SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) — It’s been a little more than a year since Sonya Massey was shot and killed in her own home. Now, the defense attorneys for Sean Grayson, the former Sangamon County Sheriff’s deputy charged with her murder, are saying he acted in self-defense. 

Grayson and his lawyers filed three motions Wednesday, just two days before his next status hearing.

One claims Sonya was the initial aggressor in the viral body camera footage of the shooting. The motion says she “directed an act of violence” against Grayson by throwing boiling water in his direction.

Reacting to this new development, Sonya’s cousin Sonate Massey called the claim “complete garbage.”

“Everyone on this planet who watched that video knows what happened,” Sontae said.

Sontae was driving back to Illinois from a family vacation in Texas when he first heard about the motions. He said the trip was meant to be an escape from the family’s ongoing grief, but that was interrupted on Wednesday.

The motion also accuses Sonya of having a violent past, saying she battered a neighbor with a brick just hours before she was shot. That considered, the motion asks that the defense be able to present evidence of Sonya’s alleged propensity for violence.

“If you’re trying to justify [her death] by victim blaming my cousin, good luck with that,” Sontae said. 

The second motion asks the court to admit evidence of Sonya’s then existing state of mind. It includes parts of an interview with a car dealership employee who knew Sonya. The unnamed person said Sonya told them she needed help, and believed someone would kill her.

Sontae said that’s true.

“I have said the same thing that her mother has said, that her daughter has said and her son has said, because she talked to all four of us before she was murdered,” Sontae said. “[Saying] someone was trying to kill her, someone in the police department was trying to kill her.”

Sontae questioned how mentally stable anyone could be while believing their life was in danger. 

The motion also includes a report of a 911 call made by someone who identified themself as Sonya’s mother, Donna, just a day before the deadly shooting. The document said Donna told dispatch Sonya was paranoid and having a “mental breakdown.”

Both women went to the hospital but left without being seen by staff.

“What would contribute to someone’s mental health, or lack thereof, their mental state, if they knew someone was trying to kill them, someone of authority?” Sontae asked.

The third motion is a cease-and-desist order that asks the Massey Commission to end alleged activities in Peoria County, where Grayson’s trial will take place in October.

Sontae said that while he is aware of and did attend an event in Peoria, it was through a local woman, not the Massey Commission. 

“She organized a town hall, an open town hall, to anyone that wanted to come there, and she invited the Massey family,” Sontae said. 

The Massey Commission said a similar thing that “neither the commission nor any commissioner has acted in an official capacity in Peoria County.”

Sontae said the motions are offensive to his cousin, who has left behind so much. He said while they are a slap in the face, he and his family still have faith that justice will prevail.

“The only way they can win this case, in my opinion, is to have the case thrown out,” Sontae said. “I mean, the evidence is so overwhelming.”

Grayson’s defense attorneys declined to comment on the motions.

The same day the motions were filed, Sangamon County Sheriff Paula Crouch said Grayson, still in custody ahead of his trial, was moved from the Macon County Jail to the Sangamon County Jail to accommodate ongoing medical procedures. He is expected to remain there until his trial take place in Peoria County.

Again, he is due back in court for a status hearing on Friday.