True Crime Society - Losing the Lottery – the murder of Abraham Shakespeare

This blog will discuss the murder of Abraham Lee Shakespeare, a Florida man who won a $30m jackpot in 2006. He was murdered in 2009.

We will start with some background into Abraham. He was born on April 24, 1966 in Lakeland, Florida. Abraham struggled in life. He couldn’t read or write. He had dropped out of school after seventh grade and he went to jail for a string of burglaries. He worked as a truck driver’s assistant as well as a casual laborer. According to ABC, he unloaded trucks, swept floors at a barbershop, doing whatever he could to get by. He was making $8 per hour in 2006.

He had two children – Moses and Jeremiah.

On Wednesday, November 15, 2006, Abraham and his co-worker Michael Ford stopped at a Town Star convenience store in Frostproof, Florida. They were on their way to Miami and Michael planned to buy drinks and cigarettes. They were working for MBM Corp at the time – a food distribution company.

Michael got out of the truck and asked Abraham if he wanted a drink. Abraham asked Michael to buy him two lottery tickets. Abraham would later say that he had $5 cash on him that day and that he gave Michael $2 from that for the tickets.

Abraham won the $30m jackpot from one of those tickets. He chose to be paid a one-time lump sum cash payment of $17m.

The troubles for Abraham started soon after his win. Michael approached him and demanded a share of no less than $1m of the winnings. Abraham refused to pay this. Michael then sued him in 2007 and alleged that Abraham had stolen the lottery tickets from his wallet.

Michael told the court that he had a habit of purchasing lottery tickets every Wednesday. He said that Abraham did give him the $2 for the tickets. Michael said that he placed his own tickets in his wallet and put it in a compartment in the truck. He told the court that he noticed his tickets were missing on November 17, 2006 but he just thought he had misplaced them. On November 18, news broke that Abraham had won the jackpot.

He alleged that there were multiple times during their delivery route in which the truck was unattended, and that Abraham would have had the chance to steal the tickets. Michael said that when he confronted Abraham about the tickets, he admitted to taking them but said there was no way to prove it.

During court proceedings, Abraham denied all the allegations. He confirmed that Michael had purchased all the tickets, but that he had paid for his own and had not stolen anything. Abraham told the court how Michael had asked for $1m. He said he asked him to wait at the time as he had not received any funds. Days after this, Michael threatened legal action.

Abraham was emotional in court and said that he would have given Michael $250,000 if he had been genuine in his manner of asking. He said that he was disappointed as he considered Michael a friend.

The case ended up being dismissed in Abraham’s favor and Michael did not receive any money from the winnings.

After Abraham received his money, he moved out of his working-class neighborhood in Lakeland and into a gated community. He purchased a home there worth $1m at the time (around $1.5m today). He bought a BMW and a Rolex from a pawnshop.

A 2007 article in the Sarasota Herald Tribune spoke about how Abraham was choosing to spend his money.

‘I’m not a material person. I don’t let material things run me. I’m on a tight budget.’

He said that on the day he purchased the tickets, he gave his last $3 to a homeless man. He told the newspaper that he had created a corporation called Shakespeare & Associates, and that he planned to create business ventures in real estate, rehab of homes and affordable housing.

Just to note, Abraham had money taken from him by the Department of Revenue due to child support arrears. They took $8,612 plus $505 in court costs.

Sentorria Butler started dating Abraham soon after he won the money. She was at a bar one night with friends, when one of them said, “‘My cousin’s a millionaire. Would you like to meet him?'”

They flew to New York City for an overnight trip, Sentorria said. Neither had been on a plane before, and Abraham liked it so much, one week later they climbed on another jetliner and went back to New York, this time for two days.

Jumping ahead a bit, Sentorria and Abraham would have a child together and they broke up after around 18 months together.

Abraham said in the Herald Tribune interview that he had been hounded by people asking for money since his win.

He told his brother, “I’d have been better off broke,” and told a childhood friend, “I thought all these people were my friends, but then I realized all they want is just money.”

“People did not hesitate to come to Abraham,” reporter Deborah Mathis, who covered the case, told “20/20.” “‘I need money for my mortgage…’ ‘They’re going to repossess my car…’ ‘I’ve got to bury my mother.’ Everything you can think of that someone needed.”

Abraham was 6’5 and 190lbs and people would spot him on the street. They would tell him stories of hardship, for example, that they couldn’t pay their rent and that they — and their children — were about to be evicted, and he would hand over money, friends said.

“He thought with his heart — not his head,” Sentorria said.

