Before David Lee Edwards won the lottery, he wasn’t exactly on the bright side of life. The American got into trouble with the law, was in prison for a few years for armed robbery, had his job as a television technician. But then in 2001 came his big hour. Edwards won the lottery – in a big way.
The then 46-year-old won one of the biggest history of the US Powerball lottery: a full 41 million US dollars. After deducting taxes, he was left with $27 million. Enough to get yourself a comfortable life, one would think. And so did David Lee Edwards: The money would not only be enough for him and his wife, but also for his children and grandchildren. But Edwards was not happy with that – he died at the age of only 58, poor and lonely.
Immediately after his win, Edwards married his fiancé. Then the couple built a new life together with the money. Edwards initially described winning the lottery as a “sign from God”, which he accepted with “great humility”. “I’m not going to start buying a villa or expensive cars now,” he assured and spoke of how bad it was for many other people. However, he could not keep this promise for long.
Edwards bought a mansion after all and not only spent a million dollars on almost a dozen luxury cars, but also almost two million dollars on a private jet. In addition, among other things, racehorses, a sword collection and expensive visits to Las Vegas. In general, the man from the state of Kentucky gave the impression that he believed that money could buy anything: he paid his ex-wife $500,000 to get custody of their eleven-year-old daughter. And he gave his daughter a golf cart, even though she wasn’t even old enough to drive one.
Inexorably, the millions in his account became fewer and fewer. Within three months, the “Daily Star” wrote in 2011, Edwards had already hit $3 million on the head. After a year it was already twelve million – almost half of his net winnings. Nevertheless, at this point he still had more than enough money, if he used it responsibly, never to have financial worries again.
But the low point was far from being reached. Edwards and his wife slipped into the drug scene, allegedly spending large sums on cocaine, pills and heroin. According to the Daily Star, Edwards even paid for some friends’ drug use — and their funerals when they died of an overdose. Marital disputes followed and more problems with the police. Edwards’ health also deteriorated dramatically: he had contracted hepatitis from contaminated syringes.
In 2006, David Lee Edwards was practically penniless – from 27 million to zero in five years. The “Daily Star” called his case “the perfect example for all lottery winners of what not to do”. He and his wife lost their luxury homes, most recently they are said to have lived in a run-down shed. As Edwards got worse and worse, his wife, who had since left him and remarried, had to take him in.
The seriously ill lottery winner spent the last part of his life in a hospice, where he died in 2013 at the age of just 58. Nothing was left of his winnings, his daughter announced after his death. The estate was not even enough to pay for the funeral.
Sources: “Daily Star” / “The Mirror” / “World”
