Unlucky Numbers

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Speaker 3 So this case is such a mess that in the beginning, you don't even have a starting point.

Speaker 3 Except for Abraham Shakespeare winning the lottery.

Speaker 5 That's if you've won $30 million.

Speaker 6 Do not show this to anybody.

Speaker 7 But everybody's there saying, give me, let me, let me have.

Speaker 8 Women with car full of kids will pull up and say, oh, the Lord led me to you. And I would be like, no, that would be Google Maps, honey.

Speaker 3 One of the things that people talk about when they talk about winning the lottery is that it's cursed.

Speaker 9 I really would like my old life back where I could walk the streets like a normal person.

Speaker 10 But then all of a sudden, things go silent

Speaker 10 and nobody knows where Abraham Shakespeare is.

Speaker 11 Hey, have you heard from Abe?

Speaker 12 No, I haven't heard from him.

Speaker 5 Have you seen him? No, I haven't seen him either.

Speaker 13 A lot of people say, well, I think he took his money and wants to get away from all this.

Speaker 3 So how many people in Polk County owed Abe Shakespeare money?

Speaker 13 Over 20, maybe close to 40.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 That's exactly what happened to a man with the name you will never forget, Abraham Shakespeare. Shakespeare.

Speaker 10 While Abraham Shakespeare was on a trucking route with his colleague, Michael Ford, they stopped at a convenience store.

Speaker 16 Mike Ford, who's the driver, says an Indian thing. Abraham, who's staying in the truck, says, yeah, you know,

Speaker 17 give me two quick picks.

Speaker 3 Right here at this gas station in a town with a name you just can't make up, Frostproof Florida, one stop, stop,

Speaker 3 two quick pick lottery tickets, one of which would change his life forever. A jackpot worth $30 million.

Speaker 18 Hello, Florida. It's Wednesday, November 15th.
And you are tonight's winning numbers, 12.

Speaker 3 When Abe realized he'd won the lottery, he wasn't even sure it was real. So he brought the ticket to his cousin, Ashley McMillan.

Speaker 5 I looked up at him and I looked at the ticket again and I looked up at him.

Speaker 5 I said,

Speaker 5 I said, you won $30 million.

Speaker 5 He said, okay, I just wasn't sure.

Speaker 5 I needed somebody I could trust to tell me that.

Speaker 6 And I was like, do not show this to anybody else.

Speaker 5 You go to Tallahassee and cash this in immediately.

Speaker 3 News of Abe's win quickly spread across the state of Florida.

Speaker 21 It was at this convenience store that Abraham Shakespeare bought the lotto ticket that changed his life.

Speaker 23 A Lakeland man is waking up a millionaire this morning, 40-year-old Abraham Shakespeare.

Speaker 16 He had the winning numbers, and Mr.

Speaker 23 Shakespeare, I'd like to give you my phone number.

Speaker 10 He opted to take home the lump sum of $17 million, but then after taxes, he ended up with $12 million.

Speaker 3 Still, you know, $12 million is a huge chunk of change for a man with pretty humble background who came from the central Florida town of Lakeland.

Speaker 22 Lakeland is a small town feel with a little bit of city in it, beautiful lakes.

Speaker 22 Areas are quiet, some parts are rural, and it's in between Orlando and Tampa.

Speaker 3 And here in Lakeland, Abe lived in a modest neighborhood where many folks struggled to make ends meet.

Speaker 7 This is the famous Abraham Shakespeare's ex-home where he rented and lived.

Speaker 3 This is where they lived before.

Speaker 7 Before he won the lottery. It was set up just like this.
Nothing's changed besides painting.

Speaker 3 Pretty modest place.

Speaker 7 Pretty modest.

Speaker 16 Abraham's life has been hard scrabble for its duration.

Speaker 17 Abraham dropped out of school.

Speaker 16 He had been in a little bit of trouble as a youth, nothing major, just a little petty theft kind of things.

Speaker 16 And as he grows older, he takes on a series of odd jobs, riding a garbage trunk for the city of Lakeland, sweeping up in somebody's barber shop.

Speaker 10 Abraham had a strong friendship with Greg Smith, who owned the barbershop.

Speaker 24 He used to work at my barbershop as a cleanup guy, sweeping up and mopping floors.

Speaker 24 He was a less fortunate person, so let him work, get paid, or buy him something to eat.

Speaker 27 Abraham was an easygoing person. He took life just as it came.

Speaker 3 What kind of guy was he?

Speaker 28 He was a humble guy.

Speaker 7 Humble, respectful. You know what I mean?

Speaker 7 He wasn't a hard ass. He was a good dude.
He didn't smoke. He didn't drink.
He didn't do dope.

Speaker 7 He was just trying to survive, trying to make it in the world as most people do, but without being in the lamblight of problems and trouble.

Speaker 10 Even though he didn't have a whole lot, he was very content.

Speaker 22 Abraham has all of this money. He can move anywhere he wants to, but instead, he stays home.
He stays in Lakeland.

Speaker 16 I think to a lot of people's surprise, Abraham did not go buck wild as they say when he got his money. He didn't overindulge.

Speaker 30 Abraham says I want to buy a car so off me and Abraham went to the car dealership. Abraham walks up on this particular car and he liked it.
And I'm like, yeah, Abraham, that's nice, but

Speaker 10 it's a used car.

Speaker 30 Used or whatever, it was a gem to him.

Speaker 10 He said he would go to Denny's to eat breakfast. He bought a Rolex watch from a pawn shop.

Speaker 26 He come to the shop every day.

Speaker 3 Millionaire come to the shop, sweet floor. You better not drop a penny on the floor.

Speaker 26 First thing you're going to say, you're going to pick it up.

Speaker 24 You're going to say, pennies make dollars.

Speaker 22 Abraham doesn't spend much money on himself, but the one thing that he really wants is a new house. So he buys a 5,000 square foot million dollar mansion.

Speaker 10 Prior to winning the lottery, he would walk around this exclusive neighborhood and he would dream about living in one of those homes.

Speaker 10 He was able to buy his dream home for a million dollars in the gated community.

Speaker 3 And Abe quickly opened his doors to friends and even strangers.

Speaker 3 And one of those strangers was Centoria Butler, who was at the time down on her luck when she met Abe at a party he threw at his new house.

Speaker 8 At the end of the night, he was like, where are you going? I was like, I might be staying in my car tonight. He was like, well, you know, you can stay here until you get on your feet.

Speaker 8 He literally let me as a stranger move into his house.

Speaker 3 A friendship blossomed. Centuria and Abe grew close.
And eventually they welcomed a son named Jeremiah.

Speaker 8 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.

Speaker 8 And he's like, yeah, I got my snook and pookum.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 10 When Abraham won the lottery, all of Lakeland and Polk County won the lottery.

Speaker 16 People did not hesitate to come to Abraham and say, you know, I need money for my mortgage. They're going to foreclose my house.
They're going to repossess my car. I've got to bury my mother.

Speaker 16 Everything you can think of that someone needed.

Speaker 8 Now you're dealing with all kinds 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 and by the time he get off the phone with that one another one would call him there were days that random women with car 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 it got tiresome to him he got fed up with it a lot i really would like my old life back where I could walk the streets like a normal person, but got people coming up asking for money.

Speaker 3 And Abe's fortunes might be about to take an even more serious turn for the worse.

Speaker 22 His friend comes forward and says, Hey, that's my ticket. All those multi-million dollars, they're mine.

Speaker 10 Abraham Shakespeare was on the verge of losing his entire fortune.

Speaker 3 When Abe Shakespeare moved into that gated community, he was stepping into his life of luxury as a recent lottery winner. But those gates still couldn't keep people out.

Speaker 3 Friends, neighbors, even strangers still visited, asking for a favor, a loan, or a handout.

Speaker 26 I think it caused him more harm than good.

Speaker 17 I don't think he enjoyed that money.

Speaker 27 It was like, I wish I didn't even have no money.

Speaker 4 He was dead serious.

Speaker 16 There's something called the lottery curse.

Speaker 16 Lottery winners go bankrupt.

Speaker 16 They are killed,

Speaker 11 robbed,

Speaker 16 kidnapped, and scammed till the end of days.

Speaker 7 Most people work and struggle to get millions when it's handed to you. It's an easy come, easy go, and you're open game.

Speaker 7 And if you're not prepared for it,

Speaker 36 you're screwed with it.

Speaker 3 Ape tried to manage that flood of requests, turning some of those handouts into loans, but this was far from a perfect system.

Speaker 10 One of the things that Abraham did was he set up a business venture in which he became the hood's bank.