State inmates whom he had never met would send him letters from prison, asking for money. As Abraham could not read, Sentorria had to read them aloud to him. She recalled a note from one inmate who asked for $1,000.

“We just laughed,” she said. “What is he going to do with $1,000 in jail?”

But Abraham wound up sending the man $50, she said.

Sentorria’s brother, Jeremee Reed said that he was sitting with Abraham one morning, and in one 30-minute stretch, Abraham’s phone rang eight times. Each time, it was someone asking for money.

In October 2008, a woman named Dorice ‘ Dee Dee’ Moore got in touch with Abraham through his realtor. She told him that she wanted to write a book about his life.

Dee Dee was not a writer though. She owned a business called American Medical Professionals, a nursing staffing agency. As a quick history into Dee Dee, she was born on July 25, 1972. She married a man named James Moore in 1992 and they had a son in 1995. In 2001, Dee Dee made rape and kidnapping allegations.

She purchased a $50k 2000 Lincoln Navigator in 2000. She put down that she was making $10k per month from her sales job and around $30k per year from selling Mary Kay products on the finance documents.

Despite this apparent income, she fell behind on car payments.

The first time it happened, Dee Dee told a GTE Federal Credit Union loan officer that her money had been stolen. She never provided a police report case number, according to Hillsborough sheriff’s investigative records, but avoided repossession by making a payment in January 2001.

The credit union came calling again in June. This time, Dee Dee had a negative balance in a business checking account and overdue payments on the car and a personal credit card. She owed nearly $6,500, investigative records show.

The loan officer told Dee Dee so during a phone conversation on June 14, 2001.

“You’re not taking my car,” she said, according to the loan officer. “I’ll do anything I have to to keep it.”

A few days after that phone call, Dee Dee filed what would be proven to be a false crime report.

In the report, she said that two Mexican men had kidnapped her from a post office where she had gone to mail something for work.

They bound her wrists and ankles with tape. They said they had been sent to burn her alive in her car, but they wanted to keep it. She said they raped her, stole her jewelry and dumped her in the ditch where passers-by found her.

“The one in back finally made the decision not to kill me but said he better never see me again and to dye my hair blond,” Dee Dee wrote in a statement at the time.

She went to the hospital and the rape crisis center. Detectives took her pink sweater, blue jeans, bra, underwear and fingernail scrapings into evidence.

They would soon learn from a Nextel representative that Dee Dee had been banned from selling the phone company’s products due to an internal fraud investigation.

On June 26, 2001, a man named Michael Davis came forward and said that he had been paid $500 to store a Lincoln Navigator on his property. He said he became suspicious after seeing the news story about a woman with a Lincoln Navigator getting kidnapped and raped. He said he had been told the vehicle was being repossessed and that it might have been involved in an insurance scam.

A man named Steve Rodela came forward and said that Dee Dee had been trying to frame someone who had apparently threatened to kill her. Dee Dee alleged that an employee at Nextel that she had fired had trespassed on her property. Steve said that Dee Dee wanted to create an incident that could be blamed on that ex-employee.

Steve said he hid the Lincoln at Dee Dee’s request. Another man, Clemente Bonilla, said he drove Dee Dee to the spot where she was found after her alleged rape and attack.

He said Dee Dee taped her own wrists and threw herself from his white Blazer.

She ultimately pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to a year of probation.

She filed for bankruptcy in 2002. So you can likely tell where this is going.

Dee Dee became close with Abraham. They launched a new business called ‘Abraham Shakespeare LLC’ together.

By January 2009, the ownership of Abraham’s million dollar home had been transferred to American Medical Professionals, Dee Dee’s company.

In February 2009, Dee Dee bought a 2008 Chevrolet Corvette for her boyfriend for $70k. She purchased it with a cashier’s check from her business account.

In March 2009, Dee Dee bought a 2009 Hummer for $90k.

Abraham was last seen in Lakeland, Florida in April 2009. He last used his cell phone on April 6.

Police believe that Dee Dee began to stage events so that people would believe Abraham was still alive. She would send texts from his phone.

She offered Sentorria a $200,000 house if she would lie and say that Abraham had dropped by one night.

Dee Dee also paid one of Abraham’s relatives $5,000 to hand-deliver to his mother a birthday card, allegedly signed by Abraham.

Despite all of this, by November 2009, Abraham’s family began to become suspicious. His cousin, Cedric Edom, filed a missing person report on November 9, 2009.

Police first interviewed Dee Dee around November 12 that year. She told authorities that Abraham had gifted her $1m and that was the money she had purchased the vehicles with.

