Small town buzzing over identity of its $1B Powerball winner: ‘Like a murder mystery’

A small-town gas station in Illinois is trying to solve a burning mystery: Who holds Wednesday night’s winning $1.04 billion Powerball lottery ticket that was sold in the store?

Jon Marshall, 47, manager of Hy-Vee Gas Fresh & Fast convenience store in Quincy, Illinois, told Fox News Digital he views the waiting "like a murder mystery."

"It was about 3 a.m. I got a phone call from the other gas station manager in town. He ... woke me up, and he said, ‘You sold the winning ticket.’

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"I was like, ‘Wow.’"

"'Your store sold the winning ticket,'" the other manager said, Marshal recalled.

He was shocked, Marshall said.

He ran to his kitchen because he personally bought a Powerball ticket from the Fast & Fresh convenience store. 

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"I’m like, ‘I better check my ticket before I worry about anything else.’ And, of course, I wasn’t a winner," he said.

As of late Thursday afternoon, the identity of the winner was still a mystery. Curious residents have come by to inquire, he said. But the winner hasn't been identified thus far.

Quincy is a historic river city in Illinois on the Mississippi River. It has about 39,000 residents; Marshall said most of his customers are "regulars."

The town has "an old-school feel. We still have a lot of great people that would give their shirts off their backs for you," he said.

Marshall’s store will receive a $500,000 cash bonus for selling Wednesday’s winning ticket, Powerball rules state.

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The jackpot is the second-largest lottery prize ever won in Illinois and the eighth-largest in the game’s history.

The winning numbers were 4, 26, 66, 67 and 69, with Powerball 9.

The odds of matching all five white balls and the red Powerball are about 1 in 292.2 million, according to Powerball data.

The winner will have a choice of taking the full $1.04 billion jackpot as an annuity, or accepting a one-time cash payment of $450.5 million before taxes, according to Powerball rules.

Under the annuity option, the prize is given to the winner in 30 graduated payments over 29 years, the rules note.

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"There’s a lot of people coming in just to kind of see if we found the winner yet, and then there’s just people wanting to get some same luck, repeat luck, buying extra lottery tickets from that same machine," Marshall said.

"We got a great buzz going on, and we’re enjoying the ride while we can."

Yet the mystery remains. 

Illinois gives the ticket holder one year from the Aug. 12 drawing to claim the prize. A Powerball winner, however, who wants the lump-sum option must make that choice within 60 days of the drawing, according to the Illinois Lottery.

Lottery officials are urging the winner to sign the back of the ticket and keep it somewhere secure until it is claimed, officials said.

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"I'd say, we have probably 15% of [customers] that are traveling on the highway that come to our gas station. Most of them are local," said Marshall.

Though the gas station has previously had other winning tickets, it has never experienced a Powerball win.

"We've had some big scratch-off tickets, but nothing even close to this one ... nothing [of] quite this caliber," he said.

The mystery surrounding the winner may never be solved. 

Under Illinois Lottery rules, anyone winning $250,000 or more can request that his or her name and municipality of residence remain confidential when submitting a claim, the Illinois Lottery states.

Marshall's greatest hope is that the winner thinks about the community after claiming the prize. 

"I hope they do well for the community," he said. "I hope they build up some organizations in town."