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With no signs of trauma and nothing to raise suspicions, the sudden death of a Chicago man just as he was about to collect nearly $ 425,000 in lottery winnings was initially ruled a result of natural causes.
Nearly six months later, authorities have a mystery on their hands after medical examiners, responding to a relative’s pleas, did an expanded screening and determined that Urooj Khan, 46, died shortly after ingesting a lethal dose of cyanide. The finding has triggered a homicide investigation, the Chicago Police Department said yesterday.
“It’s pretty unusual,” said Cook County Medical Examiner Stephen Cina, commenting on the rarity of cyanide poisonings. .
“I’ve had one, maybe two cases out of 4,500 autopsies I’ve done.”
In June, Khan, who owned a number of dry cleaners, stopped in at a 7-Eleven near his home in the West Rogers Park neighborhood on the city’s North Side and bought a ticket for an instant lottery game.
He scratched off the ticket, then jumped up and down and repeatedly shouted, “I hit a million,” Khan recalled days later during a ceremony in which Illinois Lottery officials presented him with an oversized check. He said he was so overjoyed he ran back into the store and tipped the clerk $ 100.
“Winning the lottery means everything to me,” he said at the June 26 ceremony, also attended by his wife, Shabana Ansari; their daughter, Jasmeen Khan; and several friends. He said he would put some of his winnings into his businesses and donate some to a children’s hospital.
Instead of the full $ 1 million over installments, Khan opted to take his winnings in a lump sum of just over $ 600,000. After taxes, the winnings amounted to about $ 425,000, said lottery spokesman Mike Lang.
The check was issued from the state Comptroller’s Office on July 19, the day before Khan died, but was cashed on August 15, Lang said. If a lottery winner dies, the money typically goes to his or her estate, Lang said.
Khan was pronounced dead July 20 at a hospital, but Cina would not say where Khan was when he fell ill, citing the ongoing investigation.
No signs of trauma were found on Khan’s body during an external exam and no autopsy was done because, at the time, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office didn’t generally perform them on those 45 and older unless the death was suspicious, Cina said.
The cutoff age has since been raised to age 50.
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