Michael Todd Hill, who won $10 million with a scratch-off lottery ticket in 2017, will spend the rest of his life behind bars after being convicted of first-degree murder.
Hill, 54, a former nuclear plant worker of Brunswick County, North Carolina, was convicted of shooting and killing his girlfriend, Keonna Graham, 23, in July 2020, the News & Observer reported.
Hill was found guilty by a jury following deliberations that took an hour and was sentenced by a judge “to life in prison without possibility for parole” on the first-degree murder charge, the outlet noted. He was additionally sentenced to “22 to 36 months for Possession of Firearm by Felon,” which will run concurrently with the life sentence.
Graham was found dead by hotel staff in Shallotte at midday on July 20, 2020. An autopsy report said that she was fatally shot in the head while she was sleeping, WECT reported. Hill was indicted in November 2020.
“Surveillance footage from the hotel showed Hill as the only individual in the hotel room with Graham,” prosecutors wrote in their news release, the News & Observer noted. “Hill was later arrested by law enforcement in Southport, North Carolina, and confessed to shooting Graham after she had been texting other men while at the hotel.”
Hill told authorities that he had been involved in a relationship with the 23-year-old for a year and a half following his big win, WECT noted. It was also reported “that there were domestic issues in the past between the two.”
In 2017 Hill hit it big, winning $10 million with an Ultimate Millions scratch-off ticket, the North Carolina Education Lottery said in a press release.
“He had the choice of taking a $10 million annuity that has 20 payments of $500,000 a year or a lump sum of $6 million,” according to the press release. “Hill chose the lump sum and, after required state and federal tax withholdings, took home $4,159,101.”
The release noted that at the time, Hill intended to “pay off bills” and invest “in his wife’s instructional design business.”
You can follow Ethan Letkeman on Twitter at @Ethan Letkeman.
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