February 10, 2023 • 75 mins
In this episode,
we are headed to 2000's Florida to cover the sad and senseless murder of Abraham Shakespeare. To be a pillar of the community is an understatement because Abraham was a man that gave everything to those he loved and he had hoped for better. Until, one day he finds out he has just won the $30 million jackpot from the Florida Lotto! Although, sinister intentions are always lurking nearby. Follow us into this spiraling case of tragedy, deception and murder.
As always, don't forget to leave any positive feedback and reviews! You can also add us on the following social media platforms listed below! Thank you again for listening and we will see you when the light, goes out!
Social Media:
Instagram: @wtlgopodcast
TikTok: @wtlgopodcast
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Have a story you'd like to share with us? Email us any of your feedback and inquiries:
Sources
Investigation Discovery , 2013, A Stranger In My House: Death by Lottery
Fresh Take Florida, March 2022, "Tampa woman who killed lottery winner backs bill to keep names secret"
Jason Geary & Merissa Green The Ledger, Sept 2010, "Detectives Lay Out Key Findings in Abraham Shakespeare Case"
How to play Florida Lotto
Flynn, Ellie , Feb 2017 , "COLD BLOODED MURDER Who is Dorice ‘Dee Dee’ Moore? Woman who befriended and murdered $30m lottery winner Abraham Shakespeare"
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2758585/dorice-dee-dee-moore-murdered-abraham-shakespeare/
Miller, Jax , Nov 2021 , "A Multi-Million Dollar Mystery: Was A Lottery Winner’s Sudden Wealth Motive For Murder?"
Morbid Podcast , "The Murder of Abraham Shakespeare"
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm Kendall and I'm Bri and this is when the light goes out.
(00:11):
Hello.
Hi.
Hello all of you strange and beautiful humans.
Welcome back to another week of when the light goes out.
It is episode 23.
(00:33):
23.
23.
Oh wait no I can't even do it.
We can't.
It's 21.
I don't know about you.
Oh I thought 23.
Oh I thought you were going to say 21.
Can you do something?
What song is 23?
Is there a 23 song?
I don't think there is out there.
There's one.
There's a TikTok one.
That's like oh shit.
What is it?
I'm trying to think of the sound.
(01:00):
23.
I feel like looking that up.
It's by um what the fuck is that girl's name.
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh I know that song but I know I'm also thinking of isn't there
a song that Miley Cyrus came out with called 23 right?
20 something?
I don't know.
I don't listen to Miley Cyrus.
I don't know it's like such a whole song and I feel like anyone would know it though.
(01:22):
Oh shit I don't know.
What about Jeeze on 23?
Jeeze on 23 song is like not.
Jeeze on my feet.
Jeeze on my feet.
Jeeze on my feet.
That's 23 right?
Isn't that called 23?
I think it might be.
Okay I got one.
I think.
I like this game.
Jeeze is like not really a catchy 23 though because the part that she says it is now I'm
(01:44):
23 you felt like I outlived all my enemies.
Oh god.
She starts the song with being like.
I'm just starting to make enemies.
How old are you now and then she goes 23 and then it's like K makes sense and then it goes
into the song.
Oh okay.
Yeah it's like a tic-tac.
Oh I feel like I've definitely probably heard that song before.
It sounds whittier from the beginning.
(02:05):
But yeah I hope everyone's had a great week.
I like to just start out with that because we don't say it enough.
We don't like to ask enough.
Yeah how was your guys' week?
Yeah.
I hope that y'all talk to us much anyway.
Just a mental wellness check.
Just making sure everyone's doing okay.
Well we, well I'll speak for myself.
I don't know how your week went.
(02:27):
Go ahead.
What did I even do this week?
God I don't even know.
I worked most of the week.
Sunday was my errand day.
Oh I'm going to move my mic real quick.
I'm sorry.
I'm making one noise.
Okay I'm here.
Sunday was like I felt like I ran all my errands and then Monday through tomorrow.
I've just been working.
So yeah.
(02:47):
If you guys hear my cat meowing or purring as always.
Boo's here.
Boo's here.
Boo's in the house.
As always for people who are just joining in on this episode.
Boo is my cat.
Boo is our mascot.
She is our mascot.
If you hear any like random noises.
She is all up on our podcast table.
Yeah she's up on the table.
She's stared at Kendall like she's being confrontational.
(03:11):
She's about to smell my plate.
Get out of here.
There's nothing on it.
Boo will you can sit with me or will you be good?
Will you lay down?
Will you lay down Boo?
Lay down.
It looks like he's trying to cast a spell on her.
I was like hovering my hand over her not petting her.
I don't know why.
I'm so weird.
Lay down.
(03:31):
Anyway how was your week?
My week was okay.
It wasn't too bad.
It was pretty dormant so far.
I feel like I guess I haven't done a ton.
Oh she about to jump.
She.
Okay go ahead Boo.
I'm going to go over my bottom meat.
Bottom meat.
What is it called?
Bota meaty?
I don't know.
My shirt and my go-go juice.
(03:52):
My go-go juice.
My juice in the box.
My wine in the box.
He didn't just shot a tequila before this and now he's doing some wine in the box.
Listen sis.
Wine in a juice box.
We gotta smell silly sometimes when we want to talk about some dark shit.
Silly goofy.
Silly goofy girls.
Oh what the hell is wrong with us?
(04:12):
I don't get out enough.
I don't know what your thing is because you do.
I really do.
I don't really have a reason I guess.
I just no excuse.
No all around them.
My week has been good and again this is always a fun part of my week because I feel like
well I mean obviously this is work but we work our own full-time jobs and then we get
(04:32):
to come to this and I get to see you.
I get to tell all of you a story.
What not to love about all of us.
So assuming boo won't step on my keyboard and fuck up all this track right now.
I would cry.
I would take a shower after this boo don't fuck anything up.
The both swarming around my backpack is everything okay.
Yeah they probably just smell pebbles.
(04:55):
Oh that's so true.
Yeah I don't talk about pebbles enough.
Pebbles is my little blind poodle.
She's an old girl.
She's an old girl.
She's young at heart though.
She young at heart.
I don't give her some credit.
This dog has so much energy for a blind little old dog and I'm like girl how do you have
so much energy.
I have little bit of energy.
(05:16):
She is like a little white dog though.
She is a little white dog.
She is a definition of a little white dog.
Like ram bag.
Ram bag.
She's as fuck.
Like sometimes a little annoying.
Yeah no you're a little ankle biter.
That's for sure.
A little ankle biter but we love her.
She's cute.
We love my little pebbles.
The sim first time I met pebbles upsets.
Oh she's so cute.
(05:37):
I told I said that we wouldn't ramble too much but here we are.
We can cut some of it out.
This is cute banter though.
I told Bree at the beginning of the before we started the episode.
Okay let's just go into the story.
No banter.
It's a long one.
But then we sit and then banter just it just happens.
It's because when we get a lot around with each other and we haven't talked about life
(06:01):
in a while or whatever.
We just be talking.
Y'all just sitting with us and just listen.
We be talking.
It's like we need a separate podcast of just us talking.
Just us talking.
I don't think a lot of people listen to that.
You never know.
That could be a cute little thing.
We have to talk about something like actually relevant but you know.
Yeah maybe when we get more well known.
(06:22):
Yeah.
Have more time.
Yeah.
Yeah probably not.
Alright well.
Let's get into it.
Let's get into it.
Yeah.
Get into it.
So.
Yo I can't do it.
Yeah.
So today we have a story for you guys.
(06:44):
Now this story is a pretty crazy story.
I think it spirals a lot wouldn't you say?
Fast.
Yeah.
It spirals pretty quickly.
It's a lengthy one.
It's not super lengthy but it is like it will lead us right up to our time limit.
A lot of info.
There's a lot of info.
So again if I told you Chetta like Chetta fill herself around with the audience fills.
(07:10):
If you're confused she's confused.
We're all confused.
I speak for you guys.
Yes.
So try to stay along.
Here we go.
So today's story is the murder of Abraham Shakespeare.
Now the first thing I thought when I first heard about this case is wow what a name.
That is a name.
(07:31):
That's a name.
That's a cool name.
Like what a name.
The last name is Shakespeare.
Shakespeare.
It's very noble.
Very.
