After winning a $10 million lottery prize in 2017, a North Carolina man has been convicted of murder and sentenced to prison.
According to the News & Observer, a jury convicted Michael Todd Hill of first-degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of his girlfriend, Keonna Graham, of Navassa.
In July 2020, Graham was reported missing and later discovered in a hotel with a gunshot wound located in the back of the head.
The outlet reported, “In a news release from the 15th Prosecutorial District of North Carolina, prosecutors said surveillance footage from the hotel showed Hill was the only person in the room with Graham.”
The report continues, “They said Hill later confessed to shooting Graham after she had been texting with other men while at the hotel.”
In 2017, CBS affiliate WECT reported Hill “bought an Extreme Millions scratch off ticket first and didn’t win anything. He decided to try one more time, this time, buying a winning Ultimate Millions ticket.”
The outlet noted Hill “had a choice of taking a $10 million annuity that has 20 payments of $500,000 a year or a lump sum of $6 million.”
He took home $4,159,101 after state and federal taxes.
Additionally, the outlet pointed out that Hill, at the time, planned “to use some of the money to pay off bills and some of it to invest it in his wife’s instructional design business.”