Amber Matthews’ final act on earth was to shield Dreu Kopf’s children from a murderer.

In doing so, the 23-year-old lost her life in November 2005 when Wendell Grissom and Jessie Johns broke into Kopf’s home in Blaine County. ( Note: See related story).

Some 19 years later, Amber’s family members were among those attending and delivering impact statements at Grissom’s clemency hearing.

He was denied clemency and will be put to death March 20.

“That was for Amber,” Cortney Fuston of Dover told the KT&FP.

Fuston is Amber’s first cousin and was among those to deliver a statement at the hearing.

Fuston, who was a Dover High School student at the time of the crime, shared with the clemency board how the news affected her the day she learned of the shooting while at school.

She then found out it was her cousin and close friend who had been shot.

Fuston said she began praying for a miracle to save Amber’s life.

“God’s miracle is the only thing that would have kept Amber alive when that low-life coward decided to shoot her point blank – not once, but twice – while she is holding and covering up two babies that weren’t even her kids!” Fuston said to the board.

“But Amber, being the selfless, wonderful person, we all loved, knew what she needed to do to protect the innocent. Amber herself, well she was innocent too. But she was blindsided, taken by surprise, and she couldn’t act quick enough to save her own life from this evil coward.”

Fuston recalled the plans the two close cousins had for their lives.

“We were supposed to raise our babies together. We had plans and a whole lifetime of things that we should have experienced together,” she said.

“This murderer took her from me!”

Fuston also talked about the impact Amber’s death had on the rest of her family, including her parents Garry and Donna Matthews and several step-siblings, aunts and cousins who were at the hearing.

“When Grissom took her beautiful, warm smile away from us, he also took the joy, security, compassion and worthiness our family once had,” she said.

“I don’t want to give Grissom any satisfaction that he completely broke our family. We have picked up broken pieces, re-built and learned to live daily with the hole in the heart where Amber used to be.”

Fuston, a member of the Dover Board of Education who lives in Dover with her husband Antwaun and their three children, said she ran through a full range of emotions in preparing the impact statement.

“I went through all kinds of emotions and, honestly, it’s really hurtful to have to relive this nightmare and even to hear the word ‘clemency,’” she said.

She fought through the emotions for a reason, she said.

“I will do my part in making sure that Amber gets full justice,” Fuston said. “So, execution is the only answer.”

Fuston then left the clemency board with a final thought: “Do I feel remorse for Grissom? No! Do I hope that Grissom found the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior? Absolutely.

“I am not here for Grissom’s eternity choice, though. I am here to see that execution carried out because he murdered my cousin in cold blood.”

Randy Matthews was also a cousin to Amber. He is a first cousin to her father, Garry.

His impact statement was read by Rick Johnson, the husband of Amber’s stepsister Kathy Johnson.

“She excelled in school, was intelligent and bright and brought joy to everyone she met,” Matthews wrote.

Matthews described Amber as “more than a cousin to me; she was one of my closest friends.”

He recalled having dinner with her on Nov. 1, 2005, the night before she was murdered.

“The following day Nov. 2, 2005 - will forever be etched in my memory,” he wrote.

She even called him the morning of her death, which was common, he said.

“When I couldn’t reach her later that day, I became worried,” he wrote.

The worry turned into the worst possible news.

“The pain and sorrow Garry and our family felt that day were indescribable. No father should have to endure such a loss,” Matthews wrote.

“Garry did everything he could to raise his daughter with love and care, despite life’s challenges. He did an incredible job. I am proud of him and the father he was to Amber.”

What Grissom and Johns did, said Matthews, deserves the ultimate punishment.

“The men responsible for this heinous act took away a bright, beautiful life and left a family shattered. They deserve no mercy for the pain they caused,” Matthews said. “Amber was robbed of her future and her father was robbed of his precious daughter. Her memory will live on in our hearts, but the void left by her absence can never be filled.”