GBI investigation into Hilton Head man's death leaves many questions unanswered

Although the Georgia Bureau of Investigation ruled Sonny Graham's death a suicide, its report doesn't address a number of questions surrounding the demise of the well-known Hilton Head Island man who married his heart donor's widow.

Among them:

• Would a man despondent enough to put a shotgun to his neck and pull the trigger also have completed some chores before taking his life and planned others for later in the day?

• Why would Graham, a gun enthusiast with a large collection of weapons and who taught gun safety courses, take a chance on using birdshot to end his life instead of a more damaging and certain slug?

• Why did his wife send a two-word MySpace message -- "call me!!" -- to herson, Timmy,early the morning Graham died?

• How did his widow, a woman whose marriage to Graham was her fifth, spend $50,000 in life insurance money after Graham's death? Did shespend the money as the will instructed?

• How deeply did the GBI look into her background?

Graham's widow, Cheryl Watkins, had tumultuous relationships with each of her five husbands, according to interviews and documents.She could not be reached for comment on this article. Three calls and a message left with a woman who said she was her mother in Vidalia, Ga., were not returned.

The GBI stands by its Sept. 22 finding that Graham killed himself.

"There will be holes in any investigation because there are always unknowns," GBI assistant special agent-in-charge Todd Lowery said last week. "You have to look at the totality of the evidence."

Yet the evidence has left Graham's family and friends unconvinced.

One of his sisters speculated to a GBI agent that even if it was suicide, Cheryl "drove him to it."

THE BACKGROUND

Sonny Graham, a former Hilton Head Island resident, died April 1, 2008. He was 69.

A Georgia native, he was one of Hilton Head's first permanent residents, coming to the island in the mid-1960s.

He was one of the original employees of Hargray Communications, retiring as plant manager in 2003. Hilton Head Island High School's football stadium is named in his honor. A longtime volunteer at the Verizon Heritage golf tournament, he served as the event's director from 1979 to 1983. He'd mentioned to relatives that he planned to attend the 2008 Heritage, but he died two weeks before it started.

In early 1995, Sonny was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Doctors said he faced certain death if he didn't receive a transplant. In March of that year, he got a call that an organ was available in Charleston.

Sonny met Cheryl Watkins two years afterward after exchanging letters through the agency that arranged for him to receive the heart of her second husband. That husband's death had been ruled a suicide, just as Sonny's would be.

Sonny and Cheryl had been romantically involved throughout her third and fourth marriages, GBI reports say. He divorced his first wife -- a woman he'd been married to for more than 30 years -- in 2001. He married Cheryl in December 2004.

Sonny owned a landscaping business called C&S Lawn Care and Maintenance -- his and his new wife's initials -- and employed Cheryl's oldest son, Chris, then 23.

Though he'd already retired from Hargray, Sonny told friends he had to keep working to support the lifestyle his 41-year-old wife demanded, according to statements taken by the GBI.

He confided to his sisters, to his son and to a close friend that Cheryl had spent all his retirement savings, according to the statements. She insisted on having her friends visit their Vidalia home on Tuesday nights for steak cook-outs and drinks.

Sonny told one sister he was going to put an end to the crowded parties, which cost about $2,000 a month, according to a GBI statement. He told another sister he was "tired of being a baby-sitter" for Cheryl's 9-year-old son during the get-togethers.

Despite being fed up with the parties, Sonny told his wife on the morning he died that he'd buy the steaks for a party that night, Cheryl told the GBI.

A NORMAL MORNING

By all accounts, that morning began like any other.

Just after 7:30 a.m., Sonny drove to John's Country Junction, a Vidalia store, to pay $120 to a man who'd delivered 60 bales of pine straw the night before, according to GBI documents. He hadn't been home to pay when the straw arrived because he was watching his step-son play baseball.

Sonny filled up his truck before returning home, where he pulled an April Fools' prank on Cheryl before she left for work, she told the GBI.

Cheryl's older son, Chris, met Sonny at the house to discuss the work ahead of them on that unusually warm morning.

Sonny and Chris made coffee and spent about 10 minutes chatting about the jobs, Chris would later tell investigators. Sonny said he had to take his step-son to a dental appointment at 9:15 a.m., and that they'd get to work when he returned. Sonny woke the step-son and told him to get ready to leave.

The house phone rang. Sonny asked Chris to answer it, then meet him in the backyard utility shed, Chris told the GBI.

After taking a message for Sonny, Chris headed to the shed.

There he found Sonny dead on the floor, motionless on his back in a pool of blood, a 12-gauge shotgun and a golf club on the floor next to him. There was a gaping gunshot wound on the right side of his neck.

"Sonny (had been) smiling and talking and everything was ready for work," Chris told the GBI. "He acted like everything was fine."

"CALL ME!!"

What happened next isn't entirely clear.

Chris apparently called his mother after he saw Sonny's body, though "it seemed she had already heard from someone else," he told a GBI investigator.

He also told his grandmother -- Cheryl's mother who lived with her and Sonny -- to call 911. The grandmother later said she couldn't get through to dispatch.

Cheryl called 911 at 8:27 a.m. from her cell phone, reporting that her husband had shot himself, according to dispatch records. The dispatcher then called the house, where the 9-year-old boy, who apparently was unaware anything was wrong, answered. He handed the phone to Chris.

Cheryl arrived at the house while Chris was talking to a 911 dispatcher. He told investigators he had to restrain his mother to keep her from going into the shed.

When local law enforcement and EMS arrived at 8:40 a.m., Chris and Cheryl had blood on their clothes and appeared very upset, according to statements taken by the GBI.

