Crime Library: Criminal Minds and Methods
Big Winners, Big Losers
Abraham Shakespeare
Abraham Shakespeare
In 2006, Abraham Shakespeare (pictured), a barely literate 43-year-old truck driver, thought his luck had changed for the better when he won a $31 million Florida lottery prize. Instead, it was the beginning of worse troubles. He was reportedly hounded by friends and relatives asking for money. A year later, he was in court defending himself from an accusation of theft by a trucker who accused him of stealing the winning ticket from him while the two had been delivering meat to Miami restaurants. In 2008, he met Dorice "DeeDee" Donegan Moore, 37, who became his girlfriend and financial advisor. According to police, she managed to bilk him of $1.8 million before his death.

Shakespeare disappeared in April 2009, but his family continued to receive text messages purportedly from him on his cell phone. His family grew suspicious and reported him missing in November 2009. Moore, who was a person of interest from the start, proclaimed her innocence to CNN affiliate WTSP saying, "Abraham had a life of drama because of the money. The money was like a curse to him. And now it has become a curse to me."

Moore said she helped him disappear because he wanted to get away from all the people trying to get money from him. His body was found under a concrete slab on January 28, 2010, and identified a few days later. Moore made a first big mistake telling reporters that she was being accused of having "shot" another human being: Police had not publicly disclosed how Shakespeare had been killed.

But investigators had already been onto Moore, who had unintentionally led them to the victim by approaching an unidentified witness sometime between December 28, 2009, and January 21, 2010, looking for someone willing to confess to Shakespeare's murder and to move the body for $50,000. According to the witness, Moore also furnished the would-be patsy with the gun she said had been used to kill Shakespeare.

Moore was arrested and charged as an accessory after the fact to first-degree murder. She later told police that Shakespeare had been shot in an attempted robbery, and that she had tried to conceal his death. Police expect to make more arrests in this case.
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