Former Deputy Convicted in Killing of Sonya Massey After 15-Month Wait for Justice

An Illinois jury on Wednesday convicted a former sheriff’s deputy of second-degree murder in the death of Sonya Massey, who was shot inside her apartment last year after moving a pot of hot water into a sink. 

The 36-year-old mother of two called the police for help. She was shot dead on her kitchen floor.

Sean Grayson, the 31-year-old former Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy who shot her, has been held in a local jail without bond since his arrest 11 days after Massey’s July 6, 2024, death. 

Grayson’s body camera footage and his partner’s testimony were central pieces of evidence the prosecution presented to the jurors to secure a guilty verdict. 

For most of October, Massey’s family and supporters traveled 144 miles round trip nearly every day to attend the trial.

Fifteen months after Massey was fatally shot, another chapter of justice closed for them when a Peoria County jury of mostly white women and men found Grayson guilty. The jury deliberated first-degree murder charges, and the judge provided instructions for them to also consider second-degree murder — a lesser charge that removes the element of intent to kill.

The sheriff’s deputy, who was diagnosed with colon cancer in October 2023, faces between four to 20 years in prison.

“This seems like a compromised verdict,” said her father, James Wilburn, at a press conference after jurors deliberated for nearly 11 hours.

Grayson’s defense requested the trial be moved to avoid potential juror bias in Massey’s home county of Sangamon. The jury’s makeup — 11 white men, women, and one Black juror — later drew scrutiny for not reflecting Peoria’s demographics of 57% white and 22% Black.

“While we believe Grayson’s actions deserved a first-degree conviction, today’s verdict is still a measure of justice for Sonya Massey,” said Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, Massey’s family attorneys, after the verdict in a joint emailed statement. “Accountability has begun, and we now hope the court will impose a meaningful sentence that reflects the severity of these crimes and the life that was lost.” 

Earlier this year, Massy’s family secured a $10 million wrongful death settlement with the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office and Sangamon County. Massey was a “daddy’s girl” who never ended the conversation without saying, “Daddy, I love you.”

“My heart is heavy today. This is my daughter’s birthday,” said Wilburn, as tears fell from his eyes during a Zoom press conference in February held on what would have been Massey’s 37th birthday. 

The Sangamon County Board approved the settlement on Feb. 11, Crump said in a previous statement. This is the largest civil lawsuit settlement of any kind in the county, Romanucci said.

Wilburn thanked state lawmakers for introducing the Sonya Massey Bill, which aims to prevent what he called “frequent fliers” — officers who are able to get employed at different law enforcement agencies despite having a troubling employment record.

“I can’t say the same [thanks] for Sangamon County, because they were responsible for this occurring … and the other smaller departments that this guy was at when they should have taken his certification to be a law enforcement officer in Illinois,” Wilburn said.

Calls for legislative changes

Massey’s killing is a similar tragedy to what happened weeks before Christmas 2023 in Lancaster County, California. Niani Finlayson was shot and killed by a sheriff’s deputy in front of her 9-year-old daughter after she also called 911 for help in a domestic violence incident. Finlayson, 27, was holding a knife when police arrived and within seconds, she was shot and killed. Multiple law enforcement agencies are still investigating Finlayson’s case. 

In Massey’s case, “Grayson had other options available that he should have used. … [He] had the training, tools, and experience to know better,” Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell wrote on the agency’s Facebook page in 2024. 

Grayson “will never again work in law enforcement.” Campbell added. 

After the verdict, Massey’s parents and Romanucci called on state lawmakers to propose legislation that would create an additional homicide charge to the state’s criminal laws in between first- and second-degree murder. An “aggravated homicide charge” can create sentencing guidelines that wouldn’t allow a lesser-included homicide charge to have a sentence without a “to life” sentencing range, Romanucci said.

The judge can sentence Grayson to between four and 20 years in prison. Because he has been in custody since his July 2024 arrest, that time will count toward his sentence. Massey’s supporters said they want the judge to impose the maximum penalty and oppose any possibility of probation or early release.

During a July 2024 press conference, Wilburn fought back tears as he recalled the last voicemail he got from his daughter. In an emotional interview on CNN after body-camera footage from the July 6, 2024, fatal shooting was released, he spoke about the devastating loss and his family’s call for accountability. 

“I know I won’t see her again in this world, but there’s another world that I will see her in.” 

Wilburn, who had quadruple bypass surgery in 2022, also said during the CNN interview that he’s thankful to be alive today, but had this happened two years ago he may not have survived the level of pain he says he feels daily from losing Massey. 

