Buried in concrete by con-woman
Abraham Shakespeare (seen left with relatives) won the Florida Lottery in November 2006. He was targeted by Dee Dee Moore who swindled $1.8million out of him then had her boyfriend kill him
In 2006, Florida man Abraham Shakespeare, 42, won $17million.
He was murdered and buried under a slab of concrete by con-woman DeeDee Moore and her boyfriend, three years later.
DeeDee targeted Abraham for his money and took nearly $2million of his wealth by the time she killed him.
He was missing for several months before she eventually admitted where his body was.
Jeffrey Dampier was murdered in 2005 by his sister-in-law, ten years after winning $20million
Shot in the head by sister-in-law
In 1996, Jeffrey Dampier, then 39, won $20million in Illinois.
After his win, Dampier later divorced and moved to Florida where he married Crystal Jackson.
He embarked on an affair with his wife’s sister Vanessa, who with her own husband Nathaniel, lured him into an apartment and shot him in the back of the head on July 26, 2005.
The scene of his murder was a home Dampier paid for himself.
It’s not clear why they thought they would inherit his money. His widow Crystal said in 2015 that she would never ‘go near’ the lottery, telling WFLA: ‘It’s a curse.’
Doris Murray won $5million in Georgia in 2007. She was stabbed to death a year later by an ex-boyfriend
Stabbed to death by ex-boyfriend
Doris Murray, 42, won $5million in 2007.
The woman from Dublin, Georgia, wanted to use the money on a trust fund for her grandchildren but she was stabbed to death a year after claiming her prize.
Derrick Lorenzo Stanley, her ex-boyfriend- was charged with killing her.
She wanted her prize in $172,000, yearly installments to be paid over 20 years. It is now paid to whoever was in her will.
At the time of her death, police said she and Stanley had gotten into a fight and she tried to end the relationship.
Deborah McDonald won $5,000 in Sandusky, Ohio, on the Cash Explosion in 2010. She was hit by a car as she walked home from celebrating the win and later died. It was an accident
Hit by car after celebrating win
In 2010, in Sandusky, Ohio, 47-year-old winner Deborah McDonald was on her way home from a bar where she had been celebrating her $5,000 windfall when she was hit by a car.
Her death is believed to have been an accident.
She had just won the more modest sum on the television show Ohio Lottery’s Cash Explosion.
Billie Bob Harrell killed himself in 1999, two years after winning $31million in the Texan lottery
Driven to suicide by stalkers
Billie Bob Harrell won $31million in the Texan lottery in 1997.
The Home Depot worker with a wife and three children to support quit his job not long after claiming his prize.
Harrell generously donated to charity and bought his friends and relatives cars and homes. However his generosity caused strangers to ask for money. Harrell had to change his phone number to escape the requests.
Impatient to get his hands on all his winnings, he took a bad deal from a company which pays out lump sums in exchange for all of lottery winners’ future installments, robbing him of the amount he would have received had he waited for his yearly payments.
He divorced from his wife in May 1999. Two years after he won he shot himself. He was 47.
Jack Whittaker won $315million in 2002
Robbed and lost daughter and granddaughter to drug deaths
Jack Whittaker has the worst pattern of luck of any lottery winner.
In 2002, the West Virginia businessman won $315million.
A year later, thieves broke into his car and stole $545,000 which he carried in it in a suitcase. They stole another $200,000 the following year.
In 2005, Whittaker’s granddaughter Brandi was found dead, wrapped in plastic with drugs in her system.
Two years later, her mother – Whittaker’s daughter Ginger – died of a drug overdose.
By the time of her death, he said his bank accounts were empty. He blamed his relatives deaths’ on the winning ticket, assuming that they bought the drugs which killed them with his money.
‘My granddaughter is dead because of the money. She was the shining star of my life, and she was what it was all about for me.
‘You know, my wife said she wished that she had torn the ticket up. Well, I wish that we tore the ticket up too,’ he told ABC’s 20/20.
Evelyn Basehore, 64, is now living in a trailer park
Gambled fortune away
Evelyn Basehore, now 64, won $3.9million in 1985 and won an additional $1.4million the following year in New Jersey.
The woman squandered her money on gambling and gave money to her gambling-addicted friends
By the 2000, the only home she could afford was in a trailer park.
‘Winning the lottery isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Everybody wanted my money. Everybody had their hand out,’ she told Bankrate in 2012.
She added: ‘I won the American dream, but I lost it, too. It was a very hard fall. It’s called rock bottom.
Donated millions, then filed bankruptcy
Janite Lee with Bill Clinton at a fundraiser she organized for him after her 1993 $18million win. She declared bankruptcy in 2001
Janite Lee won $18million in 1993 in St Louis, Missouri.
She donated much of her fortune to the University of Washington and the school used to build a new library.
But just eight years after collecting her prize, she filed for bankruptcy in 2001.
Lee was in her 50s when she won.
She and her husband had emigrated from South Korea to the United States with his three children in the 1970s.
Among her causes was Bill Clinton who she gave a fundraiser for in 1997.
Later, she was on a list of prominent donors who gave to the Democratic National Committee.