When a $30 million dollar lottery winner vanishes under mysterious circumstances, police begin an investigation and there is no shortage of suspects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Abraham Shakespeare and what happened to him?
A lot of people said, well, I think he took his money and wants to get away from all this.
So how many people in Polk County owed Abe Shakespeare money? Over 20, maybe close to 40. There are all these people with this web of connections to Abraham Shakespeare, and any one of them might be someone who has a motive to see him dead. We all dream of a moment in life that will instantly change everything. A stroke of luck and nothing will ever be the same again.
That's exactly what happened to a man with the name you will never forget, Abraham Shakespeare.
While Abraham Shakespeare was on a trucking route with his colleague, Michael Ford, they stopped at a convenience store.
Mike Ford, who's the driver, says, you need anything? Abraham, who's staying in the truck, says, yeah, give me two quick picks.
Right here at this gas station in a town with a name you just can't make up. Frostproof Florida. One stop, two quick pick lottery tickets, one of which would change his life forever. A jackpot worth $30 million.
Hello, Florida. It's Wednesday, November 15th, and here are tonight's winning numbers.
12. When he realized he'd won the lottery, he wasn't even sure it was real, so he brought the ticket to his cousin Ashley McMillan.
I looked up at him and I looked at the ticket again and I looked up at him. I said you I said you've won $30 million. He said OK, I just wasn't sure I needed somebody I could trust to tell me that. And I was like, do not show this to anybody else. You go to Tallahassee and cash this in immediately.
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Chapter 2: What are the consequences of winning the lottery?
A friendship blossomed. Centuria and Abe grew close. Eventually, they welcomed a son named Jeremiah.
When the baby is out and they bring him over to the bed, Abraham, with his long arms, he swoops in and he takes the baby right out of her hands. And he's holding him. And he's like, yeah, I got my snookum pookum.
But for Abe, it wasn't enough just to provide for his own family. Abe seemingly wanted to help everyone. And pretty soon, his generosity spread throughout Lakeland.
When Abraham won the lottery, all of Lakeland and Polk County won the lottery.
People did not hesitate to come to Abraham and say, you know, I need money for my mortgage. They've got to foreclose my house. They're going to repossess my car. I've got to bury my mother. Everything you can think of that someone needed.
Now you're dealing with all kind of people you want to look out for and people you don't want to look out for, but everybody's there saying, give me, let me, let me have.
Abraham wins this huge lottery, and then within a day, everyone wants a piece.
I couldn't even talk with him in 10 minutes. His phone was ringing. By the time he'd get off the phone with that one, Another one will call you.
There were days that random women with cars full of kids would pull up and say, oh, the Lord led me to you. And I would be like, no, that would be Google Maps, honey.
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Chapter 3: How did Abe's life change after winning $30 million?
While detectives have a long list of possible suspects to go through, Marissa Green at the Ledger in Lakeland is focused on one person, Dee Dee Moore.
I felt like I had a vested interest in finding Abraham Shakespeare, just like the detectives. A couple of weeks before it was officially announced that Abraham Shakespeare was missing, I met Dee Dee Moore over the phone for the first time. She promised that she could produce him and I could interview him, but that never happened. And it went silent.
And so that's when my red flag started to raise about this woman and who she was.
Then in December 2009, Marissa is able to convince Dee Dee to come down to the Ledger newsroom for an interview with her and her editor, Lyle McBride. Dee Dee tells them that at the time Abe disappeared, most of his lottery jackpot was long gone.
And he didn't have any money left, really.
Right, except for what he was collecting, the regular little loans. The few that were paying him back. The few that were paying him back, that's what he was living off of, because everything else was froze. All his other money was tied up.
She said everybody else was taking advantage of her, but not her, because she had her own money.
That's the kind of person I am. If you ask my family and my friends, I've been that way my whole life. I always helped people.
During that three-hour interview, Dee Dee now tells a different story. Now, she insists that Abe left town to avoid having to pay money in the child support fight he is supposedly having with the mother of his son, Centoria Butler.
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Chapter 4: What does the investigation reveal about Dee Dee Moore?
Abraham's mother called me. And she's like, Detective Clark, Abraham called me and told me Merry Christmas and that he's OK. But she said, it didn't really sound like my son. And I said, what number did that call come from? And she's like, it said private.
It didn't take long for them to look at phone records.
Investigators quickly learn two very critical pieces of information. First, that number is not Abraham Shakespeare's. Second, someone with that phone itself is located very close by, a local mall. So they rush to that local mall to figure out who it is. And incredibly, at almost the same moment they drive in, so does Dee Dee Moore.
And then in drives Dee Dee. It's like a gift from God dropped to us. Crazy. We watch her get out, meet with this guy, hand him a wad of cash.
And this was just, you know, stink in the high heavens.
They talk for a minute, she gets in her car, and she drives away to the north, and this car with this gentleman in it drives away to the south. So we get behind the car, we're following it, and we're like, let's stop it. We go to stop the car. So I just jump out.
I go to the guy and I go, you can either park your car, get in our car and come with us, or we're going to try to put you in prison the rest of your life. And he goes, well, I guess I'm coming with you.
The man in the car, the man who got the cash from Deedee and who owns the phone that made the call to Abe's mom, he is none other than the friend of Abe's who ran the local barbershop, Greg Smith.
Do you know Dee Dee Moore? That's what they asked me. Now I'm thinking to myself, Lord Jesus, what is going on? Did you make a phone call to Abraham's mother? I said, yeah. Well, I make the phone call to his mother pertaining to be Abraham. I'm supposed to mimic his voice and the way he talk best I can and tell his mom that I'm OK.
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Chapter 5: What mysterious events surround Abe's disappearance?
I don't know what's going on. How old are you? You should get a lawyer. You have no idea how those people hurt this girl.
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After almost two weeks of this rollercoaster murder trial, it's now up to the jury to decide Deedee's fate.
Bring the jury in. Tonight, after just three hours of deliberation, a jury handed down their verdict.
Juries do unpredictable things at times.
Is that indeed the jury's verdict?
It was probably 7 o'clock at night. A storm was coming in. Right as they read guilty on the first count. The defendant is guilty of first degree murder. A clap of lightning happens outside and just kind of lights up the courtroom. It was kind of like, yeah, it was wild.
Abraham Shakespeare was your prey and your victim. Money was the root of the evil that you brought to Abraham.
The judge made a brief statement about how heinous her crime was and that he would be sentencing her to life in a Florida state prison without the possibility of parole.
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