Lotto Winner Fails to Show Up : Mr. or Ms. X: Please Collect Your $3.98 Million

Call it the case of the missing multimillionaire, a tale set in the center of Chinatown.

All that is known is that sometime on Jan. 17, someone stepped up to the counter at the New Wah Lun Co., on Stockton Street, marked six numbers on a card, and handed over a dollar to a clerk.

As it turned out, the numbers were worth $3.98 million. Whoever drew the Lotto numbers has yet to show up to claim the cash.

“There are,” said Paul Lee, owner of the New Lun Wah grocery, “so many stories.” Two of them, he says, sound plausible.

One account, related to Lee by a local fortuneteller, is that the money belongs to a Chinatown waitress and three of her friends. The fortuneteller said she advised the waitress to play the lottery because she would win.

Another story has it that a man bought the ticket, but then lost it and grew so upset that he became ill and has not been seen since. “I heard he’s terribly, terribly upset. He bought it here. He knows the number. But he can’t find the ticket,” Lee said.

Now, nearly six weeks after the numbers--13, 20, 28, 35, 36 and 21--were drawn, the prize money remains unclaimed, the largest unclaimed jackpot ever in the California Lottery. If no one claims the prize by July 16, the money will go to the lottery’s fund for public education.

The lottery has tried to bring attention to the matter by sending out press releases. “That’s about all you can do,” said William Seaton, lottery public affairs director.

In awarding prize money, the lottery accepts no circumstantial evidence. There must be clear and direct proof--the ticket itself.