Posted on 12/21/2004 7:19:17 AM PST by Lizavetta
Lottery Winner's Granddaughter Found Dead
SCOTT DEPOT, W.Va. - The 17-year-old granddaughter of the nation's largest lottery winner was found dead near her boyfriend's home, her body wrapped in a sheet and plastic tarp.
"All I know is she OD'd and Brandon freaked out," Steve Crosier, the father of Brandi Bragg's boyfriend, Brandon, told reporters in a brief conversation outside the house.
Bragg, who lived in the nearby town of Hurricane, was last seen alive Dec. 4. She was reported missing five days later by Jack Whittaker, who won a $314.9 million jackpot on Christmas Day 2002 but has battled legal and other problems since then.
The cause of death was under investigation. Authorities said there were no obvious signs of violence, and they would not comment on whether drugs were involved. An autopsy was planned for Tuesday, and police said Tuesday morning there was nothing new to report.
Bragg's body was found Monday behind a junked van several hundred feet from the home of Steve Crosier, whose son Brandon was Bragg's boyfriend, said Trooper S.E. Wolfe.
A preliminary investigation indicated that Bragg may have died in the Crosiers' house and her body was later moved.
Wolfe said Monday's discovery was based on interviews with Brandon Crosier and others. "We are focused on him but I wouldn't call him a suspect yet," he said.
After his conversation with reporters outside his home, Steve Crosier told The Associated Press he did not know any details of Bragg's death or when her body was placed outside on his property. Crosier said he had been busy tending to his daughter, Jennifer, who died of cancer Dec. 13.
Bragg's body was identified by tattoos on her neck, said State Police Sgt. Jay Powers. "The troopers had talked to her in the past and knew her," Powers said.
Whittaker and other family members did not return messages. There was no listing for Bragg's mother, Ginger McMahon of Beckley, who is Whittaker's daughter.
Shortly after he won the lottery, the biggest undivided lottery jackpot in U.S. history, Whittaker said he had few plans for himself but wanted to lavish his winnings on his daughter and Brandi, then 15.
But Whittaker — already a wealthy contractor before his lottery win — has had several brushes with the law since he won the prize. Earlier this month, a magistrate ordered him to go into rehab and surrender his driver's license after his second drunken driving arrest this year. He must report to rehab by Jan. 2.
He has also been accused in two lawsuits of assaulting female employees of a racetrack. And his vehicle, business and home have been broken into.
In September, an 18-year-old friend of his granddaughter was found dead at Whittaker's home. That death remains under investigation. Whittaker was out of town at the time.
Remind me never to buy a lottery ticket..ever..
Sounds like he won the monkey's paw ...
sounds like a smorgasbord of white trash.
White Trash + tons of money = tons of trouble
When grandpa is spending all his time in titty bars, why is he surprised to find his family slipping into the gutter?
bttt
A lot of his problems are his own fault, but you gotta pity the tragedy in this guy's life. White trash or not, burying your 16-year old child must be a hell like no other, not matter how she died.
Money doesn't buy happiness, and this guy is the poster child proving that axiom.
Bingo! Johnny, tell him what he's won....
It's what I call "The Law of the Jungle (Room)" (in honor of Elvis' famously tacky den at Graceland): Give a hillbilly a million dollars, and he'll act just like a hillbilly with a million dollars.
Actually, though, this guy in West Virginia was known as a standup, decent guy prior to winning the lottery. Self-made millionaire, independent businessman, etc. What the winnings seem to have done is this: By relieving the winner of the need to work (hard work having previously been the chief focus of his life), it seems to have uprooted him from the normal, stabilizing routines of life.
How much of what the media has reported about this man would make the national news if he had not won that lottery? I'd say none of it. It's another example of the media finding someone to attack because something good happened to him. What he has done or what has happened to him or his family would not make anything more than the local news had he not won the lottery.
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