BONUS: Buried in Money (Buried in the Backyard)

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We are bringing you a special bonus episode today from Oxygen True Crimes hit series Buried in the Backyard.

Speaker 1 Returning to Oxygen on Saturday, July 1st at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time.

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Speaker 2 the luckiest day in a man's life he won 31 million dollars turns him into a neighborhood hero he bought us a house and he had that heart to give

Speaker 4 But when no one hears from him for months, I talk to him every day, and he hadn't been returning my call.

Speaker 2 A bizarre phone call deepens the mystery.

Speaker 9 His voice sounds a little funny.

Speaker 10 Somebody could have robbed him.

Speaker 9 Of course, he's bitter.

Speaker 11 He lost a lawsuit involving millions of dollars.

Speaker 13 A guy came in and shot him, took everything that we had in the safe for cash, and left with it.

Speaker 2 And an undercover operation.

Speaker 7 There was a recording device sitting in an empty can of Renville.

Speaker 2 Sends police looking for answers hidden below the surface of a quiet Florida town.

Speaker 14 She takes a piece of angle iron, sticks it in the ground,

Speaker 15 and whispers, tell your boy to dig six feet down.

Speaker 7 And this is where the plot thickens.

Speaker 2 Plant City is a rural patch of Florida backroad where life is simple and agriculture is king.

Speaker 16 Plant City is known for strawberry farms. It's in between Tampa, the beautiful Gulf Coast beaches, and the theme parks of Orlando.

Speaker 4 You see in Plant City, it's country.

Speaker 4 Most people, they want to hear the news, they go up under the tree and sit on milk crates and buckets and have conversation about what could have been and what's not today.

Speaker 2 On a January morning in 2010, the conversation in Plant City is all about the law enforcement that's descended on an unassuming house in the town.

Speaker 2 The police are responding to a tip in a case that has puzzled this community for months.

Speaker 7 There are news cameras all around trying to get just a glimpse of what law enforcement finds.

Speaker 7 The police have reason to believe that a body is buried deep in the earth in the backyard.

Speaker 2 The forensic team focuses on something that seems out of place in the rural backyard. A large cement slab.

Speaker 18 That morning, we began breaking up the concrete slab.

Speaker 18 We finally get down to about six feet, two inches, and one of the crime scene technicians says, I think I've got something.

Speaker 10 We carefully start wiping away the dirt and we realize that it's a body laying there.

Speaker 7 The body had been there for nine months. You can almost imagine the smell and the stench.

Speaker 7 They can immediately determine that it's human remains, but they have to see whose remains they are.

Speaker 2 The investigators believe they've finally uncovered the evidence they've been seeking of a brutal murder.

Speaker 7 This murder was the tragic finale to a Rags to Riches story that ended up with a person buried in the backyard.

Speaker 2 The chances of winning Florida's lottery are an astounding 15 million to one.

Speaker 2 But in places like the hard scrabble community of Lakeland, Florida, dreams about hitting it big provide a welcome break from reality.

Speaker 4 In our community, we don't have too many things that we can get into without getting into a little mischief.

Speaker 6 A lot of people play lottery.

Speaker 21 You dream of hitting the lottery. I dream of hitting the lottery.

Speaker 2 For Greg Smith's friend Abraham Shakespeare, that dream is one of the few things that keep his spirits high.

Speaker 21 I think he wished and hoped and prayed that he would hit the lottery.

Speaker 21 But Abraham wasn't a real fortunate person. He left school to go to work.
to see what he can do about helping his family.

Speaker 21 He started out in the orange groves, picking fruit, mowing yards, raking yards, and whatever money he made, he helped his family with it.

Speaker 9 Abraham stayed with his mother and

Speaker 10 helped her with the bills and was pretty content being a day laborer.

Speaker 23 And his life was based around his mother and taking care of her.

Speaker 26 Abraham would sit on the porch and he would just tell us, you know, if he had money, what he would do. And he would like say what big house he wanted or nice cars.

Speaker 26 And, you know, yeah, he was a dreamer.

Speaker 7 On November 15th, 2006, Abraham is working some odd jobs with a man named Michael Ford. And they stop at a local convenience store to pick up some food and drinks.

