# Survivors of heinous Oklahoma crime speak out prior to inmate’s scheduled execution

## Later this month, a death row inmate is set to die in Oklahoma and three survivors of his heinous crime are speaking out.

### Video Below
- **Jessica Schambach interviewed Dreu Kopf 20 years ago after the deadly attack.**
- **Video Below: Jessica Schambach interviewed Dreu Kopf 20 years ago after the deadly attack.**

**&gt;&gt; Video Below: Jessica Schambach interviewed Dreu Kopf 20 years ago after the deadly attack.**

Dreu Kopf and her two daughters survived a cold-blooded attack in their Watonga area home 20 years ago. Dreu Kopf’s close friend, Matthews, did not.

KOCO 5 asked her if she believed that Matthews saved her children’s lives.

“Absolutely. That's how she's just. She was so unselfish,” Dreu Kopf said.

KOCO 5 first met Dreu Kopf not long after Matthews’ murder.

“I went to open the door, and he shot. He just immediately started shooting. I just remember it rolling in my head, ‘oh my gosh I’m getting murdered, oh my gosh I’m getting murdered. What's my family gonna think?'” Dreu Kopf said.

She detailed the horror that unfolded when they opened the door to a stranger — Grissom.

“He had two guns, in both of his hands. I fought him and he shot me and when he got the last shot in my hip, I fell off of him and that's when he went after them and I ran out because at that point I thought I was dead and I wanted him to follow me and spare them,” she said.

**&gt;&gt; Video Below: Jessica Schambach interviewed Dreu Kopf 20 years ago after the deadly attack.**

Shot three times, she managed to drive to safety in the gunman’s would-be getaway truck. She didn’t realize at the time she was also driving off with the ammunition that could have been used to finish the job.

It’s a nightmare she still remembers just as vividly all these years later.

“I just remember my kids screaming, Amber screaming. My house was full of smoke as if there was a fire. My ears were ringing. There was blood everywhere. Glass. You know, I remember the touch of his hands. He had gloves on and just him laughing,” she said.

While her mind may never heal, her body also still shows the scars of that day.

Rylee Kopf was sleeping when Grissom and accomplice Jessie Johns stormed their home with bullets ricocheting through her bedroom.

She was almost 2 years old.

“I can just remember, and I still do. Like thinking. If someone does come in again and it's just us two in our room, I'm the older one, so I'm gonna have to protect her,” said Rylee Kopf.

“He took a lot of my mom's safety away and that kind of took out the way a little bit, just in the sense of, ‘Oh, well, we see mommy's always scared. Should we, should we always be scared?’” Gracie Kopf said.

Gracie Kopf was just a baby, only six weeks old. When officers found her, she was covered in blood. Matthews had been holding her.

“She was in there saving my kids. She's my hero,” Dreu Kopf said.

“She got her whole life taken, protecting hers and there's nothing else. I mean, all we can do is just, you know, live and show gratitude for that. Because we probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her,” Rylee Kopf said.



Grissom admitted to the murder, saying he didn’t know why he did it.

“He really, really, took my safety away and that's something you can't get back,” Dreu Kopf said. “I'm nervous all the time. I, I'm nervous for my girls all the time. I get scared a lot. I think I'm always going to be the girl that was shot. You know, I, I lost myself for a few years, and it's impacted my life tremendously.”

All three plan on watching Grissom’s impending execution.

“This honestly might sound bad, but I'm feeling really good about it,” Gracie Kopf said.

“He not only did kill Amber, he tried to kill our mom. Who knows what he would have done to two little babies that day. So, I think it's an eye for an eye type situation, and I'm ready for it,” said Rylee Kopf.

As the family prepares to watch Grissom take his last breath, they mourn that a family member, who also awaited this day, won’t see it.

“Yeah. July 7th, 2022. My husband was killed in an oil field accident. And our world was shaken again. And he was so excited for this execution,” Dreu Kopf said.

Grissom is set to die on March 20. His accomplice will spend the rest of his life in prison. Matthews will forever live on as a hero.

“We, we will never move on. But as, as a family, we have to move forward,” Dreu Kopf said. “The victims are often forgot about in the murderers or in the spotlight, and people don't need to forget about the victims. And it affects their life for the rest of their life when Grissom is put to death. It still affects us.”

Her brush with death, her survival and her love story with her husband are all in the book Beautifully Broken.

She said she wrote it to help heal and help others who are beautifully broken, too.

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