelity also hurt her case.

Witnesses testified at length about several sexual encounters in the days leading up to the killing. Bryan also had an extramarital affair with Mark Holbrook, of Hugo, who testified she repeatedly contacted him long after he ended the affair in January 2010.

She boasted to friends of sex she had with strangers the night before the shooting while attending a work conference in Tulsa and four days earlier while attending a wedding in Dallas. Another man testified she stopped at his house in McLoud on her way home from Tulsa and they had sex hours before the shooting.

Several friends and family members testified Rebecca Bryan showed them a photo of the man's penis and bragged about the tryst while she rode with them to the hospital to see her husband after he was shot.

Holbrook also testified about voice mails and text messages Bryan left him less than three hours before the shooting in which she said she still loved him, expected to get a large inheritance soon and planned to buy a house so she could be near him.

Jurors listened to a recording of an interview between OSBI agents and Rebecca Bryan hours after the shooting. She said she and her husband were “very much in love.”

“Has there ever been a greater mischaracterization of a marriage than that?” Hesse asked jurors. “She was absolutely obsessed with Mark Holbrook. She killed Keith Bryan because she was in love with another man.”

Keith Bryan was shot once in the side of the head. Rebecca Bryan claimed the shot was fired by an intruder who she saw walk in the house from the garage. But Keith Bryan never turned his head to look at his shooter.

Hesse said he kept his head forward because the gunman was someone he loved who hid the gun under a blanket they used to keep warm as they cuddled on their couch.

“This was the work of a coward,” Hesse said. “This was someone who had to sneak up behind her husband so he wouldn't see her. This is the work of Keith Bryan's wife.”

  

Investigators in Bryan murder case testify Tuesday

Defense attorney Gary James questioned two Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents about their handling of the search and the evidence in the shooting death of Nichols Hills Fire Chief Keith Bryan.

By Bryan Dean - NewsOK.com

May 14, 2013

EL RENO — Rebecca Bryan's attorney spent several hours Tuesday trying to get OSBI agents to admit to mistakes made during the investigation of her husband's shooting.

Becky Bryan, 54, is on trial for murder in the death of Nichols Hills Fire Chief Keith Bryan, 52, who was shot to death Sept. 20, 2011, at their Mustang home.

Police asked for assistance from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation after Becky Bryan called 911 just after 10 that night and reported an intruder had come into their home at 1320 W Rose Hill Drive and shot her husband once in the head.

Investigators turned their attention to Becky Bryan after a gun belonging to her was found in the dryer of their home, along with a spent shell casing, a glove and a blanket with apparent bullet holes.

Previous testimony focused on sexual encounters Becky Bryan had in the days leading up to the shooting and her communication with a former lover who ended their extramarital affair in 2010.

OSBI Agents Martin Solorzano and Shawn Wright testified Tuesday about the search of the Bryan home in the hours after the shooting and various other aspects of the investigation.

Wright found a gun box for a Ruger LCP .380-caliber semi-automatic pistol under the mattress on Becky Bryan's side of the bed in the couple's living room along with several boxes of ammunition.

Solorzano said he searched the home's utility room.

He noticed a blanket through the clear door of the dryer. Solorzano said he pulled out the blanket and heard several items hit the floor of the utility room. Those items included a Ruger .380-caliber semi-automatic pistol, a spent shell casing and a rubber glove.

The blanket had several round holes in it that appeared to be bullet holes, Solorzano said.

Wright said the serial number on the gun matched the serial number on the gun box found under the mattress.

Procedural questions

Becky Bryan's attorney, Gary James, questioned Solorzano and Wright about their handling of the search and the evidence. He asked why agents don't change gloves, suggesting gunshot residue could have been transferred onto evidence by agents who handled items during the search.

James also asked why agents didn't check for fingerprints on the dryer where the gun was found and why they didn't photograph the shell casing found in the dryer.

Wright said the shell casing should have been photographed, and that “with the benefit of hindsight,” fingerprinting the dryer might have been a good idea.

James also brought up a report by a witness that he saw a vehicle in the Mustang area similar to the one Becky Bryan reported the intruder drove as he fled the house.

The only way to exit the Bryans' neighborhood is onto State Highway 152, the main east/west road through Mustang.

