Story Archive

As You Might Expect

Two brothers in Wichita, Kan., won $75,000 in the lottery, and settled in at home to celebrate. Investigators say the two men, who were not named, used some of their winnings to buy methamphetamine and marijuana. One brother, aged 27, went into the kitchen to fill up his lighter, and “emptied a couple of large cans of butane” into it, which was obviously more than it could hold. “The butane vapor reached the pilot light in the furnace, and as you might expect, ka-boom,” said Sgt. Bruce Watts, noting the man was wearing a state lottery T-shirt. No one else in the house was injured — the man’s girlfriend, his brother, nor his girlfriend’s two children, aged 6 and 10. The girlfriend dumped him at a local emergency room and left; he was hospitalized in serious but stable condition with second-degree burns over 10 percent of his body. The other brother, 25, was taken to jail. (RC/Kansas City Star) ...The bad news is, the house was totally destroyed. The good news is, the damage was far less than $75,000.