The body of a Michigan man with a winning lottery ticket tucked in his wallet was found washed up on a private beach in Huron County, according to a report.
Gregory Jarvis struck it lucky while playing "The Jack," which earned him $45,000, at the Blue Water Inn in Caseville earlier this month, WJRT reported.
He returned to the venue on Sept. 19 in good spirits and bought rounds of drinks for patrons despite not having cashed in his winning ticket. Blue Water Inn owner Dawn Talaski explained that there was an issue with his social security card, which was why he had not received his money.
It was the last time he was seen alive.
"He couldn’t cash it because he didn’t have a social security card at all, it wasn’t any good, so he applied for a new one," she told WJRT.
Talaski said she felt something was amiss when Jarvis did not return to the bar. Then, several days later his boss informed them that Jarvis had failed to report to work. On Friday they learned that his body had washed ashore.
Caseville Police Chief Kyle Romzek explained that the initial theory was that he had drowned.
"We are thinking that he was tying up his boat, slipped and fell, hit his head, and that’s where he ended up in the water, no foul play suspected," Romzek explained. But his department did further investigations upon learning about the winning lottery ticket.
"It did, at first, we were concerned about it but after the autopsy, and we interviewed people at the bar, he was well-liked around here, he was nice guy, that took it off the table," Romzek explained.
An autopsy concluded that Jarvis had suffered head injuries, which was consistent with hitting his head on the boat, and that he had drowned. Jarvis’s relatives will be able to collect the winnings.
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Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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