An unanswered question, however, involves an electronic message Cheryl had sent to her 20-year-old son, Timmy Carter, almost three hours before Sonny's body was discovered in the shed.

At 5:47 that morning, Cheryl sent Timmy a MySpace message: "call me!!"

GBI Agent Lowery acknowledges he's perplexed about Cheryl's early morning message. He said he hadn't realized that Cheryl sent the message first, and reported the shooting later.Timmy, Cheryl's middle son, was living with his father in North Carolina when Sonny died. The manager of the car lube shop where Timmy worked told the GBI that Timmy was off the day Sonny died. He recalled, though, that Timmy came in that afternoon to tell him about the shooting.

Cheryl sent Timmy a second message around noon: "Timmy you need to call me or really come home. There has been an accident and your papa is dead."

SUICIDE DOESN'T FIT

Some of those interviewed by the GBI, including Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner, found it odd Sonny would have committed suicide.

Tanner, who knew Sonny for 30 years and considered him a good friend, told a GBI investigator "suicide does not fit his personality."

Tanner also wondered why Sonny used birdshot instead of a heavier slug and why he used a shotgun instead of a handgun.

Sonny kept a .25 caliber handgun in the center console of his truck -- which was parked in the driveway the day of the shooting -- and a .45 caliber handgun under the driver's seat, according to a GBI statement from Chris.

However, Agent Lowery said the use of shotguns in suicides is "not uncommon."

"Most long guns are still short enough that you can place it on your body somewhere and still reach the trigger with your fingers," he said.

Lowery said he didn't know -- and documents in the case file do not reflect -- whether measurements of Sonny's arm and the length of the gun were taken and compared.

The documents also don't say whether Sonny's hands were tested for gunpowder residue. The GBI Crime Lab processed the gun for fingerprints but found none, reports say.

"You can touch stuff often and not leave prints on it," Lowery said. "It depends on the surface and how (the object) has been handled."

Lowery said the lack of a residue test doesn't trouble him.

"We do them sometimes, but they're not always as conclusive as you want them to be," he said. "You could get false negatives."

The GBI pulled no phone records from Cheryl or her sons. The only records examined were calls from Sonny's cell phone and to the Toombs County dispatch center, according to the file. Lowery said the GBI's case agent didn't pull phone records because she "didn't think it was necessary."

GROWING DEBTS

Some interviewed by the GBI acknowledged that Sonny hadn't seemed himself in the months preceding his death.

He complained to friends about the large amount of debt Cheryl had built up in his name. Ray Moody, a longtime friend who was listed as an executor of his will, told the GBI there was no money left in his retirement fund. He said Sonny was about $200,000 in debt, including two $40,000 business loans and $70,000 in credit card debt.

Sonny's will, rewritten in February 2008, directs that the equipment from his landscaping business be liquidated to pay off debts. Each of his four grandchildren were to receive $1,000. Cheryl was to keep one of their two cars and sell the other, with the proceeds applied to debts. Money from his life insurance policywas to be used to pay off the mortgage on their home.

Cheryl was the beneficiary of a $50,000 insurance policy through Hargray, Moody told investigators.

Chris told the GBI last November that his mother used that money to buy a Toyota Corolla for about $29,000. She also bought a 2007 Harley-Davidson motorcycle, he said.

The home Sonny built for Cheryl in 2001 was foreclosed on in the fall of 2008. Before moving out, she stripped out the appliances -- including ceiling fans, lighting fixtures and the microwave -- and sold them, Chris told investigators.

GROWING TENSIONS

Debt wasn't the only source of tension in Sonny's household.

Some of Sonny's friends and relatives told the GBI about growing conflicts between him and Chris and Timmy.

Sonny's son, Gray, who talked with his father the night before he died, told the GBI that Sonny's relationship with Chris was "tense." The two had gotten into a heated confrontation about something "trivial" at a family dinner not long before Sonny's death.

One of Sonny's sisters also noticed the tension. Sonny complained that Chris would bring his wife and children to the Vidalia home -- and leave them there for extended periods.

Chris told the GBI that Sonny didn't get along with Timmy, and "had a problem with Cheryl always paying for Timmy's stuff."

A VINDICTIVE WIFE?

Contacted by the GBI two weeks after Sonny's death, Timmy said he "doesn't want to have anything to do with his mother because she is vindictive."

Timmy and Chris' father, Isaac "Bo" Carter, also feared Cheryl. In May 2005, he took out a restraining order against Cheryl, who he said carried a gun in her purse, after she threatened to "come up to North Carolina... to take care of me and my wife once and for all. I really believe this woman is a threat to myself and my wife and possibly our children," the order said.

According to the restraining order, she had threatened to blow his "brains out with her .38 pistol because of our boys not wanting anything to do with her."

Cheryl also threatened Sonny's family members, according to statements they made to the GBI.

Among those who reported threats was Sonny's sister. Less than a year before he died, Sonny confided in her that he knew Cheryl was cheating on him, the documents say.

The morning Sonny died, Cheryl broke the news of his death to one other person besides Timmy.

She called a Statesboro, Ga., man named Mitch Marsh, a man she'd met on MySpace before Sonny's death.

Marsh told the GBI Cheryl called him that morning "upset and out of breath." She told him her husband had "died of a heart attack."

Later in the day she sent him a text message saying he had "accidentally been shot when a gun fell."

Cheryl and Marsh dated briefly in the weeks following Sonny's death, but both deny being romantically involved while he was alive, according to GBI statements.