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Murder: True Crime Stories
MYSTERIOUS DEATH: The Lottery Curse featuring Javier Leiva from PRETEND
00:47:29
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- [00:01]
Carter Roy
Hi, listeners. It's Carter Roy. Before we get into today's episode of Murder True Crime Stories, I want to tell you about another show I think you'll love. Hidden History with Dr. Harini Bhatt. Every Monday, Dr. Bhatt goes where history gets mysterious. Vanished civilizations, doomsday prophecies, paranormal phenomena, and events that science still can't fully explain. Dr. Bot treats these moments like open case files. Not myths, not superstition, just incomplete explanations waiting for a closer look. Hidden History drops every Monday. Follow now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, so you never miss a mystery. This is crime house house.
- [01:03]
Javier Leyva
Most of us dream about winning the lottery. We imagine quitting our jobs, paying off our debts, and never even having to worry about money ever again. But we don't think about what happens after the cameras go away and the giant check gets cashed. Because winning the lottery doesn't just change your bank account. It changes the way every single person in your life looks at you. Abraham Shakespeare seemed exactly like the kind of person the lottery was created for. He grew up poor and couldn't read or write. He spent most of his adult life doing odd jobs and just scraping by. Then, In November of 2006, he won $30 million in the Florida Lotto. Overnight, he went from one of the poorest men in Lakeland, Florida, to one of the wealthiest. And he was generous with it. He gave away money to almost anyone who asked. Family, friends, strangers. He paid off mortgages. He covered funeral costs. He bought people cars. But even that level of wealth has its limits. And within two years, most of Abe's fortune was gone. Just when it seemed like he was at a dead end, a woman named Dee Dee Moore came into Abe's life, and she promised to help him hold on to whatever was left. Not long after that, he vanished. And the only person who seemed to know where he went was the woman who took everything from him. This is the story of Abe Shakespeare and the lottery curse.
- [02:33]
Carter Roy
People's lives are like a story. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. But you don't always know which part you're on. Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon, and we don't always get to know the real ending. I'm Carter Roy, and this is True Crime Stories, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. New episodes come out every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Welcome back to another episode of Murder Mystery Fridays, where I'm covering cases with questions that I can't get out of my head. The ones where the evidence points in multiple directions and every theory feels like a possibility. Remember, these episodes are also on YouTube with full video. Just search for Murder True crime stories and be sure to like and subscribe. Today I am joined by a very special guest, Javier Leyva, host of Pretend, an investigative true crime podcast about real people who lie for a living. It's about con artists, scammers and the victims who get caught in their web. And if you haven't checked it out, I have to tell you, his podcast is amazing and be warned, very addictive. It is so good. So please check it out. Javier will help introduce the episode, then stick around after for a short discussion. You won't want to miss it.
- [03:49]
Javier Leyva
Oh, thanks so much for having me on the show, Carter. You know, I'd never heard of the story before, but it's a great story because it's a good lesson on what to do when you become a prime target for a con artist. This is the case of Abraham Shakespeare, a man who won $30 million in the Florida lottery and disappeared three years later. By the time anyone filled a missing persons report, nearly everything he had was gone. What followed was months of dead ends, a trail of lies, and an investigation that turned answers nobody wanted to hear. All that and more coming up.