Speaker 16 But that also meant that he had to make arrangements with them for when they would pay back and how much they would pay back.

Speaker 16 This was becoming overwhelming.

Speaker 3 Abe was giving out money faster than he could keep track of.

Speaker 3 And then things took an unexpected turn with that co-worker on the trucking route, the guy who bought the winning lottery ticket for him, Mike Ford.

Speaker 16 Suddenly, there's a lawsuit against Abraham filed by Mike Ford, who is claiming that Abraham stole the tickets.

Speaker 10 I was able to immediately get in contact with him. He was upset because he thought that Michael Ford was a friend.

Speaker 3 To defend himself, Abe brought in a high-profile attorney named Willie Gary.

Speaker 16 Willie Gary is a force.

Speaker 16 Very

Speaker 29 self-confident.

Speaker 16 Willie has a private jet. He drives around in Rolls-Royces.
He wears, of course, custom-made suits.

Speaker 37 Please be seated, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 22 Mike Ford's claim was that Abraham had gone into his wallet, had taken the lottery ticket. Abraham denies that he ever stole that ticket.

Speaker 3 In response to the lawsuit, Abe alleged it was never about a stolen ticket. It was about a demand for a million dollars.

Speaker 22 Abe's claim was that Mike basically went to him saying, hey, I want a million dollars. And Abraham said, I'm not giving you any money.
And that's when Mike said, well, I'm going to sue you.

Speaker 3 Ford has a different account. He says that when he asked Abraham about the ticket, Abe offered him a million dollars, but later refused to pay, saying Ford couldn't prove the ticket was his.

Speaker 16 Ford versus Shakespeare was a five-day trial. Michael Ford did his best to present his case, but the jury only took an hour to find against him.

Speaker 3 It was a battle over millions in that courthouse, but in the end, He got to keep all of his money. And then he met someone.

Speaker 3 He met someone who promised to help him, who promised to protect his fortune, to secure his future.

Speaker 39 Was Abe's luck finally turning around?

Speaker 16 A woman named Dorice Moore, they call her Dee Dee. Florida-born, very ambitious, pretty smart.
She comes along.

Speaker 22 In fall of 2008, Dee Dee goes to this small business conference where she meets the realtor who sold Abraham his $1 million mansion.

Speaker 10 And she thought it would be cool to write a book about his life.

Speaker 3 Didi is introduced to Abraham and he agrees to let her profile him.

Speaker 30 She wanted to sit down and interview us for her book.

Speaker 41 Didi Moore seemed like she was a very professional woman. She was in a suit and heels and hose and everything and said that she owned a company, American Medical Professionals.

Speaker 10 Didi Moore is a self-made businesswoman, a very successful businesswoman with a medical staffing company.

Speaker 3 And the more time Dee Dee spent around Abe, the more involved she became, not just as an author, but also as an advisor.

Speaker 16 She learns that he has all this money out there in the community. She said, You need a financial advisor.
You need some financial help. I am an expert at that.
The next thing you know, Dee Dee

Speaker 16 is

Speaker 16 Abraham Shakespeare's sidekick and his emissary who goes around to collect money.

Speaker 7 She had her own money. She didn't need his money.
And that became a trust factor for him.

Speaker 5 He's like, you know, she has her own business. She, you know, know how to run things.
She going to help me with my LLCs.

Speaker 3 Dee De wasn't just helping Abe with his money. She also started recording their conversations, capturing these behind-the-scene moments where even with her help, he still appeared to be fed up.

Speaker 42 Do you get tired of people asking you for money all the time, babe? Give me your opinion on it.

Speaker 10 All of a sudden, things go silent and nobody knows where Abraham Shakespeare is.

Speaker 5 None of his children had heard from him. His mother hadn't heard from him.
Nobody had heard from him.

Speaker 3 And just like that, Abraham Shakespeare disappeared. No calls, no goodbyes, not not a word to the people he loved.
It was like he vanished into thin air.

Speaker 3 Abraham Shakespeare seems determined to shake that lottery curse, especially after his generosity cost him almost all of his jackpot millions. Now he's fighting to get his finances back under control.

Speaker 10 Everything was well, and then it got quiet all of a sudden.

Speaker 16 In April of 2009, there's a stir going on in the community about nobody having seen Abraham Shakespeare in a while.

Speaker 16 A little buzz at first, and then it gets louder and louder and louder and becomes a thing.

Speaker 11 People start to talk, hey, have you heard from Abe?

Speaker 5 No, I haven't heard from him. Have you seen him? No, I haven't seen him either.
And that kind of started to snowball when everybody started to realize, you know what, I haven't heard from him either.

Speaker 3 And so at what point did you notice that Abe might have gone missing?

Speaker 7 When I would call, he would always answer me or respond back. And when I didn't get that, then it began to make, you know what I mean, somewhat of a red flag.

Speaker 3 There was this widespread speculation around Lakeland that Abe finally just got fed up with all these people thinking that he should share his fortune with everyone.

Speaker 3 And as a result, he decided to skip town.

Speaker 10 It was common knowledge that Abraham said that he got tired of people asking him for money.

Speaker 9 I really would like my old life back where I could walk the streets like a normal person.

Speaker 5 When nobody seen him for the first couple months we were like okay you know he did say that he was gonna go away for a while and just let things you know kind of die down and chill and then he was gonna come back.

Speaker 3 And friends say Abe had a very good reason not to skip town for good.

Speaker 3 Even though Abe and Centoria at this point were no longer living together, Centoria says Abe was still a devoted father to their son Jeremiah.

Speaker 8 He was just like so excited about being a father and he would take a picture every day.

Speaker 3 Finally, in November of 2009, almost six months since Abe disappeared, Abe's cousin, Cedric Edom, decides to file a missing persons report at the Polk County Sheriff's Office.

Speaker 13 Abraham's cousin Cedric Edom reported him missing to our missing persons unit and that's where the whole investigation started.

Speaker 3 But the investigation gets off to a slow start. Lots of people are still convinced that there's an innocent explanation for Abe's disappearance.

Speaker 13 A lot of people said, well, I don't think he's missing.

Speaker 3 I think he took his money and wants to get away from all this one of ape's friends judy hagins even told the police abe had mentioned leaving the country

Speaker 36 did he ever discuss any intricate plans with you that hey i'm gonna disappear and nobody's ever gonna see me again and he did what was that about something uh he he he really wanted to move to jamaica

Speaker 14 still

Speaker 3 There was an aspect of Abe's disappearance that puzzled some of his friends and family members.

Speaker 3 All of a sudden, they started receiving these random text messages from him.

Speaker 16 All of these people that Abraham would normally just pick on the phone and talk to or stop by to see were getting text messages.

Speaker 3 So at this point, there are a bunch of people coming out of the woodwork who are saying that they've heard from me. Right.

Speaker 4 I got a text at one point.

Speaker 3 What did that text say? He was just...

Speaker 7 He was out and just didn't want to be bothered.

Speaker 3 And the mother of his child.

Speaker 13 Centoria, she received a text message saying he was going on vacation and leaving her for another woman.

Speaker 8 I'm texting Abraham and I'm getting texts back. Oh, I'm leaving you for this woman and we're going to the Bahamas.

Speaker 5 I got a reply from his number.

Speaker 10 And the reply was,

Speaker 5 don't, I don't need nobody filing no missing person's report on me.

Speaker 27 I'm fine.

Speaker 3 But Ashley and others close to Abe say they had some serious doubts about whether he was actually the person sending those texts, even though they were coming from his phone.

Speaker 5 I knew that wasn't my cousin. This is not Abraham texting me.

Speaker 3 There's no way that he could have constructed those text messages because Abraham Shakespeare could barely read and write.

Speaker 3 In fact, his cousin, Ashley McMillan, used to read him the greeting cards here at this Walgreens where she used to work.

Speaker 5 Before he won the lottery, he was always buying Hallmark cards. He He was like, Hey, can you come read this card to me? I need something that conveys like empathy or sympathy.

Speaker 5 I asked him one time, I was like, Why can't you just read the card? And he looked at me dead square in the face and was like, I cannot read.

Speaker 10 It was so suspicious as people were getting text messages because he couldn't read or write. And if it wasn't Abraham,

Speaker 10 who were the text messages coming from?

Speaker 13 That was one of the biggest hurdles we had in the beginning of the case was nailing down when the last time

Speaker 13 not only was Abraham seen,

Speaker 13 but when someone physically and actually talked to him on the phone.

Speaker 3 So this case is such a mess that in the beginning, you don't even have a starting point.

