McALESTER, Okla. — Oklahoma is set to execute a man on Thursday for the fatal shooting of a woman during a home invasion robbery that occurred two decades ago.
Wendell Grissom, 56, will be administered a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, marking the state’s first execution of 2025, according to officials.
Grissom, along with co-defendant Jessie Floyd Johns, was convicted of murdering 23-year-old Amber Matthews and injuring her friend, Dreu Kopf, at Kopf’s Blaine County home. Johns received a life sentence without parole.
Prosecutors revealed that Grissom, with an extensive criminal history, picked up Johns, who was hitchhiking, leading them to decide on committing robberies while traveling west on Interstate 40. They randomly targeted Kopf’s residence near Watonga, where Matthews was visiting with Kopf and her two young children.
Matthews was shot twice in the head and left critically injured on the floor as Kopf, also shot and seriously wounded, managed to escape in Grissom’s truck to seek assistance. Grissom and Johns fled but were apprehended after running out of gas while attempting to escape on a stolen four-wheeler.
Authorities discovered Kopf’s children unharmed inside the residence. Matthews succumbed to her injuries after being transported by helicopter to a hospital in Oklahoma City.
While Grissom’s legal team acknowledged his guilt, they argued during a clemency hearing that he suffered from undiagnosed brain damage that was not presented to the jury. However, the state’s Pardon and Parole Board denied his clemency request.
Grissom’s attorneys stated that he had taken responsibility for his actions, even expressing remorse to Matthews’ family during his initial police interview.
“He cannot change the past, but he is now and always has been deeply ashamed and remorseful,” stated an attorney from the federal public defender’s office.
Kopf testified before the board about the enduring mental and physical scars from the attack, including bullet fragments lodged in her body. She described living in constant fear even in the years following the incident.
“I lived in a heightened state of fear at all times,” she recounted emotionally.
Oklahoma Attorney General has referred to Matthews’ killing as a “textbook” case for the death penalty.
“The crimes committed by Grissom, random, brutal attacks on innocent strangers in the sanctity of their own home, are precisely the kind that keep people awake at night,” he stated during a hearing last month.
The lethal injection scheduled in December of another inmate marked the 127th execution in Oklahoma since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, according to state prison records.
