South Bay siblings are ecstatic about their Mega Millions haul. They will take home about $22.5 million each after taxes.
She giggles when she thinks about it. He just shakes his head in disbelief. She's got big plans -- new cars, new houses, trips. He's going to keep going to work every day until it all sinks in.
Their reactions were as different as their personalities, but there's one thing these two South Bay siblings share: They went half on a lottery ticket worth $112 million.
Robert Stafford Jr. of Torrance and Cynthia Stafford of Hawthorne emerged Wednesday as the lucky buyers of the state's fifth-highest Mega Millions Jackpot since California joined the multistate game in 2005.
"I'm very happy," said the fortysomething Cynthia. "I'm ecstatically happy."
"I'm a careful person," said Robert, a 43-year-old security supervisor at a South Bay aerospace company. "I'm just going to put it away for a rainy day."
He'll have enough for a biblical flood.
The two -- both of them are single -- are taking a lump-sum payment, which means that after federal taxes they'll each wind up with something in the neighborhood of $22.5 million, according to a spokesman for the California Lottery.
Not an avid ticket buyer, Cynthia picked up the ticket at Freeman Market in Hawthorne when she learned that the jackpot was reaching past the $100 million mark. The winning numbers -- 28, 30, 33, 48, 54 and the Mega number 25 -- were the randomly selected Quick Pick numbers.
Cynthia works part time for a company that produces seminars and raises the children of another brother who died in a car accident about 10 years ago. She wants to start a business and set up a program to help foster children. And she's going to give a chunk to her father.
"He's my dad, my hero and I love him," she said.
Beyond that, it's all fun and games.
"New house? Yeah," she said. "Clothes? Maybe. I already buy those. And I'm going to Disneyland. I wanted to say that forever."