Like I've never met anyone named Shakespeare and if you're last I mean Shakespeare out
there can you hit us up and tell us hi because I'm jealous.
I feel like it's pretty cool.
But anywho the story starts out on November 24th 2009 in Polk County Florida.
(07:55):
The Sheriff's Office declares a 42 year old African American male by the name of Abraham
Shakespeare a missing person.
He actually hadn't been seen for six months prior to being declared missing.
Six months.
Six months.
Yeah.
That's crazy right.
Imagine.
It's a long time.
Six months had gone by and it was weird for Abraham to go missing though because he had
(08:19):
actually recently been the winner of the Florida lottery.
Suspicious.
I know.
He has widely known to be a family man devoted to sharing his winnings with anyone that asks.
So the real question here is why would a millionaire and yes he won $30 million.
$30 million.
$30 million.
(08:40):
$30 million.
I said it again.
$30 million.
$30 million.
Are you sure you read those zeros right?
Yeah.
$30 million.
$30 million.
And if you guys don't believe me look on our Instagram at WTLGO Podcast.
That's a nice plug.
Yes.
And look up because we'll have a picture there of him holding $30 million.
(09:01):
That's a lot of money.
Yeah.
So the question stands.
Why would a millionaire that literally went from Rex to riches just up and disappear
out of without a trace?
Suspicious.
Sus.
Very sussis.
That's not sussis.
So let's just rewind.
(09:22):
That was like perfect noise.
That's it really?
Yeah.
Thank you.
How did you do that?
Okay.
I wasn't thinking about it and it just happened or it might be the box line.
But anyway.
That was the tequila shot.
Oh that too.
I forgot.
Yeah.
So let's rewind to three years earlier in November of 2006.
(09:43):
So 40 year old Abraham Lee Shakespeare had been working as a truck driver while also
living with his mother in plant city, Florida.
This is a real community with lots of farming land often used for shabery and orange growing
and it's not super populated and that kind of makes me really hungry for fruit right
now.
(10:04):
Don't know why but it does.
An orange does sound good.
It does sound good right now.
I love me an orange.
So Abraham did not make a ton of money.
He lived paycheck to paycheck.
He was also a single father with his son Moses and if you don't realize already it seemed
like Moses and Abraham their biblical name so that's a thing.
(10:26):
And he co-apparented his son with his ex and he often spent his time actually at home
when not working caring for his utterly grandmother and was just a very hard working all around
decent person.
He seems like a sweet genuine caring family man.
Yeah.
How many of those can you say they were living existing?
(10:46):
That's right.
Probably not many.
Yeah.
Luckily I know a few.
A few, yeah.
Well Abraham's friend Gregory would later state quote, if he could help you he was on
his way.
He was that type of person and if you saw him out he would never have a bad day.
(11:06):
Unquote.
So you get a sense of who he kind of was.
Like a sunshine.
A sunshine.
A sunshine.
I love it.
And so according to his mother he never fought with her growing up.
Always suspected her rules would never come home late and never would come home drunk
or on any drugs both in his adolescence and in his adult life.
(11:28):
So literally sunshine.
He was literally so pure and he was just a decent human being.
I think the only thing and of course we all have maybe the smallest guilt in our class
if anything it was that he loved women and it's not a bad thing that you love women.
He just loved women.
I mean who doesn't?
I love these women.
Suffer kind of maybe.
No I love.
(11:48):
I love.
Don't get it mistaken.
I love my women.
Oh don't get it twisted.
Just not that way.
In the platonic way.
In the platonic way, yeah.
There you go.
So now one thing about Abraham that is actually really unfortunate is that he had a very
limited education.
(12:10):
He had a very small, sorry, he had very small social skills and knew little about how to
handle money but from human interaction he knew some of the basics to get by.
I don't know how accurate this part is because no other side of source could verify why but
it did, I did stumble upon a Reddit thread and a user claim that he had started going
(12:33):
to school at a certain point but dropped out to take care of his family after his father
was out of the picture.
Again, I don't know how true that is.
That was a Reddit thread that can be easily made up.
Someone could have just said that, pulled out their ass or it could be true.
Reddit's not always the most trustworthy source.
Yeah and again, because I didn't find that to be a side of source, I also kind of find
(12:54):
it as a question mark but that's something that we can maybe put into that story.
But either way, make sure to mentally write a post-it note of that in your brain because
his limited education is really what I believe gets taken advantage of later on.
Aww.
Yeah.
Like I said.
So, on an investigation discovery documentary called A Stranger in My Home, they talked about
(13:19):
Abraham and how he loved to take his son on walks.
Now and then he would take his son, little Moses, to the really, really rich neighborhoods
that were around and just show him the big houses and his son would just be so fascinated
by them.
And it's just so wholesome.
Aww.
It's just like, and it just gives me…
Sunshine!
Sunshine on a cloudy day.
(13:41):
Literally, he's the embodiment of that song.
Oh my god.
I actually don't remember how that song goes.
If there's any bad parts, I take that back.
No, I don't think there are but I can't even sing it because I know I'm going to
fuck it up and I'm going to get hate so it's okay.
Well, Abraham, I'm sure like many parents out there really wanted a better life for
his son but knew he couldn't provide that to him so he wanted to inspire him the best
(14:05):
way he knew how which was by helping people, giving good to the world, being grateful to
be alive and hopes that one day he could, you know, support his family better than he
is already.
My heart.
So ironically, very soon, that will all change.
On November 15th, 2006.
(14:27):
Shit.
That's my birthday.
It is.
Why do our birthdays come up so often?
My birthday came up in the last three, didn't it?
Yeah, because it was like a few days away from when it was like that.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Oh shit.
Well, on November 15th, 2006, Abraham and a friend of his at the time named Michael
(14:49):
Ford decides to walk over to a convenience store that afternoon.
Abraham asks Ford if he can go in and while he's shopping and go and buy two footer lotto
tickets and hence Michael $2.
$2 for two lotto tickets.
$2.
$2.
And he won 30.
(15:10):
30.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
So Michael goes in, gets his things, gets a lotto tickets and gets them to Abraham.
They're on that same night, the announcer on the telly, I like saying that, telly.
I'm a telly.
I'm a telly.
This is America.
Don't at me.
I'm sorry.
(15:30):
So the announcer on the telly is rolling those numbers and calling them off when he
realizes that he has just won a whopping $30 million.
Boom baby.
Crazy.
Holy shit.
I know I said that at the beginning but whoa.
(15:51):
I wouldn't disbelieve.
I'd be like, is this fake?
I would be in shock.
Like what would you...
Like did I just get got?
Before we go any further it gets really morbid here but what would you do with $30 million?
Can we just talk about that for a minute?
Man, I'd like, I don't even know.
Okay, but the way I was brought up, like I am a frugal person and I also, I enjoy the
(16:14):
finer things but I wouldn't go crazy.
I don't like a big house.
Like I would buy, you know, bigger than what I'm in.
But not that much.
Like not like crazy.
I like a cozy.
I'd buy myself my dream cars.
I'd probably donate a lot.
I'd buy my parents, my parents love their home.
They'd probably stay in their house but buy them their dream cars.
(16:38):
I'd buy my dad a new boat.
Like oh my god, spoil my cats, spoil Simon, buy him his dream cars.
Like everybody get a car.
You get a car.
You get a car.
Literally I'd have like four cars.
Probably do something and honor Ryan.
Like a lot.
You just go off.
Like I'd literally like-
(16:58):
It sounds like you have the same kind of heart that William Shakespeare would have.
I mean William Shakespeare, that did not just say that.
Oh god.
It sounds like you would have the same kind of energy that Abraham Shakespeare would
have.
God, William Shakespeare.
Well, I think if I had $30 million.
Yeah, what would you do?
I think like pretty comparable to yours.
(17:22):
I would probably start off, first of all, obviously pay off all the bills.
Yeah, oh yeah, for sure.
First, the debt comes first.
If that student loan forgiveness doesn't come in.
Oh baby.
If any of you all want to send us some cash for these debts, go ahead.
That's beside the point.
I would definitely pay off my debts.
I would definitely then start thinking about my future.
(17:45):
I would think about where I'm headed.
Yeah, same.
Then I would probably think about obviously my family, my friends.
I would want to support them.
I would make sure they're comfortable.
I think that would even come before thinking about my future and investing.