Speaker 4 Guy asked me if he wanted to sold us something. And Abraham said, no, just get me.

Speaker 24 Two lottery tickets.

Speaker 4 That night, the guy that owned the store came to my house.

Speaker 7 He said, your cousin just hit the lottery.

Speaker 4 He won $31 million.

Speaker 2 Abraham decides to take a one-time payout of $16.9 million.

Speaker 2 The money lets him show a generous side that he never could before.

Speaker 22 He bought us a house. He had that heart to give.

Speaker 26 He just felt like that's what he needed to do, just help people.

Speaker 2 When Abraham learns that a local barber, his friend and former boss, Greg Smith, is trying to get an $87,000 loan from the bank, he steps in to help.

Speaker 21 He brings me this envelope, cashier's check in my name. I say, I'm not going to take this money for free from you.

Speaker 21 I'm going to take the payments that I was going to do to the bank, and I'll pay you the same amount.

Speaker 2 After a life spent in poverty, Abraham treats himself too.

Speaker 10 He bought a home in North Lakeland, which was a home he dreamed of.

Speaker 26 It was scary because he didn't know how to manage his money. He had an underjoint,

Speaker 26 but half of those people, he didn't know. They knew he couldn't read.
They knew he couldn't write. They knew he couldn't sign nothing but his name.

Speaker 21 He said, man,

Speaker 21 every time I turn around, somebody wants something.

Speaker 4 He was their cash cow, and they milked him daily.

Speaker 26 Sedic sounded down to Abraham, you got to think now. You can go through this money.
You got people coming from everywhere, so you got to be careful.

Speaker 26 But he was so happy not to be poor anymore, that wasn't even a thought in his mind.

Speaker 2 By October 2008, less than two years after winning the jackpot, Abraham is down to his last $2 million.

Speaker 2 Then his luck changes once again when a local businesswoman named Dee Dee Moore takes an interest in Abraham's Rags to Riches story.

Speaker 16 Dee Dee Moore was introduced to him by a mutual friend. He had an interesting story to tell, and she proposed that she write a book on him.
And I think he was very captivated by that.

Speaker 2 But as the two start to work on the book, it doesn't take long before Dee Dee discovers that Abraham is in over his head financially.

Speaker 16 She found out that he hadn't paid the taxes on his house, that he was behind on certain bills. And so she made a pretty reasonable proposal.
Why don't you let me handle your finances?

Speaker 4 When I first met Dee Dee, she came serious with that attitude. Listen,

Speaker 21 I'm Abraham's financial advisor.

Speaker 4 Money's not being returned, and I'm not here to lose money, but to make money. It made perfect sense.

Speaker 2 With Dee Dee handling Abraham's finances, she advises him to stay home, away from all the outstretched hands that follow him everywhere.

Speaker 21 He just couldn't turn him away. He couldn't say no.

Speaker 21 He was really unhappy.

Speaker 26 We just didn't see him no more. We thought, well, maybe he didn't want to be bothered.
So we gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Speaker 2 After several weeks without any word from Abraham, his family reaches out to the only person they believe is still in contact with him, his financial advisor, Dee Dee.

Speaker 26 We called Dee D Dee to find out where Abraham was, and she told us that he went out of town.

Speaker 16 She was receiving texts from him, and she shared those texts with his family to show the family that he was okay.

Speaker 4 He did mention wanting to leave town. We wanted to help him because everybody else's dream

Speaker 4 he was trying to fulfill, and he never had time for itself.

Speaker 26 And months went by, months went by, and no Abraham.

Speaker 26 His phone wasn't going. It ring, ring, ring.
Answer service, come on.

Speaker 26 So this is, it just don't seem right. I'm going to report this.

Speaker 2 Seven months after anyone last saw Abraham, his cousin decides the family has waited long enough.

Speaker 9 In November of 2009, our missing persons unit took a call from a gentleman named Cedric Edom.

Speaker 4 I said, listen, my cousin is missing. I talk to him every day, and he hasn't been returning my calls.

Speaker 10 We reach out to Abraham's mother and find out it was around April that the last she actually physically saw Abraham.

Speaker 2 Since then, she tells the detectives she's received only text messages from her son, but they've left her more troubled than comforted.

Speaker 9 Some texts were telling her that he was fine. He just don't want to be bothered.