- [04:29]
Carter Roy
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You just pay for your membership and your medication. It's personalized care that actually treats you like a human being. Stop leaving your health up to an algorithm. Go to joinmochi.com. If you spent any time in Lakeland, Florida in the early 2000s, you probably crossed paths with Abraham Shakespeare at some point. He was hard to miss, but not because he was loud or flashy. He was the guy hanging around the super choice foods market, Talking to whoever would listen. Or sweeping the floor at Greg Smith's barbershop in exchange for a few bucks. He didn't have much, but he always had time for people. Lakeland sits in the middle of the state, surrounded by orange groves and strawberry fields. It's the kind of place where everybody knows everybody and where your family's circumstances follow you around like a shadow. For the Shakespeare family, those circumstances were tough. Abe was born in April 1966. His parents were fruit pickers, and money was never something they had enough of. Abe dropped out of school after seventh grade to help support his family, which meant he never learned to read or write without an education. The path ahead was narrow. Abe bounced around from one low paying job to another. He unloaded trucks, he washed dishes. He did whatever he could to get by, making about $8 an hour when he could find steady work. Along the way, he had some brushes with the law. When Abe was 13, he was arrested for theft and sent to a state run juvenile detention facility. He stayed there until he was eight. A five year stretch in juvenile detention for a 13 year old was severe. But in 1970s Florida, sentences like that weren't uncommon for kids from poor families, especially black kids. And when Abe got out in 1984, he struggled to find his footing. He bounced between odd jobs, got into trouble for driving without a license and petty theft. And in the early 1990s, he was convicted of battery against a girlfri. He went to prison for it, his second time behind bars. By the time he got out in 1995, he'd spent much of his adult life either locked up or just barely getting by. Despite all of that, most people who knew Abe genuinely liked him. He was friendly and soft spoken. He had a big easy laugh in a way of making the people around him feel comfortable. Even when he barely had anything, he'd share what he could. But sometimes it still wasn't enough. In the late 1990s, Abe dated a woman named Antoinette Andrews. They'd known each other since they were kids. In 2001, she gave birth to their son, Moses. Abe absolutely adored him. He made a point of seeing Moses as often as he could, even when things between him and Antoinette were rocky. That said, being a devoted father and being a financially stable one are two different things. one point, Abe fell behind on child support and ended up in jail for it. By 2005, Abe was almost 40 years old. He didn't have a steady job. He didn't have much money and was living with his mother, Elizabeth Walker. His days had a rhythm to them. He'd pick up work as a day laborer doing construction or washing dishes. In his free time he'd hang around the Super Choice Foods market in Lakeland, shooting the breeze with friends. Or he'd stop by Greg Smith's Barber shop to chat. Greg was a friend who understood Abe's world. He'd had his own run ins with the law, but he was trying to pull his life together just like Abe was. The two of them got along because they were cut from the same clothes. Good hearted guys who'd been dealt a rough hand. But on the evening of November 15, 2006, that all changed. At least for Abe. That Wednesday night, Abe was working as a delivery assistant for a food distribution company called the MBM Corporation. His co worker Michael Ford was behind the wheel because Abe didn't have a driver's license. They were on their way to Miami hauling meat to fast food restaurants when Ford pulled into a Town Star convenience store in Frostproof, Florida to grab some cigarettes and soda. Before Ford hopped out, Abe asked him to pick up two Quick Pick tickets for the Florida Lotto. Quick Pick means you let the computer generate the numbers for you instead of choosing them yourself. It cost Abe $2 and that was a lot for him. According to the book Unlucky Number by Deborah Mathis, which was incredibly helpful for our research, Abe only had about $5 to his name. That night, Ford came back with the tickets and they finished their deliveries. Later, Abe went home to his mom's house, sat down on the couch and pulled out his lottery tickets. He turned on the TV just as the local newscaster started reading the winning numbers. 6, 12, 13, 34, 42, 52. Abe looked down at his ticket. Those were his numbers. A few days later, Abraham Shakespeare was on television holding a giant check for $30 million. Just like that. The man who had spent his entire life scraping together $8 an hour was a multimillionaire. Now, when you win a lottery jackpot that size, you have two options. You can take annual payments spread over 20 or 30 years and collect the full amount. Or you can take the lump sum, which is a smaller payout up front. Usually about half the advertised jackpot, but you get it all at once. Like most lottery winners, Abe chose the lump sum. He received about $17 million. After taxes. He took home roughly $11 million. Then the government took about $9,000 off the top for his unpaid child support. Still, $11 million is life changing money. And the first thing Abe did with it showed exactly who he was. He set up a million dollar trust fund for his son. After years of not being able to pay child support at all. Must have been an incredible feeling to know his boy was set for life. Then he started taking care of the people around him. A million to his stepfather. A million to his godfather. A quarter million to each of his three stepsisters. He paid off mortgages for friends. He covered funeral costs for people in the neighborhood. He