Murdered Illinois Lottery Winner's Heirs Settle Estate Squabble

Urooj Khan
(photo: abcnews.go.com)

In May 2012, Urooj Khan won a million dollars in a scratch-off Illinois lottery game. However, his seeming good fortune became Khan's fatal destiny: the Chicago-area small businessman was poisoned shortly after he flashed a million dollar smile. The incident became much more curious when the Cook County coroner's initial ruling of death by heart attack was re-examined at the insistence of a brother of the deceased. The law's second crack at the corpse found cyanide.

The dead man's two heirs had a strong interest in the distribution of the lottery loot. Eventually, the case entered the courts. Today's Chicago Tribune reports that a settlement has been filed in which the heirs each obtain a portion of the deceased's estate. One of them, a daughter from a previous marriage, gets a third of the gambling proceeds and a handful of real estate properties the deceased owned. Heiress #2, the presumably bereaved widow, keeps her husband's dry cleaning business and what remains of the jackpot.

According to the Trib story, no one has been charged in Khan's murder. Maybe the perp is just plain lucky.