Massey Commission

We remain committed to the work we started and are continuing to make progress in establishing a mechanism to advance the 26 Calls to ACTion!

Murder cannot be abated-
A statement from the Massey Community Action Network (MCAN)

Today Sean Grayson's attorney filed a motion of “abatement ab initio”. This motion is a request based on a rule in criminal law which negates a conviction if the defendant died before they could exhaust all appeals. While we understand this is a *request* available through our justice system, our primary concern is to the Massey family and the continued pain made anew at each new legal hurdle.

The Massey Community Action Network grew from the work of the Massey Commission and carries forward its commitment to accountability and meaningful community change. Our legal system reviewed all relevant information and rendered a guilty verdict to Sean Grayson for his murder of Sonya Massey. His death a few months into his twenty year sentence does not abate the murder at his hands. He took Sonya Massey’s life while serving as a law enforcement officer responding to her call for help

No matter the legal outcome, we know that Grayson is guilty of taking an innocent life. Sonya Massey's life matters and his conviction enforced that truth. A request to abate his conviction cannot abate that truth.

We continue to hold the family close as we do this work and as they brace for yet another barrage of pain, press, and public scrutiny they do not deserve.

- In Community,
MCAN

It appears to us, that as of right now, the Boards concerns are more focused on being accessible to the Mental Health professionals, not the Community...

Mental Health Board faces forks in the road

Some community members, including the former Massey Commission's managing director, say the inaugural Sangamon County Mental Health Board has to better address the communities it is attempting to support if the board wants to be successful.

Since the Mental Health Board began meeting monthly at the end of May, some of the specific asks have included streaming meetings, having meetings take place somewhere other than the county complex and changing the monthly meeting time.

“We ask people to come to the county building – which I understand – that’s a natural place to have it. It is also a place where people who struggle with mental health have a problem coming in. They don’t want to necessarily walk through a metal detector and be surrounded by policing when policing them for their mental health issues was a part of the problem in the first place. We’re asking people to enter into spaces of trauma in order to talk about how we actually mitigate trauma. That doesn’t make any sense,” Hurst said.

Chair Steve Nardulli, a former judge, told Illinois Times he expects the board to change the meeting time, but likely only by an hour or so.

“It appears to several of our board members that a lot of the people who attend the meetings are mental health professionals who are attending during their work day. You make a meeting more convenient for one set of people, (then) you’re making it more inconvenient for another set of people,” he said. “My guess is – and this is a board decision, not a Steve decision – that we might move the meetings back to 4 or 4:30. I doubt that we will move into the evenings.”



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Ex-paramedic appears in court prior to murder trial

Peggy Finley returned to court ahead of her trial for the first-degree murder of Earl Moore Jr. The former Lifestar ambulance paramedic was arrested in January 2023 for Moore's death.

Moore's autopsy revealed he died of compressional and positional asphyxia because he was restrained while lying on his stomach. Moore died in December 2022.

Initially, Finley was going to be tried with former Lifestar EMT Peter Cadigan. However, Cadigan pled guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter after facing a first-degree murder charge.

He was sentenced to 24 months' probation, 100 hours of community service and 180 days in jail. He received credit for time served, so he did not spend time in jail before bail after his sentencing.

Finley is due back in court in September.

https://www.wandtv.com/news/crime/ex-paramedic-appears-in-court-prior-to-murder-trial/article_59f919b3-6606-42a6-bab7-3c0013eea1ff.html

Sonya Massey's Family Shares Their Reaction to Sean Grayson's Death

https://share.google/jWiQWPUxcNxGpZF63

Sonya Should Still Be Here: A Statement from MCAN

Springfield, IL -- Sonya Massey should still be here. Her absence remains at the center of our work and of the responsibility our community carries forward.

News of Sean Grayson’s death arrives in the midst of that work. It is another complicated moment for a community that has already carried extraordinary grief. We acknowledge the loss the Grayson family has experienced.

We also recognize that people across our community may experience this moment differently. There is no single response required of a community that has carried so much.

What remains unchanged is what happened to Sonya, the questions her family still carries, and the responsibility that followed her death.

Sonya Massey called for help in her own home. She was a mother, a daughter, and a member of this community. She should have been safe. Instead, she was killed. Her killing, and what this community surfaced in the months that followed, forced a confrontation with shortcomings and failures across Sangamon County that could no longer be explained away as “isolated incidents” or “unfortunate circumstances.”

Residents came forward. They named what they had lived through. They shared what they knew about the systems meant to serve and protect them. And together, our community pressed a deeper question: What would it take to make sure this never happens again to another family?

Our community answered that question together. Through the Massey Commission process, thousands of Sangamon County residents helped shape a blueprint for systemic change.

MCAN exists because that blueprint cannot simply become another report whose recommendations are acknowledged but never implemented. Sonya’s life cannot be honored through words alone. The twenty-six Calls to Action made in her name require implementation. They require accountability. They require systems capable of protecting people before another family is forced to endure an unbearable loss.

Sean Grayson’s death does not resolve the conditions that made Sonya Massey’s death possible. Those conditions remain our responsibility. So do the commitments made in Sonya’s name.

We recognize the complexity of this moment for our community. We remain unwavering in our commitment to the Massey family, to our community, and to the systemic change Sonya’s death made urgently necessary.

Because Sonya should still be here.

💜💜💜💜

The Massey family is now officially done with court appearances related to release requests!

"Former sheriff's deputy convicted of killing Sonya Massey dies in prison"

Sean Grayson, the former Sangamon County Sheriff's deputy convicted of murdering Sonya Massey in her home in an unincorporated area of the county in 2024, died Aug. 23.

Daniel Fultz of Springfield, one of Grayson's murder trial attorneys, confirmed Grayson's passing.

Messages to the Illinois Department of Corrections about Grayson were not immediately returned.

Grayson was being held out-of-state.

Grayson's death comes a little over three weeks after his hearing before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. Grayson had sought early release, but he was denied in a 3-0 vote. Panel members did not offer any comment about the case following testimony and after the vote.

Grayson sought the hearing under a statute enacted in Illinois in 2022 that allows prisoners who have terminal illnesses or advanced medical conditions to apply for release.

Grayson was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer in 2023 and Stage 4 re**al cancer and cancer in his liver and lungs later on.

Grayson was serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted of second-degree murder by a Peoria County jury in October. He had faced first-degree murder charges before the nine-woman, three-man jury were given instructions on the second-degree murder count.

Many supporters of Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman and the mother of two children, didn't think second degree was harsh enough.

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