gave money to people he barely knew. If someone came to him with a story about rent they were about to miss or medical bills that were piling up or a car that was about to be repossessed, Abe reached into his pocket. Abe knew what it felt like to have nothing. Now that he had something, he wanted to make sure the people around him didn't have to feel that way either. He also treated himself, though not as extravagantly as you might expect. He bought a million dollar home in a gated community called Red Hawk Bend in North Lakeland. He bought a BMW and a pickup truck, even though he still didn't have a driver's license. And he bought a Rolex from a pawn shop for a $30 million winner. Those purchases were relatively modest, but Abe wasn't interested in living like a celebrity. He just wanted to be comfortable. And he wanted the people he cared about to be comfortable, too. Abe's new life also brought new relationships. Not long after the win, he started dating a woman named Centoria Butler. They'd met through a mutual friend at a bar. She later said Abe was devoted and affectionate and that he was thrilled when he found out she was pregnant. They had a son together. For a stretch, things were good. Abe had a home, two kids. He loved money in the bank and people around him who seemed to care. But that stretch didn't last long. Word travels fast in a small community like Lakeland. And pretty soon, Abe wasn't just getting requests from family and friends. Strangers were showing up. Friends of friends were pitching business ideas. People he'd never met were asking for handouts. Abe's friend Greg Smith put it this way on the Hulu show Web of Death. When Abraham first won that money, it wasn't only Abraham Shakespeare. It was the community that won the lottery. For a while, Abe could keep up. But his generosity was draining his accounts at a staggering rate. And Abe didn't have a financial advisor to tell him to slow down. The closest thing he had was a neighbor of his uncle's, who tried to keep track of his finances and collect on the many debts people owed him. But mostly, all he got back were excuses. His relationship with Sentaria fell apart, too. After about 18 months together, they split up. Then, in April 2007, things got worse. Michael Ford, the co worker who had bought the lottery tickets for Abe that night at the convenience store, Filed a lawsuit. Ford claimed the winning tickets had actually been his and that Abe had stolen them from his wallet in the glove compartment of the truck. Ford's attorney went after Abe hard, Calling him a chronic thief and accusing him of bribing witnesses to stay quiet. Abe was stunned. He saw his future on the line and hired a prominent attorney named Willie Gary to defend him. The case went to trial in October 2007. At one point, Abe walked into the courtroom Hauling a garbage bag stuffed with thousands of lottery tickets he'd bought over the years. It was proof that playing the lotto was a regular habit of his. Gary argued that Abe couldn't have known the tickets would be winners, so there would be no reason to steal them. The jury sided with Abe. It took them barely an hour to reach a verdict. But Willie Gary's legal fees cost him $800,000. Money that Abe really couldn't afford to lose. Because by the end of 2008, just two years after winning the jackpot, Most of Abe's fortune was gone. At that point, he had about one and a half million in cash and roughly three million in assets like his house and cars. The $11 million that were supposed to change his life had mostly been handed away one favor at a time. But it wasn't just the money. It was the way people treated him. Every interaction felt transactional. Now, people who had never given Abe the time of day before the lottery Were suddenly calling him a friend. And the ones who had been around before Started acting like they were owed a cut. Abe couldn't tell who was genuine anymore. His mother, Elizabeth, later told reporters, quote, his life was miserable. He couldn't say no. Abe himself was even more blunt. He told a childhood friend, quote, I thought all these people were my friends. But then I realized all they want is just money. What Abe needed was someone to protect what he had left. Someone who could manage his money, Fend off the constant requests, and give him some peace. Unfortunately, the person who showed up to do that job had no intention of helping him at all. By the fall of 2008, Abraham Shakespeare's $30 million jackpot was nearly gone, and. And he was desperate for someone to Help him get a handle on his finances. So it seemed like fate when a woman named Doris Dee Dee Moore entered his life. Dee Dee was 36 years old. She owned a company called American Medical Professionals, a nursing staffing agency, and came across as a capable, put together businesswoman. She spoke confidently about money and gave the impression that she knew how the world worked and in ways that Abe didn't. Now, the two of them met through a realtor named Barbara, who had sold Abe his house in Red Hawk Bend. Barbara had been so impressed by Abe's kindness and generosity that she liked to share his story whenever she could. She'd mentioned Abe at a small business conference in October 2008. Afterwards, Dee Dee approached her and asked for an introduction. Although Dee Dee ran the staffing agency, she told Barbara she was a writer and thought Abe's rags to riches story would make a great book. Barbara was happy to connect them, and at first, the relationship seemed like exactly what Abe needed. Dede was attentive, organized, and seemed genuinely interested in Abe's life. She promised to write a biography that would show the world what a generous, remarkable person he was part of. Dede's apparent research included learning about his financial situation, and it was easy to see the problems. People owed Abe money that they didn't have. His ex was suing him for child support. His uncle's neighbor, the one handling his accounts, wasn't doing