Massey’s family, alongside Crump, reviewed the police body-camera footage before it was released to the public. Crump compared the “heinous” and “senseless” footage to the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officers. After watching his daughter’s last moments alive, Wilburn concluded that “the talk” Black families have with their boys must be extended to “our girls about their interactions with the police.”

Capital B has reached out to Grayson’s attorney, Daniel Fultz, who has repeatedly declined to comment on his client’s criminal case and the lawsuit settlement. 

Crump is also calling for legislative changes in Sangamon County similar to measures included in the settlement in Louisville, Kentucky, following the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor. The Sonya Massey Bill, introduced on Feb. 7 by Democratic Illinois state Rep. Justin Slaughter, seeks “to make substantive changes to how law enforcement applicants are reviewed before they are hired.”

“This robust process is nothing short of what our communities deserve, so that the right people are in these critical public service roles,” Slaughter said in an emailed statement. 

Grayson worked for six police departments in four years before being hired by the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office, according to multiple reports, and has a history of misconduct while serving in the U.S. Army. 

Romanucci said during the February press conference that Grayson’s background check should have been a “red flag” not to hire him. “This shooting never would have happened. What did happen is that when Sonya called 911, she didn’t know it, but that was her death sentence. She called in her own death when she called for help on the night that Sean Grayson came to her home.”

Massey’s final moments

“We were led to believe that the intruder, or someone from the neighborhood, may have killed her. We were absolutely shocked to find out that there was a deputy who shot,” Wilburn said during the CNN interview. 

Dawson Farley, Grayson’s partner, testified during the October trial that he was “caught off guard” when shots were fired. He said he pulled out his firearm when Grayson did “following his training and backing his partner,” but “did not see or hear anything that required him to draw his firearm,” according to local news outlets WICS and WAND. 

Farley said he remembered Grayson urging him not to “waste it” — his medical equipment  — on Massey as she bled on her kitchen’s floor. The retelling of the moment brought Massey’s mother to tears in the courtroom. 

Prior to opening statements on Oct. 20, prosecutors dropped aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct charges. After presenting testimony from nearly a dozen witnesses, prosecutors rested their case.

Grayson testified on Oct. 27 that he was trained to use force “to gain compliance” and he “matched Massey’s threat level by drawing his gun.” Farley didn’t agree to this assertion, according to his testimony. 

But Fultz, Grayson’s defense attorney, urged jurors during his closing arguments to consider Farley’s initial report to investigators — the former deputy told authorities he pulled out his gun because he was also scared.

During the early morning of July 6, 2024, Massey called 911 to her home on Hoover Avenue in Springfield for a possible intruder. Grayson and Farley arrived and searched around her home with flashlights, and found a broken driver’s side window of a car parked in an adjacent driveway, according to police body-camera footage. 

The 36-year-old mother took a few minutes to open her front door for the deputies before she let them inside to further discuss her concerns. One of the officers asked for her identification after telling them that the broken window was from an earlier incident. As she looked for her ID, Grayson asked her to turn off the fire from the stove.

“We don’t need a fire while we’re here,” he said.

As Massey picked up the pot of hot water to move it to the nearby sink, Grayson began to back away. 

She asked, “Where are you going?”

“Away from the hot steaming water,” Grayson said with a chuckle.

“Away from my hot steaming water?” she asked, adding unexpectedly, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”

Massey’s living room and kitchen were open, with an island separating the two rooms. There were no walls obstructing Grayson’s view. 

Grayson immediately responded with f-bombs and swore to God: “I’ll fucking shoot you in your motherfucking face.” 

“OK, I’m sorry,” Massey said as Grayson pulled out his service weapon while ordering her to drop the pot. She ducked to the floor with her hands up and was shot in the head.

Grayson’s partner radioed that shots were fired and verbalized his intent to get his medical kit to aid Massey’s wound and to try and stop the bleeding. 

“She done, she done. You can go get it, but that’s a headshot,” Grayson told his partner. “There’s nothing you can do, man.”

“What else do we do? I’m not taking hot fucking boiling water to the fucking face,” Grayson later said. 

Farley eventually went to get the kit as Massey was still breathing before the ambulance arrived. She died at a nearby hospital.

“Where’s the gun?” Grayson was asked by another officer who arrived at the scene. Grayson responded with his continued baseless defense of the threat of being rebuked in the name of Jesus with hot water. 

The Illinois State Police investigated the fatal police shooting at the request of the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office. 

The Department of Justice said in an email to Capital B in 2024 that they are “aware of and assessing the circumstances” of Massey’s “tragic officer-involved death,” and “will continue to track the criminal case opened by the Sangamon County State’s Attorney.”

“This incident does not reflect the values or actions of our law enforcement community,” Campbell, the Sangamon County sheriff, said. 

This story has been updated.

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