I think I would definitely need to be safe in my composure to know that my family is
good, my friends taking care of.
(18:05):
I don't have to worry about my family suffering or anything.
Then I would probably then focus on my things.
I would probably think about, of course, like I said, do I want to go to college again?
Do I want to spend that money on building and investing?
Fun stuff?
Because you know that would be used.
But it's also so much money where you'd have so much left over.
(18:28):
You would have so much that you wouldn't even know what to do with it.
Let's say you get like fucking four supercars at like $100,000 piece.
You're still rolling in millions.
That's not even a dent.
It's not a dent.
It's insane.
But just wait to hear what Abraham does with his money and how this turns into...
(18:54):
Man, I can already see this going real south.
Real south.
And it does.
And no pun intended because this is the south.
But wow, it's just fascinating, this story.
I'll keep going.
All right.
Tell me all about it.
All right.
Well, first of all, according to Fort Allottery rules, and I figured this was kind of an important
part to throw in.
(19:15):
Others may choose to receive a portion of the Florida Lotto Jackpots and a one-time
cash option or a cash option or in a 30 annual payment option.
So Abraham chooses the one-time lump, a lump sum payment.
Period.
And of course, taxes are included.
So he ended up with a payout of about $16.9 million, which is obviously still a fuck ton
(19:41):
of money.
But that's also almost half of it being taken away.
Taxes, man.
That's some bullshit.
I hate taxes.
I'm sorry.
Anyway.
Taxes are some lump of shit in itself.
If taxes was a person, I'd fight them.
I knew we all would.
Join forces.
I love it.
All right.
Well, of course, as soon as he had won, the press had been all over him about being the
(20:05):
small town man that went from extra riches overnight.
There is that photo that the Lotto winner takes with the big checks and, well, of course,
post that on our Instagram again at WTLGL.
Podcasts.
Go for it.
But the problem is to me about this is that, and this is according to Tampa Bay Times that
(20:32):
I found this on.
And it says, quote, actually, I want you to read it.
I'm some big letters.
You can't miss it.
Quote, under Florida's existing law, the lottery agency immediately releases the name of winners,
city of residence, game, date one, and amount one to anyone who requests it.
(20:56):
It does not disclose the winner's home address or phone numbers, although such information
can usually be discovered elsewhere, such as property records or voter registration files,
which remain publicly accessible.
End quote.
What the fudge?
Yeah, that's my problem.
(21:17):
And I just want to point that out real quick.
Sorry, Tampa Bay Times, but that's a bitch ass move.
Yeah.
You're literally doxing him without doxing him.
You're like, just so you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fuck you, Tampa Bay Times.
Yeah.
So that's, that was just something I needed to point out because first of all, I, I think
about that and I'm like, okay, this is in the early 2000s too, by the way.
(21:41):
And like we said, things are a little different, but like not much.
But the thing is, is that think about how easy it is for someone knowing your name obviously
is already on, you know, the news to then look you up and find you whether or not they
may put your home address out there for people to find.
(22:01):
People are still going to be able to find you whether or not like your name is the first
thing people need, but not only that, the fact that they put your, their, the residents,
your city is just crazy to me.
Okay.
But also like, yes, if we get a name, we can look someone up and like, sure, that's like
a thing that people do.
But this is like almost suggesting it.
(22:24):
Like it's like suggesting it or it's like, Hey, if you haven't thought about it, like
now you're thinking about it.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
Like it's like, yeah, you're on the ball.
I'm like, oh, I'm so shitty.
And it's just so shitty.
The way they just, I agree.
No, I definitely agree.
And one press interview Abraham mentioned quote, if I lost all my money today, I'm a happy
(22:44):
man because I was able to achieve one of my dreams and that was to be a millionaire.
Stop.
He's so cute.
I know.
And again, hurts my heart so bad.
He, it just bugs the fuck out of me because I'm like, what happens?
Basically we know the title of this episode, but I'm going to keep powering through.
(23:08):
Well two months go by, it's January 2007 and Abraham decides to purchase a home on the
market for $1.1 million in North Lake, land, Florida.
Still not even a dent.
Not even, I know.
He still got like 15.8 left.
Oh my God.
(23:29):
Now this mansion had a four car garage, a pool, and they were in Adirka, shakuzi, shakuzi,
shark, shark, shark, shark, sharkuzi, sharkuzi.
I mean, where's my wine?
Where is your wine?
That's right here.
(23:50):
Fuck.
Okay.
I don't know if you heard the sounds, but that was good.
He said bone apple teeth.
God, okay.
Sorry.
The mansion had a four car garage, a pool, one indoor and outdoor shakuzi, and a separate
(24:11):
guest suite just to give you a brief idea of the layout.
So it's a pretty fucking big house.
And again, we're going to put this on her Instagram.
You can find it there.
He also bought his mother a home 15 minutes away.
She wanted to, and had hope actually that his mother would have just moved in with him,
but she actually did not like the house at all.
(24:31):
She actually hated it.
It felt way too big and it did not look to her like anything like a home.
It just seemed like some kind of massive resort to her.
And so she, or so he decided to just buy her a home and it was a cute bungalow just 15
minutes away from his house.
But let me tell you, if Abraham was one thing, he was selfless and he remained frugal, frugal
(24:56):
till the end I could say actually.
When it came to spending on himself outside of his home, he preferred actually to continue
shopping for clothes at shopping centers like Walmart, whereas most of people around him
thought he would just start shopping at high end clothing companies.
He continued to buy his jewelry from pawn shops and instead use his money to help build
(25:18):
affordable homes to people without the ability.
By his cousins, all new homes provided for his son by setting up a million dollar trust
fund.
And he even gave his longtime friend, Greg Smith, who was a local barber, a eight, sorry, 87,000
dollar business loan, 87,000 dollar business loan.
(25:44):
He's so sweet for literally all of that.
For all of that.
Whatever.
What's the friend's name?
Now his friend's name was Greg Smith.
Now keep that name in mind.
Better be grateful.
Keep that in mind.
Oh gosh.
Because Greg comes back later.
Oh God.
So does one other friend.
So just keep that in mind.
Now this man had to have been one of the most obviously generous people that the lottery
(26:06):
has ever seen win.
I couldn't ever see so many people just doing that and doing what he did.
Yeah, a lot of people are greedy.
Yeah.
And if you needed that help, he would help you.
It's just crazy to think that there are so many nice people in the world, but that is
a really started to hurt Abraham and it worked against him.
Old friends he hadn't seen since childhood associates and most of them were just random
(26:28):
people to came out of the woodworks left and right attempting to get closer and closer
to him.
And it really started to overwhelm him like it would.
I obviously with anyone, no matter how nice you are, it's going to overwhelm you.
So even worst part about this is that he was actively giving away this money to these people.
So no.
(26:50):
I know you just said that he still has a lot of money, but when you're giving it away like
this at this amount of rate, it's like he is so firstly just so kind.
Secondly, he can do whatever he damn well pieces with his money.
He can spend it however he wants, but it's the people that are taking advantage of him
(27:11):
and getting close to him because they know that he has the money.
That's so shitty.
Yeah.
That's the thing though.
There are so many.
Trying to reconnect.
Yeah.
There are so many kind of like there's so many like generous people in this world, but
that's the problem.
Like we live in a cruel world where people will take advantage of you in a heartbeat.
And it's literally proven by this man by this.
(27:34):
I mean, let this be the story of anything to show you that he had to be really careful
in this world because people will take advantage of your niceness like that.
I'm not saying be an asshole, but I'm saying also.
Watch your energy to get.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Like you said, like quote that like seriously though.
Now the pressure from the world even got so bad that one night people would literally
(27:59):
walk onto his property.
No, I'm knocking at his door bothering this poor man.
That night it scared him out of his house.
So he stayed with his friend Greg and Greg will later recount Abraham retelling him quote,
I wish I ain't had no money unquote.
And it just, it's just like this man is just enjoying it.
(28:20):
He thought it's just like another thing that really hit me when I like was researching
this was that I feel like it's not obviously only me and I feel like it's a lot of young
people too because we're young and we're still learning.
But like I always forget that money isn't the end up be all, you know, this is the story
to again, if not anything else that shows you that money can always buy you happiness.
(28:45):
It seemed like it was kind of weighing on, you know, Abraham because of the fact that
he felt like he was losing his like his respect for everybody.
