The $758.7 million Powerball winner endured awful tragedy before her life-changing win

Fifty-three-year-old Mavis Wanczyk is the most recent Powerball winner, claiming the incredible $758.7 million jackpot and taking a lump sum that, even after taxes, will reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

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Her story is mostly well-known; the Chicopee, Mass., medical center employee with two adult children quit her job upon winning the jackpot and now seems to be planning her next move.

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But months before becoming the luckiest woman in America, if for a moment, Wanczyk endured a tragic occasion of ill fortune.

Her ex-husband William Wanczyk was killed by a hit-and-run driver in November of 2016. The former firefighter was waiting for a bus in Amherst, Mass., when a pickup truck drove into the bus stop, killing him.

Peter Sheremeta, 20, was arrested in relation to the killing after his truck was found abandoned a short distance from the crash. Sheremeta was charged with manslaughter, motor vehicle homicide under the influence of alcohol, manslaughter while operating under the influence, operating under the influence, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, negligent operation of a motor vehicle, using a motor vehicle without authority and leaving the scene of a property damage crash, according to MassLive.

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