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Woman forgot she bought a Powerball ticket. She found it four months later.

Teresa King of Fletcher, North Carolina, forgot she had a Powerball ticket purchased four months ago.
Teresa King of Fletcher, North Carolina, forgot she had a Powerball ticket purchased four months ago. AP

A Powerball ticket purchased in August and forgotten for four months has turned out to be a winner.

Teresa King of Fletcher, which is about two hours west of Charlotte, is now $200,000 richer.

“My husband and I keep the tickets in a little dresser beside our bed,” King said in a statement released by Powerball.com. “We had so much going on, we just forgot about them.”

King remembered the tickets last week, and took them back to the store to check if any were winners.

“The clerk told me, ‘I think you just won $200,000,’”' King said. “I told her, ‘No I didn’t!’”

Oh yes, she did.

The ticket was for the Aug. 19 drawing. It beat odds of 1 in 913,129 to win, said Powerball.com.

King learned she won just days before Christmas and claimed it Thursday. After required state and federal tax withholdings, she took home $139,002, officials said. King said she didn’t yet know how she would spend the money.

The ticket was purchased at the Citistop gas station on Patton Avenue in Asheville. It matched the numbers on the four white balls and the Powerball to win $50,000. But because King added the $1 Power Play feature, the prize quadrupled to $200,000 when the 4X multiplier was drawn, said Powerball.com.

This story was originally published December 26, 2017 at 1:54 PM with the headline "Woman forgot she bought a Powerball ticket. She found it four months later.."

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