Ex-Deputy Sean Grayson Found Guilty of Killing Sonya Massey By Nicole Acosta 10

A former sheriff’s deputy in Illinois has been found guilty of murder in the killing of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who was shot after calling 911 because she feared an intruder was in her home.

Sean Grayson, 31, who is White, was convicted on second-degree murder charges on Wednesday, Oct. 29, according to the Associated Press and NBC News.

He had previously been charged with first-degree murder, but jurors were given the option to convict on lesser second-degree charges, NBC reports. Other charges of aggravated battery and official misconduct were previously dropped, according to 25News Now.

“While we believe Grayson’s actions deserved a first-degree conviction, today’s verdict is still a measure of justice for Sonya Massey,” Massey family attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci said in a statement after the verdict. “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.

Grayson and another deputy with the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office responded to 36-year-old Massey’s home in Springfield, Ill., around 12:50 a.m. on July 6, 2024, following her 911 call. They appeared to search the front of her home and backyard before knocking on her door and following her inside to get her information as she sat on a couch, according to body camera footage previously obtained by The New York Times and shown in court.

When Massey, a mother of two, got up to remove a pot of hot water from the stove, she told the deputies, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” before Grayson responded that she “better not” and warned her that he would shoot her in her face, per the footage cited by the Times.

Within a couple of seconds he took out his gun and ordered the woman to drop the pot she was holding before firing two shots at her. He then took out his radio and reported a woman with a gunshot wound to her head. Massey was later pronounced dead at St. John’s Hospital, authorities said.

Recalling this moment during the trial, Grayson testified that he took Massey’s “rebuke” comment as a “threat” and pulled out his gun because he feared she was going to throw the boiling pot of water at him, NBC News reported.

He added that he didn’t use his stun gun because he wasn’t sure if it would be effective over her clothes.

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“I didn’t want to take the chance of the Taser malfunctioning,” Grayson testified, per the outlet. “The Taser doesn’t work on everybody.”

During closing arguments on Monday, Oct. 27, Grayson’s attorney Daniel Fultz did not deny that his client pulled the trigger but argued Grayson was legally justified in doing so, saying Grayson “drew his weapon to gain compliance, to make her realize that whatever she was considering doing, she shouldn’t do,” CNN reported.

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Prosecutor Mary Beth Rodgers told the jury Massey was having an emotional crisis at the time but that’s not why she was killed: “It’s because (Grayson) snapped,” NBC 5 Chicago reported.

“’I’m sorry.’ That is the last thing Sonya Massey said before the defendant murdered her,” Rodgers added during closing arguments, per the outlet.

Sonya’s father, James Wilburn, previously claimed to CBS Mornings that the family was “never told” it had been a police shooting and they were “under the impression” that “she was killed by the intruder” and that police had found her dead. 

“We should be comforted after this situation,” Massey’s uncle, Raymond Massey, told PEOPLE last summer. “And then you hear misinformation and lies and it’s hurtful.” Raymond also said Massey had recently bought a house and was looking forward to the future.