Speaker 23 Abraham's mother told us we're a little confused.

Speaker 10 He can't text message because he can't read or write.

Speaker 10 So we had to determine, were these text messages legitimate? Was he with someone that was actually sending the text for him?

Speaker 9 We felt there was something suspicious about the case.

Speaker 10 This is more than a missing person's person's case. It was a missing person involving a $30-plus million dollar lottery winner.

Speaker 7 Abraham was owed money by lots of people. So you have the potential for people who owed him money or people that wanted money from him trying to hurt him in some way.

Speaker 7 Right from the beginning, there are lots of different suspects and really no evidence and no leads.

Speaker 9 Michael Ford filed a lawsuit and alleged that Abraham stole the ticket from him.

Speaker 7 If this wasn't Abraham who called, who was it?

Speaker 29 We want you to record every conversation.

Speaker 21 Let me see what we can do to get you out of this because I know you didn't kill it.

Speaker 10 We get our binoculars out, we get our camera out.

Speaker 15 We just like, oh my God, this is crazy.

Speaker 2 Seven months after multi-million dollar lottery winner Abraham Shakespeare was last seen, investigators are looking for leads in his disappearance.

Speaker 19 We began with Didi Moore.

Speaker 29 She was the last person that we knew had seen him.

Speaker 7 Didi says she's in touch with Abraham.

Speaker 7 Abraham just needed some time away. That he needed a break from everything.

Speaker 20 Didi shows us her phone where she's been receiving text messages from Abraham

Speaker 9 and a text message back from Abraham saying, I don't want to be bothered.

Speaker 2 Didi also shows investigators a video she made of a conversation she had with Abraham a few months earlier while discussing the book she planned to write about him.

Speaker 9 In this video, she speaks to Abraham and says, are you tired of people asking you for money?

Speaker 29 Are you tired of all the stress?

Speaker 9 And Abraham says, Yeah, I just want to get away

Speaker 23 after our initial interview with Dee Dee.

Speaker 9 We started looking at everybody that owed Abraham money.

Speaker 10 Once we learned the totality of all the money that Abraham had loaned out, given out, people owing him money, we had our hands full.

Speaker 3 We had 20, 30 people that we needed to talk to.

Speaker 10 We wanted to explore every avenue we could.

Speaker 23 We learned that approximately six months after Abraham won the lottery, Michael Ford, who bought the lottery ticket, gave it to Abraham, filed a lawsuit and took Abraham to court and alleged that Abraham stole the ticket from him.

Speaker 31 That was investigated and was settled in court.

Speaker 14 And it was determined that Michael Ford was not the owner of the ticket, that that Abraham did give him the money and was the rightful owner of the ticket.

Speaker 2 Investigators recognized that losing out on $31 million could cause Michael Ford to hold a grudge against Abraham.

Speaker 9 Michael Ford was actually living in Georgia, and we actually sent a detective to Georgia to speak with him in person.

Speaker 31 Michael Ford, of course, he admitted, yes, yes, we had a dispute over the lottery ticket.

Speaker 9 Of course, he's bitter. He lost a lawsuit against Abraham involving millions of dollars.

Speaker 9 But Michael Ford said, I lost the dispute and

Speaker 10 I accepted it and I'm not involved.

Speaker 2 But the detectives can't take his denial at face value. Not with a man's life potentially at stake.
So they dig deeper into Michael's background.

Speaker 10 We actually went so far as to pull phone records of Michael Ford to actually see where he was at the time that we believed Abraham was last seen.

Speaker 2 As investigators wait for Michael Ford's phone records, the story of the missing lottery winner is splashed across the headlines. The attention generates no shortage of tips.

Speaker 9 I mean, we got calls as far as Los Angeles, California from people that said they saw Abraham in a CVS pharmacy.

Speaker 9 They were so certain it was him, we called Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office and had someone go pull the video from the day this person said they saw him.

Speaker 14 Once we saw the video, we knew it wasn't Abraham.

Speaker 31 You have to weed through, is this true? Is this not true?

Speaker 15 And, you know, you don't want to miss the tip that's going to break it.

Speaker 2 A few days later, the cell phone records for Michael Ford come in and they confirm his alibi.