Everyone just saw him for his money.
Everyone just saw him for one thing only and that was the fact that he was a millionaire.
Especially too, because he's such like a genuine guy too, he doesn't care about the money,
cares about friendship, you know.
(29:05):
Yeah, exactly.
And oh, I just fixed my heart.
So in April of 2007, five months after winning the lottery, Abraham meets 27 year old Centeria
Butler, who Abraham's family was kind of skeptical of at first for good reason.
She was younger and she wasn't prior, she wasn't with him prior to the winnings.
(29:28):
But Abraham really liked this girl and eventually in a year later in 2008, she give birth to
Abraham's second son.
So they had another baby boy come in the world.
So now that Abraham has a second child with Centoria, he realizes he has no money being
saved and he starts to get a little anxious because a lot of the responsibilities are
(29:50):
being piled on him at once and he's been helping all these people all the while.
So really starts, you know, he really starts filling it and yeah, the pressure and he was
so actually generous that he managed to end up with $2 million left at this point.
Mind you, he started with 16.
(30:10):
Almost 17.
They were 16.9.
Yeah, 16.9.
So let's round out to 17.
$17 million.
He is now only two years later left with $2 million.
That's so unfortunate.
It's just really sad.
And so in October of 2008, a lady contacts Abraham that claims to be a very successful
(30:35):
businesswoman named Doris Moore, who is most known as Dee Dee.
She heard his story and wants to write a book about his story.
So let's hold up a sec and just talk about Dee Dee Moore for a second.
Well, Dee Dee was a fordagal that was also growing up learning how to help people.
(30:59):
She always wanted to actually help people, which is kind of ironic considering what we
might know later.
Growing up, she always knew she wanted to become a nurse.
She was always a high achieving student, got her license and CNA, which I think is a medical
term, don't know, medical people, let me know.
And it really wanted to do some good for the world.
(31:19):
So one thing about Dee Dee growing up was that she was always embarrassed that her friends
and their families had money while her family was a low income household.
But Dee Dee always knew that she needed to work her way up, getting to that special point.
So she just started working basically.
(31:41):
Although along the way, her family would consider that she would pull a lot of shady schemes
and she would do in order to just get a little more extra change in her wallet.
But they never asked questions.
Sus.
I don't like this lady already.
Yeah.
So sometime in the mid 90s, she worked for a medical staffing company and really did well
(32:03):
there.
And while there, Dee Dee had a side hustle working at Nextel.
I think that's some kind of phone company.
Oh my God, I remember Nextel.
Nextel, yeah.
I was like young to know about that too.
I've heard of it before.
Oh my God, that's so old.
Well, here she started really getting down her strong business skills, which led to her
(32:25):
and a co-worker to start a medical business called American Medical Professionals LLC.
Oh, good for them.
Now this co-worker of hers was the president and Dee Dee was a vice president.
And everything had been working really well for this new business of theirs for years.
She actually or eventually suggests opening a branch in Plant City, Florida.
(32:47):
She felt that the area would be best supported by their business.
And so her team and her agreed.
And then she just starts moving there and says of the same project.
She's not very far.
I don't think she's still in Florida.
I think she just started to move there.
And so everything is working great for some time until the co-workers she started the
(33:10):
LLC with and other team members quickly begin to notice that the company has oddly been
losing her money from the company's budget, but stopped seeing any progress.
So they are like, all right, what's going on?
They launch an internal investigation and soon find out that Dee Dee has taken about
$62,000 in payroll schemes from this company that she started right before the trial of
(33:35):
the American medical professionals LLC versus Doris Moore.
Somehow the main branch of her company just so happens to catch fire and all the files
the company had against her just went up in flames as well.
Convenience.
How convenient, right?
It's very convenient.
So the years after got pretty hard for Dee Dee.
(33:59):
After this, she obviously was fired from this company that she created.
I was about to say her own company, girl.
Fire from Maxdale and was banned from ever selling phones for any phone company.
Damn.
Didn't even notice it being a toy right that eventually Dee Dee and her then husband James
had to file for bankruptcy because they had been falling so far behind their bills and
(34:23):
following was their divorce.
In 2006, she eventually found a new boyfriend while co-parenting her son, which brings
us back to where we were before in October of 2008 when Dee Dee reaches out to Abraham.
So Abraham is told from Dee Dee that this is a very successful business woman that wants
(34:52):
to write a book about his story.
So they both agree to it and they want to meet in more detail, right?
So Abraham brings his girlfriend Centoria and they meet up at some restaurant sitting
on a patio getting to know one another and while getting to know Dee Dee, Abraham is
quite intrigued to hear how successful Dee Dee is.
(35:14):
She explains how she is the president and the owner of her own business called American
Medical Professionals.
She's divorced with a teen son named RJ.
So Abraham and Centoria are impressed and they hire her.
I don't know if you all caught that lie, but it's in there.
I caught it.
(35:36):
Within days, she was over the house daily, learning more and more about Abraham, his
lifestyle, his family, and Dee Dee is learning a lot of things, one of which she learned
how badly Abraham has been saving his money or handling his money in general and how much
it's bothering him.
So Dee Dee goes, hey, it just so happens, I'm a really good financial advisor.
(36:00):
I can definitely help you with your finances.
Convenient.
Again.
A lot of people over the years had smindled Abraham already and he knew he needed the
help so he just didn't apply.
She was like, okay, cool, let's just do it.
Let's get into it.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
I feel so bad for this poor man.
(36:21):
I feel terrible.
I actually feel terrible for this poor man.
And look at pictures.
Don't look at pictures because I keep saying look at our Instagram.
But like, we see pictures of him.
WTLGO podcast on Instagram.
We go on there and you'll just see his beautiful smile and he has like the most, like, you
(36:41):
have to know how gracious and like so nice he is.
And then you put it without smile and like, you're just like, oh, like, I just want to
get to know him.
Like, I feel like he'll like tell you a good story or something.
Like a speed man.
So not long after this initial conversation, just days later, Dee Dee poses a question
to Abraham and says, I think that we should create an investment company together.
(37:04):
She says this will be how we make most of the money back and I'll start record.
Sorry.
I'll also start recollecting the loans that everyone owes you.
Knowing good and well, Abraham does not know shit about how to start an investment company.
She asks this question anyways.
He says, okay, and not even three months later, Dee Dee manages all of Abraham's assets, all
(37:27):
of his assets.
You should never let anyone manage all of your assets.
Not at all.
And again, unfortunately, Abraham's circumstance, I think he was just like, you know what, someone's
here, someone's here to help me like, they didn't know any better.
And I feel like a broken record saying this, but like, I feel bad because like he's a nice
(37:47):
person probably assuming that someone's going to do something nice back for them.
Yeah, he finally like got a win, you know, he got a win and he's happy.
He's like, of course now, like it's working for me.
And then Dee Dee.
Fucking Dee Dee.
Fucking Dee Dee.
All of this money that belonged to Abraham said in the hands of Dee Dee through this
(38:08):
investment company that she manages, she started spending so much time at his house that her
boyfriend and son would literally come over and hang out whenever they chose to.
No.
Ffff.
Ffff.
Affing way.
Literally, I'm not kidding you.
No, Affing way.
I think Abraham was kind of friendly about this because he befriended this woman and initially
(38:30):
she was supposed to be writing this book and then here she is doing everything else for
him.
Yeah.
So I think they just adapted a person like a, a relationship and he kind of was like,
okay, it's fine.
I know.
Like, she's my friend.
I think he's so friendly too.
For him, for him, it's like a new friend, you know, new friends.
(38:50):
Yes.
Yes.
And probably his son to play with his son.
To play with his son when he has to split over.
Yeah.
And they were about the same age too.
Yeah, exactly.
They're maybe a couple of years difference, but they're about the same age.
So it's like kind of works for both of them.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Well, I suppose so I guess.
Yeah.
And I think you guys are catching on to Dee Dee if you haven't already.
(39:11):
Fucking Dee Dee.
Oh, it gets crazier though.
So tune in.
Cause fortunately to add Abraham situation had already been bad enough before Dee Dee
came into the picture because he had already been losing the house.
He lost so much money that he can afford to keep up with the house.
So the plan was that Centoria would move out and stay with some family with her son.
