He Went By "Lucky"

From today's Star Telegram: William "Bud" Post III, whose $16.2 million in lottery winnings brought him debt, despair and heartache, causing the kind of trouble often recounted in country-western songs, died of respiratory failure Jan. 15 at a Pittsburgh-area hospital. He was 66. "Everybody dreams of winning money, but nobody realizes the nightmares that come out of the woodwork or the problems," he said in 1993, five years after winning the Pennsylvania lottery. His problems included a brother who tried to hire a contract murderer to kill him and his sixth wife, a landlady who forced him to give her one-third of the jackpot and a conviction on an assault charge after Post fired a shotgun at a man trying to collect a debt at Post's deteriorating dream house in northwestern Pennsylvania. He went bankrupt, emerged with $1 million free and clear and spent most of that, too. (more . . . )