Speaker 10 After looking into his phone records, we were able to determine that Michael Ford was in Georgia at the time Abraham went missing and was not involved and was no longer a suspect in the case.

Speaker 2 With no word from Abraham and no progress in the police search for him, those closest to him, including his mother Elizabeth, find it hard to hold on to hope.

Speaker 26 He was always riding around with different people and pull up the clubs.

Speaker 26 Somebody could have robbed him because he kept money in his trunk.

Speaker 16 It was well known that he had a lot of money and he carried cash around with him. Anything was possible.

Speaker 2 As Christmas approaches, the family finds it difficult to celebrate the holidays with Abraham still missing.

Speaker 2 Then, Abraham's mother receives an odd phone call.

Speaker 7 Abraham's mother was having lunch after Christmas and she gets a call from Abraham.

Speaker 2 He wishes her a Merry Christmas and tells his mother that he's fine and just wants to be left alone.

Speaker 7 And when she gets off the phone, Abraham's mom realized something, that it was not Abraham that she was talking.

Speaker 7 Like any mother who knows her son's voice, she knew that someone had called pretending to be Abraham.

Speaker 7 And this is where the plot thickens, with this strange call to Abraham's mother. So that's where law enforcement starts looking with the one strong piece of evidence they have.

Speaker 7 And they're trying to figure out if this wasn't Abraham who called, who was it?

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Speaker 2 No one has heard from Florida lottery winner Abraham Shakespeare for nearly eight months. Then, just after Christmas 2009, his mother receives a phone call from someone claiming to be her son.

Speaker 10 Abraham's mother said, his voice sounds a little funny.

Speaker 6 I'm like, what's the phone number he called you from?

Speaker 9 She says, well, it was a private number.

Speaker 27 I met with my partner and we knew we could subpoena her phone records and we're going to be able to see what number called.

Speaker 10 Usually it takes a day or two to get anything, but with this subpoena, 20 minutes later, which is unheard of,

Speaker 17 we have an email with the GPS location of the phone.

Speaker 2 They also learn who the phone belongs to, and it's a big surprise. It doesn't belong to Abraham, but to someone close to him.

Speaker 9 This phone is registered to Greg Smith.

Speaker 7 Greg Smith was a barber in Polk County, and Abraham had lent Greg Smith $87,000 after he'd won the lottery.

Speaker 2 The GPS coordinates place the phone at a local shopping mall, and detectives realize it could still be at that location.

Speaker 11 We stop what we're doing, we jump in our car, and we drive to the Lakeland Mall.

Speaker 9 It's the day after Christmas, thousands of cars there.

Speaker 23 We pull in there and we park and we both look at each other like, what are we gonna do?

Speaker 10 What are we looking for?

Speaker 24 We sit there for about five minutes and we look up and in comes Dee Dee Moore's car

Speaker 27 We just like oh my god, this is crazy

Speaker 27 So Dee Dee's car pulls up next to another car

Speaker 10 She gets out of her car.

Speaker 10 She gets in the passenger seat of this this car.

Speaker 10 We get our binoculars out, we got our camera out, we can't tell who it is.

Speaker 10 Dee Dee hands this gentleman a wad of cash.

Speaker 25 She gets in her car and leaves.

Speaker 6 So we're like, what's following?

Speaker 6 We cut the car off.

Speaker 18 I have my badge out.

Speaker 9 I go, hey, I'm a homicide detective with the sheriff's office.

Speaker 3 We need to talk to you.

Speaker 10 We don't need nobody to know we're talking to you. What do you want to do?

Speaker 8 So this gentleman says, I guess I'm going to cooperate.

Speaker 15 We identify him as Greg Smith.

Speaker 23 He's the one that made the phone call to Abraham's mother.

Speaker 21 I say, listen, I made that telephone call. A lady paid me $5,000 to call and say I was Abraham Shakespeare.

Speaker 21 I'm thinking Abraham don't want to talk to her no more. She's trying to get in contact with him.

Speaker 2 But investigators wonder whether he's telling the whole story.

Speaker 8 We realize that Greg actually owes Abraham over $100,000.

Speaker 29 Greg was very suspicious to us.

Speaker 8 So we sit and talk to Greg a little more.

