Keonna Graham’s body was discovered at the Sure Stay Hotel in Brunswick County earlier this week.
A North Carolina man is behind bars and charged with the murder of 23-year-old Keonna Graham, just three years after he won $10 million from a scratch off ticket.
Michael Todd Hill, 52, was taken into custody and charged with murder by the Shallotte Police Department after Graham’s body was discovered at the Sure Stay Hotel in Brunswick County earlier this week.
A housekeeper had been checking on the room when it was past the time to check out when they came across the body, a hotel manager told WECT, adding that the hotel has never experienced anything like it.
The pair had been involved in an on-again, off-again relationship, authorities told the Wilmington Star News.
“All that money and you are seducing a young girl to go into a hotel?” Tiffany Wilson, a friend of Graham’s family, told WECT. “I don’t know what the situation is but you had no business being in a hotel with her.”
Hill won $10 million in 2017 after purchasing an Ultimate Millions scratch-off ticket from a gas station, and gifted $2,000 to the woman who sold him the ticket. Employees of the gas station said he was a regular customer and never imagined he would could do something like this, WECT reported.
Graham lived in Navassa, North Carolina with her mother and 10-year-old sister, Graham’s cousin Antionette Lee told the Associated Press. She worked as a correctional officer at a nearby prison and worked with people with disabilities.
In her free time, she enjoyed hiking and biking. Loved ones describe Graham as generous, loving and adventurous.
“Our family is devastated,” Lee said.
Hill was booked into the Brunswick County Detention Center and is being held without bond. He will be represented by a court-appointed attorney who was not immediately identified.
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