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Notorious National Lottery winner Michael Carroll has suffered a fresh tragedy after his sister died from a cardiac arrest after bingeing on cocaine.
Zoe Carroll, 43 – who was given £1 million by her younger brother after he scooped nearly £10 million aged 19 in 2002 – was found dead in her home in May.
The family have been beset by misfortune since binman Carroll – nicknamed the Lotto Lout for his boorish behaviour – won the life-changing sum.
Carroll, 40, went on a downward spiral, blowing millions on drugs, alcohol, prostitutes and ‘hangers-on’, leading to his wife Sandra Aitken walking out on the marriage with their child.
By 2013 he had blown every penny and was claiming benefits before taking a number of menial jobs.
Zoe Carroll, the sister of ‘Lotto lout’ Michael Carroll, has died aged 43 from a cardiac arrest after a cocaine binge (pictured together)
Zoe, a stay-at-home mother-of-four, was given £1million by her brother when he won the lottery
Three years later his uncle, who he was living with when he bought the winning £1 ticket, murdered his second wife with a shotgun before turning the gun on himself as their relationship faltered.
Carroll appeared to have settled down and found happiness when he remarried Miss Aitken in 2021.
But it has now emerged his sister – a stay-at-home mother-of-four – died in her modest two-bedroom terraced house in King’s Lynn, Norfolk.
An inquest which opened on Friday heard she was found there on May 4, having last been seen by her mother, Kim McCleary, a week earlier.
Ms McCleary wrote on her daughter’s Facebook page shortly after her body was discovered that there would be a ‘significant delay’ before arranging her funeral.
She added: ‘As a family we would like to thank you all for your public and private messages of condolences and support.’
Close friend Ellie Skipper set up a GoFundMe page to raise £1,000 towards funeral costs, although just £700 had been raised when the last donation was received a month ago.
She wrote: ‘You won’t ever meet anyone as kind, caring, funny, outspoken and true as what Zoe was.
Carroll, 40, went on a downward spiral, blowing millions on drugs, alcohol, prostitutes and ‘hangers-on’ after his win
It has now emerged that his sister Zoe died at her home in King’s Lynn, Norfolk in May
An inquest which opened on Friday heard she was found there on May 4, having last been seen by her mother, Kim McCleary, a week earlier
‘She was the life and soul at events and parties. Always pulling some sort of trick, prank or tape out of her bag!
‘Zoe could lighten the mood in any situation and make you feel as though you’re on top of the world, she was so supportive.
‘Zoe has four amazing children and she was the best mother to them and loved her children dearly. At this sad time, we wish them strength to stick together and be strong for one another.’
One donor added: ‘You kids know how much I thought of your mum. She saw me through terrible times in my life. You have my number.’
Carroll and Ms McCleary didn’t respond to requests to comment yesterday.
His aunt, Kelly Muncaster, 51, said: ‘I’m not going to make a comment.’
A friend of the family, who asked not to be named, said: ‘It’s been one thing after another in the family.
‘People think Mickey was lucky but I don’t see it that way. Everything bad happened after that.’
Carroll – who was 18 months old when his RAF engineer father was sent to a military prison for 11 years for stabbing a couple at a dance and died when he was ten – was wearing an electronic tag for being drunk and disorderly when he won £9,736,131 in November 2002.
He had already served time aged 13 for shoplifting, as well as four months for aggravated vehicle taking and convictions for theft, driving while disqualified and causing criminal damage to a bus.
He said at the time: ‘It is true that I have been a bad lad. I went through a bad patch. What teenager hasn’t made a few mistakes in their life?
The lotto winner, who was working as a binman in Norfolk at the time of his win, blew his fortune on drink, drugs, fast cars, holidays and sex parties
Carroll appeared to have settled down and found happiness when he remarried Miss Aitken in 2021 – after she previously walked out on him
‘That is all in the past and the Lotto has given me a great chance for a stable future. I will never be in trouble again.’
But in 2004 he was jailed for five months for failing to comply with a drug treatment order imposed as part of a sentence for possessing cocaine.
He received an ASBO the following year for using a catapult to fire ballbearings at cars and windows from his Mercedes.
By February 2006 he was serving a nine-month jail term for running amok with a baseball bat at a Christian rock concert.
And there was a 16-week prison sentence, suspended for a year, and ten hours unpaid work for drink-driving at nearly four times the limit.
Lotto lout Michael Carroll was back working as a £10-an-hour coalman in 2019 after blowing his money
The self-proclaimed ‘King of Chavs’, who sported shell suits and chunky gold jewellery, also caused misery to locals in Swaffham, Norfolk, where he bought a house for £340,000 in 2004 and spent another £400,000 on improvements including a swimming pool.
The five-bedroom mansion, called The Grange, hosted wild drink and drug-fuelled parties as well as demolition derbies with old bangers.
It was sold in 2010 for just £142,000, reflecting its dilapidated state. Fences had been smashed, windows shattered and debris was strewn around the garden.
With the money gone – including £4 million showered on friends and family – he was declared bankrupt in 2013 and started working as a part-time painter after being told he couldn’t return to his old £200-a-week job as a dustman.
He slept rough for a while before moving into a two-bedroom flat in Elgin on the north Scottish coast and taking a job at a biscuit factory to be closer to his daughter, Brooke.
Carroll said the move was also to get away from the drink and drugs which ‘would have killed me within six months’.
But in July 2016 his uncle, Stephen Muncaster, 47, murdered his wife Allison, 48, as she tried to escape their home in King’s Lynn before shooting himself in the garden.
Hours earlier Muncaster, a builder, had told his GP the marriage was breaking down and he was depressed.
In 2019, Carroll was reportedly working seven days a week chopping wood and delivering coal.
Two years later he remarried Sandra and the couple were reported to be living in Belfast.
She had divorced him just a month after their wedding in 2003 and left with a £1.4 million settlement, blaming ‘drink and drug binges and… cheating on me with prostitutes’.
A friend explained: ‘Him and Sandra buried the hatchet and got back together and it has all worked out well for them.
‘It happened very quickly in the last few months but they fell right back in love and are really happy together now. What’s in the past has been forgotten about.’
A full inquest into Ms Carroll’s death will take place later this year.
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