Oklahoma executed Wendell Arden Grissom on Thursday for the murder of 23-year-old Amber Matthews in front of her best friend’s two young daughters in 2005.
Grissom, 56, was executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. local time, becoming the first inmate to be put to death by the state in 2025 and the ninth in the United States this year.
"I don’t know what made me do what I did," Grissom said in his confession to police. "I never done anything like this in my life ... I have no explanation."
In text messages to his spiritual adviser in January, Grissom wrote that he was not scared of dying because he knew where he was going.
"I'll finally be free from this place and all, you know?" he wrote. "I for sure do not want to spend the rest of my life in this sorry place."
Grissom's execution comes only hours before Florida was set to execute Edward Thomas James for the murders of a woman and her 8-year-old granddaughter, who was raped.
Wendell Arden Grissom's last words, meal
Grissom's last meal consisted of a medium Canadian bacon supreme pizza, one pint of vanilla ice cream and one pint of Coca-Cola, Lance West, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections told USA TODAY
West also said six members of Grissom's family witnessed the execution on Thursday morning, alongside 26 members of the victims' families.
Grissom's last statement to witnesses was lengthy. In it, he apologized to "everyone he hurt."
"I pray that you all can forgive me, not for my sake, for your sake," Grissom said. "It is the only way you will find God in this."
In the moments before the execution, Grissom expressed calm. "I consider this a mercy, I'm going to be alright," Grissom said.
What was Wendell Grissom convicted of?
On Nov. 3, 2005, Grissom and a homeless hitchhiker he had picked up named Jessie Johns were planning to burglarize homes when they targeted Matthews’ friend Dreu Kopf's house near Watonga, 70 miles northwest of Oklahoma City.
Kopf was home with her two daughters and Matthews when Grissom came knocking. Initially, he asked Kopf if her husband was home but eventually shot his way in, laughing as he fired, according to court records.
“Dreu begged Grissom to stop,” court records say. She offered him “anything he wanted” to spare their lives but Kopf said in court records that “he was just laughing and he just kept shooting and shooting and laughing.”
Grissom shot Kopf in the head and hip. Hearing the shooting from inside the bedroom with the girls, Matthews was "overcome with terror" and "vomited all over her jeans and on the floor,” court records say.
Kopf managed to steal Grissom’s truck and escape, hoping he would follow her. On the way out, she heard Matthews scream, "Please don't shoot me," before Grissom shot her in the back of the head and then the forehead as she held one of the girls. Matthews died.
Amber Matthews' family: Grissom doesn't deserve forgiveness
Following the execution, Kopf and members of the Matthews family spoke to the news media.
"You guys really need to remember (Amber) because she was unbelievable," Kopf said Thursday of her best friend. "She saved my kids."
In reaction to Grissom's last statement asking for their forgiveness, Matthews's stepsister said that Grissom did not deserve any.
"I didn't care what he had to say," Kathy Johnson said. "As far as him wanting mercy, he doesn't deserve it."
On the other hand, Kopf, who previously told USA TODAY that she had forgiven Grissom for his actions, told reporters that it was too little, too late. She witnessed the execution alongside her now-grown daughters, 19-year-old Gracie and 20-year-old Rylee.
"I feel like it was sincere but it was too late," Kopf said. "I had eight bullet holes in my body and there's still bullets in me."
Who was Amber Matthews?
Matthews' father, Garry Matthews, described his daughter as the “apple of my eye, a cute blond blue-eyed little bundle of joy.”
“She was not only my daughter, she was my best friend. In and out of marriages, she was always there for me,” he said during Grissom's 2008 trial. “The last restaurant we ate in, I can’t go back. Everything that reminds me of her brings back the pain.”
Matthews's aunt, Rita Russell, told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board last month that her niece was a “pretty angel.”
“We never got to see her get married or have kids. She loved kids," she said, then addressed Grissom. "You shattered our lives that day ... There’s not a day that does by that I don’t miss her beautiful smile.”
The ripple effects continue to haunt the entire Matthews family, they told the parole board.
“My holidays are not the same. My son no longer has a big sister,” Garry Matthews said in court. “I’m depressed. I miss my daughter so much and I want her back and can’t have her. I can’t even have her for one more day to say goodbye.”
Grissom's execution comes amid slew of others
Grissom's execution comes amid a busy week for the death penalty.
On Tuesday, Louisiana executed Jessie Hoffman by nitrogen gas − a first in state history and only the fifth such execution in the U.S. − and Arizona put Aaron Gunches to death by lethal injection on Wednesday.
Grissom's execution was expected to come about seven hours before Florida executes Edward Thomas James by lethal injection on Thursday. Grissom became the ninth inmate executed in the U.S. this year and James [became] the 10th.
Another 12 inmates are scheduled to be executed in the U.S. but that number is sure to rise as states approve more death warrants.
Source: USA Today, Nolan Clay, Fernando Cervantes, March 21, 2025
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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