The Great Iowa Lottery Mystery

It wasn't that huge of a jackpot as far as lottery jackpots go, just $14 million, which is still a lot of money. In 2010, Iowa lottery officials thought the $14 million was going to go unclaimed, when just hours before the deadline would have returned the money to the state, a New York lawyer came forward with the winning ticket.

As recounted by ABC News, the lawyer said he represented an anonymous trust, but Iowa officials said he had to name the owners of the winning ticket so they could make sure it was acquired legally. The lawyer then withdrew the claim and the money went unclaimed and back to the state.

People have wondered ever since just what happened to make the lawyer withdraw the claim; since the sticking point seemed to be how the ticket was acquired, people have wondered whether the ticket was stolen or perhaps even acquired through a murder. Why else would someone forfeit $14 million just because they didn't want their identity known?

Iowa has reportedly given a Canadian man immunity in exchange for information about incident, again, making it seem like something really bad must have happened. Iowa's Deputy Attorney General is quoted as saying, "there are leads, plural, in Houston, Texas." That's all the information they're releasing, meaning people can continue to speculate what happened in the Great Iowa Lottery Mystery.