enough to stop the bleeding. Dede told Abe she could help. She was a businesswoman, after all. She was comfortable with money. Why not let her step in and manage things for a while? Abe thought it over and agreed. Once Dede was managing Abe's finances, things started moving very quickly. One of the first things she did was buy up all of his outstanding debts for a fraction of their value, a little under $200,000. It gave Abe a quick injection of cash. But it also meant that the money people owed Abe now belonged to Dee Dee. And she took collection seriously, going door to door and threatening to foreclose on people's homes if they didn't pay. In January 2009, just about three months after they first met, Dee Dee convinced Abe to transfer the title to his million dollar house in Red Hawk Bend to her company, American Medical Professionals. Dede told him it was a smart financial move, a way to protect the property from lawsuits and creditors. Abe trusted her judgment. Then she came for his life insurance. Abe had a significant policy with Prudential, presumably for his son's future. Dede set up a company called Abraham Shakespeare llc, listing herself Abe and one of his friends, Judy Hagens, AS officers. On February 10, 2009, Dede brought Abe to the bank and had him transfer his Prudential account into a new account run by the llc. A week later, Dee Dee returned to the bank alone. She had a document claiming the LLC's officers had met and voted to remove Abe from the account. The meeting minutes listed her as the only officer present for the decision. The bank processed the change without question. With Abe off the account, Dede wrote herself a Cashier's check for $250,000. Then she continued making withdrawals until the account was empty. At the time, Abe may not have fully understood what was happening. He couldn't read the documents he was signing, and Dee Dee was the one person he believed was looking out for him. That's probably how she convinced him to sign over power of attorney to his friend Judy Hagens. On April 3, 2009, Dee Dee told Abe it would save him the hassle of dealing with boring legal paper. But the power of attorney is a serious legal tool. It lets someone else act on your behalf in financial and legal matters. Judy may have cared about Abe, but like him, she didn't fully understand the weight of what she was doing. She didn't know it was a big deal when she signed the paperwork Dee Dee put in front of her. Two days later, on April 5, Judy went to see Abe. They made plans to meet up the following day. He never showed up. In the days that followed, Abe's friends and family started receiving strange text messages from his phone. Different excuses for why he couldn't call or visit. When people pushed for details, the responses got hostile and dismissive. This was suspicious for many different reasons. But remember, Abe could barely read or write. He didn't like texting. The people closest to him knew that if Abe wanted to talk, he'd pick up the phone or show up in person. The idea that he was suddenly communicating through long, coherent text messages was completely out of character. And yet the messages kept coming. Meanwhile, Dee had a story ready for everyone who asked. She told Abe's live in girlfriend, Courtney, that Abe had met someone new and was on vacation with her. When Courtney raced home, she found Dee Dee Dee's boyfriend and Dee Dee's teenage son already living in the house. Dee Dee told Courtney the house belonged to her now. Courtney had to leave. Dede even showed people a video she'd taken of Abe just before his disappearance. In it, she interviews him while he's scrolling through his home security cameras. She asks if he's tired of people asking him for money and where he wants to go. Abe seems annoyed with her. He motions for her to turn off the camera and says, I might miss it. But life goes on. To dede, the video is proof that Abe had wanted to to leave. To investigators who would later watch it, it looked more like a woman building an alibi. As summer approached, the rumors started piling up. Abe was in Puerto Rico doing business. He was in the hospital. He was hiding to avoid paying child support. The only person who claimed to have actually seen him was Dee, and she said he didn't want to be found. But Abe's family wasn't buying. Wasn't like him to go months without calling his mother, Elizabeth. So Dee Dee tried to buy more time. In August, she paid Abe's Cousin Cedric Edom $5,000 to tell the family that Abe had left the country. She also had Cedric deliver a birthday card and $100 to Elizabeth. The card had a scribbled note that that said, I'll be home soon. It worked. Elizabeth held off on filing a missing persons report. But Cedric was starting to have doubts of his own. If Dee Dee was really looking out for Abe, why was she threatening to take Cedric's house and his car? The woman who was supposed to be protecting his cousin was shaking down his family. And Cedric was beginning to wonder whether Abe had really run away at all. Finally, on November 9, 2009, more than seven months after Abe disappeared, Cedric filed the missing persons report himself. Now, detectives took a hard look at Cedric early on, he'd taken money from Dee Dee. He delivered that birthday card. Didn't look great. But Cedric's story checked out, and investigators cleared him. Whatever happened to Abe, Cedric wasn't part of it. That's when the Polk county sheriff's office got involved. And that's when Dee Dee's story started to fall apart. When detectives brought Dee Dee in for questioning on December 3, she told them a confusing story. She said Abe had gotten tired of being pestered for money and said skipped town using a fake passport. At various points, she claimed he was in Texas, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, or Orlando. As for the house, she claimed she'd bought it fair and square. But when the detectives asked for a bill of sale, Dede said she hadn't exactly paid for it. She