CHICAGO — Authorities on Friday exhumed the body of a Chicago man who was poisoned with cyanide after winning the lottery and conducted an autopsy in the hopes that it will help solve the mystery surrounding his death.
Urooj Khan, 46, died in July as he was about to collect $425,000 in lottery winnings. His death initially was ruled a result of natural causes. But a relative whose identity remains a mystery asked for further tests that revealed in November that he had been poisoned.
Khan was given a religious burial and his body was not embalmed. The body was wrapped in a shroud and placed inside a wooden box with a Styrofoam lid that was inside a concrete vault. Cina said the body had not come into contact with soil from the grave.
‘‘The body was in a state of advanced decomposition, but we were able to identify the major organs and take samples of each of these for toxicological analysis,’’ Cina said.
Given the length of time Khan’s body was in the ground, Cina said it was not certain investigators would be able to determine exactly how he ingested the poison.
‘‘I can’t really predict how the results are going to turn out. Cyanide over the post mortem period actually can essentially evaporate and leave the tissues. So it is possible that cyanide that was in the tissues is no longer in the tissues after several months,’’ he told reporters during an afternoon news conference.
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"Chicago lottery winner died of cyanide poisoning" by Jason Keyser | Associated Press, January 09, 2013
CHICAGO — With no signs of trauma and nothing to raise suspicions, the sudden death of a Chicago man just as he was about to collect nearly $425,000 in lottery winnings was initially ruled a result of natural causes.
Nearly six months later, authorities have a mystery on their hands after medical examiners, responding to a relative’s pleas, did an expanded screening and determined that Urooj Khan, 46, died shortly after ingesting a lethal dose of cyanide. The finding has triggered a homicide investigation, the Chicago Police Department said Monday.
‘‘It’s pretty unusual,’’ said the Cook County medical examiner, Stephen Cina, commenting on the rarity of cyanide poisonings. ‘‘I’ve had one, maybe two cases out of 4,500 autopsies I’ve done.’’
In June, Khan stopped at a 7-Eleven near his home on the city’s North Side and bought a ticket for an instant lottery game.
‘‘Winning the lottery means everything to me,’’ he said at the June 26 ceremony, also attended by his wife, Shabana Ansari, and their daughter, Jasmeen Khan.
Instead of the full $1 million over installments, Khan opted to take his winnings in a lump sum of just over $600,000. After taxes, the winnings amounted to about $425,000, said lottery spokesman Mike Lang. The check was issued from the state Comptroller’s Office on July 19, the day before Khan died, but was cashed on Aug. 15, Lang said. If a lottery winner dies, the money typically goes to his or her estate, Lang said.
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Who stood to benefit?
