Sean Grayson will stay in prison. The Illinois Prisoner Review Board voted 3-0 on Friday to deny the former Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy’s request for early medical release, six months into the 20 year sentence he is serving for the second-degree murder of Sonya Massey.A board spokesperson confirmed the vote in a statement, saying the board voted unanimously to deny Grayson’s medical release application and that he will remain in custody. The panel that heard the case had three members, and all three said no.
Grayson filed the request in May under the Joe Coleman Act, an Illinois law that allows people in prison to petition for release when they are medically incapacitated or terminally ill. His petition cited symptoms of advanced colon cancer. He was diagnosed in 2023, before he killed Massey, and the disease had progressed to stage 4 by the time he was sentenced this January.
The Massey family was in the room. Sonya’s parents, her son and her cousin all gave victim impact statements. Her mother, Donna Massey, told the board plainly what she wanted them to understand. He did it, she said, and he is a menace to society, and he should not be walking around.
Sangamon County State’s Attorney John C. Milhiser also opposed the release in writing, laying out the facts of the killing again and arguing that Grayson remains a danger to the public. What happened on July 6, 2024 has been documented on body camera and recounted in court more than once. Sonya Massey, 36, called 911 early that morning to report a possible prowler outside her home outside Springfield. Grayson responded and came inside. At one point Massey picked up a pot of boiling water from her stove, and Grayson backed away from her. She asked him where he was going. He answered that he was getting away from her hot steaming water. She repeated the phrase back to him and said she rebuked him in the name of Jesus. When he looked confused, she said it again.
Grayson then pointed his gun at her and threatened to shoot. Massey apologized and dropped to the floor. He fired three times and hit her. As she lay bleeding and struggling to breathe, he did not render medical aid. She was pronounced dead later. A jury in Peoria County, where the trial was moved, convicted Grayson of second-degree murder last October. He had been charged with first-degree murder. On January 29, the judge imposed 20 years, the maximum available for that conviction, and Grayson has been in custody since he was charged. Under Illinois rules, good behavior can cut that sentence roughly in half.At sentencing, Grayson apologized to the family. He said he made a lot of mistakes that night, that there were points when he should have acted and did not, that he froze, and that he was sorry. Donna Massey told the court that day that she is now afraid to call the police for fear she might end up like her daughter. Sonya’s daughter Summer told reporters afterward that twenty years is not enough.
Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, who represent the Massey family, welcomed Friday’s ruling in a joint statement, saying the board made the right decision and reaffirmed both the jury’s verdict and the sentence the court imposed. A badge, they said, does not provide an early way out.
For now, Sean Grayson remains in an Illinois prison with about nineteen and a half years left on the sentence, and the family of Sonya Massey has to be ready to come back and testify again whenever he asks.
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