North Carolina Man Who Won $10M In 2017 Charged With Murder

Police in Shallotte, North Carolina have arrested a man who became an instant millionaire in 2017 for the death of a 23-year-old girl whose body was found inside a hotel room earlier this week.

Michael Todd Hill, 52, was taken into custody and charged with murder Tuesday, July 21, after the body of Keonna Graham was discovered in a room of the Sure Stay Hotel. WECT, who spoke with the hotel's manager, reported that Hill checked into the hotel alone early Sunday and that none of the hotel's employee's ever saw Graham.

A housekeeper found Graham's body when she went into the room shortly after Hill's scheduled checkout. The employee knocked on the door several times and, with no one answering, decided to go inside. It was here that she found Graham unconscious and called 911.

The hotel's manager said they found “blood in the room” and that the housekeeper who found Graham's body is “taking time off.”

“I think it's horrible. I mean, he just won the lottery. I heard he just got married and you go and kill a young girl? A beautiful girl? I don't understand,” Tiffany Wilson, an acquaintance of Graham's, told the news outlet.

Shallotte Police Department Detective Sergeant John Holman told Star News Online that Graham had an “on-and-off relationship” with Hill. He added the case was “multi-jurisdictional” and that SPD received assistance from other agencies.

“We've got a lot of agencies involved and we want to make sure everyone's on the same page before releasing everything,” said Holman.

Hill won $10 million dollars from an Ultimate Millions scratch-off ticket that he bought from a local gas station in 2017. Employees there said Hill would stop by often and seemed “perfectly pleasant.”

“I have a strategy when it comes to scratching. I start with the corners. When I got to the dollar symbol I knew I won something. I saw the one and then the zero and it still didn't hit me. But then I saw the 'M.' My heart dropped down to my toes and I lost my breath,” said Hill, a Brunswick County resident, in an NC Education Lottery release, through the Miami Herald.

Hill chose the lump sum and took home just over $4 million. After winning, he returned to the gas station and gave the woman who sold him the winning lottery ticket $2,000, said the New York Post.

Graham on the other hand worked as a correctional officer at a prison in Burgaw, North Carolina. She also worked with mentally disabled people at a local rehabilitation center. Hill is currently being held without bail at the Brunswick County Detention Center after his initial court appearance, added the outlet.