News writer; Opinion columnist
When we fantasize about winning the lottery, we often see it as a solution to the problems that we face in life. We imagine the debts we can pay off, the people we can take care of, the dreams we can finally make come true.
However, along with great wealth can come great jealousy, envy, and even rage from those you are close to who don't feel like they've gotten their fair share. While we often talk about the importance of protecting your money if you win the lottery, it's just as important to protect your life as well.
These are true stories of lottery winners who didn't survive to spend their fortunes.
Knife to the heart
When Doris Murray turned 41, she thought she had won the best birthday present ever. She decided to celebrate her big day by buying a Georgia Lottery ticket and won a $5 million jackpot.
Unlike so many other lottery winners, Murray made good choices about managing her money. She didn't go on wild spending sprees or treat herself to a new mansion. Instead, the mother of four deposited the money into a trust intended to benefit her grandchildren. Unfortunately, all of her good choices weren't enough to save her from one bad one: she was dating the wrong man.
Within a year of collecting her jackpot, Murray decided to end her relationship with long-time boyfriend Derrick Lorenzo of East Dublin, Georgia. Police Sergeant Stan Wright stated:
Her family said they had been boyfriend and girlfriend for some time. Then she told him she wanted to break it off, and she wanted to be friends, and that was it. From what they told me, he didn't want to accept that.
According to Murray's daughter, Lorenzo confided in her that he believed that Murray was dating another man, and he intended to kill both her and the new boyfriend. Sadly, Lorenzo followed through on half of that threat.
Just days after telling Murray's daughter his plans, neighbors called 911 when they saw Lorenzo leaving her house covered in blood. When responding officers investigated the home, they found her lying dead in the kitchen, the victim of a vicious knife attack.
Police launched a search for Lorenzo and quickly found his car. Rather than surrender, he led officers on a multi-city car chase that ended when he wrecked his car. While being interrogated, he told officers that Murray had attacked him and he had killed her in self-defense, but based on the forensic evidence, they didn't buy his story.
He was arrested, charged with murder, stood trial, and was convicted by a jury of slaughtering his girlfriend. A judge sentenced Lorenzo to life in prison for the crime.
Missing in action
When David Taylor told his wife, Cathy, he was leaving the house to cash in a winning Michigan Lottery ticket worth $10,000, it should have been a day of fun and celebration. Instead, it led to tragedy for the entire Taylor family.
Shortly after he left the house, Cathy received a voicemail from his phone. There was no message, just a vague rustling sound. It was the last message she would ever receive from her husband.
When David failed to return home after several hours, Cathy reported him as a missing person to the police. Officers immediately launched a search for him, and they quickly found his white pickup truck parked and abandoned on the side of the highway.
Investigators searched the vehicle and found his keys, wallet and the power tools he used in his job as a contractor and repairman. The discovery of so many valuable items meant it was unlikely that Taylor had been robbed; however, they also noted that both his cell phone and winning lottery ticket were missing from the truck.
They received a vital clue when a woman called 911 to report a man standing next to a white truck before he ran across a six-lane highway. Investigators' suspicions grew when they realized that Taylor's truck was found near an area known for drug activity.
His wife insisted that while their children struggled with drug addiction, Taylor would never take drugs and that he actively encouraged his kids to go into rehab and stay clean. However, his daughter Jessica had a different story to tell.
In an episode of the Netflix show Missing: Dead or Alive, which featured Taylor's case, Jessica told producers:
My mom, she don't have the slightest clue. But I knew what daddy did. He had fell and hurt himself, hurt his knee real bad. And by that time, I was doing heroin and meth. I told my daddy, I said, 'I don't have no pain pills,' I said, 'I know you're going to say no, but I have heroin and meth.' It was really just a joke.
Eventually, Taylor asked his daughter for drugs to help manage his pain, and fell into a spiral that would ultimately destroy his life.
After finding his truck, police officers searched a nearby wooded area and discovered Taylor's shirtless body leaning against a tree. There were no signs of blunt force trauma or other wounds, but a toxicology report revealed that there was methamphetamine in his system when he died. A coroner determined that the cause of death was hypothermia.
