Sonya Massey, the Black woman who was fatally shot by an Illinois sheriff’s deputy in her home this month, died of a gunshot wound after a bullet went through her head, an autopsy report released Friday found.
The Sangamon County Coroner’s Office said the bullet entered under her left eye, perforated a carotid artery and exited out the back of her neck. The White sheriff’s deputy who shot her in the face, Sean Grayson, 30, was charged with first-degree murder last week.
The autopsy found that the bullet moved in a downward trajectory. In body-camera video of the shooting, Massey appeared to have ducked into a crouch before Grayson took steps toward her and shot her; after that point, she is blocked from view of the camera.
“She stooped down and she said sorry,” attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family, said at a news conference Friday. “The autopsy confirms what everybody already knew in the video, that this was just a senseless, unnecessary, excessive use of force.”
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In addition to the fatal gunshot wound, Massey also had minor blunt force injuries on her right leg, the autopsy found.
The results were made public Friday morning, three weeks after Massey’s July 6 killing. As her family mourned, questions arose about Grayson’s path to the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office.
Grayson enlisted in the Army in 2014 but left after less than two years, according to his service record, indicating he was forced out of the service before his enlistment ended. He then worked for six law enforcement agencies in four years, according to state records. He was hired in Sangamon County last year.
Grayson’s attorney, Daniel Fultz, did not respond to a call Friday from The Washington Post. Grayson pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, aggravated battery with firearm and official misconduct. A judge denied his request to be released from custody ahead of a trial.
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A use-of-force expert with the Illinois State Police, which independently investigated the officer-involved shooting, determined that Grayson was not justified in using deadly force, according to court documents filed last week by prosecutors. Massey’s family has called for a Department of Justice investigation.
“We know we have to fight to get justice. We don’t assume it’s just going to happen for Black people in America,” Crump said. He added of Massey, “We want to make sure that America sees her as a human being worthy of dignity and respect.”
Justice Department spokesman Adam T. Cyr said the agency was “aware of and assessing the circumstances” surrounding Massey’s death and would track the Sangamon County case.
A discharge document published by the Invisible Institute and the Investigative Reporting Workshop shows Grayson’s reason for separation from the military was “misconduct (serious offense).” Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell told the outlet the offense was DUI charges.
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A U.S. official familiar with Grayson’s records said he does not dispute the accuracy of the discharge documents published by the outlet.
Records from Macoupin County, Ill., show Grayson was arrested on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol in 2015 and 2016.
Massey, 36, was the mother of two teenagers, a son and a daughter. She loved cooking, doing hair and being with her children, according to a GoFundMe page created by her family. She was a slight 112 pounds and was in her nightgown and pajama pants when she was killed, the autopsy report showed.
Her 17-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter have not been able to sleep since the killing, her cousin and son said at the news conference. Two other relatives had to clean the blood from Massey’s home, Crump said.
Her daughter can’t get out of bed without being on a FaceTime call with a family member. Her son, Malachi Massey, was the first person notified of her killing.
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Malachi described his mother as a ball of energy. “Just love. That’s all I can think about when I think about my mom — just love, like so much,” he said on an Instagram live stream with Crump.
Share this articleShare“She was always full of love, and she loved her kids and God,” said her brother, Raymond Massey. “That just makes me so angry to see my family hurt as they do.”
The killing has drawn widespread condemnation, including a large protest Thursday in Manhattan, and grief among Black Americans. More than 1,170 people have been killed by police in the past 12 months, according to a Washington Post database, and Black Americans are killed at more than twice the rate of White Americans.
“Sonya’s death at the hands of a responding officer reminds us that all too often Black Americans face fears for their safety in ways many of the rest of us do not,” President Biden said in a statement.
This week, Biden called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, named after the 46-year-old Black man killed by Minneapolis police in 2020. It was approved by the Democratic-controlled House in March 2021, but negotiations fizzled out in the Senate. A renewed push to pass it in 2023, after Memphis police killed Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, also failed because of opposition from Republicans.
When the Massey family was notified of Sonya Massey’s death, they were not initially told that it was a deputy who had shot her, Crump said.
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They believed it might have been a home intruder, and in a statement on July 6, the sheriff’s office only said that deputies reported “that shots had been fired, resulting in a female being struck by gunfire.”
It was 24 hours before the family knew that the person who had shot Massey was a law enforcement officer, according to Crump.
“Why weren’t they told that from the very beginning?” he said. “They kept asking the questions: ‘Who did this?’ ‘What happened?’ Nobody told them it was the sheriff’s deputy, Sean Grayson, who had shot her in the face.”
Massey had some mental health challenges, Crump said, and her kids were staying with other family members while she sought treatment. He said she had checked into a facility but returned after two days, and he had been trying to help her get treatment.
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That night, after midnight, Massey called 911 from her Springfield, Ill., home to report a prowler. When Grayson and another deputy showed up around 12:50 a.m., they inspected the property and interacted with her for nearly 20 minutes. They found evidence of a car break-in but didn’t find a prowler.
Then, when Grayson saw a pot on the stove, he told her to take it off the burner, body-camera footage released Monday showed. Massey did, taking it to the sink. When Grayson said he was moving into the living room to get away from “hot, steaming water,” she said, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”
Grayson then drew his gun and pointed it at Massey, threatening to shoot her in the face. She ducked and said “Okay, I’m sorry.” Grayson came toward her, firing his service weapon in her direction three times, assistant state’s attorney Mary Rodgers said in court documents.
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Grayson did not have his body camera turned on during the call and activated it only after firing his gun, Rodgers said. The other deputy, who has not been publicly identified, had his camera on for the entirety of the encounter with Massey.
That deputy tried to give Massey first aid. Grayson at first told him not to bother because of the severity of her injury, and Grayson never attempted to give her aid himself, Rodgers said.
Crump said Grayson’s employment history, along with the DUI charges, called into question whether Grayson should have been serving as a law enforcement officer.
“Were there red flags missed and should he have been hired in the first place by the sheriff’s department?” Crump said. “Those questions only get louder.”
Alex Horton contributed to this report.
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