04 Track 4

Review unit 2

fluency strategy: KWL

America’s Biggest Lottery Winner

Page 109

America’s Biggest Lottery Winner

One day in December 2002, Jack Whitaker decided to buy a lottery ticket at a small store in West Virginia. The 55-year-old didn’t really need to do as he was already a successful and affluent businessman.

But Whitaker played the lottery that day because the prize was truly a fortune $314 million.

The next morning, he learned he had won it all − the largest lottery win in the history of the United States at that time.

Whitaker seemed surprised everyone with his generosity. He bought property and a car for a worker at the store where he bought the winning ticket.

He shared 10 percent of his money with his church. He promised to set up a charitable organization to care for the poor of West Virginia. He seemed humble, saying he’d invest his money wisely and continue to work at his company and “answer his own phone.”

In reality, Whitaker was soon to experience the difficulties that tend to accompany a lottery win. People would wait for him to drop by his favorite store and then they would begging for money by telling him sad stories of illnesses and bad luck.

Whitaker had to hire three people just to open letters asking him for money.

“I don’t have any friends,” He said in a newspaper interview.

“Every friend that I’ve had, practically, has wanted to borrow money or something and of course, once they borrow money from you. You can’t be friends anymore.”

It is also very hard to stay sensible when you have so much money.

Whitaker reportedly grew extravagant and started flashing his cash around. While drinking in a local club, he boasted of having $500,000 in cash in a briefcase in his car.

He also started to make frequent trips to casinos for gambling and witnesses said he became a troublemaker at these places, causing problems and growing angry when he was refused a request or banned from entering.

Whitaker loved his granddaughter, Brandy, immensely − he said that she was “his world.”

After winning, Whitaker treated his granddaughter to whatever she wanted; he bought her a new car and paid for her to meet the hip-hop star Nelly.

According to Brandy’s friend, she had a constant supply of money; it wasn’t unusual for her to receive $5,000 in one day from her grandfather.

With such money or lifestyle gradually change for the worse as she started to use illegal drugs with her friends.

Her car was full of trash and money − there was so much of it that bills would occasionally fly out the window, according to another friend.

On December 4, 2003, Brandy disappeared. When they didn’t hear from her over the next five days, Whitakers called the police. Soon after, Brandy’s body was found. She had died from an overdose of illegal drugs.

Ten years on from winning the lottery, Jack Whitaker still struggles with health problems, his beloved wife has left him, and his precious granddaughter is gone. “If it would bring my granddaughter back, I’d give it all back,” Whitaker said of his jackpot.