According to Detective Rains, who investigated the case:
You can imagine somebody is chasing you, which might be why he ran across the road. So essentially, because he had meth in his system, and he was kind of delusional, and he wasn't able to get out of the woods, he died of hypothermia. We didn't find the phone or the lottery ticket. But there's no evidence that anyone was with David when he died.
Unfortunately, his addiction was more than he could overcome, even with the incentive of a winning ticket.
A deadly affair
What many lottery winners don't learn until it's too late is that sometimes living out your wildest dreams can quickly turn into your darkest nightmares.
Jeffrey Dampier worked as a minimum wage security guard in Chicago and struggled to make ends meet. But his life took a turn when he won $20 million from the Illinois state lottery in 1996.
Dampier quickly made some radical life changes, including quitting his job, divorcing his wife (who received half of his lottery fortune), and moving to Tampa, Florida, where he opened a gourmet popcorn shop.
Shortly after settling in Florida, he met and married Crystal Jackson and took care of not only her but also her sisters, Victoria and Terri. Dampier treated the entire family to lavish vacations and bought the sisters expensive gifts.
And it's just possible that Dampier would have enjoyed his own happily ever after if he hadn't made one fateful move and begun an affair with Victoria, who was in a relationship with a man named Nathaniel Jackson (no relation).
Eventually, Nathaniel discovered the affair and decided to take revenge against Dampier by working with Victoria to steal his fortune.
Their plot began when Victoria asked Dampier to come to her apartment to help fix her broken car. However, after arriving at her home, Nathaniel jumped him, tied his hands and feet together, and beat him with a gun. Nathaniel demanded that Dampier transfer his money into his bank account, and when he refused, Victoria and her boyfriend carried Dampier to a van.
According to court records, Nathaniel gave Victoria an ultimatum: shoot Dampier or he would shoot her. Claiming to be scared for her life, Victoria took a gun and shot her former lover in the back of his head.
Neither Nathaniel nor Victoria was a criminal mastermind, and their scheme unraveled shortly after they murdered Dampier. Terri Jackson was present for some of the kidnappings, and when questioned by detectives, she agreed to testify against her sister and Nathaniel in exchange for immunity.
Additionally, forensic investigators discovered Dampier's DNA in the van. A few days after his death, arrest warrants were issued for Victoria and Nathaniel, and they were taken into custody while trying to hide out in another part of the state.
The pair both pleaded not guilty to the charges against them. However, they were tried and convicted, and a judge sentenced them both to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Dampier's second wife, Crystal, told reporters that despite the short-term joy the money brought her husband, it wasn't worth what it cost him. She told reporters, “I don't play the lottery at all. I don't touch it because I'm afraid that if I win it, I would sit down and cry.”
Unaccountable
Every article written about what you should do if you win the lottery will offer the same piece of advice: hire a financial professional to help manage your money. And while that remains a good idea, it backfired horribly for one Australian lottery winner.
When Maria Lourdes Devrell won AUD 5 million from the Oz Lotto, she turned to her family friend and accountant, Peter Kelly, to help manage her money. She also immediately quit her job and started living the good life.
Shortly after winning, Devrell and her husband purchased a new home and cars. However, Devrell wouldn't have long to enjoy her jackpot because not long after winning, her daughter walked into the family home on March 28, 2011, and discovered her mother's dead body lying in a pool of blood in the dining room.
Police searched the house and saw that her purse was missing. They initially believed her death was part of a robbery gone wrong, but further investigation quickly pointed the finger at Peter Kelly, a long-time family friend and accountant, whom Devrell had hired to manage her money.
While Kelly had been close to Devrell and her family for years, the relationship quickly turned sour when Kelly accused her and her husband of wasting their lottery winnings on alcohol and gambling. When police interrogated Kelly, he confessed to murdering Devrell. He told authorities that he flew into a rage when he could not convince her to stop her wasteful spending, and she pushed him.
He admitted to striking her in the head several times with a rubber mallet and then smothering her with his hands. After she was dead, he took her purse to make the murder appear as if it were a robbery. After murdering Devrell, Kelly joined her husband on a preplanned trip to shoot and ride motorcycles.
Prosecutors claimed that Kelly killed her to cover up his financial mismanagement of her funds, after he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars through failed real estate investment schemes.
Kelly was tried for murder, convicted, and sentenced to eighteen years in prison, but was released on parole after thirteen years in 2024.
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