Speaker 13 Every time we would talk to someone, they had heard something different. It just seemed like every story was leading back to Dee Dee Moore.

Speaker 13 And so we're just like, okay, we've got to talk to Dee Dee Moore because this lady Dee Dee is associated to every story that we're being told.

Speaker 3 For Abe's friends and family, it makes sense that if anyone knows where he is, it would be Dee Dee. I mean, after all, she has been working closely with him to get his finances in order.

Speaker 10 As their friendship began to blossom, Abraham and Dee Dee Moore hung out quite a bit. She became a major asset to him by helping Abraham collect on money that was owed to him.

Speaker 16 Everybody was very uncertain. Dee Dee had an answer.

Speaker 22 When police interviewed Dee Dee about Abraham's whereabouts, she says nothing's wrong. In fact, I'm in constant contact with him.

Speaker 13 Her statement was that she talks to him all the time. If we wanted to see him, she would make sure that she brought him to us.

Speaker 13 So she sends him a text message in front of us and says, Abraham, call me, please call me. We wait a little bit and nothing.

Speaker 13 And she's like, well, I'll call you in the morning as soon as we hear from him. We'll set up a meeting.
So we left.

Speaker 3 Although Dee Dee can't actually connect police with Abe on the phone, she is able to show them that video that she'd taken of Abe where he says he wants to skip town.

Speaker 42 So, where do you want to go to?

Speaker 9 It don't matter to me.

Speaker 20 I'm not a picket person.

Speaker 42 Are you going to miss your home?

Speaker 9 Yep, I miss it, but life goes on.

Speaker 3 Weeks go by, and there's no word from him, and suspicion begins to mount.

Speaker 3 But then, this startling development. Out of the blue, Abe's mother, Elizabeth Walker, is having dinner at a cracker barrel, and

Speaker 16 Elizabeth's phone rings,

Speaker 16 and she opens her phone

Speaker 16 and sees it's Abraham calling. And she said, Oh my god, it's Abraham.

Speaker 3 Abraham Shakespeare is reported missing on November 9th. Most of his friends and family say they have not seen him or heard his voice since April.

Speaker 3 Is there a chance at this point in the investigation that Abe Shakespeare might just turn up somewhere?

Speaker 13 I think we thought that was a real true possibility.

Speaker 13 Once we put him in the national databases missing, we got calls from all over the United States and some of them with super confidence that it was Abraham.

Speaker 23 It wasn't him, but we had to deal with a lot of that.

Speaker 22 With all of these empty leads, investigators are now looking at other angles.

Speaker 45 So there's a whole pool of potential individuals that you could look at with some sort of motive.

Speaker 45 if his disappearance did result in foul play.

Speaker 31 We certainly hope Abraham's alive and well, and he has successfully hidden himself away. But our investigation doesn't lead us to believe that at this time.

Speaker 3 At this point, detectives are not only concerned that lottery winner Abe Shakespeare might be missing, they're concerned he might be dead.

Speaker 3 So how many people in Polk County owed Abe Shakespeare money?

Speaker 13 Over 20, maybe close to 40.

Speaker 3 And so some of them would probably not be so upset if he never appeared again.

Speaker 13 That was the problem, is that there was a lot of people that owed him money.

Speaker 3 But investigators aren't particularly interested in a man who had claimed that Abe owed him something.

Speaker 37 Presiding, please be seated, ladies and gentlemen. Again, if you have a cell phone.

Speaker 13 Michael Ford lost a lawsuit to him, claimed the winning lottery ticket was his. went all the way to a trial.

Speaker 22 He's probably pissed off.

Speaker 3 $30 million of upset.

Speaker 3 michael we're up here talking to you about abraham shakespeare how do you know that name because i went to trial with him for a lot or two

Speaker 44 okay and at no time did you did you see abraham shakespeare while you were in no south florida and just for the record you didn't in any way harm hurt or cause mr shakespeare to be missing at this time did you no sir We actually pulled his phone records to confirm that where he was and he was in Georgia.

Speaker 13 I mean, we looked at him that hard, but it was more of an elimination thing.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 10 I met Dee Dee Moore over the phone for the first time.

Speaker 10 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Dee Dee tells them that at the time Abe disappeared, most of his lottery jackpot was long gone.

Speaker 45 And he didn't have any money left, really.

Speaker 47 Right, except for what he was collecting, little,

Speaker 47 the, you know, the regular little loans. If either were paying them back, that's what he was living off of, because everything else was froze.
Because all his other money was tied up.

Speaker 10 She said everybody else was taking advantage of him, but not her, because she had her own money.

Speaker 47 That's the kind of person I am.

Speaker 48 If you ask my family and my friends, I've been that way my whole life.

Speaker 23 I always helped people.

Speaker 3 During that three-hour interview, Didi now tells a different story.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 47 And so he was very upset and adamant that he would rather spend $179 days in prison if they find him. than to pay her anything.

Speaker 8 There was never a plan to go to court to get child support. I never attempted to go to court to get child support.
That was the end of the story.

Speaker 10 So during the interview, we played good cop, bad cop, and I was the bad cop. I was the one asking the hard questions of Dee Dee Moore.

Speaker 16 Where is Abraham?

Speaker 16 Well,

Speaker 48 Abraham

Speaker 49 is

Speaker 47 knows he was supposed to go for contempt of child support. Okay?

Speaker 47 And we...

Speaker 47 Where is Abe? I do not know.

Speaker 47 And I told the cops this: I do not know his address. I didn't want to know because of the fact that we knew he would have a warrant out for his arrest.

Speaker 3 That interview with Didi Moore at The Ledger ends without any new information regarding Abe's whereabouts.

Speaker 3 But then a month and a half after he was reported missing, there's a surprising turn of events involving Abe's mother, Elizabeth Walker.

Speaker 16 Didi

Speaker 16 befriended her,

Speaker 16 and they're having dinner together one night. The phone rings

Speaker 16 and it's Abraham.

Speaker 10 Hi mom, I love you.

Speaker 16 Oh baby, I miss you. Where are you? I can't hear you.
It's so loud. I can't really hear you, but I'll be home soon.

Speaker 17 I love you.

Speaker 16 I love you too. And that's the end of the call.
Dee Dee says, oh my God, you know, he called you. See, he's okay.
And

Speaker 16 Miss Walker appears to feel

Speaker 39 be relieved, but

Speaker 16 not quite sure,

Speaker 16 because Abraham sounded different.

Speaker 3 Abe's mom is suspicious.

Speaker 13 She was suspicious, didn't think it sounded like her son, but in the back of her mind, maybe he really does have a cold, maybe he's really sick.

Speaker 3 Turns out the police are able to trace that phone call, and it leads them not to Abraham Shakespeare alive and well, but to a very different person.

Speaker 13 We had that 30-day location tracker on the phone, so we pulled it up and it's at the Lakeland Mall.

Speaker 3 Will that phone call help cops unravel the mystery of what really happened to Abe Shakespeare?

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Speaker 54 Is there any way you can get out of the building? I don't know without waking him.

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Speaker 3 Three weeks after Abe Shakespeare's disappearance is reported to police, the full attention of investigators is now on Dee Dee Moore.

Speaker 3 She was supposed to have been his financial savior, but they've discovered that she has taken over his lottery fortune.

Speaker 44 What did you see when you looked into his finances?

Speaker 13 Abraham didn't have access to a penny of his money. Dee Dee had not only taken over all of his banking accounts, she had transferred money out of the banking accounts.

Speaker 29 Didi

Speaker 16 tells Abraham that for his benefit, he needs to sign over his assets

Speaker 16 and so that she can have control of those assets that's the way she can protect him from anybody coming after him for any money

Speaker 10 she was now living in his house

Speaker 10 I couldn't believe it I'm like what would make her want to live in this man's house

Speaker 13 Once we were going deep into the investigation, we tried to find out everything we could about Dee Dee and we found out, you know, she wasn't who she portrayed herself to be.

Speaker 22 Dee Dee Moore's got a checkered past. She's been in trouble with the law before.
She's no angel.

Speaker 3 After graduating from Plant City High School in Florida, Dee Dee was eventually able to start up that medical staffing company. But she had her share of run-ins with the law.

Speaker 3 a no-contest plea for petty theft in 1999 and a guilty plea for check fraud back in 2002.

Speaker 3 There was also one incident where she falsely claimed she was carjacked after falling behind on her vehicle payments.

Speaker 16 So she drives the SUV

Speaker 16 down a dark country road one night and

Speaker 16 two Latino men, this is her story,

Speaker 17 hijack

Speaker 19 her

Speaker 16 SUV,

Speaker 16 tie her up, rape her, beat her, and throw her on the side of the road, and take off with the SUV.

