A Fort Hood soldier has been arrested in the death of a woman at a Texas hotel last year, authorities said Wednesday.
Cory Grafton, 20, an active-duty soldier assigned to the Texas base, was arrested Tuesday and is facing a murder charge in the death of Chelsea Lynell Cheatham, a 32-year-old who was found not breathing at a Days Inn in June 2019, officials said. Her death has later ruled a homicide.
A witness put Grafton at the scene, Killeen police said Wednesday.
The Texas Rangers, which received a grant for DNA testing last year, approached police with the possibility of using the testing in the year-old case, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.
Police had also gotten a statement from one of Grafton’s co-workers who said he had confessed to the killing, the department of public safety said.
Grafton was being held in lieu of $1 million bail Wednesday night, according to online jail records. It was not clear if he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
A motive was not disclosed in the police statements, and the relationship between Grafton and Cheatham was not clear.
A request for comment from a spokesperson for Killeen police was not immediately returned Wednesday night.
Lt. Col. Chris Brautigam, a spokesperson for the 1st Cavalry Division, confirmed that Grafton is a soldier assigned to the division at Fort Hood. The unit is cooperating with police and the Texas Rangers, Brautigam said.
Killeen is a city of around 151,000 next to Fort Hood, which is about 60 miles north of Austin.
CORRECTION (Nov. 5 12:56 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated when Chelsea Lynell Cheatham died. It was June 2019, not July 2019.
