Posted on 12/05/2005 8:45:52 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
Instant Millions Can't Halt Winners' Grim Slide
By JAMES DAO Published: December 5, 2005
CORBIN, Ky., Nov. 30 - For Mack W. Metcalf and his estranged second wife, Virginia G. Merida, sharing a $34 million lottery jackpot in 2000 meant escaping poverty at breakneck speed.
Years of blue-collar struggle and ramshackle apartment life gave way almost overnight to limitless leisure, big houses and lavish toys. Mr. Metcalf bought a Mount Vernon-like estate in southern Kentucky, stocking it with horses and vintage cars. Ms. Merida bought a Mercedes-Benz and a modernistic mansion overlooking the Ohio River, surrounding herself with stray cats.
But trouble came almost as fast. And though there have been many stories of lottery winners turning to drugs or alcohol, and of lottery fortunes turning to dust, the tale of Mr. Metcalf and Ms. Merida stands out as a striking example of good luck - the kind most people only dream about - rapidly turning fatally bad.
Mr. Metcalf's first wife sued him for $31,000 in unpaid child support, a former girlfriend wheedled $500,000 out of him while he was drunk, and alcoholism increasingly paralyzed him. Ms. Merida's boyfriend died of a drug overdose in her hilltop house, a brother began harassing her, she said, and neighbors came to believe her once welcoming home had turned into a drug den.
Though they were divorced by 2001, it was as if their lives as rich people had taken on an eerie symmetry. So did their deaths.
In 2003, just three years after cashing in his winning ticket, Mr. Metcalf died of complications relating to alcoholism at the age of 45. Then on the day before Thanksgiving, Ms. Merida's partly decomposed body was found in her bed.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I doubt it. A slut like that'll go through a half mill in about 2-3 years
I'm sure with my help it would last a lot less than that!
But the lottery helps the schools.
Heheh......the NYT's decline at the hands of Pinch should make a good syndicated story.
Oh, that's TOO perfect.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
See, that problem would not occur with ME.
I'd hire a JEEVES to keep all my affairs in order while I enjoy the free time..
My doctor calls it arrested development...
He would have, at the very least, stayed sober enough to work a majority of the time in order to afford to live. Winning the lottery for him, took away the neccessity to maintain a life, job, etc. He had free reign to drink himself to death as his lottery winnings kept him in isolation from the real world. The real world is all that keeps many marginal folks in this life.
I agree with you--I often play the cash-5 drawing where the jackpot is anywhere from $50G to 300G. a nice healthy check to "get ahead"--nothing more.
I truthfully wouldn;t mind hitting a jackpot of up to $10 million dollars. I think today, you would be completely out of any media spotlight.
So would I. Sooooo would I.... ;-)
I agree with you, too. The "safety nets" are going to kill the best of American culture. I tell my kids: I'm tough and smart, because I played on monkey bars that had concrete underneath--not wood chips or foam. You had to know if you could hang upside down from your knees, because that was your own head that was at risk.
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