$208M Lottery Winner Dies At Age 43

Friday, December 29, 2006 posted 09:14 AM EST

December 28, 2006 -- A middle-aged man who hit a jaw-dropping $208 million lottery jackpot has died of a heart attack 20 months after striking it rich.

Ralph Stebbins, 43, a hardworking well digger and tow-truck driver, was living in a cramped low-income apartment in Port Huron, Mich., with his cashier wife, Mary, when they struck gold with the Mega Millions jackpot in April 2005.

She worked at a drugstore earning $7 an hour. Both retired the day they heard the news. Mary found him dead Saturday morning in their new Arcadia Township home. They had been married 23 years.

Stebbins had been living a relatively quiet life on the farm they purchased just a few weeks after they took home a $124.7 million lump-sum payment.

He had spent his days building a garage to house his refurbished motorcycles and visiting his three children who live nearby.

He never complained about feeling ill, according to family friend Robert Kolt.

"This was sudden," Kolt said. "I saw him just two weeks ago and he was slim and happy. He looked great."

The high-school sweethearts had been preparing for Christmas at the house - a dream come true for the couple who didn't even have a bank account when they received the winning check.

Kolt said the duo and their three kids, Candice, 22, Karin, 19, and Todd, 17, desperately tried to remain anonymous, hiding out in a Port Huron area hotel for a week after their win, and not telling anyone about their fortune.

"They were a real simple family who became concerned about their security," said Kolt. "They had $200 million and were in shock. People were coming out of the woodwork."

Last August, Stebbins lived to see the birth of his first grandchild, Karin's baby girl, named Tru Victoria.

"It was a lifelong dream of his. He was happy," said Kolt.

But despite a new home and granddaughter, money couldn't buy Stebbins a perfect life in the end.

In October, he was arrested for a fight he had with Karin's boyfriend. The case still was pending when he died.

Kolt said it was a private family matter that was being resolved and that Stebbins was a generous man who has set up his children and many other relatives for life with the money he left them.

The family is planning a private funeral service.

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