Speaker 16 Long story short, she had hired these guys

Speaker 6 to take the car and hide the vehicle from everybody.

Speaker 3 Dee Dee was convicted of insurance fraud.

Speaker 3 And that background raises a lot of eyebrows among detectives investigating Abe Shakespeare's disappearance.

Speaker 45 She definitely has the ability to manipulate, to lie, to concoct stories and so forth.

Speaker 13 We were really convinced that Dee Dee definitely had more information and we wanted to push some buttons with Dee Dee.

Speaker 3 So police pressed Didi for answers about how she's taken over Ape's finances.

Speaker 19 You are in essence Abraham, correct? Yes. But my point in all of this is all of these people, plus all of the real estate

Speaker 19 comes up to how much but you've got no no no comes up to how much Dee Dee

Speaker 19 comes up to how much so okay so I've I've done the rough math okay it comes up to almost three and a half million dollars okay if I'm guilty of anything I'm guilty of helping him avoid child support I'm not worried about any of that

Speaker 3 investigators may have their suspicions about Dee Dee but what they don't have is any hard evidence tying her to Abe's disappearance

Speaker 3 meanwhile Dee Dee turns to the media to plead her side of the story.

Speaker 45 Because of these people.

Speaker 23 I want this out of my life.

Speaker 47 And I feel sorry for Abraham.

Speaker 47 But I, I'm, I, I,

Speaker 47 it has hardened my heart.

Speaker 55 I don't know if I'll ever help anybody out anymore.

Speaker 3 Then eight and a half months after Abe's disappearance and just a couple of days after Christmas, there's a development that sends this case in a dramatic new direction.

Speaker 16 The thing that really turns the case was when Elizabeth Walker got that call from her long-missing son. Didi Moore was at dinner with Elizabeth Walker when Abraham called.

Speaker 13 Abraham's mother called me and she's like, Detective Clark, Abraham called me and told me Merry Christmas and that he's okay.

Speaker 29 But she said, it didn't really sound like my son.

Speaker 13 And I said, what number did that call come from? And she's like, it said private.

Speaker 32 It didn't take long for them to look at phone records.

Speaker 3 Investigators quickly learned 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 13 And then in drives Dee Dee.

Speaker 13 It's like a gift from God dropped to us.

Speaker 43 Crazy.

Speaker 13 We watch her get out, meet with this guy

Speaker 13 hand him a waddie cash

Speaker 13 and this was just you know stink in the high heavens they talk for a minute she gets in her car and um 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

Speaker 45 We go to stop the car.

Speaker 13 So I just jump out, I go to the guy, and 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.

Speaker 11 And he goes, well, I guess I'm coming with you.

Speaker 3 The man in the car, the man who got the cash from Didi 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.

Speaker 24 Do you know Didi more? That's what he asked me.

Speaker 27 Now I'm thinking to myself, Lord, geez, what is going on?

Speaker 24 Did you make a phone call to Abraham's mother?

Speaker 26 I say, yeah.

Speaker 24 Well, I make the phone call to his mother, pretending to be Abraham.

Speaker 27 I'm supposed to mimic his voice and the way he talked, best I can, and tell his mom that I'm okay.

Speaker 16 Said she's going to pay me $350.

Speaker 16 I didn't feel right about it, but I thought I was helping Miss Walker feel better

Speaker 16 because she's been worried about her son. Greg told them then, I think that Abraham is dead.
They said, we think so too.

Speaker 16 And they said, you know, we need you to keep meeting with Dee Dee because we think she has something to do with this. And we need you to work for us.

Speaker 27 And I'm thinking to myself, man,

Speaker 27 when I needed this man, this man stepped in and helped me.

Speaker 3 And the reality of what's at stake sinks in for Greg Smith.

Speaker 26 The light click on, okay, she actually

Speaker 27 is under investigation for killing Abraham Shakespeare.

Speaker 4 I was like, you know, I'll do what I can.

Speaker 3 And so begins an elaborate plot to take down Dee Dee Moore and prove her involvement in Abraham Shakespeare's disappearance.

Speaker 3 Now, this is going to involve not only an undercover sting, a can of Red Bull, but also a discovery made right in this yard.

Speaker 3 For Abraham Shakespeare, the good news is you've won the lottery. That's also the bad news.

Speaker 24 As of this time,

Speaker 57 we don't know the whereabouts of Abraham Shakespeare.

Speaker 3 Detectives are not only concerned that Abe Shakespeare might be missing, they're concerned he might be dead.

Speaker 23 We've got to talk to Dee Dee Moore because everybody is bringing her name up.

Speaker 13 Whatever story they had, everything just kept circling back.

Speaker 29 They're saying that I took a gun and killed another human being.

Speaker 16 But they need, they need the evidence.

Speaker 59 I guarantee you, Ronald has killed him.

Speaker 13 We're like, Ronald, we've never heard of a Ronald.

Speaker 43 She kept saying, Ronald killed me.

Speaker 4 Ronald shot me.

Speaker 3 Why are you laughing? Because a man is dead. He's been murdered.

Speaker 11 I liked Big Emouse. Donald died.

Speaker 48 There are so many things that prove my innocence.

Speaker 3 Do you understand how listening to you is bewildering?

Speaker 48 Well, do you understand how listening to you is just it sounds like a bunch of stupidity?

Speaker 18 Hello, Florida. It's Wednesday, November 15th.
And you're at ninth winning number.

Speaker 13 Abraham Shakespeare won $31 million in the Florida lottery going from rags to riches.

Speaker 3 But as happens to so many lottery winners, Abe is besieged by people asking him for some of that cash.

Speaker 9 I really would like my old life back where I could walk the streets like a normal person, but got people coming coming up asking for money.

Speaker 7 Everybody feels that's their opportunity to get paid.

Speaker 10 But then he suddenly disappears.

Speaker 29 But no one has seen Shakespeare, including his mother, who's beginning to think the Lotto Prize may have been a curse.

Speaker 16 Yeah, I'm just hoping to hear something.

Speaker 22 There is contact. Family and friends receive text messages from Abraham.
In fact, his own mother gets a phone call from Abraham.

Speaker 16 I answered the phone. I said, hello.

Speaker 10 Upon further investigation, detectives learn that the voice was Greg Smith, the owner of the barbershop where Abraham would work.

Speaker 26 I was like, mom,

Speaker 26 how you doing,

Speaker 27 this Abraham?

Speaker 3 Greg claims he faked that call at the request of a woman named Dee Dee Moore, who was helping Abe with his finances, and the police start investigating her.

Speaker 22 Despite running a legitimate business, Dee Dee Moore has a checkered past.

Speaker 15 She's been in trouble with the law before.

Speaker 10 Greg decides he does not want to go to jail, so he helps investigators with their case. And one way that he does it is by becoming a confidential informant.

Speaker 27 I didn't set a plan out to go catch up. I just told him I'd see what I could do.

Speaker 34 I'm talking to, getting ready to talk to Dee Dee.

Speaker 3 She's getting in the car now.

Speaker 3 When I interviewed Greg Smith back in 2012, he showed me how he secretly recorded conversations with her using something he called a catch can, which he invented himself.

Speaker 3 It's a red bull can. Look at that thing.

Speaker 3 I would figure out how it opens even.

Speaker 27 It actually separates in between.

Speaker 13 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 40 Wow.

Speaker 3 That's brilliant.

Speaker 27 That's the Dee Dee Moore catch can.

Speaker 44 I worked undercover narcotics for eight years and I wouldn't have came up with this. Almost all of the meetings were in a car.
Here it is sitting in front of her. She doesn't even know it's there.

Speaker 3 Well, they'll never know about you anyway.

Speaker 31 I never give you up.

Speaker 34 You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 19 And third.

Speaker 14 Man,

Speaker 34 I'm so deep in it with you right now. If you go down, I go down right now.

Speaker 15 It was ingenious, but he even took it a step further. He would be smoking small cigars as they talked so that she wouldn't get suspicious.

Speaker 15 He would make it a point to flick ashes ashes on or into the can as they were talking.

Speaker 13 Pretty simple trick, but it worked good and it gave us a good recording of the car.

Speaker 48 I just need some time to get freaking Abraham by.

Speaker 3 Dee Dee is recorded telling Greg that Abe is alive.

Speaker 3 After she had asked Greg to make that fake call to Abe's mom, Dee Dee now asks him to call someone else to continue spreading the news that Abe is okay.

Speaker 3 Should I say that?

Speaker 34 He talked to his mom?

