A lottery winner who said scooping a £27million jackpot had “destroyed” her life has been found dead.
Police discovered EuroMillions winner Margaret Loughrey at her home in Northern Ireland on Thursday.
The 56-year-old won the lottery jackpot eight years ago, but famously said it had brought her “nothing but grief”.
Police confirmed officers attended her home in Strabane and said a post-mortem examination would be taking place. Her death is not being treated as suspicious.
He told the Belfast Telegraph: “Margaret was well known and did a lot of good, charitable work around the town. People are shocked today.”
A police spokesman said officers had received a report of a sudden death of a woman in the Ballycolman Lane area of Strabane on Thursday morning.
“A post-mortem is due to take place but at this stage, the death is not being treated as suspicious,” he added.
The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service confirmed they also attended.
A NIAS spokesman said: “We were called to an emergency at 10.30am this morning. No patients were taken from the scene.”
Ms Loughrey had been unemployed and on benefits on the day she matched five numbers and two lucky stars in the draw in November 2013, winning a total of £26,863,588.
In an interview at the time she said on the day she bought the ticket she had been to the job centre to pick up an application form.
“It’s in my name at the minute, it’s £27million, it’s not going to be mine, it’s going to be spread around,” she told the BBC at the time.
“No point having £27million and being lonely. That can’t make me happy, that can only make me happy that everybody else’s happy and so far everybody is absolutely delighted.”
In 2015 Ms Loughrey was ordered to do 150 hours of community service after being convicted of assaulting a taxi driver.
Three years later she had to pay a former employee £30,000 after a tribunal found she had bullied him and then fired him on a “vindictive whim”.
Speaking to Sunday Life in 2019, Ms Loughrey said her win had “sent her to hell and back”.
“Money has brought me nothing but grief. It has destroyed my life,” she said. By Rachael Burford, Yahoo News/Evening Standard
