North Carolina $10M Lotto Winner, 52, Charged With Murder Of 23-Year-Old Woman

Categories Celebrity

She was found in his hotel room — but staff never saw her enter.

A North Carolina man who won $10million in the lottery has been charged with murder.

Michael Todd Hill, 52, was arrested on Tuesday after the body of a 23-year-old woman was discovered in his hotel room.

The manager of the Sure Stay Hotel in Shallotte told WECT that Hill had checked into the hotel alone on Sunday morning.

After checkout time passed at 11 a.m., a housekeeper knocked on his door, but there was no response.

Entering, she discovered a woman unconscious, and called 911. The woman, later identified as Keonna Graham, was pronounced dead.

The manager said there was blood in the room; he added that no member of staff had ever seen Graham enter the hotel.

The distraught employee who discovered the body has been given time off.

Hill was taken into custody on Tuesday and is currently being held without bond.

Police have yet to reveal how Graham was killed, or what her relationship to the suspect was.

In 2017 Hill, then a nuclear power plant worker, won $10million on an Extreme Millions scratch card, WRAL reported.

After losing on an earlier card, he returned to the store and jokingly complained to the cashier about why she didn’t sell him a winning ticket, and bought another. After his win he returned again and gave her $2,000.

Instead of claiming the full $10m, which came in twenty annual payments of $500,000, he opted to take an immediate lump sum of $6million, which after taxes came to $4,159,101.

He said at the time he planned to use the winnings to pay off bills, as well as investing in his wife’s instructional design business.

It is unclear if Hill is still married.

Despite his massive windfall just three years ago, Hill told a judge on Tuesday he was unable to afford an attorney, and was assigned a court-appointed lawyer — meaning taxpayers are footing the bill for his defense.

A family friend of the victim told WECT: “She was very loved and she’s very beautiful… I don’t know what the situation was, but you had no business being in the hotel with her.”

“It scares me because it’s in my circle that someone knows her and I don’t know him, but it’s in my circle that people know him. And that’s what frightens me.”

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