Inside the Final Hours of Wendell Arden Grissom | last meal & words Oklahoma Death Row Documentary

Inside the Final Hours of Wendell Arden Grissom | Last Meal & Words (Oklahoma Death Row Documentary)

The End of a 17-Year Wait

On March 20th, 2025, at 10:13 a.m., 56-year-old Wendell Arden Grissom was executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He became Oklahoma’s first execution of the year. Grissom had spent nearly 17 years on death row, ever since his 2008 conviction for a brutal 2005 home invasion murder.

In this video, we will take you inside the case that led him to death row: the crime itself, the investigation and trial, and the final hours before his execution, including his last meal and the final words he spoke before he died. But before we get into those final moments, let me take you back to where this nightmare began.

Because what happened on a November evening in 2005 was so random, so utterly senseless, that it would haunt a rural Oklahoma community for nearly two decades. Welcome to Deadline Files.

A Peaceful Evening Shattered

Picture this: It’s November 2005 in Blaine County, Oklahoma. The landscape is flat and wide, dotted with farms and small houses separated by miles of open prairie. Near the town of Watonga, a quiet community of fewer than 3,000 people, a young mother named Drew Cop is spending a peaceful evening at home with her two small daughters and a close friend. Drew is in her 20s. She has two precious little girls: Riley, a toddler about 2 years old, and baby Gracie, still an infant.

It’s the kind of home where laughter echoes through the rooms, where toys are scattered on the floor, where the biggest worry is getting the kids to bed on time. Staying with her that night is 23-year-old Amber Matthews. Amber is more than just a friend; she’s practically family. She’s young, vivacious, and full of dreams. She wants to be a nurse someday to help people, to make a difference.

Right now, though, she’s content to spend time with her best friend and those beautiful children. She’s the kind of person who lights up a room, who makes kids giggle, who remembers the little things that matter. As the evening wears on, the children are settled. Maybe Amber and Drew are watching TV, talking about their plans, enjoying the simple comfort of friendship. Outside, the sun has set. The house sits relatively isolated, surrounded by the vast Oklahoma landscape. It’s quiet. It’s safe. Or so they think.

The Predators Approach

About 100 miles away, two men are driving west on Interstate 40. Their names are Wendell Arden Grissom and Jesse Floyd Johns. They’ve been drinking. They’ve been using drugs. And they’re looking for a house to rob.

Not a specific house. Not the home of someone who wronged them or someone they have a grudge against. Just any house. They want money, valuables, whatever they can get their hands on. The choice is completely random—a terrifying lottery where Drew Cop’s home becomes the unlucky winner.

Grissom is 37 years old at this point. He’s got a lengthy criminal record, a history of bad decisions, violent tendencies, and run-ins with the law. Johns is younger, drifting, the kind of guy who makes one wrong choice after another until he ends up in a situation he can’t control. According to later testimony, Johns had been hitchhiking when Grissom picked him up.

Somewhere during that ride, they decided impulsively—casually, as if they were deciding what to have for dinner—to commit robberies. Just like that, two strangers making a choice that would destroy multiple lives. They pull off Interstate 40 and start looking for targets. They drive through the darkness until they spot Drew Cop’s house near Watonga.

There’s no particular reason they choose this one. It just happens to be there. It happens to look vulnerable.

The Attack

They approach the house, and what happens next is almost too brutal to comprehend. Grissom doesn’t knock. He doesn’t announce himself. He walks up to the patio door and starts shooting. The first bullets shatter the glass.

Drew Cop is hit immediately. She’s struck in the wrist and the hand, but Grissom isn’t done. He keeps firing. One bullet enters her shoulder and travels through her body, lodging in her skull behind her ear. Another bullet hits her hip.

And here’s the part that makes it even more horrifying: Witnesses would later testify that Grissom was laughing as he fired. Laughing. Not nervous laughter, not the manic laugh of someone having a breakdown. Cold, cruel laughter. The laughter of someone enjoying what he’s doing. “He was just laughing and he just kept shooting and shooting and laughing,” Drew would later recall, her voice still trembling with the memory even years after the attack.

Drew, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds, knows she has to survive. She has to get help. Her babies are in the house. Amber is in the house. With every ounce of strength she has left—despite the bullet lodged in her skull, despite the wounds to her hand and hip—Drew Cop runs. She makes it outside. She escapes the carnage. And in a display of strength that defies comprehension, she manages to drive herself toward help, convinced that if she doesn’t get away, Grissom will kill everyone in that house.

The Ultimate Sacrifice

Inside, Amber Matthews hears the gunshots. She hears the screaming. She knows something terrible is happening. Her first instinct isn’t to run; it’s to protect the children. She rushes to the bedroom where Riley and baby Gracie are. She positions herself between them and the door. She becomes their shield.

