A 75-year-old man was killed in a Portland parking lot last November when a woman he was dating intentionally hit him with a car over a lottery-winnings dispute, prosecutors said.
The newly released details are included in a probable cause affidavit that prosecutors filed in their case against 55-year-old Mary Ann McKinzy, who was arrested by U.S. Marshals in California on Aug. 5 and extradited to Portland on Sept. 18, police said.
She now faces likely charges of second-degree murder, first-degree assault and criminally negligent homicide in the death of James S. Miller in the parking lot of the Candalaria Plaza Apartments at 1009 Southeast 162nd Avenue on Nov. 28, 2025, court records show.
Prosecutors say the dispute that ultimately escalated into a homicide started when Miller scored a $3,200 lottery ticket.
He gave McKinzy $1,700 of his winnings, but she later stole another $800 from him as well, prosecutors allege.
Furious over the alleged theft, Miller told an acquaintance he was going to “get a couple of his boys together” and get the money back from McKinzy, according to court records.
After enlisting the help of a friend, who drove him to McKinzy’s apartment, Miller found McKinzy sitting in her car in the parking lot and started tapping on the driver’s side of the window, the probable cause affidavit alleges. The friend who was with him later told police that he didn’t know what Miller was planning to do but heard him tell McKinzy to “open the door or I’m going to bust the window open.”
Miller then told his friend to use his car to block McKinzy from getting out of her car, but she responded by backing her car into his friend’s car, court records state.
Miller’s friend said that he got out to inspect the damage, and then saw Miller throw a knife at the hood of McKinzy’s car. Court records add that security-camera footage also shows Miller stabbing McKinzy’s tires.
In response, McKinzy threw her car into reverse, hitting Miller and backing up over him, security footage of the incident shows, according to court records.
Miller’s friend spotted Miller under the car and yelled at McKinzy to move the car off of him. She responded that Miller was “trying to kill me” and then drove away from the scene, court records allege.
Miller died at the scene.
Later that day, police found McKinzy’s car at a tire shop — with some of the hubcaps missing — and a hubcap that matched one found at the scene sitting in the car’s front passenger seat, the affidavit alleges.
Police also matched the knife puncture in the hood of the car to the knife that Miller had used, and the car otherwise matched the one in the surveillance footage, according to the probable cause affidavit.
The car also contained various belongings and documents with McKinzy’s name on them, court records say.
Detectives got a warrant for McKinzy’s arrest, but she’d either already skipped town or left shortly afterwards. Portland police said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon that U.S. Marshals ultimately found and arrested her in Bakersfield, California.
Court records show that McKinzy has no prior convictions in Oregon, but she was convicted of inflicting corporal injury on a spouse or domestic partner in California in 2024. She is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday.
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