was gradually paying a back by covering his travel expenses and. And things like that. The detectives weren't convinced, so they started digging into Dee Dee Moore's past. And what they found told a very different story. Dee Dee wasn't just A businesswoman, she had a record. In 1999, she'd been arrested for shoplifting. In 2001, she was convicted of insurance fraud and filing a frame false police report. That incident was especially brazen. When her credit union threatened to repossess her suv, Dee had paid someone to drive her out onto a highway. She tied her own wrists, threw herself into a ditch, and waited to be rescued. When the cops arrived, she told them that she'd been sexually assaulted by three men who'd stolen her car. The logic was simple. If the car was reported stolen, it couldn't be repossessed. But one of her accomplices called the police and told them the SUV was sitting in his garage. She pleaded no contest to insurance fraud and filing a false police report and got a year of probation for the stunt. Then in 2002, she filed for bankruptcy. Around 2006, she separated from her husband and started dating a younger man named Char. She showered him with expensive gifts, including a Corvette and a Rolex, telling him the money came from an IRS whistleblower payout. The picture was becoming clear. Dee Dee Moore wasn't someone who had stumbled into Abe's life by accident. She was a woman with a long history of manipulation, deception, and schemes. And every time she got caught, she walked away with barely a slap on the wrist. And now she'd found the biggest target of her life. A man who trusted easily and couldn't read the documents she put in front of him. But the detectives still didn't have a body, and without one, they couldn't prove Abe was dead. So they kept watching Dede. And it wasn't long until she made a critical mistake. On a quiet Saturday morning, five women walked into Elaine Bryant store and never came home.
- [29:45]
Morgan Abshur and Kaylin Moore
The man responsible for their deaths was heard and even described by the lone survivor.
- [29:50]
Carter Roy
But despite nearly being caught, he vanished into thin air. In the years since, new technology, new investigators, and new questions have changed what's possible. But the families are still waiting for answers. The evidence is still there, and this case isn't cold. It's unfinished.
- [30:06]
Morgan Abshur and Kaylin Moore
Listen to Counterclock, season eight, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [30:15]
Carter Roy
By the end of 2009, the Polk County Sheriff's Office knew Dee Dee Moore had something to do with Abe Shakespeare's disappearance. But without a body or a confession, they couldn't make an arrest. Then Dee Dee gave them an opening. She reached out to Cynteria Butler, Abe's ex girlfriend and the mother of his younger son. She knew Cynteria was struggling financially. She was a single mom trying to raise a young boy. And Dee Dee knew exactly which buttons to push. So she made Cynteria an offer. If Cynteria told the police she'd recently seen Abe alive, Dee Dee would pay off her house and car. Cynteria agreed to the deal. But the moment Dee Dee walked out the door, Cynteria picked up the phone and called the police. She told them exactly what had just happened. That confirmed what detectives already suspected. Abe wasn't on vacation. He was dead, and Dee Dee was responsible. Problem was, they still couldn't prove it. To do that, they needed someone Dee Dee trusted enough to let her guard down around. That's when they found Craig Smith. Greg ran the barbershop where Abe had been hanging out for years. The two of them went way back. When Abe won the lottery, he'd loaned Greg $87,000 to keep the bank from taking his house. And unlike most of the people Abe had helped over the years, Greg actually made a point of paying him back. Every month. He'd send what he could and then some. He took the debt seriously. So when Abe disappeared, Greg noticed. He tried to reach him over and over without success. And he didn't trust Dee Dee. He'd thought she was trouble from the start, but she controlled his debt now. Which meant she controlled him. One wrong move, and she could take everything from him. In November 2009, Dede asked Greg for a favor. For $300, she wanted him to call a man named Dave Wallace and leave an anonymous tip claiming he'd just seen Abe at a strip club in Miami. Two weeks later, she asked for another favor. This time, she wanted Greg to call Abe's mother and pretend to be Abe. Greg made the call. A few minutes later, three officers pulled him over at a traffic light. One of them introduced himself as Detective David Wallace, the same person Dee Dee had paid Greg to lie to. Wallace was a homicide detective. Greg didn't ask for a lawyer. He told them everything. After hearing Greg's story, the detectives asked him to work as a confidential informant. They had him wear a wire. And for the next several weeks, Greg played along with Dee Dee's schemes while recording every conversation. First, Dee Dee had Greg buy her burner phones so she could communicate without the police listening. Then she roped him into something bigger. She invited him to a motel room, told him to put on gloves, a mask and shoe covers, and had him forge a letter from Abe to his mother, telling her he was safe and sound. Two minutes after Dee Dee dropped it in Elizabeth's mailbox, the Police grabbed it. But the recordings, as damning as they were, still didn't give investigators what they needed most. Proof that Abe was dead and an admission from Dee Dee that she knew about it. So they came up with a plan to draw her out. Greg told Dee Dee he had a cousin who was about to go to prison on drug charges. For $50,000, the cousin would be willing to take the blame for Abe's murder. It was a test. If Dee Dee agreed, it would mean she knew Abe was dead. Sure enough, Dee Dee took the bait. What she didn't know was that Greg's cousin was actually an undercover