It Doesn't Pay To Play

Over the past week or so I have been ragging on the lottery here in Brazil as well as people who play. Actually my rants have been about the people who stand in long lines in order to play.

René Senna was one of those people. This 54 year-old farm worker from the little town of Rio Bonito RJ, stood in line back in 2005, wrote down six numbers and won R$56 million reais (about US$25,000,000).

He was overjoyed. He bought the biggest farm in the city (R$9 million), shacked up with a 29 year-old hairdresser and her three kids from two previous marriages and then proceeded to live his life as he had before. Work a little during the day and then visit a local watering hole to drink and talk with his buddies.

Hole is the right word. This place would make Virginia's Tavern (that used to be where White Castle is now on Charlotte Pike) look like the Wild Horse Saloon. Here's a guy worth more than his entire city and he's throwing back cold ones in a dirt road beer joint. Go figure.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, he's relaxing, nursing a Kaiser (our version of Old Milwaukee) when a fight breaks out and René ends up dead. No witnesses. No one else injured.

This just days after his young wife, Adriana Almeira, had moved out of their home and he threatened to divorce her. Rumors were also floating around that she was having an affair with one of his six body guards, none of which were around at the time of the shooting.

René's 20 year-old daughter, Renata, has been the most vocal. She has requested a full investigation into her step-mother's love life trying to prove her affair and her motive for murder.

The widow, on the other hand, is demanding that Renata take a DNA test and has stated that René believed that Renata wasn't actually his own flesh and blood but the result of an illicit affair between his first wife and another man.

When the widow was brought in for questioning, a lynch mob surrounded the police station demanding justice for their fallen friend. I guess they were upset that no one was going to be around to pick up future bar tabs.

The crowd was dispersed after officers fired a pistol several times in the air and the sprayed the crowd with pepper spray. Two cars were destroyed in the melee.

OK, so René had a pocketful of cash but not too much sense. I guess money can buy you love and happiness but not brain cells.