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Man Who Won $10 Million Lottery Sentenced To Prison For Fatally Shooting His Girlfriend

Michael Hill had hit the jackpot in 2017, but his life took a sour turn that led to his conviction.

A North Carolina man who won a $10 million lottery prize in 2017 has now been sentenced to life in prison for the shooting death of his girlfriend.

According to the Raleigh News & Observer, Michael Hill, 54, fatally shot Keonna Graham, 23, who was found dead at the SureStay Hotel in Shallotte, N.C., in July of 2020. Graham, who had been dating Hill for approximately a year, was discovered with a gunshot wound to the back of her head. An autopsy revealed she was asleep when she was shot. A detective also said the two had domestic issues in the past, WWAY reported in November 2020.

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But prior to the shooting, Hill’s luck was considerably better. In 2017, the News & Observer reports, he brought a non-winning lottery ticket and then decided to purchase another scratch off. That card was the winning ticket of a $10 million jackpot.  At the time, according to the NC Education Lottery website, he was married and told his wife to “pack her bags because we just won $10 million.” It is unclear at what point he became estranged from his wife, but he had been seeing Graham for at least a year before she was killed.

Hill, who once worked at a nuclear plant, was convicted of first-degree murder after surveillance footage showed him in the hotel with the victim, prosecutors said. They said he later confessed to the shooting after he found out she had been texting other men while at the hotel, according to the Associated Press. On May 27, he was sentenced to “life in prison without the possibility of parole and 22-36 months in prison for Possession of Firearm by Felon to run concurrent with his life sentence,” officials stated.

“The District Attorney’s Office would like to thank our local law enforcement agencies for their collaborative efforts in the investigation of Graham’s death,” said Brunswick County Assistant District Attorney Shirley Smircic in a statement. “The hard work of these officers ensured a just result in this case.”

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