Ulise DeLao was sentenced to five years after a manslaughter plea in the death of Brittany Torres.

A five-year sentence after a guilty plea is the court's judgment on manslaughter. It is not a murder conviction. Law&Crime reported a grand jury in August 2024 refused to indict DeLao for first-degree murder, and that Monday's trial date became a plea. The intoxication-manslaughter count was dropped in that agreement.

Law&Crime, ABC 7 Amarillo, and the Amarillo Tribune reported that on Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, Ulise DeLao pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of Brittany Torres and was sentenced to five years. Law&Crime and the Amarillo Tribune reported he is 31. ABC 7 Amarillo and the Tribune also spelled the surname Delao. Law&Crime used DeLao. The Amarillo Tribune reported the hearing was in Judge Titiana Frausto's 181st District Court, that the five years will be served in a Texas Department of Criminal Justice facility with credit for time already spent in jail, and that no fine was assessed. ABC 7 reported the judge found him competent, found the plea voluntary, found him guilty, heard a victim-impact statement, and remanded him to the Randall County sheriff after he waived an appeal. Law&Crime reported prosecutors dropped one count of intoxication manslaughter with a vehicle, and that a jury trial had been set to start that morning. The plea and the five years are the judgment on the count he admitted.

Law&Crime, citing a Canyon police release, reported officers went about 1:05 a.m. on May 27, 2024, to the 1900 block of 10th Avenue for a crash involving a pedestrian. Police wrote that DeLao, then listed as 28, struck Torres, then 27, while she was standing outside the vehicle, and that she was pronounced dead at the scene. The Amarillo Tribune reported the Canyon Police Department said he hit her with his car. Law&Crime reported footage previously shown in court depicted him twice dragging Torres out of a pickup, and that when police questioned him in May 2024 he allegedly admitted running her over. Law&Crime reported it was not clear whether he admitted he meant to hit her. Those are the 2024 investigative allegations and the footage as Law&Crime described it. Monday's plea is the admission the court accepted.

Law&Crime reported authorities raised the charge to first-degree murder in June 2024 and that a grand jury that August refused to indict him for it. The same outlet reported he was released in October 2024 after a judge cut his bond from $500,000 to $250,000, and that while he was out he kept parental rights to a child he shared with Torres after Torres's mother tried to end those rights. The Amarillo Tribune quoted Assistant District Attorney Lacy Miller, who said the defense brought a plea proposal the week before, that she took it to Torres's family, and that the family chose the plea. Miller told the Tribune, "Nothing that we did or the court did, or a jury would do is going to bring Brittany back." The five-year term is the sentence on the manslaughter plea. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.