Just before being executed, Oklahoma death row inmate Wendell Arden Grissom directed his final words to those who survived his violent actions.
Grissom became the first death row inmate to be executed in Oklahoma this year, as he was administered a lethal injection on Thursday (March 20).
His execution was the result of his conviction for the 2005 murder of Amber Dawn Matthews. During that incident, Grissom forcibly entered the Blaine County residence of Dreu Kopf, where Matthews, age 23, was assisting Kopf in packing for an imminent move.
Grissom shot through a sliding glass door, injuring Kopf in multiple areas including her wrist, hand, shoulder, head, and hip as she attempted to defend herself. Meanwhile, Matthews took Kopf’s infant, Gracie, and rushed to the bedroom where Kopf’s older child, Rylee, was crying in her crib.
Grissom pursued Matthews, who pleaded with him not to shoot, but her pleas were ignored.
Matthews, still holding Gracie, was shot in the back of the head and once more in the forehead. Although both children survived the attack, Grissom was apprehended the next day.
Nearly twenty years later, Kopf attended Grissom’s execution with her now-adult children. Grissom had confessed to police that he wished for his life to end.
Upon being asked if he had any final words, Grissom sought forgiveness for his actions.
“I apologize to all of you that I’ve hurt,” he said. “I regret so much that I’ve put that hatred in your heart for me.”
Grissom acknowledged he was under the influence when the crime occurred, yet admitted: “It’s still my fault. I’m not who I made myself look like that one day.”
The convicted murderer prayed for the surviving victims to be able to ‘forgive’ him for their own healing.
Doing so would be the ‘only way [they] will find God in this’, Grissom stated.
“I consider this a mercy. It’s going to be all right,” he concluded in his last remarks.
After the execution, Kopf expressed that while she found the apology ‘sincere’, it came ‘too late’.
“I had eight bullet holes in my body and there’s still bullets in me,” she explained. “I was always scared. If someone knocked on the door, I would call 911. … I’d go to Walmart and a guy would walk in with a backpack and I thought … there was going to be another shooting. I lived in constant fear.”
Grissom was declared dead at 10:13 am local time on March 20 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.