Lottery Winner of $1M in South Philadelphia Murdered, Police Probing Case

A man found brutally murdered in South Philadelphia may have won $1 million on the lottery before he was killed, according to local radio station KYW.

Francis Decero, 25, had been missing since April 26. His body was found in bushes on a quiet suburban street. He had been burned, stabbed, and shot.

The Philadelphia Police Department has opened a homicide investigation and is working to determine whether he was tortured before he was killed.

If Decero did win the lottery, he did not inform his family about his win, relatives said. Philly police told The US Sun that they could neither confirm nor deny Decero’s reputed win.

Homicide Investigation

Decero was officially reported missing by his family last Monday. Family members who went to look for him found his car double-parked in the area of 13th and Bigler streets, according to KYW.

Police are now examining the security video that showed Decero driving up, exiting his car, and getting into another vehicle that then left the area.

“I just hope they find who did this, this is what I want to know. Everybody loved that kid,” the victim’s father, Lou Decero, told the CBS News Philadelphia. “I have to know who did this, there was no reason. I don’t know who would [have] done this, I hope they find him,” he said.

Danger Money

Lottery winners are often targeted by criminals and have in the past been murdered.

Seven men were later charged with his murder.

Burch had used some of his lottery win to buy gifts for the neighborhood children. Prosecutors said the defendants had interpreted his generosity as “flexing” and “showing off.”

In 2006, Florida laborer Abraham Shakespeare won $31 million in the lottery. He wound up dead under a concrete slab three years later, murdered by a woman who had befriended him for his money. His killer, Dorice “Dee Dee” Moore, 49, recently told CBS from prison that she backed a bill that would guarantee anonymity for Florida lottery winners.

“It puts a target” on them, she explained.