In the spring of 2008, a donor heart that gave 69-year-old Sonny Graham a second chance at life beat for the last time after he took a 12-gauge Remington shotgun to the side of his throat.
But not only did Sonny and his organ donor, Terry Cottle, both die by the same method of suicide: a self-inflicted gunshot wound. They also happened to be married to the same woman, Cheryl Sweat, when they decided to take their own lives.
Terry’s Heart
Terry Cottle had been married once before he tied the knot with Cheryl. He and his first wife shared two daughters together in Jasper County, South Carolina, when he learned she was cheating on him in 1988.
Moreover, it turned out that Terry’s first wife was having an affair with none other than his boss’s daughter’s husband.
Following the revelation, he phoned his boss’s daughter, Cheryl Sweat, saying, “I just want you to know that your husband is seeing my wife.” Then, he quickly filed for divorce, and within two weeks of his separation being finalized, he and Cheryl were wed in May 1989.
They both brought children into their new blended family, and by the tail end of 1994, the pair had moved into a doublewide trailer in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. Cheryl studied for her nursing degree, while Terry obtained his real estate license and became an emergency medical tech.
Nonetheless, their relationship started to sour. Terry reportedly continued phoning his ex-wife, and during one 1995 call, he pleaded for her to talk to him, claiming, “I’ve got a gun to my head.”
After Terry’s widowed mother-in-law moved into their home, he also began staying at his sister’s house. Yet, she was expecting another child of her own and urged Terry to go home and make things work with his wife if he really loved her.
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He tried, but three weeks later, everything came crashing down following one more argument. Cheryl supposedly stated she couldn’t be married to a man who made less money than she did and even tossed her wedding ring over a fence.
The next morning, March 16, Terry planned to leave. However, before he did, he walked into their bathroom and shot himself with a revolver.
There were two versions of Cheryl’s story, both of which ended the same way. First, she told police that a gunshot was heard, and when she arrived at the bathroom, Terry was already lying on the floor, still holding the gun.
Later, she’d say that, while eating oatmeal, her son shouted that Terry had a gun. Next, she supposedly ran to the bathroom and “yelled something like, ‘Terry, wait!”
“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 police report reads.
The bullet entered Terry’s head behind his right ear and never exited. He spent four days on life support at the Medical University of South Carolina before Cheryl agreed to donate his organs.
Sonny Graham’s Second Chance
It was March 20, 1995, when Sonny Graham, a 57-year-old from South Carolina, received the call that a donor heart had become available.
From 1979 to 1983, he served as director of the Heritage golf tournament at Sea Pines Resort. Sonny was also an Air Force veteran who loved hunting and fishing, but by 1994, his health had begun to decline.
That year, a virus he contracted started to damage his heart muscle, and leading up to his transplant, he’d barely been able to get out of a chair on his own.
But on March 20, 1995, he received Terry’s 33-year-old donor heart, and it only took six months for him to return to his outdoorsy lifestyle.
Late the following year, November 1996, Sonny proceeded to send a letter to his heart donor’s family. Then, in January 1997, he wanted to thank Terry’s widow, Cheryl, who was just 28 at the time, in person, despite his own children’s warnings.
So, Sonny and his own wife attended a dinner with Cheryl at a Charleston restaurant, and he was immediately smitten.
“I felt like I had known her for years. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. I just stared,” Sonny told the press in 2006.
Still, it took some time for him and Cheryl to eventually get together. She first married her third husband, George Watkins, and Sonny actually attended their nuptials. In fact, he even walked Cheryl down the aisle in place of her late father.
It was 1999 when Sonny’s wife realized his tie to Cheryl was more romantic in nature than she’d thought, and he subsequently wrote a letter, apologizing for letting someone else ruin their over 40-year relationship.
“I let someone come between you and me, which should have never happened. I look back on everything and see where I gave up love and companionship for attention and affection. It would be wonderful if I could turn back our lives for the past four years,” he wrote.
Even so, life doesn’t work that way, and both Sonny and Cheryl split up from their spouses. It was October 2001 when they finally moved in together with their kids.
Sonny Graham’s Suicide
Sonny had built a home for Cheryl, likely thinking they’d grow old in tandem. Instead, she left him in May 2002, sparking a bitter lawsuit in which Sonny accused her of refusing to give back a diamond ring and going back on some loans.
As they fought it out in court, Cheryl moved on to marry her fourth husband, another romantic endeavor that didn’t last. And once that marriage officially ended, she went back to Sonny, tying the knot with him on December 8, 2004, in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
Following their nuptials, Sonny launched a landscaping company and employed two of Cheryl’s sons. He also continued making plans for the future, like fishing trips and talking about golf tournaments, as if he intended to live life as usual.
That seemingly wasn’t the case, though, because Sonny also prepared a will shortly before he ultimately took his own life.
The tragedy occurred in April 2008, on April Fool’s Day, nearly 13 years after he received Terry’s donor heart. That morning, Sonny was supposed to bring his stepson to the dentist and work at his landscaping business.
But first, he headed to his shed in the backyard of his Vidalia, Georgia, home and ended his life. Sonny used a 12-gauge Remington shotgun to commit suicide at 69 years old.
He’s remembered by friends as a “happy-go-lucky guy” and a “man’s man,” someone who’d even had a local high school football field named in his honor.
“Anytime someone had a problem, the first reaction was, ‘Call Sonny Graham.’ It didn’t matter whether you had a flat tire on the side of the road or your washing machine didn’t work. He didn’t even have to know you to help you,” said his friend, Bill Carson.
A Haunted Heart?
As news of Sonny’s death hit the media, people began to come up with theories about the heart that had twice stopped beating due to suicide. Some suggested the organ had carried a “suicide gene,” while others talked about “cellular memory.”
According to Cheryl’s fourth husband, John B. Johnson Jr., though, life with her was always tumultuous.
“One day she hates you, and one day she loves you, and the next day she hates you. I guess I am lucky to be alive,” he said.
By Katharina Buczek
Katharina Buczek graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Digital Arts. Specializing in... More about Katharina Buczek