(39:36):
And then Abraham would stay back at home to have him and Dee Dee try selling the home
while they looked for a smaller home to move into.
So not a bigger home, but like a smaller home that's more affordable to keep up with.
That's smart.
Yeah.
Abraham was cool with this plan.
He didn't care as long as he could be in a house that housed him and his family.
That's all he cared about.
(39:57):
So Centoria moves out and he's starting to get Dee Dee's help with selling this house.
Abraham really starts getting excited and higher spirited again because he's finally
feeling we're stable.
But Dee Dee really starts suggesting that Abraham not leave the house at all.
She suggests that if he kept leaving the house to visit his children or even go to the grocery
(40:18):
store, then he'll just be harassed by more people and this will never have its resolution.
He says, okay, I'll just sit back and just, you know, let you do all the work.
It's cool if you really want to do it.
And she's like, yeah, I'll jump in.
So after a month goes by around March of 2009, Dee Dee convinces Abraham since the house
(40:40):
isn't selling for some odd reason, quote unquote, to just sign over the house to her.
No!
What?
Oh my God.
And not the company that they made, by the way, her company, American medical professionals.
In that way, the burden of his home is just lifted.
(41:02):
I know.
I know.
I know, girl.
At this point, Dee Dee wastes no time moving her things into the house and begins renovating
the home.
Yeah, of course.
Again, nothing about this bothers Abraham because in his eyes, she's getting rid of
the problem.
She's helping.
Yeah.
So he's in fact so happy about this that, according to Dee Dee, Abraham just decides
(41:26):
to go on some kind of victory travel.
It actually isn't super random that Abraham actually choose to travel around this, maybe
not around this time, but in general, because Abraham had actually always wanted to travel
the world.
He made that really known to his family.
He made that really known to his friends.
But what was odd was that, why would Abraham choose to leave his family behind, especially
(41:50):
without even a goodbye?
Well, Dee Dee Moore being the closest to him and the closest in contact with Abraham,
sure to anyone trying to reach him, he was so stressed out from everyone asking him for
money and thought it was best that he get away and go off the grip for a while.
Yeah, without talking to his mom, without talking to his mom, without talking to his
(42:14):
girlfriend who has his baby, who he loved.
Yeah, no, I don't believe that for one second.
Thank you.
And Dee Dee maintained that Abraham was sending her text messages and insisting that everything
was okay.
Family and friends were a little skeptical at first because it was weird.
Abraham was not the type of guy to average us up and leave, not even at his lowest low,
(42:38):
but at the same time they knew that he was really stressed out at the time.
And they thought maybe he just really needed to get away for a while, so they accepted
that for a minute.
Abraham's cousin, Cedric Edon, was collided saying, quote, he did mention wanting to leave
town.
We wanted to help him because everybody else's dream he was trying to fill and never had
(42:59):
time for himself, unquote.
That's when Dee Dee's alleged interactions between her and Abraham started getting a
little more suspicious because now his worried loved ones began receiving text messages from
Abraham saying, quote, I don't think I'll be coming back.
And how he doesn't want to keep paying for child support.
(43:22):
Oh my God.
I'm just scratching my head because it's like, huh.
This is news to Centauria because last time she tracked, she was upset, oh sorry, he was
obsessed with his newborn baby.
And he could even bear to be apart from his oldest son.
(43:43):
Abraham's mother found it especially weird because when reading the text message that
he sent to her, she realized that the text message had little to no grammatical error
or punctuation mistakes.
True perfect.
Keep in mind, he didn't write that shit.
He's illiterate.
Yeah, he didn't write that shit.
He didn't write that shit.
(44:04):
Six months go by.
Still no one had seen or heard from Abraham except for Dee Dee.
So his cousin Cedric finally reports Abraham's Shakespeare and missing person.
When investigators first started looking into this case, they felt that it was not super
out of the ordinary for a lottery ticket winner to take their money and leave the country.
They did look at a long list of people that Abraham lent money to, but everyone checked
(44:27):
out.
They were not finding many labels, sorry, many leads.
And not surprisingly, here comes Dee Dee, readily available to give cops any information
they need.
She has it there.
She tells officers.
He left at his own expense and he didn't tell her where he was going, but she knew
he needed to get away from all the chaos in his life.
(44:52):
Cedric tells police he was skeptical of Dee Dee because she was the last one that obviously
seemed alive.
And Dee Dee randomly asked Cedric, not even a couple days before he caught the police,
to give Abraham's mother a private card of Abraham.
When she opened it, it was a goodbye card with $100 inside.
(45:13):
So that's really questionable as to why he would want to do that.
So investigators are like, okay, we need to look into this Dee Dee check.
Who the fuck is she?
Not a direct quote, but you can imagine.
So they bring her back and for questioning, Dee Dee just tells them, I just do what Abraham
(45:35):
hired me for.
And then she tells police unnecessary information about Abraham.
Dee Dee then gives the missing person's unit a video tape and on it she's recording Abraham
with a camcorder with one of those early 2000 camcorders.
And it's actually him.
It's him in the video.
(45:56):
He's wearing a white t-shirt and he had dreadlocks.
So he kind of had it wrapped up in like a do-rag.
And it looks like he's texting at the moment and Dee Dee's like asking him.
She's holding the camera towards him and she asks, hey, you want to get out of here?
He says, yeah, let's get out of here.
Dee Dee says, well, where do you want to go?
(46:20):
You want to get away from everyone asking you for money?
He says, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
Let's go.
Let's go.
She says, you get tired of people asking you for money all the time.
Give me your opinion on it.
Dee says, quote, I've been tired.
I've been tired a year ago.
She says, are you going to miss your home?
(46:42):
Yep.
I'll miss it.
But time goes on.
I'm stomped on that video because this is actually, obviously this is actual video.
Actor.
It sounds like an act.
So I saw this through the documentary I was watching.
I don't know a ton about everything before and after because you never can really get
(47:03):
the whole story.
But it's weird because knowing Abraham was such a dedicated person in general and then
he just decides to like, this be like, you know, I'm, you know, go with leaving, whatever.
You know, it's fine.
I'll just leave and I don't know.
It's just odd.
So I don't know.
(47:25):
But apparently it's a police that checks out.
So before the night, Dee Dee went to the station.
She fucked up.
She went to Centoria and asked her if she could tell the police Abraham randomly stopped
by angry that got into a screaming match and he left.
So of course, Centoria is like, what the fuck?
(47:45):
No, like I'm not going to tell my, I'm not going to tell the police that the father of
my children that's missing is just came when he didn't.
And what the fuck?
Like where is my husband?
Where's my boyfriend?
What the fuck is going on?
Why do you want me to do that?
Yeah, of course.
So Centoria the next day, obviously goes to the police and told them what Dee Dee told
her.
(48:05):
Investigators did hone in on one suspect that Dee Dee had helped direct the investigators
to, which was Abraham's old friend, Michael Ford.
Now if you don't remember, Michael Ford had been the guy that went and helped him get
the lottery ticket, the $2 dollar lottery tickets.
What I didn't tell you about that was that Abraham had won the lottery and his friend
(48:29):
Michael actually tried suing him.
This is right after he won the lottery.
He felt that since he was the one to go in physically by the ticket, he was the owner
of the winnings.
But in court, the judge quickly ruled out Abraham being the sole owner of the winnings.
So Dee Dee says, yeah, he did it.
He's the one who did this.
(48:50):
Okay.
I'm backtracking.
It was literally Abraham's money.
So it's Abraham's winning.
It was literally his $2.
Yeah, like it's literally Abraham's winning.
Yes.
Thank you.
So obviously we know that this guy just literally wasn't a friend to him at all.
Silly goofy.
Silly goofy guy.
Silly goofy.
Silly goofy guy.
(49:10):
Like, not a good guy.
It just, again, comes to show you people will act when it comes to money.
Like people will show their true colors.
Also can we talk about how literally if Michael asked Abraham for some money that Abraham
literally would have given it to him.
Not saying that like he should have or was a good idea or that he deserves it.
(49:32):
But like according to his track record, like looking at all of it seems like he was pretty
giving.
Yeah.
He's pretty giving.
Michael, I mean, I'm sorry, not Michael.
He didn't have to sue them guy.
Abraham would have given him money had he not done that.
I would assure you.
Oh, I like I'm shocked.