“It puts someone in a similar vehicle on Highway 152 minutes after 10 p.m. driving erratically,” James said of the witness' report.

James asked why agents didn't view security camera footage from businesses near the area where the vehicle was seen. Wright could not answer. He said he was not aware of the witness' report of the vehicle until recently.

Under cross examination, Wright said it is possible that Becky Bryan could have had gunshot residue on her hands if she was sitting near where her husband was shot.

Becky Bryan told police she was sitting on a chair in the living room when the intruder came in through the garage and shot Keith Bryan in the head as he sat on the couch. She reported the intruder apologized and said Keith Bryan should have hired him, then left through the garage.

Evidence found in the dryer is key to the case because an intruder entering and exiting the Bryan home through the garage would not have passed the utility room to dispose of any items.

Matching bullet?

Investigators have said the bullet used to shoot Keith Bryan was matched to the gun found in the dryer. James has theorized that the shot could have been fired from an identical gun stolen from the home of the couple's son a few months earlier.

Testimony is scheduled to continue Wednesday, and District Judge Gary Miller apologized to jurors Tuesday for the length of the trial, saying he hopes it will conclude this week, but he could make no guarantees.

  

Mustang murder defendant Becky Bryan told police: 'We were quite in love.'

Testimony resumes for a second week in the murder trial for a woman accused of fatally shooting her husband, Nichols Hills Fire Chief Keith Bryan.

By Nolan Clay - NewsOK.com

May 13, 2013

EL RENO — In a police interview at the hospital after her husband was shot, murder defendant Becky Bryan said: “We were quite in love.”

Jurors listened intently Monday to the 35-minute recording of the interview that began about 1:30 a.m. Sept. 21, 2011.

“He's like the most amazing husband,” she said in the recording about her husband, Nichols Hills Fire Chief Keith Bryan. “Everybody likes Keith.”

Jurors, though, heard testimony Monday that the real estate agent cheated on her husband hours earlier, with a client.

The client, Wesley Hubert, told jurors Becky Bryan stopped at his home in McLoud on her way back to her home in Mustang from Tulsa. He said they had flirted before but never had sex.

He said after talking about some things, she went to the bathroom. “And, when she came out, she was wearing a fishnet outfit,” he said.

“It was shocking to me mainly that it actually was going to happen,” he said. “She had been alone with me before … and nothing had ever happened.”

Becky Bryan is accused in a first-degree murder charge of shooting her husband inside their Mustang home Sept. 20, 2011. He died at the hospital the next day. He was 52.

They had been married 33 years.

She had a brief extramarital affair that ended in early 2010. Prosecutors have put on evidence she wanted to reunite with the former lover, Mark Holbrook, of Hugo.

She had left a message for the former lover before the shooting that she was about to get a large inheritance, according to testimony in the trial.

She was arrested after the gun used in the shooting was found inside a clothes dryer at the home.

She blames an intruder for the shooting.

If convicted, Becky Bryan, 54, faces life in prison or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The trial — now in its second week — has focused on the defendant's racy behavior in the days before the shooting and how calm she acted in the hours immediately afterward.

Jurors, for instance, heard Monday that she sent nude photos and explicit texts the day before the shooting to another real estate agent.

The witness, Karl Oltermann, said he and Becky Bryan had never flirted before and knew each other from taking real estate classes together. Asked if the text messages came completely out of the blue, he said, “Yes sir, very much so.”

He said she wanted him to come to Tulsa and have drinks with her.

The witness said the text messages got extremely explicit about what she wanted to do afterward.

He said at one point she wrote “she wanted to ride that tall cowboy.”

In the hospital interview, with a Mustang police detective and an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent, Becky Bryan claimed the intruder had apologized after shooting her husband point blank.

She said the intruder had, using an expletive, told her, “He should have … hired me.”

She said she and her husband had been watching “Carrie,” a horror movie. She graphically described the shooting, saying her husband's eyes bulged out.

During the interview, she admitted she had filed for divorce the year before and had moved out for a time.

“Yes, we had our problems,” she said. “He was like a totally different person after I came back. We were quite in love.”

