Couple rejoices as missing $50K lottery ticket resurfaces months later

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Mark Perdue and his wife. (Credit: Kentucky Lottery)

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. - A Kentucky couple is breathing a sigh of relief after they thought a winning $50,000 lottery ticket was accidentally thrown away.

Mark Perdue of Bowling Green said he brought the Powerball ticket in October 2023 at the AM Express where he's a frequent customer.

He unsuspectingly went back to the store a few days later where he was told that we had won.

"About a week later, I go back to the store to buy a Diet Mountain Dew when the owner tells me, ‘Congratulations,’" Perdue said in a news release. "I said, ‘for what?’ And she said, ‘You won the lottery.’ I said, ‘I wish.’ She said, ‘you did, I have you on video.’"

Perdue and his wife couldn't find the ticket and searched for it for more than three months, thinking it had been thrown away.

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"I’ve been beating myself up for three months thinking I threw this ticket away," his wife said. "I did throw a ticket away, but it was an older ticket. Then I convinced myself maybe it was this ticket."

Perdue is the president of Kiriu USA. He had a visitor in town from another plant in early February. That visitor was going to use a company vehicle.

Perdue went to go inspect the company vehicle when he spotted the lottery ticket on the front seat.

"I look down and saw it [ticket]," Perdue said. "I picked it up and I saw October 30th and I said, ‘That’s my ticket!’"

Perdue believes the ticket may have fallen out of his pocket the last time he used the company vehicle, which is rare.

"I don’t know how long it might have sat out there if I hadn’t needed the car." Perdue said. "I was shaking a little bit."

The couple plans to pay bills and take a trip with their winnings.

This story was reported from Los Angeles.