Billie Bob Harrell Jr.

Billie Bob Harrell Jr., a 47-year-old former Pentecostal preacher stocking shelves at a Home Depot in northeast Harris County, won the $31 million Lotto Texas jackpot on 28 June 1997 with a Quick Pick bought at a Kingwood Texaco Star Mart. The prize was paid as 25 annual instalments of about $1.24 million. He quit his job, took his family to Hawaii, bought a ranch and six homes, new cars for relatives, tithed to his church, Calvary Tabernacle, and paid for 480 turkey dinners for needy families. Strangers called demanding money and he changed his phone number repeatedly. He also signed a deal with Stone Street Capital to sell ten years of his lottery payments for a $2.25 million lump sum. His spending and lending strained his marriage to Barbara Jean, and the couple separated. On 22 May 1999, about 20 months after the win, Harrell died of a contact shotgun wound to the chest in an upstairs bedroom of his Kingwood home; the Harris County Medical Examiner ruled it suicide. Shortly before his death he had told financial adviser Steve Drake, "Winning the lottery is the worst thing that ever happened to me." He was 49.

Harrell died by suicide on 22 May 1999 in Kingwood, Texas, aged 49; the Houston Press investigation of February 2000 remains the most detailed public account of the case.