One witness said Monday that Becky Bryan in 2010 had called her former lover her soul mate and talked of faking a pregnancy so he would be with her. The witness, Pamela Woodard, was a longtime friend of the victim.

“It was very difficult. It was very sad to relive everything,” Woodard told reporters afterward about her testimony. “It was very surreal.”

Becky Bryan talked about her former lover on the way to the hospital after her husband was shot, another witness, Sharon Valdez said.

Valdez told jurors Becky Bryan said, “Have you ever loved somebody so much you would do that?”

Becky Bryan did not explain what she meant, according to the testimony.

  

Rebecca Bryan trial: Sex, lies, meetings listed

Witnesses in the Rebecca Bryan trial describe affairs, calls, interludes before her husband was slain in their Mustang, Oklahoma, home.

By Bryan Dean - NewsOK.com

May 11, 2013

EL RENO — The 33-year marriage of Keith and Rebecca Bryan ended abruptly when he was shot in the head Sept. 20, 2011, in the couple's Mustang home.

Testimony from the first week of Becky Bryan's murder trial supports the argument made by prosecutors that the relationship never recovered from an extramarital affair she began in 2009.

Becky Bryan has claimed an intruder came into their home at 1320 W Rose Hill Drive about 10 p.m. and shot her husband as he sat on the couch in their living room before apologizing to her and saying the fire chief should have hired him.

Prosecutors argue Bryan took a .380-caliber Ruger she was known to carry for personal defense, covered it in a throw blanket from the Bryan home and shot her husband at close range. Her gun was found in the dryer of the couple's utility room, along with a latex glove, a shell casing and the blanket, riddled with bullet-size holes.

Affair begins

Becky Bryan and Mark Holbrook, of Hugo, had an affair that ended in January 2010, Holbrook testified. He said that she continued to contact him long after he ended the relationship and both pledged not to contact each other.

He testified that Bryan left him a voice mail three hours before the shooting, saying she still loved him, she expected to get a large inheritance soon and planned to move to Hugo to be near him.

Prosecutors argue Bryan's love for Holbrook boiled over in the days before her husband's shooting as she had sex with two men, one of them a stranger, and sent nude photos of herself to others in an attempt to seduce them before killing Keith Bryan.

Prosecutors and Becky Bryan's attorney, Gary James, agree that the couple's marriage became strained after she met Holbrook at a real estate class in summer 2009. The class was three days a week for three weeks, and the two became friends.

Both were married, and Holbrook said they parted ways nothing more than friends when the class ended. Weeks later, Holbrook and Bryan met again in Tulsa when they took the real estate test they had been studying for during the class.

Holbrook said they went to lunch after the test.

“At that point, we started talking more on a personal level,” Holbrook said. “We started to have feelings toward each other more than friends.”

The met a few weeks later at a park in Weleetka, roughly halfway between Holbrook's home in Hugo and Bryan's home in Mustang. Their mutual feelings grew.

As Bryan and Holbrook continued talking, they discussed leaving their spouses and getting married. They spent weekends together whenever they could both get away from work and family.

They began having sex in December 2009, he said.

Holbrook had moved out of his home but never filed for divorce. Becky Bryan filed for divorce in January 2010, just as she and Holbrook were set to spend a weekend together at a cabin she rented in Broken Bow.

Holbrook testified that was the longest amount of time he had spent with Becky Bryan, and his feelings started to change.

“I started to realize she wasn't the person I thought she was,” Holbrook said. “She became manipulative. She was wanting me to divorce my wife sooner than I wanted to. I wasn't going to do that. I was going to do it on my time.”

Holbrook decided to end things with Bryan. They both agreed to tell their spouses.

The next day, Holbrook got a call from Keith Bryan. Becky Bryan was also on the line. Holbrook said he confirmed the affair and apologized to Keith Bryan.

“I made a vow to him not to have any more contact with her,” Holbrook said. “He agreed we should try to reconcile with our spouses and get on with our lives.”

Broken vows

The Bryans got back together after the relationship between Becky Bryan and Holbrook ended. Friends testified that Keith Bryan put in extra effort to make her happy.

Jana Hickman, wife of Mustang Fire Chief Carl Hickman, said she has known the couple for more than 20 years. Shortly after they reconciled, the two couples went together to a firefighters' ball in Oklahoma City.