Wendell Grissom follows her. He bursts into the bedroom and finds Amber there, cradling baby Gracie in her arms. Riley is in the crib nearby, terrified, crying. Amber is begging. She’s pleading for her life. She’s 23 years old and she wants to live. She wants to become a nurse. She wants to see tomorrow.

But Grissom doesn’t care. He raises his gun and fires. The first shot hits Amber in the back of the head. She’s still holding Gracie when the bullet enters her skull. But Grissom isn’t satisfied. He stands over her—this young woman who’s crumpled to the floor, bleeding, dying—and he fires again. This time into her forehead.

The room is painted with blood. Baby Gracie and toddler Riley are screaming, their clothes spattered with the blood of the woman who tried to protect them, but they’re physically unharmed. Amber used her body as a shield, and in her final moments, she saved those children’s lives.

The Aftermath and Arrest

Outside, authorities are already being alerted. Drew Cop, despite her catastrophic injuries, has managed to summon help. Emergency responders race to the scene. What they find when they arrive is a scene of absolute horror. Amber Matthews is on the floor gasping for breath, surrounded by the children. She’s still alive—barely.

The paramedics work frantically. They call for a medical helicopter. Amber is airlifted to an Oklahoma City hospital, the medical team fighting desperately to save her. Meanwhile, Riley and Gracie are found in their crib, traumatized, covered in blood, but miraculously uninjured. They’re taken into protective custody immediately. What those little girls witnessed that night would haunt them and their family forever.

At the hospital, doctors fight to save both Drew and Amber. Drew’s injuries are severe. Bullet fragments remain lodged in her body, including the one behind her ear that’s too dangerous to remove. But she survives. Against all odds, she makes it through.

Amber Matthews is not so fortunate. Despite the best efforts of the trauma team, she succumbs to her wounds. She dies in that Oklahoma City hospital, her dreams of becoming a nurse dying with her. The official cause of death: Gunshot wounds to the head. The unofficial cause: Being in the wrong place when two predators decided to destroy innocent lives.

Back at the crime scene, investigators are already gathering evidence. Shell casings litter the floor. There’s blood everywhere. Fingerprints. Forensic evidence. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation processes the scene meticulously, knowing they’re looking at a capital murder case.

And what about Grissom and Johns? They fled. After the shooting, they stole a four-wheeler from the property and took off into the darkness. But here’s the thing about rural Oklahoma: There aren’t that many places to hide. The four-wheeler runs out of gas. They are stranded. So, they do what desperate criminals do. They start hitchhiking.

Within hours—literally hours—law enforcement has them. Grissom and Johns are arrested at a local diner where they’d apparently decided to stop for a meal, as if they hadn’t just murdered someone and nearly killed another. When police search them, they find stolen firearms, items taken from Drew Cop’s home, and other incriminating evidence. The manhunt is over in less than 24 hours. But for the families of the victims, the nightmare is just beginning.

Remembering Amber and the Survivor’s Burden

Let’s talk about Amber Dawn Matthews, because she deserves to be remembered as more than just a victim. Amber was 23 years old. She had her whole life ahead of her. She was described by everyone who knew her as kind, vivacious, caring. She didn’t just want to be a nurse; she was touched by the idea of helping others, of making a real difference in people’s lives.

The night she died, she was doing what she loved, spending time with her best friend and those beautiful children. She wasn’t in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was exactly where she wanted to be, doing exactly what brought her joy. When Wendell Grissom burst into that house, Amber had a choice. She could have tried to run. She could have tried to save herself. Instead, she ran toward the children. She put herself between them and a madman with a gun. She died protecting babies who weren’t even her own. Her family would later say that Amber’s final act defined who she was: selfless to the very end.

And Drew Cop—what she survived is almost incomprehensible. Shot at least three times with a bullet lodged in her skull, she managed to escape and get help. But survival came at a tremendous cost. In the years that followed, Drew lived with constant fear. The bullet fragments couldn’t be safely removed; they remained in her body as permanent reminders of that night.

She reported living in a heightened state of fear at all times. She called 911 when strangers appeared near her property. Simple things that most people take for granted—answering the door, hearing unexpected noises—became sources of terror. Her children, Riley and Gracie, grew up with the knowledge of what happened that night. How do you explain to your daughters that they survived something that killed the woman who tried to protect them? How do you help them process trauma they were too young to fully understand, but old enough to remember in nightmares and fragments?

The emotional toll on the entire family would last a lifetime. Healing, as Drew would later say, wasn’t really possible. You just learn to live with it.

