Oklahoma executed Wendell Arden Grissom on Thursday morning, ending a 17-year legal battle that began with a random home invasion that left a young woman dead and a mother forever scarred. The 56-year-old inmate was pronounced dead at 10:18 a. m.
at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, becoming the state’s first execution of 2025.
Grissom spent his final hours in a special holding cell, eating a modest last meal of medium thick crust pizza with Canadian bacon, a pint of vanilla ice cream, and a pint of Coca-Cola. He had requested the simple meal the night before, prison officials confirmed. He also wrote a final letter to the families of his victims, reiterating the apologies he had made over the years.
In his last words, delivered from the gurney as a minister rested a hand on his shoulder, Grissom turned toward the witness room and said, “I apologize to all of you that I’ve hurt. I regret so much that I’ve put that hatred in your heart for me.” Then the warden signaled the execution team to begin the lethal injection protocol.
The execution process took approximately 13 minutes from the first 𝒹𝓇𝓊𝑔 to the final pronouncement. Witnesses reported that Grissom began snoring loudly shortly after the sedative took effect, a common but jarring reaction. The snoring gradually faded until his chest stopped moving.
The official time of death was recorded at 10:18 a. m.
Seventeen years earlier, on a November evening in 2005, Grissom and an accomplice, Jesse Floyd Johns, were driving west on Interstate 40 after drinking and using drugs. They decided impulsively to rob a house. Any house.
They pulled off the highway near Watonga, a tiny community in Blaine County, and spotted the home of Drew Cop, a young mother of two.
Grissom walked up to the patio door and began shooting without warning. Drew Cop, then in her 20s, was struck multiple times. One bullet hit her shoulder and traveled through her body, lodging behind her ear.
Another hit her hip. She was also wounded in the wrist and hand. Witnesses later testified that Grissom was laughing as he fired.
Despite her catastrophic injuries, Drew Cop managed to run from the house and drive herself to get help. She later testified that she was convinced she had to escape because Grissom would 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 everyone inside. Inside the home, Amber Matthews, a 23-year-old friend of Drew’s, heard the gunfire and ran to protect the two children, toddler Riley and infant Gracie.
Amber Matthews positioned herself between the children and the bedroom door. She was holding baby Gracie when Grissom burst in. She pleaded for her life, begging to live.
She wanted to become a nurse. Grissom raised his gun and fired once into the back of her head. Then, standing over her crumpled body, he fired again into her forehead.
The children were covered in Amber’s blood but physically unharmed. Amber died at an Oklahoma City hospital. Drew survived, but bullet fragments remained in her body for the rest of her life, a permanent reminder of the attack.
She lived in constant fear, calling 911 whenever strangers appeared near her property.
Grissom and Johns fled the scene, stealing a four-wheeler that ran out of gas. They were arrested within hours at a local diner, where they had stopped for a meal as if nothing had happened. Police found stolen firearms and items from Drew’s home in their possession.
The manhunt was over in less than 24 hours.
In January 2006, a Blaine County grand jury indicted both men on charges including first-degree murder, shooting with intent to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁, and grand larceny. Johns pleaded guilty and received life in prison without parole. Grissom chose to fight.
His trial began in late 2007, and the prosecution’s case was devastating.
Drew Cop testified as an eyewitness. Forensic evidence linked the bullets to Grissom’s weapon. Stolen items were found with him.
His own statements to police were introduced. The defense did not claim innocence but argued that Grissom was severely intoxicated and had brain damage from a previous car accident, impairing his judgment.
The jury saw surveillance footage showing Grissom coherent enough to drive, select a target, load a weapon, and fire repeatedly. They heard testimony that he laughed while shooting. They saw the crime scene photos.
In 2008, the jury returned a guilty verdict on all counts and recommended the death penalty for the murder of Amber Matthews.
The judge formally sentenced Grissom to death by lethal injection. He was 40 years old. He was transferred to death row at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, where he spent 23 hours a day in a cell, with one hour of recreation.
The appeals began immediately and stretched into nearly two decades.
His attorneys filed motion after motion, challenging jury bias, ineffective assistance of counsel, improper evidence, and the impact of his mental impairment. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals rejected his claims in 2009. The U.
S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2019. By early 2025, all legal options were exhausted.
In February 2025, Grissom’s attorneys appeared before the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, seeking clemency. They argued that he had been a model prisoner for 17 years, showed remorse, and accepted responsibility. They presented brain scan evidence again.
The board voted 4 to 1 to deny clemency. Governor Kevin Stitt did not intervene.
The execution date was set for March 20, 2025. In the days before, Grissom was moved to a special holding area. He had final visits with family and his attorneys.
He met with a prison chaplain. He requested his last meal, which was simple: pizza, vanilla ice cream, and Coca-Cola. The prison kitchen provided it without issue.
On the morning of March 20, Grissom was awakened early. He spent time with the chaplain. At 10:13 a.
m. , he was strapped to the gurney in the execution chamber. In the witness room, more than two dozen family members and friends of Amber Matthews watched.
Drew Cop insisted on being there, watching the man who destroyed so many lives take his final breath.