She also told detectives she bought Abraham’s house for $655,000 and bought an additional $185,000 in debt that people owed him. The Sheriff’s Office, though, said it could find no evidence that she paid for them.

Police interviewed Dee Dee again on November 24. They asked her why Abraham had been removed off the LLC account and she said it was because he did not want to pay taxes. She also could not give a reason for why the account which had almost $1 million was soon withdrawn from the account days after Abraham’s name was removed.

By November 24, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that Abraham was missing.

Friends of Abraham said at the time that they hoped he had taken off with his money and was living on a tropical island.

Authorities continued to question Dee Dee. In December, she told them that some of Abraham’s assets went into her business account as he did not want to pay child support. Across the investigation, she told authorities that Abraham had left town and had possibly gone to either Texas, Jamaica, Puerto Rico or Florida. She also said at one point that he was sick and in hospital.

That same month, ‘Abraham’ wrote to his mother, saying that he was fine. Don’t forget, Abraham was unable to read or write.

On December 5, 2009, Dee Dee sold her 10-month old Hummer for $49,500 – basically half of what she paid for it. She told the buyer that she needed quick cash.

On December 27, Abraham’s mother Elizabeth Walker ate a meal at a restaurant with Dee Dee. While the two were together, Elizabeth got a call from someone pretending to be Abraham.

The following day, a man named Gregory Smith was interviewed by detectives. He said he had borrowed money from Abraham and had been approached by Dee Dee and asked to make calls to Elizabeth, pretending to be Abraham. Gregory told police he would cooperate ongoing with the investigation.

In January 2010, Dee Dee contacted Gregory again and asked if he knew of anyone who would admit to police that they had killed Abraham.

On January 21, 2010, Officer Mike Smith from the Lake Wales PD in Florida went undercover in the case. He was introduced to Dee Dee by Gregory. Dee Dee told the officer that she would pay him $50k if he told law enforcement that he was responsible for Abraham’s death. Mike agreed to do this but requested that Dee Dee tell him where Abraham was buried.

A few days later, Dee Dee took Gregory to a home that she had purchased and put in her boyfriend’s name in Plant City, Florida. She showed him a newly constructed concrete slab in the backyard and said that Abraham was buried around 9 feet/2.7m under the slab.

Dee Dee also gave Gregory the revolver that she used to kill Abraham.

She tried to concoct a plan for Abraham’s body to be removed before police could find it. This info about the plan is from wtsp.com:

Sheriff Gee says between December 28, 2009 and January 21, 2010, “Dorice Donegan Moore approached an undisclosed witness inquiring of whether he knew of anyone awaiting sentencing to prison who would be willing to admit to the killing of Abraham Shakespeare in exchange for 50,000 dollars in U.S. currency.”

Gee says Moore told that person they’d have to do something else, though, in order to get the cash. “That he and the other person would have to dig up the body and move it to another location.”

Four days later, detectives say Moore started to set her plan in motion. “She met with an undisclosed witness and provided a Smith and Wesson .38 caliber revolver and told them it was the weapon that had killed Abraham Shakespeare.”

Later on that same day detectives say Moore took that person to the concrete slab and pointed out the location the body was buried. She put a piece of steel bar on the slab to mark the spot and it was agreed that the body would be removed from the grave that night at 8 p.m.

Moore said “she was leaving a white in color Ford F150 pick up truck with an enclosed trailer attached to transport the body.” She gave that person the keys to the truck and “showed the contents of the trailer, which she had purchased, that consisted of a galvanized metal trough, bleach gloves and plastic sheeting.”

Gee says Moore has admitted to detectives that she also bought lime to cover Shakespeare’s body when it was buried.

Dee Dee was interviewed by police again on January 25, 2010. She gave a story this time about not paying Abraham for his house because he had a drug problem and she was worried he would buy drugs with the proceeds.

In late January, police began to search at the site of the Plant City house. James, Dee Dee’s ex-husband, told police that she had called him in April 2009 and had asked him to dig a hole in her yard. She said she needed the hole to bury concrete and trash in. James said he dug the hole and then left. Dee Dee then called him back two hours later and asked him to fill in the hole. James said that he did fill it in, but he could not see what was in the hole as it was dark.

On January 29, 2010, Abraham’s body was found buried at the Plant City property. A medical examiner determined that he had been shot twice. The manner of death was determined to be homicidal violence.

Dee Dee was taken into custody on February 2, 2010.

She was charged with first degree murder and she pleaded not guilty.