Sept. 1, 2008
2 Suicide Victims Shared Same Heart, Wife
Heart Of Suicide Victim Donated To Man Who Also Shot Himself; Both Married Same Woman
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In this photo provided by Michelle Graham Crozier and taken by Kevin Crozier, Sonny Graham, center, is seen with his daughter Michelle Graham Crozier and his son Gray Graham outside the restaurant, The Steeple Chase, in Vidalia, Georgia on August 12, 2006. (AP Photo/Michelle Graham Crozier)
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In this photo provided by Tammy Cottle Erickson; Terry Cottle and Cheryl Sweat are seen during their wedding ceremony on May 13, 1989, in South Carolina. (AP Photo)
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Remus T. "Sonny" Graham was a big man on Hilton Head.
As longtime manager of the central plant for Hargray Communications, Hilton Head's telephone service provider, he knew just about everyone on the South Carolina barrier island. His Brunswick stew was a staple at fundraisers and community events. The local high school football field was named in his honor.
A native of Lyons, Ga., near Vidalia in the heart of sweet onion country, Graham was a fixture at the Heritage Golf Tournament at the island's Sea Pines Resort. Even after he retired from Hargray, he would return each year as a volunteer to run the tourney's communications trailer.
The redheaded Air Force veteran was an avid hunter and fisherman, what buddy Bill Carson called a "man's man."
He was also the consummate family man. He and Elaine, his wife of more than three decades, had two children, Gray and Michelle.
But in 1994, Graham contracted a virus that damaged his heart muscle. By early 1995, the strapping woodsman who'd once hauled fighting salmon out of rushing Alaskan streams struggled to get up from a chair.
Graham's name went on transplant lists.
Around 5 p.m. on March 20, Graham learned that a heart had become available. Cottle's, it turned out, was about as close to a perfect match as they come.
Within six months of the transplant, Graham was well enough to go on a fishing trip with Carson to Alaska. He joked that having a 33-year-old's heart had done wonders for his libido.
When a doctor suggested he see a counselor in case of any guilt, Graham declined. "I'm sorry the other guy died," he told Carson. "But this is my heart now."
But friends noticed some subtle changes - a new craving for beer, a taste for hot dogs, which happened to be one of Cottle's favorite foods. Pastor John Keller sensed a general restlessness, as if Graham were "looking for different avenues to travel."
In November 1996, Graham asked the South Carolina Organ Procurement Agency to forward a letter to the donor's family. His children said it was a bad idea, but he wanted to thank Cottle's wife in person.
After the exchange of another letter and some photographs, Cheryl Cottle called Graham.
In January 1997, he and his wife met her for dinner at a romantic waterfront restaurant in Charleston. Graham couldn't keep his eyes off the 30-year-old widow.
"I fell in love with Cheryl the first time we met," he would later confess in a letter.
The feeling was apparently not mutual - at least, not at first.
That April, Cheryl married husband No. 3, George Watkins. Elaine and Sonny Graham attended the wedding, and Sonny - standing in for Cheryl's late father - gave away the bride.
Cheryl bore Watkins a son in January 1999. Around that same time, Elaine Graham learned that her husband's relationship with the younger woman was more than fatherly.
In a poignant letter, Graham apologized to his wife for being "the S.O.B. you said I was" and destroying "a relation that we had for 40 plus years.
"I let someone come between you + I, which should have never happened," he wrote. "I look back on everything + see where I gave up love, + companion ship, for attention + affection. ... It would be wonderful if I could turn back our lives for the past four years."
Both couples separated, and shortly after a judge declared the Grahams' 38-year marriage over, in October 2001, Cheryl and Graham moved into a mobile home on land he'd bought in his hometown while he built a house to her specifications.
The domestic bliss did not last long.
In May 2002, Cheryl left - and Graham promptly sued, accusing her of reneging on some loans and refusing to return a diamond ring. She alleged in a counterclaim that when she told Graham their relationship wasn't going to work out, he "became more possessive" and threatened her.
In the midst of the court case, she married again. Husband No. 4, John B. Johnson, Jr., was a corrections officer at the Georgia prison where Cheryl had been working as a contract nurse.
But within a year, that marriage, too, began to crumble. On Thanksgiving 2003, sheriff's deputies were called, and both husband and wife accused the other of domestic abuse.
During a Yuletide reconciliation, Johnson says, a chilling incident occurred. One evening, while they lay in bed, he says, Cheryl began talking about suicide. When she failed to return from a bathroom trip, Johnson went to investigate and says he found her clutching his .22 caliber revolver.
As they wrestled over the weapon, Johnson says, the children and Cheryl's mother rushed in. He says Cheryl told them that HE had gotten the gun and was threatening to shoot himself.
The couple separated. By the time the divorce was final in August 2004, Johnson says, Cheryl was already wearing Graham's ring.
They married Dec. 8, 2004, at the Almost Heaven Resort in Gatlinburg, Tenn. He started a landscaping company and let Cheryl's two oldest sons work for him.
A few days before their second wedding anniversary, the couple attended an event on Hilton Head to honor the families of organ donors. The Island Packet ran a story under the headline, "A love story unlike any told ..."
"It's true what it says in the Bible," Cheryl told the newspaper. "If you live God's will and give with a happy heart, you will reap the rewards."
Graham said he'd "put my life in God's hands," and Cheryl was the answer to his prayers.
Right up to his death, Graham was making plans for the future. He'd invited friends down to fish and was talking about the upcoming golf tournament.