“Keith was very much a gentleman,” Hickman said. “He would pull a chair out for her. It was above and beyond what I had seen him do trying to keep her very happy.”

Keith Bryan reportedly told friends the marriage was going well, but Hickman said something still seemed strange.

“They were awkward,” she said. “They weren't as fun-loving when we would see them.”

Holbrook said Bryan showed up in his driveway in March 2010. A man got out of the car and approached him, but when Holbrook saw Becky Bryan in the car, he told the man not to come any closer and to get off the property. They did.

She showed up in Hugo again in February 2011. Holbrook was doing some work on his office when Bryan got out of the passenger side of a car and approached him.

Sex, inappropriate behavior

Becky Bryan's behavior got even stranger in the days before her husband's shooting, friends testified.

Debbie Proctor, who was with Bryan in the hours after her husband's shooting, said Bryan told her she had cheated on Keith Bryan four days before the shooting. She had gone to Fort Worth, Texas, for a friend's wedding, met a man at a bar and had sex with him.

The day before the shooting, Becky Bryan went to Tulsa for a work conference. While there, she met Bill Whitestarber, a Tulsa real estate agent.

Whitestarber testified he talked to Becky Bryan for no more than a few minutes that day. The next morning, he got several text messages from her inviting him to her hotel room.

Pictures attached to the messages, which were admitted into evidence, showed Becky Bryan naked. Whitestarber said he was “freaked out,” and texted Bryan back saying the photos were inappropriate and that he was at the conference with his fiance.

Prosecutors said Bryan sent similar messages to another man, captioning one picture of her genitalia, “Ride this, cowboy.”

On the way back from Tulsa on Sept. 20, she stopped by the McLoud home of Wes Huber. The two had sex before Becky Bryan drove back to Mustang, prosecutors said.

About 7 p.m., after Becky Bryan had returned home, she left a voice mail Holbrook would listen to the next day mentioning her love for him, a potential inheritance and her intention to buy a house in Hugo.

Just after 10 p.m., Becky Bryan called 911 to report Keith Bryan had been shot. Close friends came to the home to support her while police investigated.

Hickman said Bryan was on the phone nonstop in the hours after the shooting as friends and family sat on the back porch. She testified Bryan laughed while on the phone and retold gory details about the shooting numerous times.

Proctor testified that Becky showed a carload of people headed to the hospital to see Keith Bryan a photo of Huber's penis and asked if Proctor could believe she'd had sex with the man that day.

She later told those in the car that the only thing she felt guilty about was sleeping with another man on the day her husband was shot, Proctor said.

Kathy Thomas, a psychologist called to the stand Friday by Bryan's attorney, acknowledged Bryan's behavior was “bizarre” given the circumstances.

“It seemed to be she wasn't that concerned about her husband,” Thomas said.

  

Wife of slain Nichols Hills fire chief is charged

Rebecca Bryan is charged with murder in her husband's shooting death. Nichols Hills Fire Chief Keith Bryan, was killed in a Sept. 20 shooting in their Mustang home.

By Tiffany Gibson - NewsOK.com

September 30, 2011

EL RENO — Wearing an orange-and-white-striped jail suit and glasses, with shackles on her feet, Rebecca Bryan walked slowly through a Canadian County courtroom and smiled at her son, Kent Bryan, and mouthed the words, “I love you.”

The wife of slain Nichols Hills Fire Chief Keith Bryan was charged Friday with first-degree murder and appeared in court for her initial arraignment. She was arrested Sept. 23 in the shooting death of her husband in their Mustang home at 1320 W Rose Hill Drive.

Bryan's attorney, Gary James, entered a not guilty plea on her behalf.

“They've got to prove we did it,” James said after the hearing. “You've probably seen 2 percent of the evidence in this case. Reserve judgment.”

Prosecutor Paul Hesse asked that Bryan be held in the Canadian County jail without bail. James said he will file a bond request. Bryan's next court date is set for 9 a.m. Nov. 4.

Hesse declined to comment on the case.

Keith Bryan, 52, died of a gunshot wound to the head on Sept. 20.

Rebecca Bryan, 52, claimed an intruder shot her husband and fled in a pickup.

