A lottery winner will spend the rest of his life in prison for fatally shooting his girlfriend.
Michael Todd Hill made the news in August 2017 when he won a scratch-off ticket for $10 million in Brunswick County, North Carolina. At the time, he was a nuclear plant worker and took a lump sum of $4,159,000 after taxes. His life appeared to be on an optimistic track, but things took a tragic turn on July 20th, 2020, when his 23-year-old girlfriend, Keonna Graham, was reported missing by her mother when she failed to show up for her job as a correctional officer.
Her body was found inside a room at the Surf Stay Hotel by housekeepers the next day. An autopsy confirmed that she died from a single bullet wound to the head while she slept. Hill was arrested on July 22nd and confessed to killing Graham because he thought she was texting other men while in the hotel. The two had been in a relationship for about a year and a half.
On Friday, May 27th, Judge Joshua Willey sentenced the 54-year-old to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In addition, he was also given 22-36 months for possession of a firearm by a felon.
Hill was married at the time of his lottery winnings. It is unclear if he was divorced at the time of Graham’s murder.
