Lottery win comes at a cost for family

Wednesday, January 25, 2006 posted 10:18 AM EST

A $5.5 MILLION Powerball win has divided a Queensland family.

Sisters Donna and Dallas Costello are angry their sister Brenda Costello has neither shared her win with them nor picked up the $1200 bill to put their mother's urn in a niche at Albany Creek Memorial Gardens.

They believe Brenda should have shared her win with her seven siblings and their mother.

Their mother, Lorraine Norma Costello, died of a heart condition three months after Brenda and her fiance Mark Puplett won the jackpot in May last year.

"All they put in was $2000 for the $7500 funeral. They should've just gone ahead and paid for the lot, but our two other sisters had to put in the rest," said Donna Costello, who receives welfare and lives in a housing commission home in Stafford in Brisbane's northwest.

Mr Puplett was contacted yesterday but refused to comment on the claims.

Brenda Costello previously told Channel 9's A Current Affair: "It's not our job to help them . . . It's their responsibility to stand on their own two feet."

According to Dallas, the windfall has changed Brenda and Mark.

"We were all close, but as soon as they won they more or less wiped us out of their lives," she said.

Donna and Dallas deny that money means more to them than family. They claim their sister and her partner have cut off all contact with them.

Since their win, Mark and Brenda have bought a new home at Kawana Waters on the Sunshine Coast and enjoyed an around-the-world holiday.

"If I had won that money I would have helped all my family out because I get pleasure out of seeing other people happy," Donna said. "And I would want to enjoy that money with them. I'm not a greedy person. I'd rather have my family and good friends."

When Dallas heard her sister had become a millionaire overnight, she was happy for them.

"I wasn't jealous or anything, and I thought that we might get helped out a little bit . . . I would've been happy with $10,000 or $15,000," she said. According to Dallas, their mother "thought the world" of Mark and Brenda.

Despite the feud, both sisters said they would like to reconcile with Brenda.

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