Funeral for Falls Church Woman Found Dead in New York Set for Saturday

It was two weeks ago when Steven Gramling last spoke with his daughter Linda Gramling Cheplick. They talked about random things for several minutes before getting off the phone with each other.

Monday, he found out his daughter was found dead in a creek in Elmira Heights, N.Y. He said his daughter was visiting her husband’s family.

“She was great,” Gramling said Wednesday during a telephone interview. “She was a good person.”

Cheplick was found dead Sunday in the Mays Creek in Elmira Heights, an upstate New York community. Elmira Heights Police Chief Rick Churches said Cheplick’s body was identified on Monday. On Wednesday, Churches said Cheplick’s cause of death was unknown and police are still awaiting toxicology results. A funeral for Cheplick will be Saturday near Elmira, N.Y., Gramling said.

Outside Cheplick’s Falls Church home Wednesday, a large bowl filled with several small bags of snacks sat next to a small colorful plant on the top step of the porch. Atop the snacks sat sympathy card. A car was parked in the driveway of the home but no one answered the door.

“We’re going to continue our investigation,” Churches said. “It could take weeks.”

Gramling said Cheplick grew up in Eaton Rapids, Mich. and studied Chinese at Michigan State University. He said she was a pre-school teacher at a Lutheran school in northern Virginia about two-years ago and was not employed at the time of her death. Gramling said his daughter had three children.

“She was a heck of a swimmer and a great gal,” Gramling said.