Speaker 2 According to Greg, the plan was hatched when Dee Dee came to him to collect on Abraham's loan.

Speaker 20 Dee Dee was putting pressure on him to pay this debt.

Speaker 9 Then on the other hand, she was offering money to do these phone calls.

Speaker 27 When we told Greg that something was going on with Abraham, he did genuinely seem surprised.

Speaker 21 He said, you made a telephone call and impersonated somebody else, and that's all.

Speaker 2 The detectives have nothing to charge Greg with, so he's free to go home.

Speaker 2 But now they want to know more about why Didi, who everyone believes has been helping Abraham, would set up a phony phone call. They begin digging into her background.

Speaker 7 Law enforcement quickly realized that Didi did not have a squeaky claim past.

Speaker 7 Didi had been accused of stealing from the business that she worked.

Speaker 9 A mysterious fire in the office started, which burned all the records.

Speaker 9 We also found she was arrested for insurance fraud, where she claimed that some guys carjacked her, robbed her, tried to rape her, threw her in the ditch, and stole her car.

Speaker 2 Given her past, the detectives now consider a disturbing possibility. Rather than helping Abraham, was Dee Dee methodically stealing from him?

Speaker 2 To help find the answer, the investigators go back to Greg Smith and ask for help.

Speaker 31 We told Greg, we want you to be part of our team.

Speaker 24 We want you to continue talking to Dee Dee,

Speaker 29 but we want you to record every conversation.

Speaker 21 He said, listen, go meet with her and see what she got to say. I say, serious man, I ain't trying to chase that woman.
But when authorities told me he's a missing man, I believed that.

Speaker 21 So I say, I'll tell you what, what you need me to do to help you out.

Speaker 7 So police end up wiring Greg Smith and sending him back out to meet with Dee D De Moore.

Speaker 26 I get the phone call, hey, meet me at the gas station.

Speaker 21 So I say, okay, it's on.

Speaker 14 He says, if you want me to do this, I need the body.

Speaker 6 I am really here.

Speaker 2 Eight months after Abraham Shakespeare disappeared, his friend Greg Smith has agreed to help police by wearing a wire and meeting with Abraham's financial advisor, who has emerged as a possible suspect.

Speaker 28 At this point, we feel that Abraham might be the victim of foul play, and Dee Dee's a suspect in the case.

Speaker 29 So once we knew that Greg was in there with Dee Dee, our strategy was: okay, let's put pressure on Dee Dee and see what happens.

Speaker 2 Ready to start their sting operation, Greg Smith sets up a meeting with Dee Dee Moore.

Speaker 7 There was a recording device sitting in an empty can of Red Bull,

Speaker 7 and Greg and Dee Dee were talking.

Speaker 21 I asked Didi, I say, hey, man, listen, where is Abraham at?

Speaker 21 Where is he at? I ain't heard from him.

Speaker 30 She says, everybody think I did something to Abraham.

Speaker 21 I say, think you did something to Abraham? What is you talking about?

Speaker 7 Didi tells Greg that she needs to find someone who's willing to take the wrap for Abraham's disappearance. and that she'll pay someone to do it.

Speaker 7 There's no evidence of foul play at this point, but now police have her red-handed, offering money to help cover up Abraham's disappearance.

Speaker 2 Didi's incriminating statements give the detectives the probable cause they need to do a deeper investigative dive.

Speaker 27 We sent out subpoenas for Dee Dee's phone and Abraham's phone.

Speaker 10 Prior to April 7th, Abraham averaged 200 calls a day on his phone.

Speaker 3 And the only communication he has after April 7th is with Dee Dee Moore.

Speaker 2 The combined phone records reveal another alarming detail.

Speaker 16 Many times, texts were coming from Abraham Shakespeare's phone. The cell phone towers that his alleged texts were coming from were pinging from the same towers as where Dee Dee Moore was at the time.

Speaker 10 It became evident at that point that unless they're sitting in the car next to each other, texting each other, Didi has Abraham's phone.

Speaker 2 But investigators need solid proof of Dee Dee's involvement in Abraham's disappearance, or worse, before they can charge her with anything.

Speaker 2 So they once again call up their man on the inside, Greg Smith.

Speaker 2 They instruct him to call Dee Dee with an offer.

