“It doesn’t look like justice” 

A second-degree murder conviction for former Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson on Oct. 29 in the death of Sonya Massey was a “serious miscarriage of justice,” Massey’s father said after the jury verdict.

Grayson, 31, who was charged with first-degree murder in the July 2024 shooting death of Massey, 36, in her Woodside Township home, and would have been ensured a prison sentence of 45 years to life if convicted of that crime. Instead, he will face a potential prison sentence of four to 20 years in prison for second-degree murder when he is sentenced Jan. 29. But with time already served and because the second-degree charge allows the sentence to be reduced by half for good behavior, he could be released in about 8½ years even if he receives the maximum sentence.

“Sean Grayson should be able to get out of jail when my daughter can get out of that burial vault,” Massey’s father, James Wilburn of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, said at a news conference after the verdict.

The law would allow the presiding judge, Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge Ryan Cadagin, to release Grayson and only sentence him to probation, though one of the lawyers representing the Massey family, Antonio Romanucci, said that is unlikely.

Romanucci, who, with civil rights attorney Ben Crump, negotiated a $10 million out-of-court settlement with Sangamon County for Sonya Massey’s two children to avoid a wrongful death civil lawsuit, said this was “not the exact outcome the family was looking for.” But he said the family was grateful to Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Milhiser and First Assistant State’s Attorney Mary Beth Rodgers for securing a conviction.

“Sean Grayson is a convicted murderer. He is a murderer now,” Romanucci said outside the Peoria County courthouse in Peoria, where the trial was moved because of extensive pretrial publicity in Sangamon County.

The reactions of Massey’s family, friends and supporters were raw in expressing their dissatisfaction with the second-degree conviction, and they said they hope Cadagin gives Grayson the maximum sentence possible. 

“Today is a painful day for me and for people who look like me,” said Teresa Haley, a Massey family friend, Springfield activist and former president of the Springfield branch of the NAACP. “We can’t call the police and feel safe in our own homes.”

The conviction meant that the jury found Grayson, who is white, shot Massey with intent to kill or seriously injure Massey, who was Black. But the jury found that there was a mitigating factor – he mistakenly believed he was justified in shooting Massey out of self-defense.

Individual video frames from body cameras worn by Grayson and another deputy who was present, Dawson Farley, showed Massey raising a pot of hot water over her head and apparently trying to throw the water as Grayson shot her in the face.

Massey, who was dealing with mental illness, at first complied with Grayson’s profanity-laced order to put down the pot when he drew his gun and pointed it at her, telling her that he would shoot her in the face if she didn’t.

Seconds later, Massey then ducked behind a counter and suddenly jumped up, raised the pot over her head and tried to throw the water as Grayson shot her in the face, according to experts for the prosecution and defense who analyzed the video.

The jury was composed of nine women and three men, all Peoria County residents. All of the jurors were white except for one person, a man. That means the jury was 8% Black, while Black people make up more than 17% of Peoria County’s population.

Jurors deliberated for about 12 hours over two days before reaching a verdict.

Tiara Standage, executive director of nonprofit Intricate Minds and a member of the Springfield-based PURPLE (People United to Reform Power, Liberty and Equity) Coalition, said she believed jurors decided against a first-degree murder verdict because “the jury was mostly white, and they look at Sonya Massey as a threat. Sonya Massey was not a threat. She would have never been in the kitchen, she would have never touched the pot if Sean Grayson didn’t tell her to.”

“It doesn’t look like justice,” Standage said of the verdict.

To move on from the decision, she said Springfield “is just going to need safe spaces for healing, for Black voices to be heard, for Black women to feel safe.”

When the foreperson of the jury, a woman, handed Cadagin the written verdict and Cadagin read it, Grayson, dressed in a suit and tie, expressed no emotion. 

Grayson’s Springfield-based attorneys, Dan Fultz and Mark Wykoff, declined comment.

Milhiser told Illinois Times on Oct. 30, “My heart breaks for the family and friends of Sonya Massey, who, during the course of the trial, had to listen to testimony and watch and see the video of the murder of Sonya. At the sentencing hearing, we will ask the judge for the maximum possible sentence for second-degree murder.”

The jurors, who have been publicly identified only by numbers, couldn’t be reached for comment.

In the courtroom gallery, there were gasps and tears from members of Grayson’s family. They quickly left the courtroom and weren’t available for comment. 

Members of Massey’s family were tearful, as well. Sonya Massey’s daughter, Jeannette “Summer” Massey, 16, was seen and heard crying and yelling her displeasure with the verdict as she left the courtroom surrounded by relatives.

Sonya Massey’s father, a retired U.S. Border Patrol agent, and other family members and friends said they will work to change laws in Illinois so that there is a murder charge in between first- and second-degree murder so there isn’t such a big gap in potential time served. Wilburn, 67, said he will also work to ensure that the law passed by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. JB Pritzker to promote more thorough vetting processes before the hiring of police officers be adopted nationwide. 

“This man never should have had a badge and a gun,” a tearful Wilburn said. “He said he was going to shoot my daughter in the face, and he did it. … His attorneys were skillful enough that they threw crap against the wall. They said that my daughter was the aggressor. 

“I don’t know why he was such an evil person,” Wilburn said. “I know that there will be justice for Sean Grayson, and it may not be in this world, but it will be in the next one.”

Wilburn said “white privilege” and unequal justice were at play in the jury’s decision. He harkened back to statements made by a famous comedian, a native of Peoria who died in 2005, when Wilburn said of the verdict, “That’s not justice. Richard Pryor said a long time ago, when you go down to the courthouse in this country, you find ‘just us.’”

Haley agreed, saying, “Had the roles been reversed – if that was a Black man in a white woman’s house … he would have gotten life in prison.”

Sonya Massey’s mother, Springfield resident Donna Massey, cried when asked about Grayson’s conviction and said, “I can’t wait till he goes to hell.”  

Dean Olsen is a senior staff writer with Illinois Times. He can be reached at dolsen@illinoistimes.com, 217-679-7810 or www.x.DeanOlsenIT.

This article appears in November 6-12, 2025.