A wealthy lottery winner was discovered dead on a private beach, his winning ticket still in his pocket.
Gregory Jarvis, 57, of Michigan, won $45,000 (£35,700) while playing Club Keno in a pub, but he hasn’t redeemed the ticket yet. According to his buddies, he hasn’t cashed in his win yet because of a problem with his Social Security card. Few days had passed since his victory.
After the victory, he was ecstatic. However, in September 2021, a few days later, his body washed ashore on a beach in Caseville, Michigan, near Saginaw Bay.
According to ABC12, Gregory tried to cash in his winnings but was denied access because his Social Security card wasn’t in “good shape”. In Michigan, you must have a social security card and a picture ID in order to claim wins greater than $600.

Gregory won $45,000 playing Club Keno ( Image: ABC 12)
Before his new card could arrive, which he had requested so he could cash in on his winnings, he passed away. He was playing the Club Keno add-on game “The Jack” at the Blue Water Inn on September 13, 2021, when he won the prize.
He went back to the bar on September 19, less than a week later, and purchased rounds of drinks, but he hadn’t cashed in his winnings yet. After the victory, friends said that he was very happy and had decided to use the money to visit his family.
Dawn Talaski, the proprietor of Blue Water Inn, remembered him as “a very nice guy” who was there “every day.” Dawn went on to explain his plans with his wins, saying, “He was planning to take that money and go see his dad and his sister in North Carolina.”

Gregory was a regular at the Blue Water Inn ( Image: ABC 12)
Gregory is thought to have left the bar on September 19th, the night before anyone last saw him. When he didn’t come back, Dawn realized something wasn’t right.
“Sometimes he’s up north working, he wasn’t here all week and we thought, something is wrong,” she said. The alarm was raised when Gregory didn’t show up for work and his boss showed up to the bar in search of him.
Two days later, his body was found by someone walking along the beach on Saginaw Bay. The winning ticket was still in his pocket, with Caseville police chief Kyle Romzek saying the discovery of the winning ticket prompted investigators to look carefully into the circumstances surrounding his death.

Gregory Jarvis had been tending to his boat when he fell in and hit his head ( Image: ABC 12)
They were able to rule out foul play after a thorough investigation. Chief Romzek said: “We are thinking that he was tying up his boat, slipped and fell, hit his head, and that’s where he ended up in the water, no foul play suspected.”
He added: “We were concerned about [the lottery win] but after the autopsy, and we interviewed people at the bar, he was well-liked around here, he was [a] nice guy, that took it off the table.”
An autopsy showed Gregory had injuries consistent with hitting his head on the boat and drowning. His obituary said he died “unexpectedly while tending to his boat during a storm” on September 20.
“A week prior to Greg’s death, he was lucky to win a Club Keno jackpot and he was in the process of claiming his earnings,” read the obituary. “His family and friends were elated by his good fortune and Greg felt the same… just to get the winning ticket was enough for him.”