News writer; Opinion columnist
People leave their home country for so many reasons. For some, it's to search for a better life; for others, to run away from a dark past.
For Ibi Roncaioli, it was to live the life she dreamed of, one of luxury and opulence, free from the day-to-day cares of working people. And for a few short years, she actually found it. But the glittering surface of her charmed life rested on a rotten foundation, and when it finally cracked and crumbled, it took Ibi and all of her dreams with it.
This is the true story of the rise, fall, and tragic death of lottery winner Ibi Roncaioli.
Ibi's dream
In the 1950s, Hungary was a country devastated by war and still rebuilding in the aftermath of World War 2. At the time, Ibi was a beautiful young girl with grand ambitions for her life, but she saw no hope of achieving them in her home country, so she migrated to Canada with nothing more than a suitcase full of clothes and a dream for her future.
She thought she would find the streets paved with gold, but instead found that while Canada was spared the ruin of war, it didn't offer the opportunities she needed to live the life she felt she deserved.
She took on menial jobs in kitchens and worked as a domestic in other people's homes, but her life felt stuck, and as the years passed, she was no closer to achieving her dreams than the day she arrived.
Then, by complete chance, she had an accident that would change her life and lead her to riches before it ultimately led to her death.
The doctor
Everything changed for Ibi when she met Joseph Roncaioli. He was a newly minted emergency room doctor with the kind of bright future she wanted to be a part of. They met when she had to go to his hospital for a minor injury, and they quickly began dating. He was charmed by the young, beautiful blonde with the sparkling charm and quick laugh.
Joe was only twenty-four, and Ibi said she was the same age. They launched a relationship that eventually became a marriage, and together they raised two sons, one of whom was from a previous relationship of Ibi.
However, life with Joe was not as glamorous as she had hoped. The doctor worked long hours at the hospital, and Ibi stayed home cooking, cleaning, and raising two rambunctious boys by herself. While Joe made a good living and they were comfortable, it wasn't enough to provide Ibi with the luxury and opulence she dreamed of.
She used to take long walks through Toronto's exclusive Thornhill neighborhood and dreamed of one day living in one of the area's beautiful mansions. She knew she could never earn enough money to buy one just by working, so she turned to an alternative means of making a fortune: gambling.
Ibi would spend hours at the race track betting on horses or at the casinos, feeding an endless stream of quarters into the slot machines. She was also a devoted lottery player and never missed a chance to buy a ticket for a drawing.
However, as is the case for so many devoted gamblers, small wins never made up for big losses, and she never grew any closer to her Thornhill estate.
The jackpot
For several years, Ibi's life fell into a routine. Buy a lottery ticket, lose, and hope for better luck on the next drawing. She opened a beauty salon with her friend to stay busy and spent her days doing trims and hair coloring.
And then one day, the routine finally changed. Ibi and her business partner purchased a lottery ticket together. They watched the live drawing on TV, and their jaws dropped when the host selected every one of their numbers. They had just won a $10 million lottery jackpot that they would split 50/50.
After the shouting, celebrating, and champagne, Ibi and her partner decided to close down the salon for good and enjoy their newfound wealth. Her first move was to give $800,000 checks to each of her two sons and to buy the Thornhill mansion she had always dreamed of.
Ibi was now a rich woman, and she was determined to enjoy herself. She was involved in various charities and would give $100 bills to the less fortunate. She also hoped that the fortune would help revive her relationship with Joe, which had grown distant over the years.
Joe was a workaholic who threw himself into his growing obstetrician practice. He spent countless hours at the office, and he and Ibi spent very little time together. Joe was gone so frequently that she suspected he was having an affair.
One day, while spending time at her vacation cottage, a friend called to say they had seen Joe at another woman's house. Ibi immediately drove over and caught Joe red-handed. She confronted him and eventually learned that he had cheated on her with several women, including his secretary at work, whom Ibi had considered a close friend.
Go for broke
She was devastated by the betrayal and spiraled into a dark path of overspending and drinking. Ibi gambled more, maxxed out her credit cards, and lost money by investing in risky schemes. Throughout their marriage, as Joe spent more and more time at his clinic, he trusted Ibi to manage their finances, including the money he made as a doctor.
