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Subscribe to RSSUrooj Khan, 46, won $1 million off a scratch lottery ticket he bought at a 7-11 in Chicago last June, but just one day after receiving his check, he died. Now, his death has been ruled a homicide, as toxicology reports showed deadly cyanide in his system. NBC's Andrea Canning reports.
A lottery winner was fatally poisoned with cyanide just as he was about to collect his payout on a $1 million instant lottery ticket, a Chicago medical examiner said Monday.
Urooj Khan died July 20, one day after the state issued a check to him for $425,000, which represented the after tax amount on the lump sum payout on his winning ticket. The check wasn’t cashed until Aug. 15, likely by a member of his estate.
After a limited exam, Cook County Medical Examiner Stephen Cina found no trauma or unusual substances in the 46-year-old's body, and the medical examiner's office declared that he died of natural causes.
Khan was buried at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago, but within a week a concerned relative asked the medical examiner's office to take a closer look.
“They had concerns that it was deemed a natural cause of death and wanted us to look harder,” Cina told NBCChicago.com. “And we did.”
The medical examiner’s office determined from comprehensive toxicology reports that Khan had ingested a deadly amount of cyanide and his death has been reclassified as a homicide.
Police are considering exhuming his body as part of the investigation.
Lottery winner killed by cyanide was immigrant, family man
“It’s a very lethal drug,” Cina said of the lethal dosage of cyanide investigators found in Khan’s toxicology samples. “It’s a chemical poison. It basically asphyxiates you at the biochemical level, so a little goes a long way.”
Khan bought his winning ticket at a 7-Eleven near his home in West Rogers Park, a neighborhood on Chicago's North Side. A native of India, he came to Chicago in the late 1980s and began working at a dry cleaners. He grew his business to include three Chicago-area dry cleaners, and reportedly planned to invest his lottery winnings in his stores.
He also planned to give some of his winnings to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Khan described his gleeful reaction to winning in a June press release from the Illinois Lottery. “I scratched the ticket, then I kept on saying, ‘I hit a million!’ over and over again,” Khan said. “I jumped two feet in the air, then ran back into the store and tipped the clerk $100.”
Khan’s wife declined an interview with NBCChicago.com outside one of her deceased husband’s dry cleaners. Her husband was a “kind and good-hearted person,” she said.
“He was a family man who worked hard for his family,” friend Jimmy Goreel told NBCChicago.com. “I just can’t see it happening. If that’s true, it’s sad."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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coloradoboy
Don’t be too hard on Cook County Medical Examiner,
he is only a plumber by trade, doin’ enythin’ he can.
now the lottery is killing people we will have to get rid of the lottery know (people are sick everyone wants what everyone has so they kill and steal others are mad because they are not the center of attention so they kill and hurt people what the hell man life is short how cares enjoy what you have i don't have much but its mine and i make it work and i am Happy)
People there is something wrong with lottery winner, he is not the only one being killed, its not worth loosing your life over money or even take a life over money, its not our decision. Some people are real low life, I know that saying what ever I say does not bring him back but come on, let those winner enjoy the fortune they have won being lucky. If you win stay away from everyone until your money is processed into the bank under your name and wife's name if you are married, and stay away specially from unknown people that they say are your friend. Banning lotto tickets is not the answer, murder occurs even in gambling casinos. People kill when they are desperate for the cash and even people have gotten mugged when they walked to a anytime teller machine. They are so desperate for the money and want to get it the easy way instead of earning it. Where was he poisoned at? Cyanide, gee I don't even know how it looks like muchless know how to get it. cyanide in the hands of a mad man equals alot of people poisoned. Finally its not just sad its stupity at its best.
Really nice people.....
He wins a "million" and the gov't takes over 57% in taxes --- unreal. We are becoming like Europeans more and more every day --- more taxes, more demands that gov't coddle us and take care of our every want and need -- and when gov't fails, then we whine and complain --- welcome to barryland.
Alinnj, you have NO IDEA about Europe it seems. "...We are becoming like Europeans more and more". Just as an example, in Germany, if you winn the lottery, you don´t pay taxes on the winning amount. It is yours.You can ba´nk the full amount. You would pay taxes on the interest your earn over time.