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 34 Yeah, see,

Speaker 34 that's going to make it more convincing.

Speaker 56 But he told her if she tells anybody, he'll never call back.

Speaker 56 You make sure you say that. That sounds a little bit more.

Speaker 56 Say that if she tells anybody,

Speaker 56 Abraham told her he would never call back.

Speaker 26 What's up, Diddy?

Speaker 3 Greg later reports back to her that the call went well.

Speaker 25 You tell him, yeah, he's still living.

Speaker 14 I said, yeah, he's still living. I say, if anybody wants to know if he's still living yeah he's still living.

Speaker 10 At one point the investigation moves to a local hotel where Dee De Moore and Greg Smith meet.

Speaker 3 So Dee Dee and Greg go to the hotel to follow up that fake phone call with a fake letter?

Speaker 13 Yes they did.

Speaker 43 Dee grooms is expensive.

Speaker 13 We're listening as they're in the hotel.

Speaker 15 That's not the same laptop you had.

Speaker 33 You went and bought that today?

Speaker 16 Here comes a brand new laptop and a brand new printer. But she is very paranoid now about leaving any traces that can be taken back to her.

Speaker 13 So she's dressed in full hospital gown, gloves, face mask, hair, so that while she's typing, that none of her DNA gets on the paper or gets on the envelope or anything.

Speaker 16 She is determined you will not find any Dee Dee Moore Moore DNA here.

Speaker 59 Should I put,

Speaker 59 should I put it? I don't want you to show this letter to the cops.

Speaker 4 I just want them, you to tell them that it was me.

Speaker 3 They spent about two hours composing this letter to Abe's mother with Greg offering suggestions to Dee Dee about how Abe would actually talk.

Speaker 13 And we're down there laughing because Greg's like, no, maybe you should say bro instead of brother.

Speaker 34 If I had to take this letter, and I had to read this letter, and I had to understand this letter,

Speaker 34 the letter is

Speaker 34 convincing to me.

Speaker 34 It couldn't have came from you.

Speaker 44 How do you do it to anybody, but how do you do it to a 70 plus year old woman who hasn't seen her son in months? I mean devious, manipulative,

Speaker 12 evil.

Speaker 13 He puts it in the mailbox, he leaves, I take the letter out of the mailbox and put it in evidence.

Speaker 3 Remember, those close to Abe knew that he could barely read or write. I mean, this is a copy of the letter.
And for a guy who, even though his name was Shakespeare, I mean, he didn't write.

Speaker 3 This is like six or seven pages. Exactly.

Speaker 3 I only wrote you just in case you really worry, just in case you can't keep this to yourself and you're really worried about me. Here's a Christmas present to you.

Speaker 16 The letter...

Speaker 16 is more like a treatise about everything that Abraham would be trying to explain to his mother about why he went away and what hassle he went through once he got all the money and how sometimes he wishes he didn't have all this money but that he's doing okay and he's trying to stay away and get his life together.

Speaker 16 I mean it went on and on and on for pages.

Speaker 3 But what De De Moore does next will remove all doubt Abraham Shakespeare is not okay at all.

Speaker 34 With a buddy, I can do a plea deal with him.

Speaker 49 What do you want?

Speaker 43 50 grand.

Speaker 49 If you do this, you're going to be a very popular person. You're going to be a legend.

Speaker 16 By this point, all of the law enforcement officers' instincts are firing on Code Red.

Speaker 16 They feel that Didi Moore knew what happened to Abraham Shakespeare. What they need.
They need the evidence.

Speaker 3 So at one point, you ask the sheriff to hold a press conference.

Speaker 24 As of this time,

Speaker 57 we don't know the whereabouts of Abraham Shakespeare.

Speaker 3 And at that point, the sheriff says, hey, we think that Abe Shakespeare may have been met with foul play.

Speaker 57 We suspect that he's met an untimely death.

Speaker 3 He also names Dee Dee Moore as a person of interest.

Speaker 57 I must tell you, folks, that certainly it is fair to call Dee Dee Moore a person of interest.

Speaker 10 After that press conference I believe she felt the walls closing in on her.

Speaker 13 So immediately she calls Greg Smith. We've got to do something.
Did you see what Sheriff Judge saying about me?

Speaker 3 And that's when the next phase of the case begins, convincing Dee Dee that if Abe is actually dead to admit what really happened.

Speaker 16 They come up with this idea that they will get a a fall guy who will say, you know, I'll take the blame and say that I killed Abraham Shakespeare.

Speaker 13 We call a guy named Mike Smith. I mean, he's just a very large, intimidating fella and one of the best undercover guys I've ever worked with.

Speaker 16 And his last name happened to be Smith, the same as Greg Smith, and they pretended to be cousins.

Speaker 13 So we tell Greg, we just want you to tell her that you have a cousin that's going to prison.

Speaker 13 If there happens to be something wrong with Abe, I bet for a right amount of money, he'll take a murder rap.

Speaker 38 And I said, I know somebody. I know somebody.
I got a cousin going to do 25 years that'll take that rap.

Speaker 24 Yeah, I got somebody.

Speaker 34 Here's the deal.

Speaker 25 I went and talked to him.

Speaker 27 He said, okay,

Speaker 27 I'll do this.

Speaker 59 When can I talk, though?

Speaker 13 She reacted way more than we expected. She immediately says, I want to meet him.

Speaker 15 I want to meet him as soon as possible.

Speaker 3 So soon after, they arrange a face-to-face meeting in another parking lot in Lakeland.

Speaker 4 If I pulled in right about this area here.

Speaker 25 Okay. And park.

Speaker 4 She comes over. He jumps in the back seat.
She jumps in the front.

Speaker 34 Hello. Hello.

Speaker 34 All right. This is my baby right here.

Speaker 19 You got to take care of her, brother.

Speaker 4 He introduces us.

Speaker 4 We talk small talk briefly for a couple minutes.

Speaker 3 Who does she think that you are at this point?

Speaker 4 At that point, Greg had sold a story to her that I was a drug dealer. I was just a drug dealer.
He knew I was just a drug dealer.

Speaker 4 They got busted by the fish that was going away that was willing to take the rap.

Speaker 49 Yeah, I'm in over my head.

Speaker 19 I've never been through nothing like this in my life.

Speaker 13 The meeting is taking place in a undercover vehicle that we had equipped with listening devices and recording devices.

Speaker 3 And what was Dee Dee's demeanor like in the car? Was she twitchy? Do you think she was.

Speaker 4 She was all chipper, just normal. I believe the question was, why would you take the rap?

Speaker 49 Why would you do that, though, for me?

Speaker 34 I'm going anyhow.

Speaker 34 I'm going anyhow.

Speaker 49 Well, I can tell you, if you do this, you're going to be a very popular person.

Speaker 56 You're going to be a legend and probably on the Oprah show.

Speaker 4 When I told her, I said, I got busted by the feds, man. I'm not going to do 25 years.
I need the money to lead to my baby mom so she can take care of my child.

Speaker 49 What do you want?

Speaker 43 50 grand.

Speaker 19 Okay.

Speaker 56 Can I do it in payments?

Speaker 49 Because I don't have that kind of cash.

Speaker 59 I'm going to have to sell some.

Speaker 59 I'm going to need 10 up front.

Speaker 34 Once I do this, make sure my boy get the money.

Speaker 25 Okay.

Speaker 3 But that's not enough. You feel like you need more out of her.

Speaker 4 I feel like I needed more out of her. I feel like we needed a body.

Speaker 34 Like I said, I'm going to need a body. Probably can get the plea deal with them.
Because they're definitely going to want the f ⁇ ing body.

Speaker 19 Okay.

Speaker 13 And then Mike tells her, wherever the body is, I want to move it because if I'm going to confess to this, I'm going to make it my own. And she brings up, there's a guy named Ronald, a drug dealer.

Speaker 59 If you take the wrap, he is not going to show up. But I guarantee you, Ronald has killed him.
I just know it.

Speaker 13 We're like, Ronald, we've never heard of a Ronald.

Speaker 34 And Ronald's the one he owe the money to?

Speaker 59 Yeah, they were doing a drug deal. No, I think Ronald killed him for the money Abraham had on him.
Abraham had a ton of cash on him, like the tune of 800,000.

Speaker 3 this is a huge development whoever Ronald is Didi has just admitted for the first time that she knows that Abe is dead

Speaker 13 that's the biggest moment of the case that's where we know 100% he's dead I mean for us couldn't have been a bigger moment than that right there

Speaker 4 she kept saying Ronald killed him

Speaker 4 Ronald shot him I said well where's the body Didi

Speaker 34 you get what Ronald asked and Ronald can tell me, tell us the body at. That way, when I peep, my ma peep there,

Speaker 34 I can tell him the body is right here and they will dig him up.

