A North Carolina man who won a $10 million lottery prize in 2017 was sentenced to life in prison on Friday after he was convicted of fatally shooting his girlfriend.
Michael Todd Hill, 54, of Leland, N.C., was found guilty in the 2020 murder of 23-year-old Keonna Graham of Navassa, N.C., according to the News & Observer.
Graham was reported missing in July 2020 and was later found dead in a hotel room from a gunshot wound to the back of her head.
According to The Associated Press, prosecutors said surveillance footage from the hotel showed Hill was the only person in the hotel room with Graham.
He was charged with Graham’s murder three days after she went missing. Hill later confessed to shooting Graham after he said she had been texting with other men while at the hotel.
Graham worked as a correctional officer at a prison in Burgaw, North Carolina, according to a cousin, Antoinette Lee. Before that, Graham worked for a program for people with intellectual disabilities, Lee said.
Graham lived in Navassa with her mother, LaTrinda Graham, and a 10-year-old sister, Zoey. Lee said Graham and her younger sister had an “unbreakable bond.”
Hill won a $10 million lottery prize from a scratch-off ticket in 2017. At the time, WECT described Hill as a nuclear power plant worker who said he intended to use his lump-sum winnings of more than $4,159,000 to pay off bills and help his wife’s business.
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