Let me tell you if I'm trying to come up at me and was like, let me see you because
(49:54):
I because you gave me my money, your money to get something.
Yeah, we go out.
Money, my guy.
Literally.
So Michael, fortunately for him, had an alibi because he didn't live in Florida at the
time of Abraham's disappearance.
He actually moved to Georgia.
So the main suspect just goes right back to Dede.
So police are like, all right, we need to track the calls Abraham has made to Dede.
(50:19):
They found out that Abraham's phone peaked last from a tower near his home and found
that it's been turned off and turned on over and over again.
Suspicious.
Suspicious.
Bullery touching stuff.
Mm hmm.
She's playing with the metal bit.
Oh, I see.
Obviously, the police needed more evidence on Dede, so they secretly placed a checker
(50:43):
onto her car.
As they should.
Yeah, the next time she can in a station is put on her car.
But this next note is just wild.
It gets even more wild if you can't even imagine.
So just two days after Christmas in 2009, Dede goes to pay Abraham's mother a visit.
(51:03):
While she does, Abraham's mom receives a hot call and picks it up.
The person answers and says, hey, mom, it's me, Abraham.
Please don't call the police.
I just want to be away.
Tell the police you'll never see me again.
So the worried mother, elderly mother, mind you, obviously calls the police immediately
(51:30):
and tells her, I'm tells the police what she's heard on the phone and says to her,
this obviously is not my son.
Yeah, really.
So the police tracked down the call made to his mother, Elizabeth Walker, to the least
expected character to return to the story.
The call came from Greg Smith.
(51:50):
If you remember, it's a barber friend that Abraham gave $87,000 to in loans for his barber
shop business.
Because they were friends.
And how is he going to do that?
Oh my God.
Boo's looking at me like, what the fuck?
What the fuck?
It's all on people.
(52:12):
Because then tracked down Greg himself to a busy shopping mall parking lot while on
a stakeout to find Greg.
Probably spent $87,000.
Let me tell you, he beer buy whatever was left over.
He better be doing some some good stuff with that because I'm telling you the fact that
he's caught in this lie right now is fucking taking me to my avenue.
(52:34):
So just so happens, they see instead good old Dee Dee pulling up to the parking lot.
Oh my God.
You said I can't with this bitch.
Oh my God.
Of all people, right?
Oh my God.
Of all people.
Well.
Honestly, like disappointed but not surprised.
Yeah.
(52:54):
Honestly, are we?
Disappointed but not surprised.
And so instead they follow her, they follow her car to see where she parks.
She parks.
And she parks right next to Greg Smith.
She then gets out of her car, goes into his and hands him a wad of cash, gets out and
then drives off.
(53:16):
So the officers are like, look at me.
I'm not suspicious at all.
I'm sure they're looking at each other.
You see that?
Yeah.
You see that?
You see the shit?
You saw that shit, right?
T. T.
So of course, like I said, the investigators get off this car.
(53:37):
And they confront Greg as to why he had made this call first of all to Abraham's grandmother
pretending to be Abraham.
To clarify, the call was to the mother, not the grandmother.
Yes.
I'm sorry if I said grandmother.
God.
Insert.
Insert correction here.
Thank you for correcting that for me.
And oh yeah.
Why the hell is he with DD Moore handling a wad of cash?
(54:01):
No.
For.2 seconds.
That's not the most suspicious thing in the world ever.
Yeah.
So quickly, without any hesitation, Greg comes forward and tells police.
DD came to me and told me if I call Abraham's mother and I act as Abraham, DD would pay
me $5,000.
So police were actually super worried about Greg.
(54:24):
He was simply just a shit friend that took advantage of the situation.
But police were not letting this go.
They still wanted Greg to help catch DD in a confession for knowing the whereabouts of
Abraham.
Sight note.
While this is all happening, one investigator is on the case doing a deep dive into who DD
(54:44):
really is.
He found out that she had been fired from her company.
She was accused of several thefts, frauds, and arson.
In addition, she actually had been arrested before for insurance fraud after accusing several
men of raping her or for stealing her car.
(55:05):
Until she never had to plan to write that book, by the way, that was something.
We believe survivors, but I don't think she's a survivor.
She's not.
That's a blatant lie, right?
Yeah.
No, it's a blatant lie.
I actually dug deep into that.
So basically with that, she had known these guys.
(55:25):
They weren't any people out of the ordinary.
Basically what she had done is she had basically set up a scheme where she was able to fortunately
act like she was a victim of rape.
I meant to say we believe victims, not survivors.
No.
Yeah.
We believe victims.
Sorry.
(55:46):
Yeah, we believe victims.
Correction.
Continue, sir.
But I think it was an investigator who had actually honed in on this and found out that
she was just lying about all this.
So that just came out and she was kind of pinned for it.
She got caught.
Just crazy people out there.
Because that's just discrediting all the people that actually did experience it.
Yes.
(56:07):
So shitty.
Exactly.
So authorities started out a plan to use Greg since Dee Dee doesn't know much about
what the police know.
And so they placed a wire into an empty drink can.
They then gave him to meet up with Dee Dee at a gas station.
During this discussion, the police got nothing to work with from this conversation.
I mean, there are like some subtle hints, but nothing to pin her on.
(56:30):
But before wrapping up the conversation, Dee Dee says, quote, I'm being blamed for Abraham's
disappearance.
I would pay for someone to take the rap for it if I could, unquote.
This dumb bitch.
This dumb, stupid.
My brain actually.
(56:53):
I guess thinking what I'm thinking, like.
I mean, who?
She's so guilty.
This is enough information for investigators to attain a subpoena for Dee Dee's phone
records.
And they do in fact find that her phone was pinged off with the same cell towers as Abraham's.
And they get investigators are now like, we are pretty confident Dee Dee's behind all
(57:15):
of us.
Now we just need to have a location of his whereabouts.
So investigators turn Dee Dee's wish into their command.
Those have Greg called Dee Dee back the following day to tell her that he has a cousin that
already is a criminal or sorry, that already has a criminal record and is willing to go
(57:35):
to jail if she paid him $50,000.
But what?
No, this is what wait and provided the locations that Abraham's whereabouts to really sell
the story to police.
Okay.
So what I'm saying is, is he's willing to go to jail as long as he pays, she pays him
$50,000.
(57:55):
How is he supposed to use it?
But listen, listen, listen, I get to finish.
I didn't get to finish yet.
Okay, I'm sorry.
It just doesn't make sense.
Okay.
Yeah, it's going to make sense.
I promise.
Okay.
She's like, all right, but don't bring your cousin yet.
Just meet me alone at the gas station and we will drive over.
What she didn't know is that that police, that that cousin was a police officer undercover.
(58:16):
Okay, period.
That makes sense.
Well, what the like, I mean, that should have been red flag because who is taking the rap
for money when they're not going to be able to spend the money.
But then again, who's calling the family member, the person that's missing.
And then it's like, Hey, can you lie to police for me?
(58:37):
So I feel like DD is just a dumb bitch in general that can't even see no from right.
I don't like.
I see no lies here.
Oh, okay.
I just dropped a tablet.
Um, five.
Where'd I go?
I probably said what's the one meme where it's like, and then my head hit the floor.
(58:57):
Oh, my God.
That's a funny one.
If you guys haven't seen that, that's funny.
So Greg, sorry, I found it.
Okay.
So Greg rides with DD from Lakeland to Plain City where it seems she has purchased a new
house completely separate from the one Abraham sold to her company.
(59:17):
A whole ass different house.
She walks him around to the backyard to a large cement slab in the back and says, that's
so suspicious.
Like I already know what like, is that not painfully obvious?
Well, DD tells Abraham quote, tell your boy to take six feet down.
(59:42):
And you'll find Abraham's body.
Yeah.
Fucking clearly because there's a big ass cement slab in the back of her house.
That's fresh and newly poured.
So DD's dumb ass walks away, comes back out the house with a whole ass, 38 caliber gun
and tells Greg she got it from the person that used it to kill Abraham and needs his
(01:00:04):
cousin to get rid of it.
At this point, investigators want to wait till DD leaves the home so they could do a
sweep of the house without DD being aware, but they know who their girl is.
So on January 25th, 2010, they returned to DD's home, sorry, her second home, dug up
(01:00:24):
the concrete where six feet under had been the badly decayed body of Abraham.