Speaker 3 Okay. And they'll have a body.

Speaker 34 Okay. Get with Ronald.
Find what we need to know. Okay.
Collar back at my boy.

Speaker 38 Okay. I'll do it.

Speaker 19 All right.

Speaker 12 Thank you.

Speaker 25 All right. It was nice meeting you.

Speaker 13 The next morning, Dee Dee call Greg and says, we need to meet and make it quick.

Speaker 3 Dee D De wants Mike Smith to be able to confess as soon as possible so that the investigators will stop looking at her.

Speaker 13 He goes and meets Dee Dee and Dee Dee hands him a towel.

Speaker 13 There's something wrapped in the towel and she tells him this is the gun that you've used to kill Abraham.

Speaker 25 We're gonna grind

Speaker 24 Then we put his handprints on it and we'll put it somewhere.

Speaker 3 So she handed over her gun to you. Exactly.
She trusted you that much that she handed you the murder weapon.

Speaker 31 Exactly.

Speaker 13 She asked him to meet him back at the same spot later in the night. She would show him exactly where the body was.

Speaker 34 This is the perfect time.

Speaker 15 We'll call me in Plant City. Yeah.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 27 We set it up for her to take me.

Speaker 3 to the body now.

Speaker 34 Just like I think the body's still on that property. We're moving the body tonight.

Speaker 3 Dee Dee thinks that once Greg and his cousin dig up the body, she's going to be home free. But she has no idea what is actually about to happen next.

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Speaker 3 Not long after Didi meets with the man who she believes will take the rap for killing Abe Shakespeare, she's driving along this road with Greg Smith, heading to a property she owns on the outskirts of Lakeland.

Speaker 26 So Highway 60 is considered a rural area of Hillsborough County.

Speaker 45 There's a lot of tomato fields, strawberry farms, and so forth.

Speaker 16 You feel like you're in the country.

Speaker 16 Dee Dee's property has two wrench-style houses that are several yards apart.

Speaker 33 They parked over in this house.

Speaker 13 We're just kind of on the side of the road with our lights off.

Speaker 37 She walks Greg right here.

Speaker 13 There was a 30-foot by 30-foot concrete slab.

Speaker 3 Concrete slab in the middle of a field. Yep.

Speaker 13 And she takes a piece of angle iron and sticks it in the corner of the slab and sticks it down in there and says, dig.

Speaker 13 Abraham's body is right there.

Speaker 19 It's right there.

Speaker 12 It'll be lying for... It'll be lying for Daniel.

Speaker 3 And you're listening to this. You guys must be just going nuts at this point.

Speaker 13 I think once we heard that, we both look at each other and go, wow, let's just hope this isn't another Dee Dee spin or scam on things.

Speaker 45 We didn't know if we actually had the body down there or not.

Speaker 3 As authorities begin this arduous work to uncover what's below ground,

Speaker 3 they simultaneously set up their next tactic for Dee Dee. A few hours later, investigators have Greg call her again.

Speaker 3 He says, there's a big problem. When we went to dig up the body, the place was swarming with cops.

Speaker 3 Dee Dee's response, meet me at the mall.

Speaker 33 Greg and Dee Dee then meet when all of a sudden, boom, the cops pull up.

Speaker 16 They jump out and they bust Greg.

Speaker 13 I'm sure she's thinking that we're arresting Greg for the murder of Abraham. So she's composed and says she wants to come back and talk to us and let us know some things.

Speaker 3 Okay, so you get her in here.

Speaker 3 That's you.

Speaker 13 That's me.

Speaker 43 Okay,

Speaker 43 who is this guy?

Speaker 46 Gregory Smith. Gregory Smith.
That's who I know him as.

Speaker 43 Okay. Abraham introduced you to him.

Speaker 13 She first says, Hey, I'm glad y'all got that guy, Greg. I think that he's done something to Abraham.

Speaker 59 Find out what he knows, because he knows David and Abraham's app.

Speaker 13 And so I let her go on for a few minutes and I said, look, Dee Dee, I got some bad news for you.

Speaker 12 I think you know where I'm going with this, Dee Dee.

Speaker 13 The gig is up.

Speaker 19 Okay?

Speaker 29 The gig is up.

Speaker 4 Listen, everything that you've told him, everything you've done,

Speaker 46 everything

Speaker 46 is recorded, Dee Dee. Everything is recorded.

Speaker 3 Finally, you see her demeanor change.

Speaker 28 She's her head on her hand.

Speaker 5 We talk to him 10 times a day.

Speaker 46 We know every move you make.

Speaker 3 We know everything.

Speaker 44 Dee Dee Moore is caught pretty much red-handed.

Speaker 46 I want a deal and I won't give you the person's name.

Speaker 16 Dee Dee at various times blamed everybody under the sun for killing Abraham.

Speaker 19 He gave me the name of the person he did.

Speaker 13 And here she goes into the whole Ronald, some random drug dealing guy.

Speaker 49 I honestly don't know the guy's name.

Speaker 46 I know him by Ronald.

Speaker 3 So it's Greg Smith, it's Ronald, it's Mike Smith, the undercover.

Speaker 13 Undercover, it's her son, it's Cedric Edom.

Speaker 3 Everybody else.

Speaker 10 Crazy, crazy.

Speaker 3 Police say there is zero evidence that any of those people were actually involved.

Speaker 13 Didi you've said so many things you can't even keep your head straight.

Speaker 30 Okay, well, listen, listen.

Speaker 13 Who shot Abraham?

Speaker 19 You know. know who shot? No, no, no.

Speaker 19 Who shot Abraham? You know, who shot him?

Speaker 10 Authorities allow her to leave because without a body, they didn't have a case to arrest her.

Speaker 3 Meantime, back at Dee Dee's property in Plant City, a team has assembled to attempt to find the evidence they need to actually arrest her.

Speaker 45 We're talking probably 30, maybe 40 folks.

Speaker 26 This is definitely not a run-of-the-mill scene.

Speaker 45 The concrete slab was like a 900-square-foot tombstone.

Speaker 13 We've got a 30 by 30, 9-inch thick concrete slab that we've got to bust up.

Speaker 10 On day one, there was nothing found. They kept digging.
and digging.

Speaker 44 This is a painstaking task. This is two inches at a time, sifting through everything.

Speaker 3 This was almost an archaeological dig here.

Speaker 13 It was. I mean every quadrant, everything, just so we didn't miss anything.

Speaker 45 And at a point once we could hit about nine feet, we started to uncover what appeared to be human remains.

Speaker 13 You were able to look at this corpse and you knew it was Abraham. You didn't need DNA.
Fingerprints. I didn't need DNA.
I mean of course we did that, but I looked and there's Abraham.

Speaker 63 Investigators from Polk and Hillsborough counties announced announced a discovery tonight.

Speaker 21 We have recovered human remains.

Speaker 16 The media was doing a stakeout to try to get reaction from Dee Dee. And she drives by in a truck, rolls her window down.

Speaker 8 I'm only coming out because the media will not leave.

Speaker 16 And it develops into kind of an impromptu news conference.

Speaker 58 They're saying that I took a gun, put it up, and killed another human being, and it would never, ever do that.

Speaker 3 But the very next day.

Speaker 29 Hey, Didi, they're calling you a murderer.

Speaker 58 Are you a murderer?

Speaker 37 Doris Dee Dee Moore denied any involvement in Abraham Shakespeare's murder as she was led into a deputy's car tonight.

Speaker 22 It was shocking. Here's someone who was supposed to be helping this guy with his money, and now she's the one charged with his murder.

Speaker 32 By the time we presented to the grand jury, she had provided the murder weapon, the bodies behind one of her houses.

Speaker 31 It's at the bottom of $1 million.

Speaker 32 Didi Moore was indicted for first-degree murder, premeditated murder of Abraham Shakespeare.

Speaker 3 Didi pleads not guilty, and when her trial starts...

Speaker 20 As the now dark-tressed and dressed-in-yellow defendant took copious notes, lawyers from both sides made their opening arguments to the jury of eight men and four women.

Speaker 3 There is one big question. Will a jury believe her defense that she was actually a victim herself of the person she claims killed Abe.

Speaker 3 Six years after Abraham Shakespeare won the Florida lottery, three and a half years after he disappeared, the murder trial of D. D.
Moore is set to begin in this courthouse in Tampa.