officer named Mike Smith. When the three of them met, Dee Dee didn't deny that Abe had been killed. Instead, she told Mike a story. A drug dealer named Ronald had murdered Abe, and he'd threatened to kill Dee Dee and her son if she ever talked. About was the first time Dee Dee had acknowledged to anyone that Abraham Shakespeare was dead. Prosecutors would later call it the moment dad broke the case open. Mike told her he needed proof that Abe was dead before going any further. Dee Dee said she could help with that. First, she offered to hand over the murder weapon so Mike could put his fingerprints on it, making it look like he had been the shooter. The gun turned out to be registered in Dee Dee's name. She gave it to Greg, who immediately turned it over to police. That alone was a major piece of evidence. But investigators wanted the full picture, so Mike pushed further. He told Dee Dee he needed to know where the body was. Dee Dee agreed to show them. She took Greg to a property she'd bought earlier that year in Plant City and pointed to a concrete slab in the backyard. Abe was buried six feet below it. Now the detectives had everything they needed. The gun, the location of Abe's body, and Dede's own words on tape admitting that Abe was dead. All that was left was to close the trap. On the night of January 25, 2010, Greg and the undercover officer told Dee Dee they were going to dig up Abe's body and move it so Mike could stage a more convincing story for investigators. Dedi agreed to the plan, but said she didn't want to be anywhere near the property when it happened. She went out to dinner with a friend instead. While she was out, Greg called her. Panicked, he told her the police had shown up at the property and found Abe's body before they could move it. Did he reach? Rushed over to meet Greg. When she got there, officers were waiting. They brought her in for questioning, but they didn't Arrest her? Not yet. Three days later, on January 28, investigators smashed through the concrete slab at the property on State Road 60 in Plant City. Six feet down, they found what they'd been looking for. Abraham Shakespeare's. His body still in a black jacket, his hair tucked into a stocking cap. He was partially mummified, embedded in lime powder that had been spread to mask the smell. He'd been shot twice in the chest. It had been nearly 10 months since anyone had seen him alive. Detectives later pieced together how the burial had happened. Dee Dee had called her up ex husband James Moore and asked him to come dig a hole in her yard. She told him she needed to bury some concrete and trash. James dug the hole, went home, and Dee Dee called him back about two hours later to fill it in. He told police he couldn't see what was at the bottom because it was dark. Detectives looked into whether James knew what he was burying, but his story held up. He thought it was construction debris, and nothing suggested otherwise. He was never charged, and a cement contractor was later hired to pour a slab over the top. On February 2, 2010, police arrested Doris Dee Dee Moore and charged her with accessory after the fact in the murder of Abraham Shakespeare. A judge set her bond at $1 million. Seventeen days later, on February 19, prosecutors upgraded the charge to first degree murder. Dee Dee sat in jail for more than two years before her trial began. And when it did, all the people in Abe's life took the stand and testified about how she'd manipulated everyone around her. On December 10, 2012, the jury found Doris Dee Dee Moore guilty of first degree murder. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. By the time Abe's body was found, he had less than $15,000 to his name. The $30 million fortune that had once promised to change his life was basically gone. Dee Dee Moore has filed multiple appeals since her conviction. All of them have been denied. As recently as 2025, she sat for an interview from prison with ABC's 20 20, still insisting she was framed. She told reporters, quote, there was no reason for him to pass away over money. She's right about one thing. There was no reason for Abe to die. Not over money, not over anything. Abraham Shakespeare was a man who spent his entire life on the outside looking in. He grew up in poverty. He couldn't read. He spent five years in juvenile detention as a teenager and struggled to put his life together after he got out. The world didn't give him much to work with, but the people who knew him Said he had a good heart. And when he finally caught a break, the kind of break most of us only dream about, his first instinct wasn't to hoard. Was to share it with everyone around him. He gave a million dollars to his stepfather, a million dollars to his godfather. He set up a trust fund for his son. He paid off strangers mortgages. He covered funeral costs for people in his neighborhood. He helped people he barely knew because he remembered what it felt like to have nothing and no one to help him. In the end, that generosity is what made him vulnerable. Not because it was wrong, but because the people around him didn't always deserve it. Abe's kindness was the best thing about him. And it's the thing that Dee Dee Moore exploited until there was nothing left. He was 42 years old when he died. He'd been rich for less than three years. And by the time his body was found, almost every dollar was gone. But the people in Lakeland who actually knew him, the ones who hung around Super Choice Foods and stopped by Greg's barbershop, they don't remember the money. They remember a man who was generous before he had anything to be generous with. His name was Abraham Shakespeare, and he deserved a whole lot better than the ending he got. And now I'm joined by Javier Leyva from the Pretend Podcast to dig into this case a little deeper. If you haven't listened to Pretend, it's one of the best shows out there on con artists, scammers, and the psychology behind why deception works. Javier, thanks for being here.