In 2003, Joe and Ibi were in their 60s, and he was ready to step back from work, retire, and enjoy the good life. While he didn't keep close track of his finances, he knew that he should have several million in savings from his successful medical practice.
However, when he sat down with his financial advisor, he was shocked to learn that only $200,000 remained in his account.
Joe was enraged. All of his years of hard work were for nothing. He confronted Ibi and pieced together how she had squandered his wealth by shopping and gambling. They kept their finances separate, and he knew she still had some of her lottery winnings left. He demanded that she give him the money, but she refused.
Unable to recoup his fortune, Joe insisted that Ibi sell her beloved Thornhill mansion and that they move into a smaller home. She agreed to sell but was devastated by the loss of her dream home.
Joe and Ibi met with their real estate broker to sign the final closing documents for the sale of the mansion. Later, the broker would tell police that Ibi was visibly distraught and emotionally erratic. After the signing, the couple returned home, and Ibi lay down for a nap. She would never wake up.
A doctor's visit
A few hours after his wife lay down for a nap, Joe claims he went to check on her, found her unresponsive, and called paramedics to the house. When they arrived, they discovered that Ibi had no pulse. They tried to revive her, but were unable to restore her heartbeat. Ibi Roncaioli was declared dead on July 20, 2003.
The medical examiner was immediately intrigued by the case because there was no obvious explanation for why she died. Ibi showed no signs of trauma, such as a gunshot wound or head injury. She hadn't died of a heart attack, and she had no diseases. The examiner performed a more thorough investigation and discovered something odd: fresh puncture marks on her body.
Not only did she have puncture marks, but they were located in odd places, such as the bottom of her foot, the side of her knee, and the back of her wrist. The examiner knew from experience that these were locations where drug users inject themselves when they want to hide the track marks.
That might have made sense if Ibi were using illegal drugs, but a blood test did not reveal any in her system. The examiner ordered a second and more extensive test, and this time she found something unusual. Ibi had elevated levels of lidocaine and other local anesthetics in her body.
The investigators thought this was curious because those drugs had no recreational value. They create numbness at the injection site, but they do not develop feelings of euphoria or any other mind-altering sensation, so why were they there?
The investigation
Suspicion immediately fell to Joe, who, as an obstetrician, would have had easy access to the drugs in Ibi's system. When questioned by the police, Joe admitted to giving Ibi the drugs, but only so he could draw her blood for testing because he was worried she was sick.
Drawing someone's blood at home instead of in a clinical setting is highly unusual, and the police decided to launch a more thorough investigation. They quickly learned that after finding his wife dead, Joe's first call wasn't to 911, but to his accountant and a real estate agent.
They also discovered that the day after his wife died, Joe went into her safe deposit box expecting to find his missing cash, only to discover a note from Ibi explaining she had been swindled out of the money.
Next, he tore apart the house, desperately searching for any clue to what had happened to her lottery wealth, and he found a document showing that Ibi was actually eight years older than he had told her when they met so many years ago.
But this was hardly Ibi's biggest lie to Joe.
The lost son
Before Ibi met her husband, she was married to another man, and they had a son together. However, the marriage failed, and Ibi felt she could not be a good mother to her child, so she left her family.
Years later, though, Ibi and her first son, a child Joe never knew about, reconnected and rebuilt their relationship. When Ibi won the lottery, she gave her son a $2 million check to make up for abandoning him as a child. That's what happened to the cash that Joe thought Ibi was hiding from him.
Upon completing their investigation, the police determined that Joe had intentionally given Ibi an overdose of painkillers so that he could kill her and claim the money he thought she owed him, money that no longer existed.
Prosecutors charged Joe with manslaughter. He pleaded not guilty and stood trial in 2008. After three days of deliberations, the jurors found him guilty, and the judge sentenced him to prison. Six years later, in 2014, he was found dead in his cell.
Ibi Roncaioli dreamt of wealth her entire life, and for a few short years, she actually had it. But as we see so often, greed, jealousy, and anger turned what should have been the greatest day in her life into one that ultimately led to her tragic demise.
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