I guess now you wish, you are becoming like Europeans :-)
allinj, why are you so uninformed when the information is out there that would allow you to know the facts before you post. He only received $425k because he took the lump sum up front payment which is less than the $1m that he won. If he had of taken the money in an annuity over 20-30 years, I am not sure which it is for this game, then he would have brought in the $1m. 25% in Federal tax was taken out of his winnings and 5% for state taxes, that is not even close to the 57% you are stating.
Danielle-4676469 --- you are clueless --- the amount taken far exceeds any reasonable amount of taxes ... the bottom eline is he had a million and takes a lump sum of 425K --- thats 575K gone ---where did it go genius???? TAXES TAXES and more TAXES ...no matter which slight of hand trick that you use the bottom line is he has less than half of it ---- get a clue. It is an outrage.
yes politicos you are so brilliant -- what was I thinking taxes and the european economy --- how could anyone ever equate the two --- I'll concede that lotteries for the most part are tax free in europe...I wish i could say the same about any other financial aspect of the european economy.
I always say if I ever win the lottery I will invest in small business and fire all those idiots that think they are business minded whom in reality all they want is to do nothing and get retirement pay for doing nothing in 20 or 30 years. I will start out in the library that is where you find people getting paid for doing nothing. Heck even mcdonald workers work harder and give a service to the people.
A. You will never win the lottery.
B. You would have your lottery winnings taken away from you in a lawsuit if you fired anyone.
C. You probably work at McDonald's.
D. You should work on getting that GED.
E. Even a GED will not improve the quality of your posts.
Hey Bowtie. Elvis is still alive. He has been flipping burgers in Grand Rapids for decades and I hear he is pretty damn good at it. I think anyone who hits the lottery for a large sum should move out of state for a year until everything calms down. I would.
Hmmm... I wonder who's responsible for this??? I also wonder why his wife refused to give a comment when everyone else in his family did. Could she have been worried that they might ask her some prying questions like 'Where were you the night he died?' or 'Where on Earth did you get the cyanide?'...
Next story we will read about this lottery winner will have the head line "Wife of Lottery Winner Wanted All the Winnings for Herself..."
I would have invested that type of money into other dry cleaning business to create more jobs.
Yet another reason why all lottery winners should be kept anonymous.
whoever killed him must have access to the money so being anonymous wouldn't have mattered in this case.
How do you miss poison during an autopsy?
Easy. Don't look for it.
In other news, gov still broke after taking 'it's share' of winners million.
An OBSCENE 55%.
Yup, that's fair.
Know1, the government did not take 55% of his winnings. He chose the lump sum payout which made the payout less. Go to the Ill Lottery web site, 25% was retained for Federal taxes and 5% for state taxes.
Shouldn't be too difficult to figure out who did this.
yes we all know she did it
Gregorovich ,you make two excellent points in your post. Poison is the weapon of choice for a woman. I think the police need to take a closer look at the wife,specifically to see if there's a boyfriend waiting somewhere in the wings. And I absolutely agree that lottery winners names should remain anonymous. it should be law in all states that lottery winners names cannot be revealed for any reason unless the winner chooses to do so. Once your name gets out,every person you ever knew starts showing up at your doorstep looking for a handout and you become a target for every scam in the book.
Hey, Rahmbo, another crime in Chi town - you gonnal make cyanide pills illegal too? Oh, you mean they ARE? Well, guess there's another ban that ain't doing what you expected!
But for Rahmbo, Obammy, Pelosi and all the associates of the three stooges, I'll give you a clue for free: the killer is not the tool that is used, it is the mind that decides to kill. Outlaw guns, people will use knives. Outlaw stabbing, they will use poisons. You might try outlawing hands, feet and teeth - anything that can be used to kill. Or you might look at changing the society that thinks killing is a good form of entertainment.
Cyanide control RIGHT NOW! I want all these people purchasing cyanide to undergo a background check and a waiting period. I'm so damn sick of all of the Cyanide Shows at expo marts where lunatics can get cyanide without any paper work or background checks.
Cyanide- a quick but very unpleasant way to go.
This is sad. I always thought cyanide was much faster acting, like within minutes. I assume when the relative called the police about the possibility of poisoning that they gave some clues as to who may be the one who gave it to him.
