When players dream of winning the lottery, they fantasize about the things they'll buy, the people they'll help, and the fun they can have when they finally cash in their fortune. The one thing they never imagine is that their newfound wealth could lead them to decades in prison.
Unfortunately, for some lottery players, the biggest win of their lives can just be the first step to a steep decline that ends with them in handcuffs. These are the stories of lottery winners who won big before they were locked up.
Michael Todd Hill
Michael Todd Hill was a loser. It was August 2017, and the North Carolina, nuclear plant worker had just scratched off an Extreme Millions ticket that paid out nothing. Hill could have taken the L and gone home, but he decided to push his luck and returned to the gas station, where he bought an Ultimate Millions ticket.
When he scratched the ticket this time, he knew he had a winner. He later told North Carolina Lottery officials:
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.
He checked his ticket with the store clerk, who told him he had just won the jackpot. He immediately called his wife and said, “I told her to pack her bags because we just won $10 million!”
Hill opted for a lump sum payout of $6 million, or just over $4 million after paying taxes. He said he wanted to use the money to pay his bills and invest in his wife's business, and if his story had ended there, it would have been a happy one. However, like so many winners who have come before him, Hill seems to have let the money go to his head.
Shortly after winning his fortune, Hill began a romantic affair with Keonna Graham, who, at twenty-three, was almost three decades younger than him. According to investigators, the two were involved in an eighteen-month-long relationship that was marked by volatility and alleged abuse.
On July 20, 2020, Graham failed to show up for her job as a corrections officer, and her mother filed a missing person's report. Later that day, at the Surestay Hotel in Shallotte, NC, a maid opened the door to a room and found Graham lying dead on the bed with a bullet wound to her head.
The hotel's security cameras showed that she had been staying in the room with Hill. He was arrested by investigators the next day, and he confessed that he shot her in the head while she was sleeping because he was angry that she was texting with other men.
Hill took his case to trial and, in 2022, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Stephanie Harvell & Mitchell Arnswald
A second chance is a powerful thing, especially if you can use it to turn your life around for the better. Unfortunately for Michigan residents Stephanie Harvell and Mitchell Arnswald, a big lottery payout still wasn't enough to turn them into winners.
2016 was a challenging year for Harvell and Arnswald. They lost their car, and their landlord informed them they were being evicted from their apartment. They were down to their last dollar and decided to spend it on a Hot Jackpot lottery ticket.
While the story of desperation is familiar, the ending has an unusual twist because they won $500,000.
“I cried like a baby when I saw what I'd won. I still can't believe it,” Harvell told the Michigan Lottery when she went to collect her prize. “It's hard to find words for what this means to our family, but it couldn't have come at a better time,” Harvell said.
It was a feel-good story about two hard-working, down-on-their-luck people who finally got the chance they needed to give their families a better life. Unfortunately, this story doesn't have the happy ending that it could have.
Just a few years after collecting their life-changing prize, police in Bay County, Michigan, realized that they were in the midst of a mini-crime wave when they received several reports of daytime house robberies.
“There have been so many [breaking-and-entering cases] in the daytime in all these areas. We've had so many,” Bay County Sheriff Troy R. Cunningham told reporters at the time.
The crimes grew so brazen that the local law enforcement formed a task force to track down the criminals, and they formed a description of the suspects' get-away vehicle, a Ford SUV. After another home break-in in Merritt Township, officers spotted the car in the parking lot of a grocery store.
When officers investigated, they found Harvell and Arnswald in the car. They detained the couple, searched the SUV, and found stolen property from the Merritt Township home and burglary tools, including gloves and a crowbar.
The couple was arrested and charged with several counts of theft and burglary. Harvell and Arnswald were each sentenced to four years in prison. While we don't know exactly what happened with their lottery prize, the court did order Harvell to enroll in a substance abuse program as part of her sentence.
Freddie Young
If you won a fortune in the lottery, a minor dispute over a thousand dollars doesn't seem like it should be that big of a deal. But for Freddie Young, that's all it took to destroy his life.
In 2011, Young worked for the Post Office in Michigan and was a member of the P1 Gold Lottery Club, a lottery ticket-buying group made up of other postal workers. Every week, they pooled their money together to buy tickets, promising to split the winnings if any of their tickets paid off.
The group seemed like a good way to dream big until one day, that dream finally became a reality. The group held a jackpot-winning ticket for the Michigan State Lottery worth over $46 million, and Young walked away with $1.6 million.
However, Young didn't have much time to enjoy his winnings. He won his prize in February 2011, but just three months later, he was involved in a violent dispute with his daughter Ayana's landlord, Greg McNicol.
The fight was over $1,000 in unpaid rent and McNicol's claim that the daughter had loud and unruly guests in her apartment. McNicol attempted to evict her, and they verbally argued while the landlord hosted a BBQ at one of his properties.
Witnesses say that in the middle of their argument, Freddie drove up in his Chevy Avalanche, stepped out of the car with a gun in his hand, and shot McNicol in the abdomen.
Thomas Benton told a jury that the incident happened too fast for anyone to react. He (Young) got out of the car, shot Greg, and sped off. He was like, 'Shoot first and no questions.'
McNicol died of his injuries, and Young was immediately arrested and charged with his murder. In an interview with detectives, he claimed that he didn't even realize he was holding a gun until it went off. When police searched his car, they found $150,000 in cash and another $500,000 in money orders.
Young took his case to trial, was convicted of murder, and sentenced to life in prison just over a year after winning his fortune.
Amanda Clayton
In 2011, Amanda Clayton's life was a struggle. She was 24 and a single mother of two young children. Steady employment was hard to find, and she had to turn to Michigan state welfare programs to help her make ends meet.
Feeling hopeless, she scrapped together a few dollars and bought lottery tickets for the game Make Me Rich!, a TV show sponsored by the Michigan Lottery. She went on the show and walked away with a $1 million prize, or $735,000 after taxes.
It felt like an answer to her prayers. She bought a home and a car and started a trust to pay for her children's education. Everything should have been fine except for one problem. She never told the Michigan Department of Human Services about her lottery windfall, and they continued to send her $200 a month in financial help.
She told reporters who saw her using food aid at a local grocery store, "I thought that they would cut me off, but since they didn't, I thought maybe it was okay because I'm not working."
Clayton was charged with welfare fraud and ordered to pay restitution of $5,500 and serve nine months of probation. Sadly, shortly after being sentenced and just a year after winning her prize, Clayton was found dead in her home of a suspected prescription pill overdose.
Barry Shell
Sometimes, the best day of your life can also be your worst. Barry Shell learned that lesson when he collected his winnings from the Lotto 6/49 game. The Canadian arrived at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission headquarters in Toronto to collect a check for $4.4 million.
Unfortunately for him, after receiving his money and taking the obligatory winner's photo, Peel Regional police officers were waiting to collect him. Because he didn't have a current photo ID, lottery officials ran a security check to verify his identity. This is how they learned that Shell had a six-year-old outstanding arrest warrant for failure to appear, theft under $5,000, and possession of stolen property worth under $5,000.
After being detained, he posted a $1,500 bond and remained free while awaiting trial. While Shell said he had no immediate plans for spending his new fortune, we can think of at least one area where he should probably splurge: an excellent criminal defense lawyer.
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