Justice and the Courts

In January 2006, a Blaine County grand jury indicted both Grissom and Johns on multiple counts. The charges were severe: first-degree murder, shooting with intent to kill, grand larceny, possession of a firearm after felony conviction, and more.

Jesse Floyd Johns, facing the overwhelming evidence and perhaps recognizing the horror of what they’d done, decided to plead guilty. He accepted a deal: Life in prison without the possibility of parole. He would spend the rest of his life behind bars, never again seeing freedom, never again making choices that could hurt innocent people.

But Wendell Grissom chose to fight the charges. His trial began in late 2007 in Blaine County. The prosecution’s case was devastating. They had eyewitness testimony from Drew Cop, who could identify Grissom as the shooter. They had forensic evidence linking the bullets to Grissom’s weapon. They had the stolen items found in his possession. They had his own statements to the police.

The defense didn’t try to claim innocence; the evidence was too overwhelming. Instead, they built their case around intoxication and mental impairment. Grissom’s attorneys argued that he was severely intoxicated at the time of the crime, that his judgment was impaired, and that he suffered from brain damage from a previous car accident. They painted a picture of a man whose impulse control was compromised, who wasn’t fully responsible for his actions. They presented brain scans showing abnormalities. They brought in expert witnesses to testify about the effects of substance abuse and traumatic brain injury. They argued that while the crime was terrible, Grissom’s mental state should be considered.

But here’s what the jury saw: Surveillance footage and evidence showing a man who was coherent enough to drive, coherent enough to select a target, coherent enough to load a weapon and fire it repeatedly. They heard testimony about how he laughed while shooting. They saw the crime scene photos showing where Amber Matthews died protecting children.

After deliberation, the Blaine County jury returned their verdict: Guilty on all counts. First-degree murder for killing Amber Matthews. Shooting with intent to kill for the attack on Drew Cop. Grand larceny, weapons charges.

And then came the sentencing phase. In capital cases, there’s a separate proceeding where the jury decides whether the defendant should receive life in prison or the death penalty. The prosecution argued that Grissom’s crime was particularly heinous, that he showed no mercy, that he laughed while killing, that he shot a woman who was begging for her life while holding a baby. The defense brought in family members who testified that Grissom could be a different person, that his brain injury and substance abuse had changed him, that somewhere inside was a human being capable of remorse.

The jury wasn’t moved. They recommended death. In April 2008, the judge formally sentenced Wendell Arden Grissom to death by lethal injection for the murder of Amber Matthews, plus additional lengthy prison terms for the other charges. He was 40 years old. He would spend the rest of his life on Oklahoma’s death row.

The Long Wait on Death Row

Grissom was transferred to the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, home to Oklahoma’s death row. He was placed in a cell where he would spend 23 hours a day, every day, for years. One hour of recreation time, minimal human contact, meals delivered to his cell—the slow, grinding monotony of waiting to die.

And the appeals began. His attorneys filed motion after motion, working their way through Oklahoma’s court system and then into federal courts. They challenged the conviction on multiple grounds: jury bias, ineffective assistance of counsel, improper admission of evidence, the impact of his mental impairment.

In 2009, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reviewed his case and rejected his claims. The conviction stood, the sentence stood. But the appeals continued year after year, court after court. 2010 became 2011. 2011 became 2015. Grissom’s life became a routine of appeals hearings, legal briefs, and waiting.

During this time, he reportedly expressed remorse for what he’d done. He wrote letters apologizing to the victims’ families. He accepted responsibility, calling himself ashamed of his actions. Meanwhile, outside those prison walls, Drew Cop was trying to rebuild her life. Amber Matthews’ family was trying to cope with a loss that could never be filled. Riley and Gracie were growing up, dealing with trauma they were too young to fully understand when it happened.

The years dragged on. 2015 became 2020. Then 2021, 2022, 2023—nearly 17 years on death row. In 2019, Grissom’s case reached the US Supreme Court. His attorneys argued that the jury’s decision was flawed, that his intoxication should have been given more weight. But the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. They let the conviction and sentence stand.

By early 2025, Grissom had exhausted virtually all his legal options. There was one final avenue: clemency. In February 2025, Grissom’s attorneys appeared before the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board. This was a last-ditch effort. They weren’t trying to prove innocence; they were asking for mercy. They wanted his sentence commuted to life in prison without parole.

They presented the brain scan evidence again. They talked about his acceptance of responsibility. They emphasized that he’d been a model prisoner for nearly 17 years—no violence, no incidents. They argued that executing him now, after all these years, wouldn’t serve justice. The board listened. They reviewed the case. And then they voted. The decision was 4 to 1: Clemency denied.

