Oklahoma executes the man who killed a woman 20 years ago in a home invasion and robbery

This Feb. 8, 2023, photo provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows Wendell Grissom. (Oklahoma Department of Corrections via AP)

McALESTER, Okla. — Oklahoma executed a man on Thursday for fatally shooting a woman during a home invasion and robbery 20 years ago.

Wendell Grissom, 56, was declared dead by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester at 10:13 a.m. It was Oklahoma’s first execution of 2025.

Grissom and a co-defendant, Jessie Floyd Johns, were convicted of killing of Amber Matthews, 23, and wounding her friend, Dreu Kopf, at Kopf’s Blaine County residence. Johns was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

“I apologize to all of you that I’ve hurt,” Grissom said while strapped to the gurney, an IV line affixed to his right arm. “I regret so much that I’ve put that hatred in your heart for me.”

A minister prayed at Grissom’s feet as the lethal drugs began to flow. He exhaled forcefully several times and could be heard snoring when a doctor entered the execution chamber and declared him unconscious about five minutes later. He appeared to stop breathing at 10:09 a.m. and the color started to drain from his face.

More than two dozen of Matthews' friends and family witnessed Grissom’s execution.

Three other executions were scheduled this week around the United States. Louisiana put a man to death Tuesday using nitrogen gas for the first time as it resumed executions after a 15-year hiatus. A man who kidnapped and murdered his girlfriend’s ex-husband in Arizona was executed Wednesday by lethal injection. Another lethal injection is scheduled Thursday in Florida.

Prosecutors said Grissom, who had a lengthy criminal record, picked up Johns, who was hitchhiking, and the two men were driving west on Interstate 40 when they decided to commit robberies. They randomly selected Kopf’s home near Watonga, where Matthews was visiting Kopf and her two young daughters.

Matthews was shot twice in the head and left clinging to life on the floor as Kopf, also shot twice and seriously wounded, managed to flee in Grissom’s truck to get help, prosecutors said. Grissom and Johns also fled, on a stolen four-wheeler, but quickly ran out of gas and were captured after hitching a ride to a cafe in a nearby county.

Authorities found Kopf’s daughters still inside the home, physically unhurt. Matthews died after being flown by helicopter to an Oklahoma City hospital.

Kopf and her daughters, now 19 and 20, also witnessed Grissom’s execution. Kopf said she believed Grissom’s apology was sincere but “It’s too late.”

“It took him a total of 13 minutes to die, and it took him a total of two minutes to kill my best friend,” Kopf said.

Grissom’s attorneys did not dispute his guilt but argued at a clemency hearing that he suffered from brain damage that was never presented to a jury. The state’s Pardon and Parole Board denied Grissom’s request to recommend clemency.

Grissom’s attorneys told the board he always accepted responsibility and wrote an apology to Matthews' family during his first interview with police.

“He cannot change the past, but he is now and always has been deeply ashamed and remorseful,” said Kristi Christopher, an attorney with the federal public defender’s office.

Christopher said his legal team did not pursue a last-minute appeal, per Grissom’s request.

Kopf told the board that she still carries deep mental and physical scars from the attack, including bullet fragments still in her body. In the years since the attack, she said, she has called 911 when the doorbell rings unexpectedly or a stranger appears in her neighborhood.

“I lived in a heightened state of fear at all times,” she said tearfully.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has called Matthew’s killing a “textbook” death penalty case.

“The crimes committed by Grissom, random, brutal attacks on innocent strangers in the sanctity of their own home, are the very kind that keep people awake at night,” Drummond said during last month’s hearing.

Grissom’s lethal injection is the 128th execution by the state of Oklahoma since the U.S. reinstated the death penalty in 1976, state prison records show. It was the first since Kevin Underwood was executed in December.

By Sean Murphy