Speaker 64 State of Florida versus Doris Donegan Moore.

Speaker 20 This has been a full day packed with the opening statements this morning and then the testimony this afternoon in what promises to be a full of drama trial.

Speaker 32 The public's interest in this case was incredible.

Speaker 64 Prosecutors claim Didi Moore swindled.

Speaker 16 Journalists are always looking for something that is unprecedented.

Speaker 20 Didi's diabolical scheme to steal from then kill lotto winner Abraham Shakespeare or unusual conflict,

Speaker 45 scandal.

Speaker 16 And this had pretty much all of the elements.

Speaker 5 Had an anaphylactic shock.

Speaker 16 of course Dee Dee's behavior in the courtroom

Speaker 16 also helped keep the story going another day another outburst we're not going to go back and forth you need to compose yourself

Speaker 3 the prosecution is out to convince the jury that Dee Dee meticulously planned Abe's murder she conducted a sophisticated campaign to conceal his death by making up stories, by

Speaker 21 sending text messages.

Speaker 22 It don't matter. Prosecutors show the jury video that Dee Dee took of Abraham in the mansion, and it's really the last piece of video of Abraham alive.

Speaker 42 Are you going to miss your home?

Speaker 9 Yep, but I miss it, but life goes on.

Speaker 45 She's setting up her alibi. She was setting up her story.

Speaker 26 She knew that Abraham was confronting her about the lack of funds and the ability to access his money and so forth.

Speaker 26 And it came to a point where in Dee Dee's mind, she's going to have to do something about this.

Speaker 3 Prosecutors believe right after that recording, Dee Dee and Abe traveled to her home in rural Plant City, Florida. And it's there that prosecutors say she shoots him and leaves him until the next day.

Speaker 31 The body's on property she owns.

Speaker 45 The murder happened in.

Speaker 31 her house and with her gun. She admitted she bought the lime that was poured over the body of Abraham Shakespeare.

Speaker 22 Prosecutors show video in court of Dee Dee going to Walmart to buy cleaning supplies.

Speaker 45 She was purchasing bleach and like latex gloves and I think some shovels to help Mike Smith and Greg Smith dig this body out by hand and dispose of it.

Speaker 3 Although Dee Dee has never faced formal charges alleging she stole Abe's money, prosecutors say it was greed that motivated her to kill him.

Speaker 22 Centoria is Abraham's former girlfriend and she tells jurors that Dee Didi told her that she was plotting to take his money.

Speaker 8 She made it sound like she wanted to clean him out.

Speaker 3 Why do you say that?

Speaker 8 Because she wanted to know about all of his assets and she was like, I can help you clean him out.

Speaker 8 It was just

Speaker 8 a level of disgust to just know that this is what such a caring and giving person endured.

Speaker 3 But the prosecutor's star witness is Greg Smith, who takes the stand to deliver some of the most compelling and devastating testimony at the trial so far.

Speaker 16 Greg Smith had been recruited by the sheriff's detectives to become her confidant, and the courtroom was just spellbound by his testimony.

Speaker 14 I'm grown and don't have to come back.

Speaker 32 When Greg Smith read the letter that Didi Moore had composed in the motel room, jurors were on the edge of their seat.

Speaker 28 I've been through a lot, mom.

Speaker 7 You know it.

Speaker 27 You should understand

Speaker 44 more than anyone.

Speaker 26 I just need time.

Speaker 3 The prosecution also asks Greg Smith about that supposed drug dealer who Dee Dee claimed was the one who actually murdered Abe.

Speaker 49 I honestly don't know the guy's name.

Speaker 46 I knew him by Ronald.

Speaker 21 Did Miss Moore address who to blame if you got caught?

Speaker 27 Yes, she was addressing the guy Ronald.

Speaker 27 The imaginary character that she made up.

Speaker 31 Ronald is nothing but a fictional character, a character that she created out of her imagination.

Speaker 16 The defense, such as it was, was primarily based on that old premise that the state's case was all circumstantial, that there was no hard evidence, there were no eyewitnesses.

Speaker 65 The burden of proof is on the state.

Speaker 25 It's a very high burden of proof, proof beyond any reasonable doubt.

Speaker 3 Didi's lawyer tells the jury there's plenty of reasonable doubt here and that there could be many other possible suspects.

Speaker 38 That the drug dealers or killers saw fit to threaten her to keep her mouth shut.

Speaker 65 or else they would harm her and her son.

Speaker 3 The defense argues that Greg Smith could actually have been the mastermind in Abe's murder.

Speaker 65 If you study those tapes, most of the ideas about the fall guy, about where's the body, we've got to find the body, we've got to dig up the body and move it, all those things, if you read or listen to those tapes, it is Mr.

Speaker 65 Smith making those suggestions.

Speaker 32 Gregory Smith has never been a suspect in this murder.

Speaker 3 Mediti's Didi's attorney insists she is innocent, that she's a victim, in fact, powerless against the deadly whims of others.

Speaker 65 This is a desperate, panicked, perhaps emotionally unstable woman trying desperately to find an explanation that can

Speaker 65 salvage her life and her son's life.

Speaker 3 By the end of their case, the defense called zero witnesses and Didi herself never testified on her behalf.

Speaker 39 Tonight, after just three hours of deliberation, a jury handed down their verdict.

Speaker 3 But no matter what the jury decides about her fate, bring the jury in.

Speaker 3 Dee Dee's about to tell us exactly what she thinks about it.

Speaker 11 They didn't get to hear my side.

Speaker 48 They didn't get to see my evidence. They didn't get to hear my witnesses.

Speaker 3 Why didn't you take the stand then?

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Speaker 52 Two rings,

Speaker 52 surrounded by a steel cage.

Speaker 52 Oh my God, are you kidding me? This is gonna be a war.

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Speaker 3 After almost two weeks of this roller coaster murder trial, it's now up to the jury to decide Dee Dee's fate.

Speaker 21 Bring the jury in.

Speaker 39 Tonight, after just three hours of deliberation, a jury handed down their verdict.

Speaker 32 Juries do unpredictable things.

Speaker 45 Is that indeed the jury's verdict? It was probably seven o'clock at night.

Speaker 45 A storm was coming in.

Speaker 64 Right as they read guilty on the first count, the defendant is guilty of first-degree murder.

Speaker 45 A clap of lightning happens outside and just kind of lights up a courtroom.

Speaker 26 It was kind of like,

Speaker 26 yeah, it was wild.

Speaker 31 Abraham Shakespeare was your prey and your victim. Money was the root of the evil that you brought to Abraham.

Speaker 16 The judge made a brief statement about how heinous her crime was

Speaker 16 and that he would be sentencing her to life in a Florida state prison without the possibility of parole.

Speaker 8 I felt like he did get justice because even though his life was cut short, her life is just going to be long and miserable.

Speaker 5 I won't forgive her. I don't forgive, and I never will.

Speaker 3 Convicted murderers rarely talk while they still have appeals left, but then again, Dee Dee Moore is no ordinary murderer.

Speaker 19 I'm not nervous. I don't get nervous.
Hi.

Speaker 3 After Dee Dee was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2012, 2020 was granted an exclusive interview with Dee Dee here in her cell box cafeteria.

Speaker 3 Upon arrival, we quickly learned that Dee Dee wasn't exactly camera shy.

Speaker 18 Yeah, I've been on TV before.

Speaker 15 Okay, that's good to hear. Yeah.

Speaker 25 You're a pro.

Speaker 41 Let me show you this.

Speaker 3 And this is fan mail. This is people.

Speaker 48 I have more than fan mail. I have a movie producer doing a big TV screen production of my case.

Speaker 3 Despite that jury taking less than three hours to convict her, Dee Dee Dee vehemently maintains her innocence.

Speaker 48 I think people are complete idiots that think I had anything to do with it. I really do.

Speaker 3 When the guilty verdict was read,

Speaker 3 what went through your mind?

Speaker 48 They murdered me by the hands of justice.

Speaker 19 I'm murdered.

Speaker 49 You might as well kill me because this is no type of living in here.

Speaker 11 Because I would never harm another human being. I would never hurt nobody.

Speaker 11 I liked Big E Mouse and Donald Duck and Disney. I liked Tinkerbell and Kindings.
I'm not a mean person.

Speaker 3 After a two-week trial filled with damning audio and video evidence, I wondered if Dee Dee might finally come clean about what really happened to Abraham Shakespeare.

Speaker 3 Did you murder Abraham Shakespeare? Absolutely not. Did you bury him in your backyard?

Speaker 48 Absolutely not.

Speaker 23 Why are you laughing? Because...

