June 27, 2003 5:54 AM

Say hello to our second DUMASS AWARD winner

OK, kids; it's time for

ANOTHER DUMASS AWARD

On December 26, 1992, Jody Lee Taylor's ship came in- in a big way. Our DUMASS won $4.3 million in the Virginia Lottery. Today, Taylor is in the Henry County Jail, and it's safe to say that where he is headed, all that money will do him no good at all.

In the nearly 11 years since Taylor won $4.3 million in the Virginia Lottery, he lost his way and then his family. Now Taylor, 34, has lost his freedom, is locked up in the Henry County jail and is charged with trying to kill a police officer after sheriff's deputies dragged him -- naked -- from his pickup truck in such a rage that he had to be restrained.

His father, Alvin T. Taylor, sitting on the porch of his house here in Pittsylvania County, a few miles from the North Carolina border, wishes his son had never walked into Byrd's Store and bought the Virginia Lottery "EZ Pick" ticket.

"Out of 10,000 people, there might be one who could handle the money," Taylor said, his arms reddened from helping a neighbor dig a grave. "The rest, it would push them over the edge."

Taylor had a weakness for drugs and alcohol prior to realizing his windfall, as well as a penchant for venting his rage on Ford vehicles. Uneducated, barely employed, and used to a level of poverty most of us can only imagine, Taylor saw his prayers answered. The results were not pretty.

By the time Taylor walked into Byrd's Store and bought his ticket, he had already been convicted of beating up Jennifer[his estranged wife], reckless driving and driving while intoxicated. A week before he won the lottery, a probation officer noted that he had lost his job and owed $335 in court fees, according to documents filed in Henry County Circuit Court.

Taylor's numbers came in on the day after Christmas in 1992. He chose his winnings to be distributed in 20 yearly payments of $220,000, lottery officials said. At age 24, one of the richest men in one of the state's poorest areas, wild Jody Taylor went even wilder.

"He never had nothing, he hadn't aspired to anything and then he had it all at once," Jennifer Taylor said. "It was overwhelming."....

Many thought Taylor hit bottom Feb. 9, 1995, when he set fire to the Ford Thunderbird he had given Jennifer and then fired 15 bullets from a .45-caliber pistol into the yellow linoleum floor of their double-wide trailer. According to Pittsylvania County Circuit Court documents, police recovered marijuana from Taylor, along with four other weapons.

He was sentenced to a year in jail after being convicted of arson, shooting at an occupied dwelling and possession of marijuana. The court also ordered the Virginia Lottery to take $17,000 of Taylor's winnings to reimburse the insurance company for Jennifer Taylor's Thunderbird.

Yep, here's a man who had more money than he knew what to do with, and that, in the end, was exactly the problem. Let's hope he gets the help he needs, but in my book, he will always be a DUMASS.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on June 27, 2003 5:54 AM.

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