He suffered two bullet wounds to the chest.
Police returned to Abraham's old home where they in fact found Miss DD completely surprised
and confused about what was going on.
She was then arrested on the charges of Abraham Shakespeare's murder.
(01:00:46):
Per usual, DD conjures up stories during her videotaped interrogation.
Her story also kept changing.
First thing, three guys came in and shot him.
Took everything we had and the safe and left with it.
They put a gun in my mouth.
I peed my pants.
I was scared.
They forced me to cover up this crime scene.
(01:01:08):
She did provide a name to these men.
She listed off and they did actually exist, but her alibi is checked out.
I mean, their alibi is checked out.
So she then says, Abraham got super mad at me and he and I just had to shoot him in
defense.
Ma'am, you cannot just change your fucking out.
Oh my God, what's like more suspicious?
(01:01:30):
That's not how this works.
She's not.
She like thought that she covered and like she thought she covered up.
Yeah.
She saw all her teeth, not at all her eyes.
Like she thought that like she was doing a good job or that she was a good criminal
or whatever, but she is so messy.
She's so fucking messy.
She's so messy with it.
She fucked up a long time ago.
(01:01:52):
And it's just, it's just like girl, like first of all, okay, you made, you made out
one story.
You almost got by on that too.
That three man story about the burglars.
They checked it.
The people existed.
You can't just make up a whole another fucking story and think that, oh, oh yeah.
Okay.
That makes more sense.
Thank you for coming forward.
That just makes you look more suspicious.
(01:02:13):
What the fuck is wrong with people?
Like what?
Wait, I would just like to add that I'm glad that she's like stupid because she got caught.
I am too.
I am too.
Like, like let me like clarify that.
Very easily.
And that does make me actually really happy because I'm like, she, who this bitch, this
bitch, well, while DJ is trying to say face, investigators are interviewing other people
(01:02:40):
around her and then they stumble across her ex-husband, James Moore, and they find some
pretty juicy piece of information from this.
James mentions that shortly before Abraham's disappearance, DD paid him to dig a hole on
her property in a plant city so that she could start a paintball field for her new home,
(01:03:05):
you know, for her boyfriend and her son.
That would be dope though.
Not gonna lie.
That would be cool.
But that's not what she wanted to do.
Clearly.
But they don't know this, you know.
So as it is understood, things like this take more than obviously just a day of digging
to do and James just says, okay, he comes to dig, starts digging, but it starts to rain.
(01:03:29):
So he goes home.
D-Day calls him back later that day and says, hey, I need you to really finish this because
the inspector was coming to check the house the next day.
So he does.
And he says when he had arrived again, it seemed that D-Day was dirty and very out of
breath.
She claimed it from being running around all day, but he didn't really think much of it.
(01:03:53):
He just kind of knew that D-Day was a weird ass woman and I'm sure he would have known
this from being married with her for so many years.
Could only expect that to be the reason why he got a divorce with her.
But hey, that's not my business.
So the next day, as far as witnesses knew, D-Day was having a new driveway poured and
offers the workers extra to pour a concrete slab over the freshly resoyed hole.
(01:04:14):
So I guess they didn't have time that day, so they returned two days later and they pour
D-Day her 10 by 10 concrete slab.
This witness statement was a solid for a prosecution statement.
So they had this in their pocket for her trial.
During the trial, D-Day maintained her innocence.
(01:04:38):
Not fucking surprising.
It was revealed from the prosecution that D-Day scammed Abraham and his family into believing
that she would be willing to help Abraham.
She took his remaining million dollars to buy herself a separate new home, a $70,000
corvette for her boo, for her little boo thing, a $30,000 truck for herself, a hummer just
(01:05:01):
because, expensive jewelry, clothes.
By the time D-Day had been caught, Abraham only had $10,000 left to his name.
His family got no reimbursement from this, by the way.
The only reimbursement, or sorry, I don't even say reimbursement, the only thing or the only
money that any of his family got was that million dollar trust fund that no one else
(01:05:22):
could touch.
They didn't even get her the mom's house?
Uh, no, nothing.
They...
I thought mom's house was paid for.
Oh, mom's house was paid for?
I'm sorry, I didn't see what you were saying at first.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I guess you're right.
Yeah, so they got mom's house.
And the trust fund.
And they got the trust fund.
I mean, that's a lot of money, but that's nothing compared to what it was.
(01:05:43):
But compared to what it was and compared to how much he still had, and she used, there's
not even the fact that she, no matter how much money you won, it's the fact that someone
else stole that money, stole that money from you.
His family...
So frustrating.
Of course, was being as supportive and powerful as possible during this trial.
(01:06:04):
They were trying to, of course, you know, they wanted to really give his name a satisfying
rest.
And I don't blame him for that.
They were really powerful throughout this whole thing.
It was really sad to watch trial videos and stuff.
In 2012, Doris Moore, aka Didi, was found guilty for the first degree murder of Abraham
(01:06:24):
Shakespeare serving life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Good.
And he still maintains her innocence to this day while held at the low correctional facility
in Ocala, Florida.
Do you know how old she is though?
I want to say Didi at the time was, I want to say she's in her sixties, just from a
rough estimate.
(01:06:45):
Like right now?
Yeah, right now.
I know for a fact, her, his son is around our age.
So I think he actually was born in 98.
So he would be 25 this year.
Oh, wow.
So he's able to access his fund.
I think after 18, right?
You're able to...
Yeah.
I think, I don't know.
I'm not a trust fund.
I know, I wish.
But he deserves everything to him.
(01:07:06):
This whole family deserves everything that, everything good, everything good in the world.
Because they had a family member that really loved the world.
Ray of sunshine.
Ray of sunshine.
And someone decided, some evil in this world decided to rip that from them.
God, that's like, this, okay, but that's like the reason why I'm frustrated is, I mean,
(01:07:29):
obviously, like what's not to be frustrated about.
But like, this man deserved it.
He deserved the world.
Like he truly deserved this money.
Yeah.
And not a lot of people, like, you know, you can really say that they like deserve it,
you know?
(01:07:50):
But he like deserves it.
But that man deserved it.
He worked hard.
He worked hard.
He cared about everybody.
He didn't have a lot.
He didn't have a lot.
He didn't even have education.
He went to Walmart.
He went to Walmart to buy his clothes while he was over here giving people away money.
And he like, he, I mean, building a portable housing for people.
(01:08:10):
Moral of the story.
He deserved it.
And somebody literally took it away from him.
Took it away from him.
Took it.
Like that's the part that's so frustrating is he deserved this money and this evil woman
like just ripped it away.
Like including his life.
Like not even like fuck the money literally took his life over this money.
(01:08:34):
A man who would have given you that money when, when he literally would have probably
given these people money.
If that's all they wanted, I'm sure all they had to do was ask and this man would have
been alive.
And people don't fucking care.
Even though he definitely should have not given them money.
No, no, like he's nicer than he is.
(01:08:55):
And it just sucks that one silly mistake because he didn't know any better to trust
her with all of his funds.
Definitely took advantage of him when she knew she had.
And now investigators still believe that Didi did not do this alone.
They believe that she hired someone to physically kill Abraham.
(01:09:18):
But whether or not she shot him or whether she has to win us to do it, she still had
the intent to murder and cold blood.
And he was very involved.
And she, this was premeditated for sure.
Oh yeah.
Premeditated and she disposed of.
And yeah, that's one thing that she has not, she has not come forward with.
Even during the trial, she kept telling these lies.
(01:09:39):
She didn't, she never came for it with the truth.
You can tell she didn't.
She is still hiding things.
We don't know what actually happened between her and Abraham the night or the day that he
was killed.
Like we just know around that time he was killed.
We just don't know when.
And we also don't know.
And of course forensic investigator, things like that are going to say maybe it was this
or that day, but we don't know for sure.
(01:10:01):
So it's only has to say with that.
And then also on top of that, of course, obviously the fact that this random woman comes into
life and just takes everything away from them.
But then on top of that, it's like Didi knew that he had a whole family.
He had children to support.
He wanted to support the whole world.
And again, I don't know how Didi came into the picture, but what some believe is that
(01:10:25):
she found him on the news, watching the news one day and knew that this is a guy she could
take advantage of and she did it the right way.
I don't know if she knew from the beginning that Abraham didn't, that may have lacked
education, but she did come out of nowhere and kind of just fixate herself on around
this family.