Speaker 9 We call Greg Smith in. We'll say, hey, listen, we want you to tell Dee Dee, if there happens to be any chance Abraham's dead, any chance something happened to Abraham, I have a solution.

Speaker 21 I asked Didi, I say, hey, is Abraham dead? It's a reverse psychology thing. I know you didn't kill him.
What happened?

Speaker 21 Let me see what we can do to get you out of this. Because I know you didn't kill him.

Speaker 21 I say, you know what? I got somebody. He'll take the fall

Speaker 21 for killing Abraham.

Speaker 8 And he tells her, I have a cousin.

Speaker 10 He's about to be sentenced to 30 plus years.

Speaker 11 And for the right amount of money, my cousin will take a murder rap.

Speaker 21 I say, in order for you to get rid of all of this shit, you got to tell me where the body is at.

Speaker 10 And Dee Dee, without admitting anything, just says, well, I want to meet him.

Speaker 2 At the detective's direction, Greg Smith sets up another meeting with Dee Dee. But this time, the police also send an undercover cop named Mike Smith, who poses as Greg's cousin.

Speaker 21 Me and Mike, we went out and met Dee Dee.

Speaker 8 We set it up in the Lakeland Mall parking lot.

Speaker 10 Greg pulls up with Mike Smith.

Speaker 19 They get in Dee Dee's car.

Speaker 10 She says, I don't know if anything's happened to Abraham.

Speaker 27 I can't get a hold of him.

Speaker 24 He won't return my calls.

Speaker 10 So Mike starts pressing her, you know, what do you mean?

Speaker 8 You think something, either something happened to him or didn't?

Speaker 15 In that conversation, she finally admits that she believes Abraham's dead and that somebody shot him.

Speaker 7 Prior to this meeting, there was no evidence that Abraham Shakespeare was dead. He could have been missing, and this was all just a cover-up for him being gone.

Speaker 10 And Mike says, well, if he's dead, I'll take the murder route.

Speaker 3 He says, I want $50,000, but if you want me to do this, I need the body.

Speaker 7 The undercover is saying, for my story to law enforcement to be credible, if I'm going to confess to this crime, I need to know details. Didi tells the undercover she can identify where the body is

Speaker 7 and that Abraham was killed with a.38 caliber Smith Wesson revolver and that she has the gun.

Speaker 2 Dee Dee leaves Mike and Greg, but later that evening, she calls Greg and wants to see him alone.

Speaker 21 Yeah, I get the phone call.

Speaker 26 Hey, meet me at the gas station.

Speaker 21 So I say, okay, it's on.

Speaker 21 I got to be on my guards at all times. I don't know what to expect from her.

Speaker 7 Law enforcement laid this great trap for Dee Dee. They end up getting her to admit that Abraham Shakespeare is dead, that she has the gun, and she knows where the body is buried.

Speaker 9 She takes Greg Smith to Plant City off of Highway 60,

Speaker 9 we had identified a house that she had purchased out there.

Speaker 21 When we pull up to that house, she said, I'm going to get out of the car

Speaker 6 and

Speaker 30 I'm going to show you exactly where the body is.

Speaker 24 She walks into the very far back of the house and there's a concrete slab back there

Speaker 14 and she takes a piece of angle iron, sticks it in the

Speaker 15 and whispers to Greg, tell your boy to dig six feet down and you'll find Abraham's body.

Speaker 7 And Didi actually hands Greg Smith a Smith ⁇ Wesson.38 caliber revolver.

Speaker 14 She says, this is the gun that was used to kill Abraham.

Speaker 29 I was able to get it from the person that killed Abraham.

Speaker 29 The first thing we do is we secure a search warrant for that property.

Speaker 18 We need the body.

Speaker 2 On January 25th, 2010, police move into the backyard of the home just outside Plant City, Florida, Abraham's hometown.

Speaker 20 When the sun came up, we began digging.

Speaker 29 The first part, we had to break apart a 30 by 30 concrete slab.

Speaker 14 As we're breaking apart the concrete slab, we have to look for any evidence and then we begin layer by layer taking the dirt away.

Speaker 25 We're putting it in a sifter, looking for any evidence and another layer and another layer.

Speaker 29 So the first day, nothing.