Governor Kevin Stitt had the power to override that decision, but he chose not to intervene. The execution would proceed. The date was set: March 20th, 2025. Exactly the day Grissom would die.

The Final Hours

In the days leading up to his execution, Grissom was moved to a special holding area at the prison. He was allowed final visits from family members, though it’s unclear who came to see him. He met with his attorneys one last time. He spoke with a prison chaplain, and he was offered the opportunity to request a special last meal.

Unlike Texas, which abolished special last meal requests in 2011, Oklahoma still allows condemned prisoners to choose their final meal within certain guidelines: nothing too expensive, nothing requiring excessive preparation, but essentially whatever the prison kitchen can reasonably provide.

Grissom’s request was simple, almost humble: A medium thick-crust pizza with Canadian bacon, a pint of vanilla ice cream, and a pint of Coca-Cola. That’s it. No elaborate feast, no exotic foods, just pizza, ice cream, and Coke—the kind of meal a person might order on a regular Friday night. Prison records indicate that Grissom ate the meal on March 19th, the day before his execution.

On March 19th, Grissom also wrote a final letter to the Matthews and Cop families. In it, he reiterated his apologies, expressed his shame, and acknowledged the pain he’d caused. It wasn’t his first apology—he’d been saying sorry for years—but it was his last.

The Execution

The morning of March 20th, 2025 arrived. It was a Thursday. In other parts of the country, people were going to work, dropping kids off at school, living normal lives. But in McAlester, Oklahoma, at the state penitentiary, preparations were underway for a state-sanctioned execution.

Wendell Grissom was awakened early. He was given time with a chaplain if he wanted it. He was prepared for what was coming. At 10:13 a.m., the process began. Grissom was strapped to a gurney in the execution chamber.

In a witness room, separated by a window, more than two dozen family members and friends of Amber Matthews were gathered. Drew Cop was there, too. The woman who survived three gunshot wounds, who lived with bullet fragments in her body, who’d endured nearly two decades of trauma and fear—she insisted on watching the man who destroyed so many lives take his final breath.

Before the execution began, Grissom was given the opportunity to make a final statement. A minister stood nearby, placing a hand on Grissom’s shoulder. Grissom turned his head slightly, looking toward the witness window where the families could see him. His voice was low but audible:

“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.”

Those were his last words. Not a proclamation of innocence, not a curse against the system, just an apology.

Then the warden gave the signal. The first drug began flowing through the IV. Grissom took several deep breaths. His body began to relax as the sedative took effect. Then something happened that witnesses found unsettling: He began snoring loudly. It’s a common reaction to the drugs, but for those watching, it was jarring. This wasn’t the peaceful drift into sleep that people imagine. It was harsh, guttural—the sound of a body shutting down.

The snoring continued for several minutes. Then, gradually, it faded. Grissom’s chest stopped rising and falling. His body went still. At approximately 10:18 a.m., a prison doctor checked his vital signs and declared him unconscious. The process continued. The paralytic was administered. Then the final drug. At 10:26 a.m.—though some reports list slightly different times due to when various checks occurred—Wendell Arden Grissom was officially pronounced dead.

From the first injection to the final pronouncement, the entire process took roughly 13 minutes. Drew Cop, watching through the glass, would later make a haunting observation:

“It took him a total of 13 minutes to die. And it took him a total of 2 minutes to kill my best friend.”

13 minutes versus 2 minutes. The math of justice, if you can call it that.

Aftermath and Reflections

In the witness room, some of Amber’s family members wept. Others remained stoic. Some had stepped out before the final moment, unable to watch. But Drew Cop stayed. She watched every second. And when it was over, when the doctor called the time of death, tears filled her eyes. “Justice has been done,” she said.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who had pushed for the execution, released a statement calling Amber Matthews’ murder “monstrous” and affirming that the sentence had been appropriately carried out. Wendell Arden 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. But he wouldn’t be the last.

For the Matthews family, the execution marked the end of a nearly 20-year ordeal. But it didn’t bring Amber back. It didn’t undo the trauma. It didn’t erase the nightmares or fill the empty seat at family gatherings. Did it bring closure? That’s a question each family member had to answer for themselves.

For Drew Cop and her daughters, it meant the man who haunted their nightmares was gone. He would never hurt anyone again. But the scars, physical and emotional, would remain forever.

On a November night in 2005, Amber Matthews died protecting children. On March 20th, 2025, Wendell Grissom died for killing her. And in between those two dates, countless lives were forever changed by 2 minutes of senseless violence.

That’s where this story ends. But the questions it raises about crime, punishment, redemption, and forgiveness—those questions remain, waiting for each of us to wrestle with in our own way.