- [41:55]
Javier Leyva
Yeah, thanks for having me, Carter. This is great.
- [41:58]
Carter Roy
Yeah, I can't wait to dive in. So Abe won $30 million and gave most of it away within two years. And I don't think it was because he was reckless. I think it was because he genuinely wanted to help the people around him. He knew what it felt like to have nothing. So I guess here's my question. If you came into money overnight, what would you actually do if you just had this huge lump sum?
- [42:20]
Javier Leyva
You know what, Carter? I would love to say that I would be smart about it, and I've learned all these lessons from doing the show. I would probably do exactly the same thing Abe did. I think most people would. You know, you're given the choice of getting the lump sum money. They take out a lot of the taxes, but, heck, it's a lot more money than I had yesterday, so why not?
- [42:41]
Carter Roy
Totally. I was thinking about it with me, too. Like, of course, right away you're going to give some to, you know, family Friends in need, a little here, a little there. And then I can just see how, like, impossible would be to hold that line. Then somebody a little further out in your social circle comes up, and you're like, oh, I'd be a terrible person if I didn't give them a little compared to the huge amount I have.
- [43:02]
Javier Leyva
Yeah, well. And these are people you love, right? These are your friends and your family, and all of a sudden, they start seeing you different, and you are different. You're not the same person you were when. Before you won that cash. And you could help out, and you might want to help them out. I mean, like, that's the whole point, right? You don't want to be greedy, and you want to help out the people that helped you your whole life.
- [43:24]
Carter Roy
Yeah, totally. And I think, too, the circle of sharks that must come in around anybody who gets that kind of windfall must be huge.
- [43:33]
Javier Leyva
Yeah, you and I would have trouble if we landed this amount of money. But I think Abe was at an even bigger disadvantage, right, because he wasn't literate. You know, he didn't know where to start. And just from the very beginning, he needed to lean on other people to help him figure this thing out, Right?
- [43:52]
Carter Roy
Completely. Now, obviously, if you've spent a lot of years looking at con artists and how they operate from Ponzi schemes, identity fraud, emotional manipulation, the whole spectrum. So when you look at Dee Dee Moore and what she did to Abe, what stands out to you in terms of who she was in operating as a con artist?
- [44:09]
Javier Leyva
I mean, you know, he didn't know Dee Dee from Adam. Right. I think that if you're in this position, you need to just look out for DD's, but you got to look out for anybody who's opportunist that wants to rip you off. Right. And, like, in hindsight, the things that he should have been looking for and if he knew these points, he probably would have spotted Didi a mile away. But it's, you know, you win the lottery, don't tell anybody right away. Find somebody, like, reputable to help you plan how to use that money. And then also, like, try to think about the impact that the community is going to have, because it's not just going to be your friends and your family. It's going to be strangers like Didi that are going to be showing up at your door wanting cash. Cash. And so I've done this series on my podcast teaching people how to disappear. Like, by the time you need to disappear, it's too late. And one of Those use cases, it's winning the lottery, Right? Another use case would be, let's say a cop gets caught up in a controversial arrest or a killing or something like that. Or a judge lands a decision that's very unpopular, that puts him and his safety in danger. By the time that happens and you don't have a plan, it's too late. Right? So, like, even though you and I are probably never going to win the lottery, we should take steps to try to disappear so that when we do win the lottery, people can't find us. They can't find out where we live. They don't know our phone numbers. And so, like, that would be step number one. And I would advise that to anyone, even if they don't win the lottery.
