Lottery winner who won £21m ended up penniless living in 'faeces-covered' shed within five years
15.04.2024 - 16:19
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
A man who won a staggering £21million on the lottery ended up squandering all his money within just five years. Convicted felon David Lee Edwards was left destitute and living in a faeces-ridden shed within a few short years of his shock win.
Mr Edwards, from Kentucky, US, scooped a quarter-share of the Powerball jackpot in August 2001, turning him into a multi-millionaire overnight. But despite it being one of the biggest wins in history, he had spent all of it by 2006.
His first major act after taking home the prize money was to marry his girlfriend, Shawna Maddux, in Malibu, California. He initially insisted that he wasn't going to make wild and extravagant purchases with his winnings, reports the Mirror.
But he was unable to stick to his plans in the wake of his sudden affluence and it is estimated he spent around £2.5million within the first three months, and around £9.5m in the first year alone.
After his win, Mr Edwards said: "You know, a lot of people, they're out of work. Doesn't have hardly anything And so I didn't want to accept this money by saying, 'I'm going to get mansions' and 'I'm going to get cars, I'm going to do this and that'.
"I would like to accept it with humility. I want this money to last, for me, for my future wife, for my daughter, and future generations."
But after marrying Ms Maddux, the couple went on a huge spending spree. Their extravagant purchases included a £1.2m, 6,000sqft mansion in the gated community of Palm Beach Gardens in Florida and £1m on a number of luxury cars, including a £160,000 Lamborghini Diablo.
His most wild purchase was a £1.5m LearJet, and he poured £3.5m into a fiberoptics installation company and a limo business. On top of this, he paid over £500,000 to his ex-wife and