COVINGTON, Ky. – For Mack Metcalf and his estranged second wife, Virginia Merida, sharing a $34 million lottery jackpot in 2000 meant escaping poverty at breakneck speed.
Years of blue-collar struggle and ramshackle apartment life gave way almost overnight to limitless leisure, big houses and lavish toys.
Metcalf bought a Mount Vernon-like estate in southern Kentucky, stocking it with horses and vintage cars.
Merida bought a Mercedes and a modernistic mansion overlooking the Ohio River, surrounding herself with stray cats.
But trouble came almost as fast. And although there have been many stories of lottery winners turning to drugs or alcohol, and of lottery fortunes turning to dust, the tale of Metcalf and Merida stands out as a striking example of good luck – the kind most people only dream about – rapidly turning fatally bad.
Metcalf's first wife sued him for $31,000 in unpaid child support, a former girlfriend wheedled $500,000 out of him while he was drunk, and alcoholism increasingly paralyzed him.
Merida's boyfriend died of a drug overdose in her hilltop house, a brother began harassing her, she said, and neighbors came to believe that her once welcoming home had turned into a drug den.
Although they were divorced by 2001, it was as if their lives as rich people had taken on an eerie symmetry. So did their deaths.
In 2003, three years after cashing in his winning ticket, Metcalf died of complications relating to alcoholism at the age of 45.
On the day before Thanksgiving, Merida's partly decomposed body was found in her bed. Authorities said they have found no evidence of foul play and are looking into the possibility of a drug overdose. She was 51.
Merida's death remains under investigation, and large parts of both her and Metcalf's lives remain wrapped in mystery. But some friends and relatives said they thought the moral of their stories was clear.
"Any problems people have, money magnifies it so much, it's unbelievable," said Robert Merida, one of Merida's three brothers.
Metcalf's first wife, Marilyn Collin, said: "If he hadn't won, he would have worked like regular people and maybe had 20 years left. But when you put that kind of money in the hands of somebody with problems, it just helps them kill themselves."
As a young woman, Merida lived with her family in Houston where her father, Dempsey Merida, ran a major drug-trafficking organization, law enforcement officials say. He and two sons, David and John, were indicted in 1983 and served prison sentences on drug-related convictions.
John Murphy, the assistant U.S. attorney in Texas who helped prosecute the case, said the organization smuggled heroin and cocaine into Texas using Merida's chain of auto transmission shops as conduits.
Murphy described Merida's father as a gruff, imposing man who tried to intimidate witnesses by muttering loudly in court. He received a 30-year sentence but was released in 2004 because of a serious illness, Murphy said. He died months later in Kentucky at age 76.
When Dempsey Merida and his two sons went to prison, his wife moved the family to northern Kentucky. Virginia Merida married, had a son, got divorced and married again, to Mack Metcalf, a co-worker at a plastics factory. But he drank too much and disappeared for long stretches of time, friends of Merida said, leaving her to care for her son and mother.
Merida worked a succession of low-paying jobs, lived in cramped apartments, drove decrepit cars and struggled to pay rent. For his part, Metcalf drifted from job to job, living at one point in an abandoned bus.
Then one July day in 2000, a friend called Merida and gave her some startling news: Metcalf had the winning $3 ticket for a $65 million Powerball jackpot. Merida had refused to answer his calls, thinking he was drunk.
At the time, both were barely scraping by, he by driving a forklift and she by making corrugated boxes. But in one shot, they walked away with a cash payout of $34 million, which they split 60-40: he received about $14 million after taxes, while she got more than $9 million.
In a statement released by the lottery corporation, Metcalf said he planned to move to Australia. "I'm going to totally get away," he said.
But problems arrived almost immediately. A case worker in northern Kentucky saw Metcalf's photograph and recognized him as having been delinquent in child support payments to a daughter from his first marriage. The county contacted Metcalf's first wife and they took legal action that resulted in court orders that he pay $31,000 in child support and create a $500,000 trust fund for the girl, Amanda, his only child.
Even as he was battling Collins in court, Metcalf was filing a lawsuit to protect his winnings. In court papers, he asserted a former girlfriend, Deborah Hodge, had threatened and badgered him until he agreed, while drunk, to give her $500,000.
Still, there were moments of happiness. Shortly after winning the lottery, Metcalf took his daughter shopping in Cincinnati, giving her $500 to buy clothing and a manicure. "I had never held that kind of money before," Amanda Metcalf said. "That was the best day ever."
He continued to give away cash. Neighbors recall him buying goods at a convenience store with $100 bills, then giving the change to the next person in line.
Metcalf's drinking apparently became worse, and he became increasingly afraid that people were plotting to kill him, installing surveillance cameras and listening devices around his house, Amanda Metcalf said.
Then in early 2003, Metcalf spent a month in the hospital to receive treatment for cirrhosis and hepatitis. After being released, he married for the third time, but died just months later, in December.
Virginia Merida seemed to handle her money better. She repaid old debts, including $1,000 to a landlord who had evicted her years earlier. She told a friend she had set aside $1 million for retirement.
But she splurged enough to buy a Mercedes and a geodesic-dome house designed by an architect in Cold Spring, Ky., for $559,000. She kept the furnishings simple, neighbors said, but purchased several arcade-quality video games for her son, Jason. For a time, Merida's mother lived with her as well.
Then in January, a live-in boyfriend, Fred Hill, died of an overdose of an opiate-related drug, according to a police report. No charges were filed, and officials said it was not clear if the opiate was heroin or a prescription drug. But neighbors began to believe the house had become a haven for drug use or trafficking.
In May, Merida filed a complaint in Campbell County Circuit Court against her brother David, saying he had been harassing her. In June 16, a circuit court judge ordered them to keep away from each other. It wasn't clear why she filed the complaint, and David Merida would not comment.
When Merida's son found her body on Nov. 23, she had been dead for several days, the county coroner's office said. There was no evidence of a break-in, or that she had been attacked, officials said. Toxicological studies on her remains won't be completed for several weeks.
It is unclear how much of Merida's estate remains, but it appears she saved some of it.
That may not have been the case with Metcalf, his daughter said. Six months after his death, his house in Corbin was sold for $657,000, about half of what Metcalf had paid for it.
In a brief obituary in The Kentucky Enquirer, Merida's family described her simply as "a homemaker."
On a black tombstone, Amanda Metcalf had this inscribed for her father, "Loving father and brother, finally at rest."
