Gregory Jarvis Michigan lottery winner drowns with $45K ticket in his pocket after body found at Caseville beach after boating accident. Didn’t have proper identification.
Define luck? A Michigan man won $45,000 in a lottery game only to drown with the ticket in his wallet before he was able to cash it. The man’s body was found at a private beach last Friday about a week after winning the cash prize.
Gregory Jarvis, 57, was at the Blue Water Inn in Caseville on Sept. 13 when he played the Club Keno add-on game The Jack — and hit the jackpot, WJRT of Flint reported.
‘Very nice guy, he was here every day,’ joint owner Dawn Talaski told WJRT. ‘Somebody said someone just won The Jack and he said, ‘Great,’ and someone asked him, ‘Was it you?’ and it was, so he was super excited.’
Talaski said Jarvis returned to the inn almost a week later, returning on the 19th where he bought rounds of drinks. At the time the lottery winner had yet to cash his winning ticket because he didn’t have the proper documentation.
‘He couldn’t cash it because he didn’t have a Social Security card at all, it wasn’t any good, so he applied for a new one,’ she told WJRT.
A case of bad luck?
Not immediately clear was how or why Jarvis had yet to secure proper social security identification.
Talaski said she became concerned when Jarvis didn’t show up again as usual after a week’s absence.
‘Sometimes he’s up north working, he wasn’t here all week and we thought something is wrong,’ she said, adding that Jarvis’ boss later showed up at the bar to say he had not arrived at work.
On Friday, a resident along a private beach in the small Huron County city reported a body washing ashore near a boat, which was later determined to be that of Jarvis.
‘We are thinking that he was tying up his boat, slipped and fell, hit his head, and that’s where he ended up in the water,’ Police Chief Kyle Romzek told WJRT. ‘No foul play suspected.’
An autopsy determined that Jarvis drowned after striking his head.
Talaski says Jarvis had made some plans for the money.
‘He was planning to take that money and go see his sister and his dad in North Carolina,’ she says.
The winning ticket has since been handed over to Jarvis’ relatives.
Winners of prizes of more than $600 have to present a photo ID and their Social Security card collect their winnings, according to the Michigan Lottery Commission.
