Abraham Lee Shakespeare was an unassuming, hard-working man who got real, real lucky. Then, he turned up real, real dead.
Abraham Lee Shakespeare was born on April 24th, 1966, in Lakeland, Florida. As a kid, school was tough for him. He had undiagnosed learning disabilities that were challenging to him, and the school system was of no help to him.
As an adult, Abraham was functionally illiterate. He didn’t have his driver’s license, which didn’t stop him from driving very much, and had very little paperwork to his name. With two kids, he worked cash-in-hand jobs as a casual labourer in order to try to make ends meet.
However, by 1995, Abraham had served two prison terms, which made finding work all the more difficult. He was living with his mother, Elizabeth, when his luck changed.
On November 15th, 2006, Abraham was working with Michael Ford, and headed for Miami. Abraham’s job was to sit in the front of Ford’s truck, and keep him company during the long runs back and forth from Miami.
On their way, Ford stopped at a convenience store in Frostproof, and asked if Abraham wanted anything. Abraham gave him two $5 bills, and asked Ford to to buy him two quick pick lottery tickets.
As it turned out, one of those tickets was a winner. Abraham Shakespeare won a total of $30 million in the lottery jackpot. He had two choices – he could take annual payments of $1 million, which would be taxed, or he could take the lump sun, which incurred penalties. Abraham went for the lump sum, and took him $17 million.
Ford wanted a piece of the pie. He attempted to sue Abraham in court for half of his winnings, claiming that Abraham had stolen the tickets from his wallet. The jury didn’t buy his story, and Abraham won his case.
With that out of the way, Abraham was free and clear to do what he wanted. He bought his mother a house, gave his step-father $1 million, and ensured that his 3 step-sisters each got a quarter of a million.
He also ensured that he paid back the child support he’d missed, and he set up a $1 million trust fund for his children.
At first, Abraham gave his money away willingly, paying off mortgages, and buying houses. He even bought himself a house worth $1.1 million in a gated community in January of 2007, a Nissan Altima, and a Rolex watch from a pawn shop.
Abraham’s handouts weren’t without strings, though. He was more than willing to help out friends and family, but with the condition that they would pay him back, when they could. But that wasn’t how his friends and family saw it. They saw him as a cash cow. And they hounded him day and night.
But they were the least of his problems to come.
In October of 2008, Dorice “Dee Dee” Moore had heard about Abraham’s good fortune, and she wanted a piece of the pie. During a business luncheon, she overheard a conversation about him, and introduced herself. Sitting in a wheelchair after an alleged car accident (she was in the midst of suing for the insurance money), Moore introduced herself to Abraham’s real estate agent, and arranged a meeting. She didn’t want his money, she said. She wanted to write a book about Abraham Lee Shakespeare.
The real estate agent was more than happy to arrange the meeting at Abraham’s home. She was quite shocked, though, when Dee Dee Moore rolled up in a fancy, shiny new car, and strode out of the driver’s seat in a pair of fancy heels. (So much for that debilitating accident.)
Using wit and charm, Moore earned Abraham’s trust, and was let into his inner circle. Within months she had placed herself as Abraham’s financial advisor, and, unconventionally, moved into his house, which she then bought from him – for a fraction of what he paid for it.
Abraham’s home, and a few other assets, were transferred to the name of a company that Moore owned, American Medical Professionals. Using what was left of his finances, Moore launched a business with Abraham, Abraham Shakespeare LLC. Moore established herself as in control of the funds.
Immediately, she withdrew $1 million from the funds, and bought a Hummer, a Chevrolet Corvette, a truck, and then went on vacation. She later claimed that Abraham had given her the money to do these things, as a gift.
Not only had Dee Dee Moore taken control of Abraham’s finances, she’d taken control of his life. If anyone wanted to get to him, even to pay him back money he was owed, they had to go through her. And Abraham was sick and tired of people – they always wanted something, usually money, and he was sick of being used. Which suited Moore just fine.
The last time anyone other than Moore laid eyes on Abraham Shakespeare was around April 6th, 2009. However, no one grew suspicious for months. Moore had started laying the groundwork. She told many, many stories over the next few months, but at the root of it all was that Abraham had taken his money, and had gone into hiding because he was sick and tired of people asking him for handouts.
Moore placed herself as the messenger between Abraham, and his friends and family. She also asked her ex-husband to dig a hole in her yard. She told him she wanted to bury trash in concrete. He dug, then he left, and was called back two hours later to fill it. He was being paid, and didn’t ask questions.
Moore kept on using Abraham’s phone, texting people. But, the texts didn’t seem at all like Abraham. He was more or less illiterate, and suddenly, he was composing complete, coherent sentences. Something was off.
In August of 2009, Abraham’s cousin, Cedric, was given a card, supposedly from Abraham, to give to his mother, Elizabeth. Elizabeth claimed that the signature looked like Abraham’s, but she couldn’t be sure.
Finally, on November 9th, 2009, suspicions grew to be too much, and Cedric reported Abraham Shakespeare missing with the sheriff’s office.
On November 12th, Dee Dee Moore begins acting her ass off. In the first of several police interviews, Moore explains that yes, she did, indeed, appropriate Shakespeare’s assets, but she paid him in cash for them. She also turns on the waterworks fullblast, and continues to do so with every subsequent police, and media interview.
On the 24th, Moore told police that Abraham had asked that his name be taken off the Abraham Shakespeare LLC account, and other assets, because he didn’t want to pay taxes while he was in hiding.
Police found this suspicious, and officially declared Abraham Lee Shakespeare missing on November 24th, 2009.
On December 3rd, 2009, in yet another interview, Moore takes things a step further. Not only did Abraham not want to pay taxes, he wanted to avoid child support. Which seemed odd, considering he’d paid back the payments he owed, and set up a trust. Clearly, Moore hadn’t thought that little fib through.