- [45:43]
Carter Roy
And that's amazing. I hadn't thought of that.
- [45:45]
Javier Leyva
So.
- [45:46]
Carter Roy
And as far as, like, how she did it, like, the deception she used seemed pretty smart in terms of how she was operating. The kind of coming in at the book angle seems so far from, like, okay, you're not coming right at me. You're not even going romance. Like, you're not trying to win. My heart seems very far afield. Is that something you recognized?
- [46:08]
Javier Leyva
Con artists don't just come out of the gate trying to rip you off. They're the first ones to pick up the check at the restaurant. They're uber generous. I mean, they buy you gifts, they do stuff. They come in to help so that when they do need a favor, you don't even question it because they're so generous. Right. And so Didi came in here as a helper. He was the one with the money. She was filling in a void that he didn't have. And she spotted that opportunity and she took it. Con artists are basically people that have no conscience. And they see opportunities and they pounce. And they don't care how it affects that person. They just take it.
- [46:47]
Carter Roy
Wow. Right? Just sort of start. I mean, the way to place yourself is like, oh, as the rescuer and building trust. And not just to know, like, don't show your cards. Go from the natural human thing, which is like, I'm helpful to you. And then whatever doorways open, start going through them.
- [47:04]
Javier Leyva
And then now, once I've earned your trust, now I need to cut you off from the rest of the world. Okay. And that's same way a cult would operate. They need to occupy your time 24 7. All of a sudden, your friends and your family are not at arm's reach. They are the person that's always around. So you will confide in them and they move really fast. In this case, she jumped on this whole power of attorney. She knew that that was the key to getting access to the money and she found her opening and she took it.
- [47:37]
Carter Roy
And I guess too, with this one, it seems like there's probably a lesson in just lottery wise, in terms of the lump sum versus the annuity, where the protection, I mean, what do you think about the difference in those? It feels like maybe if he'd done the annuity, sort of like investing. It takes certain things off the table to be like, all right, I don't have that much and someone's got to be around for years to get to it.
- [47:58]
Javier Leyva
Yeah, just. And actually, yeah, maybe that is the smartest move, which is not to take the lump sum. But honestly, in hindsight, even breaking those payments up yearly would have probably have been a lot for him. And honestly, that's probably the way to go for everyone, right?
- [48:14]
Carter Roy
Well, if today's conversation got you thinking, you'll definitely want to check out the Pretend Podcast. Each episode, Javier follows a real case of manipulation, from financial scams and Ponzi schemes to digital hoaxes and emotional cons. Along the way, he exposes the human psychology behind deception and fraud. Javier, thank you so much for joining us today. I just kind of can't get enough of these stories, so I'm so thankful that you were able to join us for this one.
- [48:42]
Javier Leyva
Oh man, Carter, thank you for having me. This was awesome.
- [48:52]
Carter Roy
Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy and this is Murder True Crime Stories. Come back next time for the story of another murder and all the people it affected. Murder True Crime Stories is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media, Rimehouse on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your Murder True Crime Stories listening experience, subscribers subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode early and ad free. We'll be back on Tuesday. True Crime Stories is hosted by me, Carter Roy, and is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Murder True Crime Stories team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benidon, Natalie Pertovsky, Lori Marinelli, Cassidy Dillon and Russell Nash. Thank you for listening.
- [50:04]
Morgan Abshur and Kaylin Moore
At Fred's Appliance. We get it. Some mornings run smoother with extra help, whether it be from your little helpers pitching in to unload the dishwasher or having the right appliance that makes everything feel effortless. We know that creating memories in the kitchen is where all the magic happens. And right now, Fred's Appliance is here to help. All Bosch appliances are on sale and save up to $300 on select Bosch dishwashers. Come in today to take advantage of these savings. Fred's Appliance we sell appliances, only appliances. Do you want to sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases? I'm Morgan Abshur. And I'm Kaylin Moore, and we'd love for you to check out our new show, Clues. Each Wednesday, I piece together the timelines and break down the hard facts, digging into forensic details, investigative techniques, and everything that led to justice or didn't. And while Kailyn dives into the facts, I'm pulling at the threads, digging through the Internet theories and looking at the details that may or may not add up. From serial killers to shocking cold cases, we shine a light on the stories that have been waiting, sometimes for decades, to finally be heard. So join us as we uncover the breakthroughs, the heartbreak, and the relentless pursuit of answers behind the world's most unforgettable investigations. Come open a case file with us every Wednesday and listen to clues. Wherever you get your podcasts.