Speaker 14 The second day, we continue and still we have nothing.

Speaker 10 So some of us are like, have we been spoofed again by Dee Dee Moore?

Speaker 14 And then about an hour later, one of the crime scene technicians says, I think I got something.

Speaker 7 They find the decomposed remains of a human who they believe to be Abraham Shakespeare.

Speaker 3 The body still had dreads in place.

Speaker 10 Abraham was most known for his long dreadlocks.

Speaker 7 The medical examiner was able to examine Abraham's body. The body had been decomposed badly to the point where it was almost difficult for them to determine some of the evidence around it.

Speaker 7 There were bullets found.

Speaker 7 The other thing was that the clothes they found him in were the same clothes he was wearing in the Goodbye video. Dee Dee showed to the police.

Speaker 7 And without a doubt, it was Abraham.

Speaker 23 I attended the autopsy of Abraham, and it was determined that Abraham died of two gunshot wounds.

Speaker 24 After we dug Abraham's body up, I drove to where Abraham's mother worked.

Speaker 27 I had to tell her that We had found a body.

Speaker 29 I told her, it's your son.

Speaker 11 That is one of the hardest things I've had to do.

Speaker 26 When we found out Abraham was buried up on a slab in the backyard, it's just devastating.

Speaker 26 I couldn't take it. I mean, you know, it was just too

Speaker 11 sad.

Speaker 26 It was just too sad.

Speaker 21 He didn't steal nothing.

Speaker 21 He didn't take nothing.

Speaker 22 He literally won the lottery, and he had to pay his life for what was his.

Speaker 2 With the body confirmed to be Abraham, Dee Dee Moore is arrested at the million-dollar home that she claims Abraham had sold to her.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 34 Who are you working with as your attorney?

Speaker 2 The detectives can finally confront her with what they believe happened to Abraham Shakespeare.

Speaker 19 You took the guy's money.

Speaker 34 He got everything in your name. He gets killed with your gun.
He gets buried on your property. And you pour a slab within a week later right over where he's at.

Speaker 33 You think I've done this?

Speaker 35 You think I took a gun and shot somebody?

Speaker 35 You think I took a gun and shot somebody?

Speaker 7 At this point in the investigation, Dee Dee is the one that knows where the body is buried. She's the one who knows about the gun.

Speaker 7 But there's nothing actually connecting her to the murder of Abraham Shakespeare.

Speaker 2 Though she led them to the body, if investigators can't prove she pulled the trigger, Dee Dee Moore could walk.

Speaker 2 They run ballistics tests on the gun Dee Dee handed to Greg Smith,

Speaker 2 hoping that they might provide the connection they need.

Speaker 7 The police cannot determine definitively that the bullets used to kill Abraham had come from that gun.

Speaker 7 Law enforcement knew without any eyewitnesses to the murder, without any compelling physical evidence, they have to build as strong a case as they can on the circumstantial evidence.

Speaker 2 Investigators dig deeper into all of Dee Dee's relationships. in a quest to connect her further to the crime scene.

Speaker 14 We go to Dee Moore's ex-husband's house and we ask him, what do you know about the property that she had there?

Speaker 11 And he said, I went out there sometime around April and she asked me to dig a hole for her.

Speaker 10 So he dug the hole and he said, when the sun went down that day, he said he went back and he filled in the hole.

Speaker 27 And he's like, all I remember is it looked like it was full of concrete and trees and brush, but it was dark.

Speaker 15 And I just pushed the dirt over it. She ended up building a concrete slab over it

Speaker 24 and parked the motorhome on it.

Speaker 27 He didn't know anything about Abraham. He had never even met Abraham.

Speaker 2 The case against Dee Dee is getting stronger by the day.

Speaker 2 Then, as planning for her trial begins, she makes a startling claim that she is a victim of a crime herself and desperately needs help.

Speaker 13 A guy came in and shot him, took everything that we had in the safe for cash and left with it.

Speaker 7 Didi tells law enforcement that Abraham was killed in a drug dispute with a man named Ron Watson.

Speaker 7 And that Ron Watson threatened Dee Dee and said that he would kill her and kill her family if she didn't cover up Abraham's disappearance.

Speaker 24 They put a gun in my mouth and eat my pants.

