One of the mistakes in this article has been that you can’t trust those closest to you—which was also the case for William “Bud” Post III who won $16.2 in 1998. His brother tried to hire a hitman to murder both Post and his wife so that he could take the winnings for himself. This assassination attempt didn’t succeed, but Post continued to have a difficult life until he died in 2006. Before his death he ended up declaring bankruptcy, he was forced to give $5 million to his landlady, and he invested in a business that flopped.
While his brother went to jail and did not succeed in killing Post for his money, that doesn’t mean that the rest of Post’s life was smooth sailing. After all, as we’ve seen from these unfortunate fortune winners, winning the lottery doesn’t guarantee an easy life.