She told a 911 dispatcher a man 25 or 26 years old, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, shot her husband and then apologized and said the fire chief should have hired him.

She was arrested at an Oklahoma City hotel after investigators said they found a .380-caliber handgun, a spent shell casing and a glove in a clothes dryer in her house. Ammunition and a handgun box were found between the mattress and box springs on what appeared to be her side of the bed, they said.

Investigators said the dryer was in a utility room and was not in the pathway Bryan told police an intruder took from the garage to the living room and back.

Bryan gave investigators written consent to search the house.

Search warrants filed this week show that DNA samples were taken from Rebecca Bryan, and her husband's cellphone was among items taken from the home.

Bryan filed for divorce in January 2010, but the couple were living together in the house at the time of his death.

On her way out of the courtroom Friday, Bryan waved to her son.

James said her other son, Trent Bryan, is an El Reno firefighter who was unable to attend the hearing. Both sons have been supportive of their mother and have visited her in jail, James said.

“She's got a very good family,” he said.

  

Authorities release 911 calls in Nichols Hills fire chief's death

The Mustang Police Department has released the recordings of the 911 calls placed by the wife of Nichols Hills Fire Chief Keith Bryan, who died after a shooting late Tuesday in his home.

By Michael Kimball and Bryan Dean

September 23, 2011

MUSTANG — Investigators looking into the shooting death of Nichols Hills Fire Chief Keith Bryan have little to go on and are hoping for a break that will lead them to his killer, authorities said Thursday.

Jessica Brown, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, said investigators are talking to as many people as they can, hoping someone will have the key piece of information that could lead them in the right direction.

“We're doing forensic testing on items,” Brown said. “One of the things our agents did today was go back and canvass the neighborhood again, ask people if they saw or heard anything.”

The state medical examiner ruled Thursday that Bryan died from a single gunshot to the head. Mustang police on Thursday released recordings of two 911 calls Keith Bryan's wife, Becky, made Tuesday night after he was shot at their home in the 1300 block of W Rose Hill Drive.

In the final seconds of her second call to 911, Becky Bryan describes her husband as “gasping for air.”

“He's dripping, he's like moving,” Becky Bryan said on the call, placed about 10:05 p.m. “I've got to have somebody here.”

Her voice is heard during the first 17 seconds of the first call, placed from her cellphone, until the call apparently goes dead. Bryan first asks if she's reached Mustang police, then begins to describe “a young man about 25” until her voice drops off the call.

Bryan called back from a landline on a call that lasted 1 minute and 20 seconds. She describes a man about 25 or 26 years old wearing a hooded sweatshirt who walked in through the garage door of their home.

“He shot my husband in the head. My husband is laying here bleeding on my couch right now,” Bryan said on the call. “And he (the shooter) turned around to me and he said, ‘Ma'am, I'm so sorry,' he said, ‘But your husband should have hired me.'”

Bryan's voice rises and she sounds increasingly desperate and upset as the call goes on.

“Oh my God. He's in a little itty bitty pickup, OK? He's going down my street,” said Bryan, who continued to say it was a dark-colored pickup driving west.

The call ends soon thereafter when she says she has to go, as her husband gasped for air.

Keith Bryan, 52, died about 6 a.m. Wednesday at OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City.

Mustang police and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation have not offered a description of the shooter more detailed than the one Becky Bryan gave on the 911 call. No suspects have been named, and no one has been arrested.

Mustang police have deferred comment to the OSBI on the case.

Brown and Mustang Police Chief Chuck Foley have said Becky Bryan is the only witness to the incident and investigators have spoken with her as they try to develop leads.

Officials have said it's possible the shooter was a disgruntled, unsuccessful job applicant.

The Nichols Hills Fire Department has not hired or interviewed anyone since 2007. The much larger Oklahoma City Fire Department hires frequently, and its chief, Keith Bryant, has a name similar to Keith Bryan's.

Oklahoma City fire officials heightened headquarters security in the wake of the shooting, though at the time Bryant was in Washington, D.C., for a conference.

Becky Bryan filed for divorce from her husband in January 2010. The divorce is still pending.

Efforts to reach Becky Bryan have been unsuccessful.