In 2001, David Lee Edwards, a convicted armed robber with a substance abuse problem,
was so broke he had to borrow money from a friend just to pay his water bill. With the change,
he got a pizza and two lottery tickets... Little did he know,
one of these lottery tickets would change his life forever...
Overnight, he was catapulted from a life bouncing in and out of prison to one of extreme luxury,
racehorses, and fast cars. His story was a real "rags-to-riches" tale and proof that Powerball
can propel winners from poverty to excessive wealth in an instant. Americans spend over
$70 billion on Powerball tickets every year, hoping to get as lucky as Edwards. But what's
often overlooked is that 70% of those who find fortune through the lottery go broke
within the first few years. And Edward's achieved this more spectacularly than most.
Early Life and Struggles Edwards was born in 1955 and
grew up in Ashland, Kentucky, in a low-income family. His early life was marked by tragedy. His
3-year-old sister died during open heart surgery the year he was born, and his elder brother
passed away after diving into shallow water at Greenbow Lake. His mother, wracked with grief,
struggled to cope with the losses and kept their baby clothes hanging in Edward's closet.
In his teens, he turned to marijuana and alcohol as a way to escape his troubles. At 16,
he was caught committing a robbery and had his first run-in with the law. In another event, he
got into a shootout with state police and had to be tear-gassed before anyone got hurt. They sent
him to a reformatory school, one he'd brag that Charles Manson had attended, but it didn't stick,
and he dropped out before graduation. By age 18, he'd moved on from weed to harder
drugs, and his pattern of substance abuse and theft escalated. Then,
when he was 26 years old, he attempted an armed robbery of his local gas station for
$360 and was sent to prison for 10 years. He was let out on parole a few times and was
able to meet, marry, and father a daughter named Tiffani. But, he violated his parole
as many times as he was released and was soon back in prison and divorced. In total, it took
him 16 years to serve his 10-year sentence. Finally, behind bars, Edwards started to turn his
life around. He got clean and began taking college courses, determined to make a better
life for himself, and, on his release in 1997, he started working in the building trade. Tragically,
though, addiction continued to plague him, and he struggled to maintain a job. At one point,
he even found himself homeless and living out of his car.
But, it wasn't all bad. He met and fell in love with Shawna Maddux,
a waitress at Fiesta Bravo, and the two got engaged. He also inherited his parent's old
$30,000 house. And although he was still broke, at least they had a roof over their heads.
Then in 2001, something extraordinary happened that would change everything.
The Lottery Win Edwards, who'd spent
a third of his life in prison, was at this point in dire financial straits and struggling to make
ends meet. Things had become so bad that they couldn't even pay their water bill,
and their supply was shut off. Feeling embarrassed and desperate,
Edwards turned to a friend for help. He borrowed some money to turn the water back on and decided
to take Shawna out for pizza and a drink to forget their troubles. On their way to the bar,
they stopped at Clark's Pump-N-Shop, and on a whim, they decided to try their luck
and bought seven dollars' worth of Powerball tickets. It had been 18 weeks without a winner,
and the jackpot had ballooned to $280 million-the third-highest on record at that time.
That evening, Edwards and Shawna watched in disbelief as their numbers were called out-every
single one. Along with four other winners that night, Edwards had just become a multimillionaire.
His share was $41 million, which amounted to $27 million after taxes-a hefty deduction
but still enough to set him up for life. Now, all lottery winners are given two choices,
take the lump sum, or accept yearly payouts for a specified amount of time. So, in Edward's case,
he was offered $27 million on the spot or $2.9 million a year for 25 years. Given his history,
yearly payments would be the safer bet, but every financial expert advises taking the
lump sum. This is because investing the lump sum will almost always generate more cash than the
yearly payments will achieve. In one of his last wise decisions,
Edwards sought the advice of a financial advisor, James Gibbs. He devised a financial plan that,
if followed, would generate $85,000 in interest per month for the rest of Edward's life. He also
protected a substantial portion of the fortune by investing $16 million of the profits in
extremely safe bonds and annuities. With plans in place, Edwards seemed ready
to accept his huge ceremonial check. In spite of his past, he seemed grounded and sensible, saying,
"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." He also added, "I would like to accept it with humility. I want this
money to last, for me, for my future wife, for my daughter, and for my future generations."
With this attitude and such sound investments, what could go wrong?
Edward's Lavish Lifestyle
Mere moments after accepting his winnings, Edwards reversed course. Too impatient to
wait for the cash to hit his accounts, his first move was to negotiate a $200,000 bank
loan so he and some friends could make the trip to Las Vegas to celebrate. Within just 5 days,
he squandered the full $200,000 and called his new lawyer to wire him more cash.
Once the actual winnings arrived, he moved from a $30,000 run-down, unwatered Kentucky home to a
6,000-square-foot, $1.6 million mansion in a gated neighborhood in Palm Beach Gardens,
Florida, complete with tennis courts and a golf course. Then he spent another $1 million buying a
fleet of expensive vehicles, including a $200,000 Lamborghini Diablo and a $90,000 Dodge Viper.
In fact, he bought so many vehicles that his neighbors objected to the gated community's
board of directors. What was their gripe? He'd accumulated so many that their affluent
neighborhood had begun to resemble a car lot. Next, he bought a $600,000 Palm Springs property
nearby, an $80,000 gold watch, a $160,000 ring, a $30,000 plasma TV, three racing horses,
and a collection of 200 imitation medieval swords and armor. Then, to ensure he never
had to travel between his estates in California and Florida like a chump on a commercial aircraft,
he bought a private Learjet for $1.9 million and hired his own personal pilot.
