Sean Grayson Murdered Sonya Massey — Here's What We Know About His Sentence

A little over two weeks after 36-year-old Sonya Massey was fatally shot in her home, Illinois State Police released body cam footage of the incident, per The New York Times. Massey, a Black woman, called the police in the early morning hours of July 6, 2024, because she believed an intruder had broken into her home in Springfield, Ill.

Sangamon County Sheriff’s deputies Sean Grayson and Dawson Farley, two white men, responded to the 911 call. In the footage, an agitated Massey said twice to the deputies, "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus," while reaching for a pot of boiling water on her stovetop. Grayson warned Massey that he would shoot her in the face. Seconds later, he did. In October 2025, Grayson was found guilty of second-degree murder and faces a lengthy sentence. Here's what we know.

Grayson was initially charged with three counts of first-degree murder, reports CBS News. The jury was given the option of convicting him of second-degree murder, which they did. If Grayson had been convicted of first-degree murder, he would have faced a sentence of 45 years to life. He now faces a sentence of 20 years, which he will receive on Jan. 29, 2026, in Sangamon County court.

As the verdict was read, Grayson's face was blank as members of his family wept in the courtroom. Massey's family, on the other hand, was saddened and angered by the second-degree conviction. "You get an officer who says, 'I'm going to shoot you in the face,' and you only get second-degree murder," said Massey's cousin Sontae. "The justice system did what it's supposed to do; it's not meant for us."

Massey's father, James Wilburn, was shocked by the verdict. "Who could've imagined in their wildest dreams that my daughter was the aggressor here?" he said. "Unless we can't believe our lying eyes, he said what he was going to do, and he did it. He did it."

CBS News Chicago legal expert Irv Miller explained that the jury "determined that as a police officer, he [Grayson] had an unreasonable belief that he was acting in self-defense when he opened fire on Massey."

During Grayson's arraignment, his lawyer revealed that the police officer was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer in 2023, per the Associated Press. Defense attorney Dan Fultz used Grayson's health issues to argue for his client's pretrial release. In November 2024, an appellate court ruled that Grayson could be released, but that was paused in December after prosecutors appealed the decision to the Illinois Supreme Court, reported ABC News.

Per Injustice Watch in collaboration with WBEZ, as of August 2023, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board "denied nearly two-thirds of medical release requests from dying and disabled prisoners who met the medical criteria to get out of prison under the" Joe Coleman Medical Release Act. Under the act, Illinois prisoners can request early release if they’re terminally ill and expected to die within 18 months. We do not know if Grayson qualifies for this.