Heart transplant recipient's life ends the same as donor

By: Barbara Herring | WSAV-TV
Published: April 07, 2008

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      HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (AP) - Authorities say a Georgia man who received a heart transplant 12 years ago and later married the donor's widow has died the same way the donor did -- of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

      Officials say no foul play is suspected in the death last Tuesday of 69-year-old Sonny Graham at his Vidalia home. Authorities say Graham was found in a utility building in his backyard with a single shotgun wound to the throat.

      Graham was on the verge of congestive heart failure in 1995 when he received a call that a heart was available in Charleston, South Carolina. A coroner says that heart was from a 33-year-old man who had shot himself.

      Graham began writing letters to the donor's family to thank them and met the donor's widow in 1997. They married a few years later.