A lottery winner was fatally poisoned with cyanide a day after he

A lottery winner was fatally poisoned with cyanide a day after he collected nearly $425,000 in lottery winnings, a Chicago medical examiner said Monday.

Urooj Khan died July 20, a day after collecting the lump sum option on a $1 million instant lottery ticket. After a limited exam during which Cook County Medical Examiner Stephen Cina found no trauma or unusual substances in the 46-year-old’s body, the medical examiner’s office declared that he died of natural causes.

Khan was buried at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reported, and within a week a concerned relative asked the medical examiner’s office to take a closer look, Cina told the Tribune.

The medical examiner’s office determined from comprehensive toxicology reports that Khan had ingested a deadly amount of cyanide and his death was reclassified as a homicide.

Now, police are considering exhuming Khan’s body as part of the investigation into his death.

Chicago Police Department spokeswoman Melissa Stratton confirmed the department was now investigating the death and said detectives were working closely with the medical examiner’s office, the Associated Press reported.

Khan bought the ticket at a 7-Eleven near his home in West Rogers Park, a neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side. A native of India, he came to Chicago in the late 1980s and began working at a dry cleaners. He reportedly planned to grow his business with his lottery winnings.

Source AP