Now to address some silliness in these comments - some of you embellish what was written for some reason:
1. We have no idea of his religion, be it Hindu, Muslim, Christian, etc. Why would someone say he is a Muslim?
2. The trashing of Liberals for gun laws is somewhat of a misnowmer. If you want to blame someone for all the gun laws being enacted you can thank James Brady, the Republican Press Secretary for President Reagan who really got everyone worked up about gun legislation. He started an organization that heavily lobby's for more stringent gun laws. This was after he was shot in the head by John Hinckley when the bullet meant for Reagan hit him.
3. The lottery is such that you rarely get the face value of a winning before taxes. If you take all the money up front it is less than if you take the monthly pay outs. The Powerball is at $70m as I write this post, but the cash value, meaning if you won right now and took all the cash instead of an annuity, you would bring home only $44m before taxes. Remember, a portion of the sales goes to an education fund in each participating state.
4. Trish P-3795642, the highest unemployment under Bush wasn't 5.0, it was 7.3, and there were many months that it was in the 6's. Overall it hovered about 5.
5. Trish P-3795642, gas prices under Bush did not stay relatively low, and they have not doubled since Obama took office. Here are the yearly averages under Bush
2001 — $1.43
2002 — $1.34
2003 — $1.56
2004 — $1.85
2005 — $2.27
2006 — $2.58
2007 — $2.81
2008 — $3.26
Here they are under Obama
2009 — $2.35
2010 — $2.78
2011 — $3.53
I am not sure where you get your "facts" and information, Trish, but you may want to try a new source, I am not even going to go into all the other baloney you posted, I would be here all day.
Bottom line, so many of you people have drawn a line in the sand, decided it is one sides fault over another for certain things and it isn't. The politicians are playing you, you are falling into it and you are probably the ones that will be hurt most by their decisions.
Man, things really starting going south once those liberals got control of congress. Thanks for pointing that out Danielle.
It takes approximately 3.5 comments to turn any discussion into a political battlefield apparently.
Americans have to be the dumbest MFs on the planet right now.
TalkdeTalk...the fact that we let liberals do what they do...yes we are the dumbest MFs on the planet.
True, we do argue too much over politics...but at least we have that option.
Most other countries dumb MFers won't fight for that right!
Guess his number came up...
A khan man killed Khan.
The other hidden crime here is that the man won 1 million and only got $425,000! That is disgustingly liberal democratic-and criminal!!!!!
Well it is called an ignorance tax...
Bob = DumbA$$!!!
J but true.
Not to defend the thieves at IRS and government, but read the fine print: he won what would be a million if he took it in installments, probably over ten or twenty years. If you want a cash settlement, you get only about half of the face value (read a lottery ticket or papers, it's all there). In this case, I believe his settlement was about $625,000. So the government takes about 25 percent.
Wych you are talking about just the feds...did you think of who else is in the pie? Oh, you didn't thnk about that....ok.
thats what happens when you become a 2% er. if he had stayed a 47% er. he could have got it all for free.
You have to look at the wife or some other relative.
If you enjoy life stay away from Chicago!
Spud = DumbA$$
wow only knows one word-DumbA$$ and has to copy/paste that. Has found the bold icon...or was he shown? These people can acutally vote. There is the another crime.
Hey, remember we used to have voter qualifications - you had to prove that you had more than one brain cell alive. But the glorious government and Inferior Court ruled that was discrimination. Now, all you have to do is get across the Rio Grande and you can vote, draw unemployment, got it all!
Why would an illegal immigrant take the chance of going to prison and/or be deported by voting? Also how does one draw unemployment if he/she is an illegal immigrant. Instead of blaming your fellow human being for wanting a better life for themselves or their families perhaps you should blame the businesses who hire these people who are illegal immigrants.
So the illegal immagrant is not taking a chance at prison by just being here? There in lies the problem....the libs think we have just accepted the fact they are just going to be here...WRONG we have not! Right now the blame is on obama.
It smells of someone in the family did it. Plain and simple. It happened in the home and everyone is playing the crying game. When a motive doesn't exist only the logical is the answer. It was meant to be hidden with not motive.
The motive is pretty obvious here lol. Watch "Behind Mansion Walls."