Lacey man plans to retire after winning $1.8 million

OLYMPIA — Bill Murphy had been considering retirement for a while, but something happened to him recently that made that decision a lot easier.

Murphy, a parks maintenance employee for the city of Lacey, is the sole winner of a $1.8 million Lotto jackpot from Washington’s Lottery, it was announced Friday.

Murphy, at the near-retirement age of 64, will be paid a little more than $54,000 per year after taxes for the next 25 years, lottery spokeswoman Lee Lee said. Murphy said he couldn’t be happier since he matched his winning numbers with the winning digits printed in Thursday’s newspaper.

“It’s been a pretty amazing road trip since then,” he said, grinning ear-to-ear throughout a news conference at the lottery office in downtown Olympia. “Up and down.”

The winning trek began when Murphy stopped for coffee Feb. 11 at the Safeway on Martin Way and bought a lottery ticket, letting the computer choose the numbers. Two days later, at about 6:40 a.m. Feb. 13, he matched his numbers with the winning numbers in the newspaper. He managed to put in a full day of work before telling anybody. That night, he broke the news to Connie, his wife of 31 years.

“She was the first person I got to share the news with,” he said.

Connie said she had a hard time catching her breath.

“Just speechless,” she said. “We checked the ticket probably 15 times that evening.”

Bill said he’s a regular lottery player.

“I’ll buy a $5 ticket most weeks,” he said.

Connie said she has never bought a lottery ticket, and she sometimes gave her husband a hard time for buying them.

Brad Burdick, Murphy’s boss at the Lacey Public Works Department, said he suspected something was up when Murphy said this week that he would retire in June. He broke the news to his workplace during a staff meeting Thursday morning, Burdick said.

“Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” he said.

Now there’s the matter of how to spend more money than some people will make in their lifetimes. Murphy said he still is working on that. He’s looking at retiring from his job of 27 years June 30. He wants to help his grandchildren through college and retire some debts.

“Future looks good,” he said.