He also attempted some business investments with the best of intentions but without Gibb's input.
These included three racehorses, which he got for a bargain due to 911 reducing overseas
buying competition, a limo business, and a $4.5 million fiber optics installation business.
Within 3 months, Edward's had blown through $3 million. By the end of the first year,
he'd squandered $12 million, getting close to half of his fortune.
Tiffani The only pledge he
stuck to was regarding his family. His daughter Tiffani, who was 11 by this point, had been
living with her mother while Edwards bounced in and out of prison, and he missed her.
When he found out he'd won, she was his first phone call. "Are you sitting down?"
he asked. "Daddy's won the lottery, baby. I'm sending some people to come get you."
The young girl freaked out and went running through the house, yelling and screaming.
When she arrived to meet him at a hotel, the room was full of gifts,
including a teardrop diamond ring. Unfortunately, there was a dark side to
Edward's speed in reuniting with his daughter, as Tiffani would later explain, "The reason my
dad sent people to get me was because of the security risk. He was known around here by
people who knew I was his only daughter. He was worried they would kidnap me for money."
Quickly, he paid off his $8,300 in delinquent child support and sent his ex-wife $500,000 for
full custody of Tiffani. Her room in his mansion was decorated with angels and included a pink
princess canopy bed, computer, and flat-screen TV, and he hired nannies, maids, and a butler to look
after her and one of Shawna's children. Once a month, or whenever she felt like it,
she'd fly home on the private jet to visit her mother. For her 13th birthday,
he rented out the presidential suite of the Ashland Plaza hotel for a slumber party,
and he spoiled her with trips on yachts and to Cinderella's castle in Disneyland.
Of course, not all of his purchases were smart. He wasted $35,000 on a Hummer golf cart, which
she was too young to drive, and enrolled her in a $16,000-a-year private school,
which she hated. Substance Abuse
Regrettably, Edward's excesses did not stop at cars, planes, diamonds, houses, and private jets.
He and Shawna, now his wife, still struggled with addiction, and the cash only made it easier to
fall into old habits. Edwards became, once again, absent from Tiffani's life, leaving her care to
the nannies, and together, he and Shawna spent $200,000 each month on illegal substances.
Prescription pills, and hard drugs were their drugs of choice, and Edwards was extremely
generous with both Shawna and his friends. Her OxyContin use got so bad that Edwards paid
$80,000 for her to spend 60 days at Passages Malibu, an upmarket rehab clinic. The friends
were not so lucky. Many of them died of overdoses and Edwards paid for each of their funerals.
Tragically, Shawna's rehab didn't stick, and their relationship became more volatile. Tiffani
would later accuse her of stealing Rolexes and cars from Edwards, saying, "Shawna just started
acting crazy. It was drugs, that's all. People kept telling my dad he should get rid of her,
but he never could. He told me, near the end, that his one regret was not getting
rid of Shawna and looking after himself, but they were hooked on each other. And
then they were just hooked on drugs." In 2004, Shawna stabbed Edwards during a
drug-fueled rage with a crack pipe, and the Palm Beach police were called to their estate. The
following year, the police were called again, and this time, they found large stashes of cocaine,
heroin, prescription drugs, crack, and used syringes in the couple's bedroom.
Edwards and Shawna both acquired hepatitis from using dirty needles.
The Downfall to Absolute Zero
By 2006, the money was gone, but worse than that, Edwards was in debt. His race horses, one of which
he'd hoped to name Powerball, all turned out to be losers, and his many investments failed because of
his lack of business sense and poor judgment. This left him with rising debt, and he was sued by both
his creditors and former business partners. His financial advisor, Gibbs, was dumbfounded
and told reporters, "If he followed my investment advice, he'd be pulling in about
$85,000 a month for the rest of his life. Instead he sold the lot."
Everything he'd bought was sold, stolen, or repossessed, but he still owed the Bank of America
$170,000 for his credit card purchases and the State of Florida $50,000 in property taxes.
The bank foreclosed on their Florida home, and Edwards and Shawna were forced to relocate to
the rented warehouse that'd been used to store his fleet of cars. Tiffany and her stepbrother
were taken into foster care. "In the beginning, it was good," she said. "I had a dad. That's
all I'd wanted. In the end, I was devastated because I'd lost my dad, and I knew it."
In the midst of accusations of adultery and abuse, Edwards and Shawna finally broke up,
and he spiraled into misery and drug addiction. Conditions in the storage unit rapidly
deteriorated until he was discovered there, living in his own feces, surrounded by rotten food,
crack pipes, and syringes. His next stop was rehab, and once clean, his ex-wife and her
husband arrived to take him back to Kentucky, There he survived on disability payments and food
stamps in a trailer park, a far cry from his previously opulent lifestyle of mansions and
fast cars. But more than his wealth, he missed his friends and family, who were gone or dead,
and Shawna, who had quickly remarried. Despite being off the drugs, his liver was shot,
his health started to deteriorate, and in 2012 he was diagnosed with liver disease. Then, in 2013,
just 12 years after his historic win, he passed away in a hospice, alone, and he was cremated,
as there was no money to bury him. He left Tiffani with nothing-not even a life insurance policy.
She'd later reflect, "Would he still be alive if he hadn't won? Yes, I think he would."