Breaking: A Tennessee mother was found d3ad in Ohio after traveling 550 miles to meet a man she met through an online video game
Police are awaiting a report from the coroner’s office to determine if criminal activity was involved in the woman’s death
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The body of a 37-year-old Tennessee woman has been found after she traveled to Ohio to visit a man she met through a video game, according to reports.
On Friday, July 3, the body of Amber Graham was discovered at a property on Bosworth Road in Cleveland, a spokesperson for the Cleveland Police Department confirmed to PEOPLE.
Authorities are awaiting the report from the local coroner’s office to determine if criminal activity was involved in 37-year-old Graham’s death.
As of Friday, July 10, the case is still pending, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed to PEOPLE. The Cleveland Fire Department and the Spring Hill Police Department did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s requests for further information.
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Graham had told friends that she was traveling from her home in Spring Hill, Tenn., to meet a man she’d formed a connection with through an online video game, CBS affiliate WOIO and NBC affiliate WKYC reported.
Friend Joshua LaCroix told WOIO that Graham made the journey across state lines with her 8-year-old daughter. Then, on Wednesday, July 1, the little girl walked into a fire station in Cleveland by herself, according to the report.
“They assessed her for any medical issues [and] she appeared uninjured, but she had a phone number in her pocket for her grandmother in Tennessee,” Lt. Mike Norman of the Cleveland Fire Department told the outlet. “In that situation, we called the police [and] they called Child Protective Services.”
The spokesperson for the Cleveland Police Department was unable to confirm the child’s identity, but said she is thought to be connected to Graham and was brought to a fire station in Cleveland that Wednesday.
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LaCroix told WOIO that during Graham’s visit to Cleveland, she talked to him and his wife on the phone. The couple heard an angry man’s voice in the background, according to the report. After Graham stopped communicating with loved ones back in Tennessee and didn’t show up for work, her worried family reported her missing on Thursday, July 2.
“She never misses a shift. No one can reach her. Last thing we know, she was in Cleveland,” LaCroix told WOIO. “So something’s not right. She’s supposed to be here at work and she’s not.”
The following day, Graham’s body was discovered under a sheet behind the Cleveland property, according to the reports.
“I always told her that if anything ever happened to her. I would be the one to come find her,” another of Graham’s friends, Cynthia Clair, told WKYC. “Told her I had her back. I meant it.”
Clair told the outlet that Graham loved her daughter and would never have left her at a fire station, according to the report.
Police confirmed to PEOPLE that the child who appeared at the fire station is safe and in CPS custody.
So far, no one has been charged with any crime, and the man Graham visited has not been publicly identified, but Graham’s friends are desperate for answers.
“We’re waiting on the autopsy results to come back, just so we can get that final closure of what happened to her,” Clair told WKYC, “and we’re just all hoping she didn’t suffer.”