Further adding suspicion, Moore wrote a letter, as Abraham, to Elizabeth, his mother, stating that he was alive and well, and that he just wanted to be left alone. Again, Moore seemed to forget that Abraham couldn’t read or write.
Near the end of December, on the 27th, Moore took Elizabeth out to eat. During the meal, Moore received a call. It was from Abraham, and he wanted to speak to his mother.
The man posing as Abraham states, again, that he’s find, and he just wants to be alone. Elizabeth didn’t say a word to Moore, but she was sure that the man she’d spoken to on the phone was not her son.
As this is all transpiring, Moore kept on telling her tales to anyone who would listen – usually media outlets. While throwing fits on camera, she told them that he left town to avoid child support payments, or that he had gotten sick and left to die in peace, or, worst of all, that he’d been caught with an underaged girl, and didn’t want to face the consequences.
Dee Dee Moore spent her time demonizing Abraham, in order to throw suspicion off of herself. Too bad it didn’t work.
Police had been suspicious of Moore since Abraham had been reported missing. As a result, they had tapped his phone. No sooner had the caller gotten off the phone with Elizabeth, he was pulled over.
Gregory Smith, a friend of Abraham’s, was interviewed by police, where he tells them that Moore paid him to call Elizabeth, and pretend to be her son. He had owed Abraham some money, and Moore had offered him a deal – make the call, and do a few other tasks, and the debt would be forgotten.
By this point, Gregory knew he was in hot water, and agreed to cooperate with law enforcement. They were all sure that Moore was up to no good, though Gregory insisted that Abraham was still alive.
Gregory agreed to record all of his interactions with Dee Dee Moore. He placed a microphone in an empty Red Bull can he kept in his car. He called it the Dee Dee Catch Can.
Gregory and Moore began holding “meetings” in his car. Moore asked him for a few more favours, including making phone calls as Ronald, a make believe drug dealer from Miami.
In January of 2010, feeling the heat of the investigation, Moore asked Gregory, while chatting in his car, if he knew of anyone who could help her move a body. She claimed that Ronald, the drug dealer from Miami, had killed Abraham, and had forced her to bury him in her backyard, or he’d murder her son.
It seemed as though she’d forgotten that she’d asked Gregory to play Ronald not a couple weeks before. Gregory easily agreed, promising that he would keep her safe. “If you go down, I go down”, he told her.
On the 25th of January, 2010, Moore led Gregory over to a concrete slab, where Abraham was buried. She also gave him a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver. Gregory immediately took this information to police.
On January 27th, police found a body buried in the concrete. The body is identified as Abraham Lee Shakespeare via fingerprints. He was killed by two gunshots. From a .38 Smith & Wesson.
On February 2nd, 2010, Dee Dee Moore is taken into custody, with bond set at $1 million.
As the murder investigation goes on, police discover that Dorice Donegan “Dee Dee” Moore had a habit of conning and swindling.
In 2001, she’d staged a scene in order to fraudulently keep a vehicle. She was behind on the payments, and it was at risk of being repossessed. Rather than make the payments, Moore had someone store the car in a garage. Then, she pretended that she’d been carjacked, kidnapped, and sexually assaulted. The investigation showed that she’d taped her own wrists together, then threw herself out of a moving vehicle to injure herself.
She was convicted of insurance fraud, and falsely reporting a crime, for which she served a year of probation. In 2002, she filed for bankruptcy.
She’d attempted various other schemes – like the car accident in 2008 – over the years. But none were as fruitful, or as stupid, as taking over Abraham Lee Shakespeare’s life.
On February 19th, 2010, Dee Dee Moore was charged with the first-degree murder of Abraham Shakespeare.
On March 15th, 2010, she pleaded not guilty. Her trial began the following month, in April.
The prosecution had a solid, neat and tidy case. They presented the case that Dee Dee Moore wanted Abraham’s money after reading about his luck in the newspaper. She was a broke swindler looking for her next mark. So, she manipulated and coerced her way into Abraham’s life, took control of his assets, killed him, buried him in her backyard, and tried to get away with it.
The hours upon hours of recordings from Gregory’s Dee Dee Catch Can were presented as evidence, along with his testimony, the murder weapon, and the weeks upon weeks of lies and woven tales.
However, her defense team stated that all of the evidence was merely circumstantial. They claimed that without fingerprints, or DNA evidence, they couldn’t definitively put Dee Dee Moore at the scene, and, therefore, she was innocent.
While Moore didn’t take the stand in her own defence, she was extremely vocal. She had so many outbursts, court officials turned off her microphone. She threw fits and tantrums, and turned on the emotional waterworks off and on as she pleased. This did not help her. If anything, it just pissed everyone else in the courtroom off.
On December 10th, 2012, Dee Dee Moore was convicted of the first-degree murder of Abraham Shakespeare. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and an additional 25 years, at minimum, for possessing a gun in the course of a violent felony.
During the sentencing, the judge called her “cold, calculating, and cruel. And probably the most manipulative person this court has ever seen”.
Dee Dee Moore continues to proclaim her innocence, as she attempts to appeal her conviction. She claims that her case was not properly represented, and that Gregory Smith tampered with the jury.
Dee Dee Moore has no remorse, and refuses to accept responsibility for her actions.
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Sources:
Abraham Shakespeare’s Florida lotto murder mystery: All the details – Bethany Wade – Film Daily
This is what ‘Women Who Kill’s Dorice ‘Dee Dee’ Moore Is Doing Now – Lollie King – Bustle
RedHanded podcast – Episode 95 – Abraham Shakespeare: Lucky Numbers
Abraham Shakespeare Wikipedia page