Poisoned for his Lottery Winnings

Another sad story about the fate of a lottery winner, this one a bit different:

Urooj Khan had sworn off playing the lottery after he took an Islamic pilgrimage to the Middle East in 2010, but as he stood in a 7-Eleven near his home on Chicago's Far North Side this summer, he lost his will for a moment, handing over $60 to buy two instant-game tickets.

After scratching off the second ticket, he leaped in the air, shouting over and over again, "I hit a million!"

When Khan, 46, accepted an oversized check from Illinois Lottery representatives days later at the same store with his wife and teenage daughter at his side, he spoke excitedly of how the winnings would help him grow his dry-cleaning business.

Instead, Khan is dead, a victim of an extraordinary poisoning, and police have a mystery on their hands: Did his lottery winnings create a motive for murder?

Cynics know that the answer to almost any leading question posed in a newspaper article is "no," but in this case it may very well be "yes." After the initial medical exam, Urooj Khan's death was pronounced natural. It was only after an as-yet-unnamed relative came to the police with "credible evidence" that Khan had been murdered that the case was re-opened and tests done that showed deadly amounts of cyanide in his blood.

If you don't ruin your own life with your lottery money, your relatives may do it for you.