Speaker 3 A man is dead. He's been murdered, clearly.
Yes. And you're laughing.

Speaker 48 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Because I find it entertaining that people are that ignorant because there are so many things that proves my innocence you ended up in his house uh-huh with all the rest of his money then he ended up dead in your property okay but shot by your gun you don't find any of that unusual or odd

Speaker 48 absolutely not considering the people he hung around I only knew this man for four months and I'm just gonna, oh my goodness, I met this man and you know what? I'm gonna plot a murder in four months.

Speaker 3 Do you understand how listening to you is bewildering?

Speaker 48 Well, do you understand how listening to you is just, it sounds like a bunch of stupidity?

Speaker 3 So if Dee Dee's claims are so convincing, why didn't the jury buy it? Well, she blames it all on her own attorney.

Speaker 48 I personally would have convicted myself for what they got to hear, but they didn't get to hear my side. They didn't get to see my evidence.
They didn't get to hear my witnesses.

Speaker 3 Why didn't you take the stand then? Because you had every opportunity to defend yourself.

Speaker 48 I wanted my witnesses to take the stand, for me to take the stand. My lawyer says we didn't need it.

Speaker 3 Your lawyer was that convinced you were going to win? Yes.

Speaker 3 But Didi's lawyer, Byron Heilman, said the decision not to testify was Dee Dee's and Didi's alone.

Speaker 65 We discussed with Ms. Moore whether she wished to testify.
That discussion had gone on for quite some time, and she made the decision not to do that.

Speaker 3 But since she claims her case was not properly presented in court, Didi tries with us. People were trying to frame you.

Speaker 10 Absolutely. Why?

Speaker 48 Because,

Speaker 48 first of all, I was an easy target.

Speaker 3 A target, she claims, for drug dealers. Remember the story about Ronald, that so-called drug kingpin? Didi claims the gang he allegedly had was out to kill her.

Speaker 11 They were going to tang my son and kill him and chop him up and put him on my doorstep.

Speaker 12 Who?

Speaker 11 These guys that the sheriff's department says didn't exist. That we have witnesses that they do exist.

Speaker 3 You give so many different versions that it's absolutely bewildering.

Speaker 11 Why is that?

Speaker 48 I'm threatened. They're making.

Speaker 3 So you're lying to the police because you feel threatened.

Speaker 48 No, I'm being told to do that. I'm being told to just keep throwing them off

Speaker 3 by

Speaker 3 Ronald.

Speaker 3 Dee Dee claims she has witnesses who will back up her version of events, but she wasn't eager to share those names with us.

Speaker 3 Can we talk to your witnesses? Who are they?

Speaker 3 Do you mind if we take down their names and maybe contact them?

Speaker 5 I'd have to ask my lawyer, but I don't know if they'll...

Speaker 3 These witnesses don't exist, and that certainly looks like your handwriting. What do you mean?

Speaker 3 That looks like your handwriting. What you said were witnesses' notes looks like your handwriting.

Speaker 3 I don't think that these witnesses exist. If not, why don't we know?

Speaker 3 Dee Dee says since she's appealing her conviction, she can't actually talk about them.

Speaker 3 And with that, our interview is over.

Speaker 49 Rob, but we need to go ahead and take her now for one more.

Speaker 11 Thank you.

Speaker 48 Well, it was nice meeting you.

Speaker 38 You too.

Speaker 3 Dee Dee may not have been willing to share her evidence of supposed witnesses with us, but she's going to get a chance to present her claims in court.

Speaker 23 It's going to be back in court today. Dee Dee Moore will try to convince a judge to give her a retrial.

Speaker 3 Will it be enough to get her murder conviction overturned?

Speaker 3 After years of filing motions to appeal her conviction, in July of 2023, Didi finally gets another day in court.

Speaker 22 Didi Moore is back in a Tampa courtroom demanding a new trial.

Speaker 3 Didi tells the judge that she was framed by investigators who were paid off by those drug dealers that she alleged were doing business with Abraham Shakespeare.

Speaker 48 They're being paid under the table because cocaine dealers can afford

Speaker 32 a lot.

Speaker 3 The investigators denied Dee Dee's allegations.

Speaker 45 I have never heard of anything of this corrupt drug network involving Abraham Shakespeare or corruption within either of our departments.

Speaker 26 Absurd.

Speaker 13 That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Speaker 3 The judge denied Didi's request for a new trial. But that wasn't the last time we heard from Dee D Dee.

Speaker 3 More than 12 years after we first talked in Florida, we spoke to Dee Dee again on a call for prison.

Speaker 3 Tell me, how are you?

Speaker 3 I'm fine.

Speaker 10 I've been working on my my case, and I've got my appeals out, so I'm waiting patiently.

Speaker 3 How long have you been incarcerated in jail and in prison at this point? 14 years. You still do not admit that you murdered Abe Shakespeare? Absolutely not.
I didn't.

Speaker 3 14 years is a lot of time to think. Do you ever go back and think about Abe, about Abraham Shakespeare?

Speaker 3 Absolutely.

Speaker 3 It was wrong.

Speaker 47 There was no reason for him to pass away over money.

Speaker 47 But for them to lie in public and say that it took his money, the whole situation was so stupid.

Speaker 3 You murdered him and you've taken zero responsibility. And you're saying, like, in past tense, that it's so sad he had to pass away.
Abraham Shakespeare did not pass away.

Speaker 3 Abraham Shakespeare was shot at close range.

Speaker 47 Everything they said in jury trial was not true.

Speaker 3 I thought that you might remorse more than a decade after our interview, have some,

Speaker 3 yeah, some remorse, some reflection about what had happened. That maybe there was a little bit of softness in your heart about Abraham and about your responsibility here.

Speaker 3 There is plenty of softness in my heart.

Speaker 3 She is still as adamant as she ever was that she was framed, that Abraham Shakespeare was murdered by someone else. She denies taking Abe's money.
She denies doing anything wrong.

Speaker 3 Abraham Shakespeare not only lost his fortune and his life, he lost the chance to see his children grow up.

Speaker 10 The funeral was very emotional. It was a celebration of his life, but it was also very sad to learn that he was killed.
for his money was just something that everybody could not understand.

Speaker 5 He was a kind-hearted person who genuinely wanted to help people.

Speaker 5 He helped tons of people in this city. He kept people from going into foreclosure.

Speaker 10 He paid light bills, phone bills.

Speaker 5 He honestly did that.

Speaker 16 Imagine just spending your last $4, which is what Abraham Shakespeare did on those lottery tickets, putting your last money on a far-fetched dream. Abraham did a lot of good with some of his winnings.

Speaker 16 The favor wasn't returned to him.

Speaker 30 He was a wonderful man. Yeah.

Speaker 30 He will be sorely missed.

Speaker 8 I'll never forget after they found him, I remember having a dream. And I remember in the dream telling Abraham,

Speaker 8 oh good, you can come with me now.

Speaker 8 And he kept saying, no, no, you'll be okay.

Speaker 8 That was enough for me to believe that I'll be okay.

Speaker 8 I really miss him today. I really just need to hear his voice today.

Speaker 3 I just want him, like, bring him back.

Speaker 41 Remembering Abraham with a broken heart and missing him. Centoria is now a traveling nurse.

Speaker 45 And we should note that Jeremiah, their their son, he is now 16 years old. That's our program for tonight.
Thank you for watching.

Speaker 16 I'm David Muir.

Speaker 26 And I'm Deborah Roberts from All of Us Here at 2020 and ABC News.

Speaker 29 Good night.

Speaker 35 Coming to Disney Plus in Hulu. Cassidy, get us home.
Jonas, brother, you got it. It'll be the best Jonas Christmas ever.

Speaker 62 Can't wait to see you guys. We love you.

Speaker 35 If they can only make it home.

Speaker 62 What's going on? Our tour plane burned down.

Speaker 7 We cannot miss Christmas.

Speaker 1 Nothing can stop us from getting getting off now.

Speaker 54 Hungry,

Speaker 54 you won't be alone this Christmas.

Speaker 51 You lost all three of your passports?

Speaker 62 It's Christmas. Anything can happen, right?

Speaker 35 A very Jonas Christmas movie now streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu with a TVPGDL.

Speaker 1 This is Deborah Roberts. To hear the backstory to this episode, join me for the 2020 After Show.

Speaker 1 Every Monday, I'm going to talk with correspondents, producers, some of those folks behind the scenes who bring you these stories.

Speaker 1 And you're going to hear bonus tape that's not necessarily included in the episode. That's twenty twenty, The After Show, Mondays in your twenty twenty podcast feed.