Luck: Buy winning ticket; Luckier: Pull it from trash

Told their ticket wasn't a $40 winner, pair pitch it; finder collects $100,000.
By Kevin O'Neal

kevin.oneal@indystar.com

Finders keepers.

That's the word from the Hoosier Lottery after a winning ticket worth $100,000 purchased in Shelbyville was tossed in the trash, then plucked out by a luckier person.

"If I drop $100,000 in the street and walk away and the next person picks it up, it's their money," Ellen Corcella, the lottery's security director, said Wednesday.

The lottery paid the winnings, minus taxes, to Kerry Jeremiah, a Shelbyville woman who took the "Hold 'em Poker" ticket to the lottery's Downtown Indianapolis headquarters Feb. 10.

Jeremiah's luck is someone else's big loss. Two other people shelled out $5 for the winning scratch-off ticket Feb. 8 at the Chaperrel Café.

They asked a store clerk to check whether they had a $40 winner, Corcella said -- which they didn't. The clerk didn't check for any other amounts, the security director said.

Told the ticket wasn't a winner, the buyers pitched it in a store wastebasket.

That's where Jeremiah spotted the ticket and asked for it, saying she would use it to enter the lottery's second-chance consolation prize, Corcella said.

"They handed it to her and said, with their blessings, take it," said Corcella.

No one had appealed the lottery's decision as of Wednesday. The café's owner, Shirley Bailey, declined comment.

Call Star reporter Kevin O'Neal at (317) 444-2760.