Speaker 7 I was here.

Speaker 6 here.

Speaker 35 You think I've done this? You think I took a gun and shot somebody?

Speaker 2 Dee Dee Moore is under arrest for the murder of Abraham Shakespeare.

Speaker 2 But as she is interrogated, she makes a startling claim that she too is a victim in this case and has been forced to cover up someone else's crime.

Speaker 3 She says, I was taking Abraham to that house in Plant City, and

Speaker 19 I was just going to get money out of the safe, and all of a sudden these drug dealers show up

Speaker 15 and they shoot Abraham.

Speaker 19 She says, a drug dealer named Ronald Watson did it.

Speaker 35 A guy's name's Ronald.

Speaker 7 Dee Dean was pleading with law enforcement to help her, claiming that this guy was threatening her and going to kill her family.

Speaker 35 I am really scared.

Speaker 2 If what Dee Dee claims is true, it would change everything police and prosecutors think they know about this murder.

Speaker 7 Police ended up following up on that Ron Watson lead.

Speaker 7 And they realized that there was no one with any drug history in Florida named Ron Watson who fit the profile of what Dee Dee was saying.

Speaker 13 A guy come in and shot the killer, took everything that we had in the safe for cash, and left with it.

Speaker 35 And left you alive?

Speaker 35 Yes. So this guy killed,

Speaker 35 leaves you alive.

Speaker 35 Is that the story that we're going to go with?

Speaker 35 I mean, really, I've got children's books that are written better than that.

Speaker 2 When police prove there is no Ronald Watson, Dee Dee's story falls apart. Prosecutors continue with their plans to bring her to trial.

Speaker 2 In the fall of 2012, 2012, nearly six years after Abraham Shakespeare hit a $30 million jackpot, then disappeared, Dee Dee Moore stands trial for his murder.

Speaker 7 Our prosecutor told the jury, this was a crime motivated by pure greed, greed that transformed into evil.

Speaker 7 Dee Dee Moore dug a deep hole, buried Abraham Shakespeare in the earth, and covered over the hole with a concrete slab.

Speaker 6 She purchased a $70,000 Corvette for her boyfriend, $30,000 truck for herself.

Speaker 9 She bought Rolexes, she bought diamond rings, and

Speaker 27 just went through Abraham's money like it was nothing.

Speaker 7 By the time Abraham's body was found in January of 2010, it was determined that he only had about $10,000 left in his name. Dee Dee was living large on Abraham's dime.
dime.

Speaker 7 She had stolen money from him. She was getting rich off of him.
And it appears that he may have figured it out and confronted her.

Speaker 7 But it's never going to be known for sure. All we know for sure is that she killed him.

Speaker 7 She buried him. And she spent the better part of eight months covering it up.

Speaker 2 After two weeks of testimony, the jury leaves to deliberate.

Speaker 7 It took the jury a little more than three hours to deliberate.

Speaker 7 And they found her guilty of first-degree murder.

Speaker 10 She never once showed any remorse, never once showed any compassion.

Speaker 29 When the verdict came out, she started to cry.

Speaker 25 And that's the only emotion I saw from her.

Speaker 6 So clear.

Speaker 10 She didn't cry for Abraham. She didn't cry for Abraham's mother.

Speaker 29 She cried for her damn self.

Speaker 10 The judge made the comment to Didi that she was one of the most manipulative people he has ever sentenced and

Speaker 3 sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Speaker 26 For her to kill him, it was just like, why?

Speaker 26 He would have bought you anything. He would have gave you what you wanted.

Speaker 26 To me, that was senseless.

Speaker 21 Abraham had a heart of gold.

Speaker 21 You couldn't change his heart no matter what he had.

Speaker 4 I miss him every day. All I can say is

Speaker 4 justice is served for now.

Speaker 5 How hard is it to kill a planet? Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere.

Speaker 5 When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene.

Speaker 1 Are we really safe? Is our water safe? You destroyed our top.

Speaker 5 And crimes like that, they don't just happen.

Speaker 1 We call things accidents. There is no accident.
This was 100%

Speaker 23 preventable.

Speaker 5 They're the result of choices by people. Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime.
These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet.

Speaker 5 Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it.

Speaker 5 Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 5 You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wonder Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.