Some Sage advice from the Past ...
Several days after his monumental win, Mr. Edwards and Maddux stood before television cameras at the Louisville Slugger Museum, where Mr. Edwards received a ceremonial check. Reporters grilled Edwards about his past, which included a stint behind bars for the armed robbery of a convenience store 20 years earlier and repeated parole violations that kept sending him back to prison.
Mr. Edwards acknowledged that he'd made some mistakes in his life, but he said that was all behind him. He also said he planned to put his newfound fortune to the best and wisest use he possibly could.
"I didn't want to accept this money by saying I'm going to get mansions and I'm going to get cars, I'm going to do this and that," he said. "I would like to accept it with humility. I want this money to last, for me, for my future wife, for my daughter and future generations."
Then, in practically the next breath, he said he planned to buy himself a Rolls-Royce and that Maddux wanted a Ferrari.
In November 2001, Mr. Edwards and Maddux moved into a 6,000-square-foot, $1.5 million home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. The couple married in Maui on New Year's Day 2002.
During his time in Florida, Mr. Edwards amassed a fleet of exotic cars, for which he paid more than $1 million. He also told NBC News that he paid $78,000 for the gold-and-diamond watch on his wrist and $159,000 for the ring he wore. He also boasted of having 200 swords in his collection of replica medieval weapons, and a plasma TV he said set him back $30,000.
Mr. Edwards also bought a $600,000 house in Palm Springs, Calif., his own limo company, a $1.9 million Lear jet, three racehorses and a fiber-optics installation company, which he acquired for $4.5 million. A year after he'd won the lottery, he estimated that he'd spent $12 million.
David Lee Edwards, who went from unemployed ex-con to Powerball millionaire and whose life became a testament to the seductive and destructive powers of sudden wealth and fame, died Saturday in Community Hospice Care Center in Ashland.
Mr. Edwards was 58. The cause of his death was not immediately known, but he had been widely reported to have been in failing health in recent years.
Mr. Edwards also had been out of the public eye since returning to the Ashland area in 2007 after being kicked out of his mansion in an exclusive gated community in Florida.
It is my wish that it Never again happens to anyone fortunate enough to win either Jackpot.