Before the drugs began, Grissom made his final statement. His voice was low but audible through the microphone. He apologized and expressed regret.
Then the warden signaled the execution team. The first 𝒹𝓇𝓊𝑔, a sedative, began flowing through the IV. Grissom took several deep breaths, his body relaxed, and he began snoring loudly.
The snoring continued for several minutes before fading. The paralytic and the final 𝒹𝓇𝓊𝑔 were administered. At 10:18 a.
m. , a prison doctor checked Grissom’s vital signs and pronounced him dead. The entire process took 13 minutes.
Drew Cop later said, “It took him a total of 13 minutes to die. And it took him a total of 2 minutes to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 my best friend.”
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond released a statement calling Amber Matthews’ murder monstrous and affirming that the sentence had been appropriately carried out. Grissom became the 127th person executed in Oklahoma since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. He was the first execution in the state in 2025.
For Amber Matthews’ family, the execution marked the end of a nearly 20-year nightmare. But it did not bring Amber back. It did not erase the trauma that Drew Cop and her daughters, Riley and Gracie, have carried since that night.
Healing, as Drew once said, wasn’t really possible. You just learn to live with it.
Amber Dawn Matthews was 23 years old when she was killed. She dreamed of becoming a nurse, of helping people. On the night she died, she ran toward danger to protect children who were not her own.
Her final act defined her character. She was selfless to the very end. Her family remembers her as kind, vivacious, and caring.
Grissom’s final hours offer a stark contrast to the violence he inflicted. He ate pizza and ice cream. He wrote letters of apology.
He spoke words of regret. But for those who watched, his death was not a moment of closure. It was the end of a long, painful chapter that began with a random decision to rob a house and ended with a state-sanctioned execution.
The questions raised by this case will linger. Did justice demand his death? Could life in prison without parole have been sufficient?
What about redemption and forgiveness? These are not questions that can be answered in a news article. They are questions that each person must wrestle with in their own way.
What is undeniable is that on a November night in 2005, Amber Matthews gave her life to save two children. And on a Thursday morning in March 2025, Wendell Arden Grissom was executed for taking her life. The two minutes of violence that destroyed a family took 17 years to answer with 13 minutes of lethal injection.
Grissom’s accomplice, Jesse Floyd Johns, remains in prison serving life without parole. He will never see freedom again. The Cop family continues to live with the aftermath.
Riley and Gracie, now young women, have grown up with a story that most children never have to hear. They were covered in blood that night, but they survived.
Drew Cop still carries bullet fragments in her body, a physical reminder of the attack. She has spoken publicly about her journey, about learning to live with fear, about raising her daughters in the shadow of that night. She watched Grissom die because she needed to see that the man who haunted her was gone.
The execution was conducted without incident. Prison officials reported no complications. The drugs used were part of Oklahoma’s standard lethal injection protocol.
Witnesses included representatives from the media and the attorney general’s office. The entire procedure was recorded and reviewed.
Grissom’s last words were not an outburst or a denial. They were an apology, however belated. Whether that apology carried any weight with the families is unclear.
Some may have found a measure of peace in hearing his regret. Others may see it as hollow, given that he only expressed it after all appeals failed.
The case drew attention from death penalty opponents and advocates alike. Some argued that Grissom’s brain damage and intoxication should have spared him the death penalty. Others argued that the brutality of his crime demanded the ultimate punishment.
The legal system resolved the debate in favor of execution.
Oklahoma has a long and contentious history with capital punishment. The state has faced scrutiny over its execution methods, including a botched lethal injection in 2014 and issues with 𝒹𝓇𝓊𝑔 supplies. But Thursday’s execution proceeded without any visible problems, according to officials.
For the community of Watonga, the execution brings a sense of finality. The crime shattered the peace of a small town where everyone knew each other. The trial and appeals kept the story alive for nearly two decades.
Now, with Grissom dead, the community can perhaps begin to heal.
But for the Matthews family, closure remains elusive. Amber’s mother, father, siblings, and friends will always live with the hole she left behind. They will always remember her smile, her dreams, her selfless act.
An execution cannot replace a life. It can only ensure that the person who took that life cannot take another.
Drew Cop has said that she hopes her daughters will someday understand what happened and find a way to move forward without being defined by the trauma. She has tried to give them a normal childhood despite the nightmares. She has insisted on being strong for them, even when she felt like falling apart.
The execution of Wendell Arden Grissom is a reminder of the randomness of violence and the long arc of justice. It took 17 years to reach this moment. In that time, Amber’s family suffered every day.
Grissom sat on death row, writing appeals and letters. The machinery of the law moved slowly.
Now it is over. The state has carried out its sentence. The families have witnessed it.
The media has reported it. The story has been told. But for those who lived it, the ending is not neat.
There is no ribbon to tie around it. There is only the memory of a young woman who gave her life for children, and the man who took it.
In the final analysis, the case of Wendell Arden Grissom will be studied by legal scholars, debated by advocates on both sides of the death penalty debate, and remembered by a community that will never forget what happened on a November night in 2005. For now, the chapter is closed. The execution is done.
But the questions remain.