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Lottery Winner's Granddaughter Is Buried (Jack Whittaker)
Yahoo ^ | Dec 24, 2004

WINFIELD, W.Va. - Seventeen-year-old Brandi Bragg was laid to rest on Friday, almost two years to the day after her doting grandfather came into the great wealth that some say was Brandi's misfortune.

The only granddaughter of Jack Whittaker, winner of the richest undivided lottery jackpot in U.S. history, was found dead earlier this week of what may have been a drug overdose.

Whittaker and others say her sudden access to vast wealth had brought new friends and dangerous habits.

"Since she won the lottery she had too much money," said Becky Layton, who once took care of Brandi when she lived with her grandparents. "I could point fingers all day long. The money is the root of it all, I would say."

Brandi had her own apartment and several vehicles, including a Hummer and a Cadillac Escalade — indications of a teen with too much money, Layton said.

"The very first few weeks after she won the lottery, they would get $10,000 out during the day. It was between all of them. Her mom would get out $5,000 and Brandi would only get out five more," Layton said.

Brandi was a quiet 15-year-old with a big smile when her already-wealthy grandfather won a $314.9 million Powerball jackpot on Christmas Day 2002. He took his winnings in a $113 million lump sum.

Her Dec. 5 death was the latest in a series of misfortunes that have befallen Whittaker's family since then.

Among them: Whittaker's home and his vehicles have been hit with a rash of break-ins. He was arrested twice this year for drunken driving, and a judge ordered him to check into a rehab center by Jan. 2. And in September, an 18-year-old friend of Brandi's, Jesse Tribble, was found dead in Whittaker's house from an overdose of cocaine, oxycodone and methadone. (Tribble once claimed that he had been hired by Whittaker to be Brandi's driver at $500 a day.)

Brandi's body was discovered Monday, wrapped in a sheet and plastic tarp, alongside a junked van at the home of her boyfriend, Brandon Crosier, near the town of Scott Depot. State Police believe she died at the home, and her boyfriend put the body outside.

"All I know is she OD'd and Brandon freaked out," Brandon's father, Steve Crosier, told reporters.

No charges have been filed. Investigators said they are awaiting toxicology results and have yet to disclose the cause of death. But on Thursday, Whittaker said: "All of the problems I have had are because of my granddaughter's friends, her drug-using friends. I'm going to find them and put them in jail. It's not her fault; it's the people who sold drugs because they weren't taken off the street."

While growing up, Brandi moved between her mother's home in Hinton, a former railroad community of 2,800, and Whittaker's home in Scott Depot. Her father died when she was young, and her mother at one point was treated for cancer.

During Friday's service in a Hinton funeral home, Brandi was remembered for the 17 things she loved, one for each year of her life. They included Whittaker, whom she called PawPaw, shopping, her cell phone, roses, and the rapper Nelly.

In an interview with The Associated Press last year, Whittaker said he regretted the toll the jackpot was taking on his family. Brandi had lost most of her friends, he said.

"They want her for her money and not for her good personality," he said. "She's the most bitter 16-year-old I know."

Chinese pirates batter German toys

By Ray Furlong
BBC News, Seiffen, east Germany

Volker Flath's workshops are a hive of Christmas activity.
In one corner, he turns out Christmas trees that are each just a few centimetres tall, while nearby a colleague works on a noisy lathe producing parts for a Christmas pyramid.

Elsewhere, an employee sits furiously painting hundreds of Santa Claus figures in minute detail.

It is like this every year for the woodcarvers of Seiffen, a village of just 2,000 people, which has around 100 producers of wooden toys and ornaments.

"We've got three generations working in our business," says Mr Flath.

"My father still works here, I do, and my son is an apprentice. The training period lasts three years."

Seiffen has been home to the woodcarving industry since the tin mines were exhausted in the 18th Century.

Now though, the tradition is coming under threat from cheap Chinese imitations.

Government campaign

"It's a problem.

"These imitations cause huge losses to the toy-makers, and the customers now don't know what they're buying," says Mr Flath.

"I can only say: be careful! Check what you buy has a certificate of authenticity, and buy it from a specialist shop.

"There are ways to tell the difference."

The problem has been taken head-on by one of the region's largest manufacturers, KWO.

It has recently won a seven-year legal battle to prevent the import of just one particular product.
Sitting in an Aladdin's Cave of elaborate music boxes, pyramids and "smokers" - ornaments of men smoking pipes, in which incense can be burned - export manager Lennart Brauser-Jung says he is expecting more litigation, from Germany and abroad.

"The German importer is no longer allowed to import and sell this product, an imitation Smoker, to Germany.

"But we think it's still being produced in China and sold to other countries like the United States," he says.

"The imitations look very similar but they're not as good as the original.

"For example, they use different paints, the body has stains on it, and on parts of the figurine you can see glue."

Cut-price imports

Chinese products now account for more than half of all German toy imports, so it is no surprise the woodcarvers of Seiffen should also fall prey to them.

The German government has just launched a campaign warning of safety problems with many of the toys.

Klaus Piepel, from the German charity Misereor, recently visited Chinese workers in Shenzhen - and says they work under sweatshop conditions.

"The factories are mostly staffed by migrant labourers who get 50-60 euros (£35-£42) a month.
"They work 14-hour days, seven days a week, without breaks," he says.

"Traditional handcrafted wooden toys are also being reproduced in this way, and at such a low cost that the German manufacturers can't compete."

But the issue is especially important for Seiffen, and the Erzgebirge mountain region where it lies.

The local unemployment rate is 20%.

So the industry and the tourists it attracts are a crucial boost for the economy.

Also, the small family-run businesses often lack the resources of large toy-makers to fight the competition, on the market or in court.

It is a cruel irony that the local toy industry was first successful because of its low prices.

The former miners turned their hands to making first utensils, then toys and ornaments.

Preserving traditions

And soon they were exporting to the whole of Europe.

Their success seemed in no doubt for generations.

"We remained a family business even under the communists, like many in Seiffen," says Volker Flath.

"They needed us for getting hard currency from the West."

As we spoke, a light snow was falling outside.

Tourists were drinking mulled wine on the village's chocolate box main street, illuminated by multi-coloured Christmas lights.

In the evening, a mouth-organ choir held a concert at the village's unique, octagonal Baroque church, another tourist attraction.

Even here, there are hand-carved wooden toys on the walls.

The whole region lives from traditions that it is now fighting to preserve.