PEORIA — Prosecutors and defense attorneys agree that Sean Grayson fatally shot Sonya Massey in her Sangamon County kitchen on July 6, 2024, after she called to report a prowler.
But the crux of the murder case against Grayson is whether he feared for his and his fellow deputy’s lives when he fired a shot that struck and killed Massey.
Dan Fultz, Grayson’s attorney, said in opening statements in Grayson’s murder trial on Wednesday that Massey was a threat and did not comply with the deputy’s repeated requests.
Massey’s supposed weapon that caused him to fear for his life, according to defense attorneys? A pot of boiling liquid.
Grayson repeatedly told Massey to put down the pot of water, Fultz said, changing the dynamic of the call.
“This quickly became a rapidly changing situation,” Fultz said. “He was forced to make the decision that no police officer wants to make.
Grayson, 31, was charged with first-degree murder weeks after the shooting. He was fired from the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department after he was charged. Prosecutors dropped two lesser charges, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct, late Monday.
“Make no mistake, we are here today because of the actions of Sean Grayson,” Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Milhiser told the jury during his opening statement Wednesday morning.
“At the end of the day this defendant went into her home and shot and killed her without lawful justification because he was mad at her.”
Dawson Farley, the deputy who was on the call with Grayson at Massey’s house outside of Springfield, recorded the shooting on his bodycam. Farley is expected to testify.
The jury on Wednesday also heard testimony from Illinois State Police Lt. Eric Weston, who headed the officer-involved shooting investigation. Illinois State Police investigate officer-involved shootings to provide an unbiased investigation for local state’s attorneys to review.
Weston testified that he arrived on scene at about 3 a.m. on July 6, 2024 — two hours after the shooting. Weston directly worked on more than a dozen officer-involved shooting investigations, he said. On that day, he was told the shooting was a result of a prowler call where there was an incident with a pot of water that resulted in a use of force.
The investigation proceeded with routine tasks, including a neighborhood canvas, and a visit to the hospital for Grayson to receive a well-being check and submit to have his blood drawn and a urine sample collected the following day.
But the tenor of the investigation changed on a Sunday afternoon, Weston said, when he saw the video from Farley’s bodycam.
“It was different than the assumption on the scene,” Weston said.
He testified that he believed before seeing the video that there had to be something more that preceded the shooting — verbal threats, an act of aggression by Massey, perhaps.
Mark Wykoff, another of Grayson’s attorneys, questioned Weston about the Illinois State Police crime scene investigators who collected evidence at Massey’s house. Weston told the jury that after reviewing the video of the shooting, he sent them back to the house to look for a third bullet.
And Wykoff pointed out other lapses in evidence collection, including failing to immediately collect the pot that was on Massey’s stove that night.
“Ms. Massey was using a pot of boiling liquid as a weapon,” Wykoff said. “The pot wasn’t collected for two weeks.”
Grayson’s career trajectory
Weston further testified that Grayson received crisis intervention training the year before, according to Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board records. The training is designed to deescalate conflict when calls involve those having a mental health crisis.
Grayson worked for six different departments in four years, but under cross-examination from Wykoff, Weston told the jury that the first three departments, beginning in 2020 with the Pawnee Police Department, were part-time positions until he got a full-time job with Auburn in 2021.
“That’s not an uncommon career trajectory for a law enforcement officer, is it?” Wykoff said.
Weston agreed that it was not.
Read more: Grayson’s behavior in Logan County led superior to ask, ‘How are you still employed with us?’
The prosecution’s second witness was Kathryn Barton, who worked at Sangamon County Central Dispatch. Barton answered Massey’s call that night.
“I keep hearing stuff outside my house, like somebody is banging on the side of my house,” Massey said on the recorded 911 call.
During that call, Massey sounded calm but could not remember her phone number when Barton asked. Then the call dropped.
Grayson and Farley responded to the call just after 1 a.m. Massey, who family members said was experiencing a mental health crisis, told Grayson that she heard someone outside her home during the overnight hours. The deputies searched the area around the outside but didn’t find anything. They then went inside to question Massey after finding windows broken on a car parked outside of her home.
The two deputies noticed a pot heating liquid on the stove and told her to remove it. As she did, Massey, who was Black, said, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”
Grayson, who is white, then threatened to shoot Massey in the face. Moments later, he pulled his 9 mm service weapon and fired three times, striking Massey once in the face. Grayson said he feared for his safety and that of Farley.
The trial was moved to Peoria to avoid pretrial publicity.
Testimony is expected to continue Wednesday afternoon.
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