Background: The house and property on Bosworth Road in Cleveland, Ohio, where the victim”s body was reportedly found (WKYC/YouTube). Inset: Amber Graham (GoFundMe).
A Tennessee woman’s trip with her 8-year-old daughter to meet a man the mother met while gaming online ended in tragedy when her body was found covered in a sheet outside a dilapidated home, authorities say.
Amber Graham, 37, was found dead in Cleveland, Ohio, the Spring Hill Police Department in Tennessee told Law&Crime. The investigation into the circumstances surrounding her death remains ongoing.
On or around June 14, Graham left Spring Hill, Tennessee, with her daughter, police said. The mother “told family that she was traveling to Cleveland, Ohio, to meet a friend.”
Spring Hill is located about 35 miles south of Nashville. The suburb is about 500 miles south of Cleveland.
Six days later, on June 20, Graham returned to Tennessee before leaving again. According to authorities, that was the “last time” her family saw her.
On July 2, the Spring Hill Police Department said it received a missing persons report for Graham and her daughter. The following day, the Cleveland Police Department notified Spring Hill detectives that Graham had been found dead.
Fire crews had been called to conduct a welfare check at a home on Bosworth Road in Cleveland, local NBC affiliate WKYC reported. Graham’s friends had used social media to try to ascertain where she was.
The friends were apparently right to worry. Under a sheet behind the residence, authorities found a body that was later determined to be Graham.
The house “was in disrepair,” with a gutter hanging off and garbage making the front door inaccessible, Lt. Mike Norman with the Cleveland Division of Fire said.
Two days before, an 8-year-old girl reportedly walked into a Cleveland firehouse about half a mile away. Cynthia Clair, a friend of Graham’s, confirmed to the Ohio TV station that this girl was Graham’s daughter.
“Amber loved that little girl more than anything in the world,” Clair told WKYC. “Having her dropped off at a fire station is just not something Amber would ever do.”
More details about the case have since emerged. According to Nashville NBC affiliate WSMV, Graham had met a man online while playing “Call of Duty,” a popular first-person shooter video game.
“I think she really just wanted love,” Clair said. “She was having a hard time finding that here. We all — every single one of us in here — tried to tell her, you know, ‘we love you here, you have a family here, we love you.’ And she went anyways.”
The friend added that the day Graham was supposed to return to work at a grocery store where Clair was her manager, she didn’t show up. Hours later, Graham called Clair and quit. Then, Clair heard a man on the line.
“He was really, really upset. He was screaming at me. He was screaming at her,” Clair said.
The Spring Hill Police Department said the cause and manner of death for Graham remains under investigation. Graham’s daughter is in the custody of the Ohio Department of Children and Youth, and police from both states are working together.
A GoFundMe set up for Graham’s daughter states “Amber’s life was cut short far from home” and that her “family is in a state of deep shock, trying to process this devastating loss.”