What no one knew was that Graham had drawn up a will.
Larry Lockley says he went fishing with his uncle the last week of February, and afterward Graham showed him the will and asked if he'd be alternate executor.
"Ain't nothing wrong, is there?" the nephew asked.
"Ain't nothing wrong at all," Graham replied. But, "You never know."
He gave Lockley a copy and slipped another in a briefcase on a shelf at the back of the utility shed.
On March 20, the anniversary of his transplant, Graham left a playful message on his old pastor's answering machine: "Do you remember where you were 13 years ago on this day?" When Keller called back, Graham said he and his heart were doing great.
That week, Carson went down to Lyons to fish for bream and bass with his old buddy. Graham didn't complain about his marriage - that wasn't like him. But something just wasn't right.
"He just wasn't the happy-go-lucky guy I'd known all my life," says Carson.
A few days later, Graham's loaned heart would stop beating for good.
In late April, shortly after Graham's death, Cheryl visited Tomme Hilton, an old friend. Over drinks, she complained that Graham "didn't leave me a dime."
Apparently, Graham had blown through his retirement funds and run up large debts - about triple his assets - trying, as he once put it, "to keep (Cheryl) in the style she wants to live." His affairs were in such disarray that both of the men designated as his executors, including Lockley, declined.
"I always thought my uncle was in pretty good financial standing," Lockley says. "It was just a shock to me that his finances were in that bad condition."
Cheryl Graham did not respond to repeated requests seeking comment. But those who know her say she did not act like a grieving widow.
On her MySpace account - now deactivated - her photo changed from a sweetly smiling portrait to pictures of her on a lake or drinking beer with friends. Her screen name changed, too, from simply "Cheryl" to "PrEttY LAdy," then "BeaUtiFuL MeSs."
Family members monitoring the account noticed that shortly after Graham's death, she posted a man's photo identifying him as her "new boyfriend." A flirtatious message on the man's Web page, from her account, was dated March 26 - six days before Graham's death.
The man confirmed to The Associated Press that agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation had interviewed him. He told them he no longer sees Cheryl.
Although the Toombs County coroner ruled Graham's death a suicide in late May, the GBI still hasn't closed the case.
Investigators have interviewed all three of Cheryl Graham's surviving exes. Johnson wasn't the only one with a gun story to tell.
During a 2005 dispute over custody of their grandchildren, first husband Isaac "Bo" Carter said Cheryl called his North Carolina home and threatened to "blow my brains out w/her 38 pistol ..." A protective order was granted.
Johnson, husband No. 4, says anyone who gets involved with his ex-wife is in for an emotional roller coaster ride.
"One day she hates you and one day she loves you and the next day she hates you," Johnson told the AP. "I guess I am lucky to be alive."
After 13 borrowed years, it appears Graham no longer felt that way.
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective.
Hope the police are taking second, third and fourth looks at this woman.
Second, suicide is the most selfish thing a person can do. I have seen the effect of a gunshot wound on a human head/body and no one should have to find their loved one like that not to mention the guilt they will feel. These two men were selfish and it is to bad the family has to suffer for it. I hope they find some way to cope.
As far as Cheryl....I wish there was soemthing she could be charged with becuase she is the reason these men are dead..no other. But you get what you deserve in the end and she will as well as these men.
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http://www.islam-guide.com/
follow these links to learn about ways to cope with life rather than just throwing it away . yes life can be sad but there are better days to come
Something just isn''t right. And to marry the guy who has the heart of your ex is a little creepy...and he was old enough to be her dad on top of it.
Just how small is this town? Seems like there''s a shortage of males or something.
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I attended a funeral recently of an in-law who decided he would shoot himself with a shot gun. What a mess. He caused more harm to his family by killing himself than if he had just left.
I have no pity for suicide. And yes what I wrote above is intended to be a joke...
They two sure deserve each other.
That''s God''s will - wasn''t it?
Everything comes down to money for them two - has nothing to do with love nor God.
Oh yeah LOL looks like you reaped happy rewards thanks to the Santa in the sky!
LOL maybe he shoulda thought about THAT before he pulled the trigger! you shoot yourself in the head with a gun, there''s no ambulance and paramedics that are going to get there fast enough to do anything.
"Both couples separated, and shortly after a judge declared the Grahams'' 38-year marriage over, in October 2001, Cheryl and Graham moved into a mobile home on land he''d bought in his hometown while he built a house to her specifications.
The domestic bliss did not last long. "
Ahhhh the domestic bliss didn''t last long eh?
Posted by Nancy_Naive at 03:32 PM : Sep 01, 2008
I agree with both you and Brian. There is no way that either of her husbands killed themselves. Too much ''coincidence'' for all this to have happened to each of the ex-spouses. So many lives destroyed because of this bxxch and who knows when or even IF she will ever pay!
So, in a double-wide, you can get to the bathroom door in maybe five seconds from anywhere inside. When she saw him standing was he in the bathroom? If he was, then obviously the door was open for her to be able to see him.
""She said that she yelled something like, `Terry, wait!'', and this was at about the same time as she pushed on the door to try to get into the bathroom and at the same time she heard a shot," the report says."
Pushed on a door that the previous sentence implies was already open?
Given the fact that the story changed radically, I would suspect foul play involving the woman. This bears further examination.
- by lovesamerica September 1, 2008 6:18 PM EDT
- Petite pretty young hazel eyed brunnette... when will men think with the heads on their shoulders instead of the other....
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