So it's just crazy how a forest could just ruin something so beautiful like that.
(01:10:51):
And let this story be one of those told.
I think this is one of my favorite stories being told and not only because it's Black
Hair Story Month, I don't want anyone thinking that we're going to tell way more stories
about people of color, people that have lost their lives for the most pointless reasons.
And we're just a waste of sunshine.
There's one that I really want to cover.
I think we're going to cover it.
(01:11:11):
We were going to cover, I want to say like two weeks ago, but I walked over it.
That was a case about a female veteran who was not a veteran, I'm sorry, she was a female
soldier who unfortunately had been murdered by someone else.
And again, she is another story.
She was a Hispanic woman who had been killed working on the US military.
(01:11:34):
And it's just thoughts like that.
You shouldn't kill anyone, obviously.
But the fact that you can take someone's life that's trying to do good to the world,
trying to make this world a better place.
This man truly would have actually made impact on the world.
He would have made an impact on the world.
I mean, he already did.
Like he did affordable housing.
He got his so-called friend a business.
(01:11:55):
Yeah, but that friend then came up and that's another thing too.
His friend came up behind his back and just decided to take advantage of whatever DJ was
trying to tell him for this money, whether or not.
And I think that's kind of shady too still to me because he was let off.
But I still think it was shady personally because he knew that his friend was missing.
(01:12:16):
I get from his words, he was saying that, you know, oh, I just want to give his mom
a satisfaction.
I just want her to have closure.
You weren't fucking having his mom have closure.
You just wanted this fucking money that DD claimed to give you.
So let that be a thing.
It's just this story.
It's heartbreaking, but it needs to be heard.
(01:12:36):
And I'm happy I told it.
Ooh, West story.
But rest in peace.
Rest in peace, Abraham Shakespeare.
Rest in peace and God bless your soul.
Literally.
But nevertheless, I'm just again, this is why we tell stories.
We want to tell them to get people's stories out and get their names out.
(01:12:58):
Give their names out.
Yeah.
I didn't know a ton about this story.
I knew a little bit about it from the news.
But it recently kind of resurfaced because I think DD is still forcing her way out of
that prison.
Bitch, you're not getting out.
But it kind of resurfaced.
And I really want to cover this just, of course, just as a story, just a story to tell and
(01:13:22):
to learn from.
A true story.
A true story.
Let alone.
A fortunate one.
But that is the case of the murder of Abraham Shakespeare.
Thank you all for listening so much to our episode today.
We are obviously consistently working to get great episodes out for you weekly.
(01:13:42):
More to come in the future.
Make sure to go on to our Instagram at WTLGO podcast.
Make sure to go on to our TikTok.
We did not.
I'm sorry.
We actually did not do any video today, but we will do some at some point soon.
I plan to at some point.
I got to get all dolled up.
(01:14:03):
You got to get all dolled up.
I wasn't ready today.
No, it's okay.
We're both wearing green sweatpants, which is so cute, but we're definitely wearing
sweatpants in our youth.
So it's fine.
Love.
We ain't ready yet, but we'll get there.
Still go on and follow us.
We'll be posting soon.
Make sure to send us your inquiries or anything that you have for us in terms of stories or
listener stories.
(01:14:23):
Many of you have them.
I know you do.
If you have them, make sure to send them to WTLGO, sorry, sorry about that one, WTLGO
increase at gmail.com.
And that kind of runs us up to the end of this episode, everybody.
Have a happy safe rest of your weekend.
(01:14:45):
Stay safe.
Stay safe out there.
Carry on.
A brand new legacy.
Carry on my way, Tucson.
Carry on.
I don't know the words.
Carry on.
Abram's legacy.
Abram's legacy of being a ray of sunshine.
Yes, please, guys.
Be decent people.
Be people that help other people.
You don't have to have money to help wise.
(01:15:06):
And that's okay.
And that's not scam people.
Yeah.
Oh, oh, shit.
Scamming is the title of this episode of anything.
Scamming is not something you should do.
If you start a business, don't fuck it up.
In that way, at least.
How are you going to like literally scam your own business?
This is really scammer-owned business.
You fucked up your own business and got fired.
(01:15:27):
How you get fired from your own business?
Well, with that, we will see you when the lights.
Goes out.
Bye.
Bye.
I'm Kendall and I'm Bri and this is when the light goes out.
(00:11):
Hello.
Hi.
Hello all of you strange and beautiful humans.
Welcome back to another week of when the light goes out.
It is episode 23.
(00:33):
23.
23.
Oh wait no I can't even do it.
We can't.
It's 21.
I don't know about you.
Oh I thought 23.
Oh I thought you were going to say 21.
Can you do something?
What song is 23?
Is there a 23 song?
I don't think there is out there.
There's one.
There's a TikTok one.
That's like oh shit.
What is it?
I'm trying to think of the sound.
(01:00):
23.
I feel like looking that up.
It's by um what the fuck is that girl's name.
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh I know that song but I know I'm also thinking of isn't there
a song that Miley Cyrus came out with called 23 right?
20 something?
I don't know.
I don't listen to Miley Cyrus.
I don't know it's like such a whole song and I feel like anyone would know it though.
(01:22):
Oh shit I don't know.
What about Jeeze on 23?
Jeeze on 23 song is like not.
Jeeze on my feet.
Jeeze on my feet.
Jeeze on my feet.
That's 23 right?
Isn't that called 23?
I think it might be.
Okay I got one.
I think.
I like this game.
Jeeze is like not really a catchy 23 though because the part that she says it is now I'm
(01:44):
23 you felt like I outlived all my enemies.
Oh god.
She starts the song with being like.
I'm just starting to make enemies.
How old are you now and then she goes 23 and then it's like K makes sense and then it goes
into the song.
Oh okay.
Yeah it's like a tic-tac.
Oh I feel like I've definitely probably heard that song before.
It sounds whittier from the beginning.
(02:05):
But yeah I hope everyone's had a great week.
I like to just start out with that because we don't say it enough.
We don't like to ask enough.
Yeah how was your guys' week?
Yeah.
I hope that y'all talk to us much anyway.
Just a mental wellness check.
Just making sure everyone's doing okay.
Well we, well I'll speak for myself.
I don't know how your week went.
(02:27):
Go ahead.
What did I even do this week?
God I don't even know.
I worked most of the week.
Sunday was my errand day.
Oh I'm going to move my mic real quick.
I'm sorry.
I'm making one noise.
Okay I'm here.
Sunday was like I felt like I ran all my errands and then Monday through tomorrow.
I've just been working.
So yeah.
(02:47):
If you guys hear my cat meowing or purring as always.
Boo's here.
Boo's here.
Boo's in the house.
As always for people who are just joining in on this episode.
Boo is my cat.
Boo is our mascot.
She is our mascot.
If you hear any like random noises.
She is all up on our podcast table.
Yeah she's up on the table.
She's stared at Kendall like she's being confrontational.
(03:11):
She's about to smell my plate.
Get out of here.
There's nothing on it.
Boo will you can sit with me or will you be good?
Will you lay down?
Will you lay down Boo?
Lay down.
It looks like he's trying to cast a spell on her.
I was like hovering my hand over her not petting her.
I don't know why.
I'm so weird.
Lay down.
(03:31):
Anyway how was your week?
My week was okay.
It wasn't too bad.
It was pretty dormant so far.
I feel like I guess I haven't done a ton.
Oh she about to jump.
She.
Okay go ahead Boo.
I'm going to go over my bottom meat.
Bottom meat.
What is it called?
Bota meaty?
I don't know.
My shirt and my go-go juice.
(03:52):
My go-go juice.
My juice in the box.
My wine in the box.
He didn't just shot a tequila before this and now he's doing some wine in the box.
Listen sis.
Wine in a juice box.
We gotta smell silly sometimes when we want to talk about some dark shit.
Silly goofy.
Silly goofy girls.
Oh what the hell is wrong with us?
(04:12):
I don't get out enough.
I don't know what your thing is because you do.
I really do.
I don't really have a reason I guess.
I just no excuse.
No all around them.
My week has been good and again this is always a fun part of my week because I feel like
well I mean obviously this is work but we work our own full-time jobs and then we get
(04:32):
to come to this and I get to see you.
I get to tell all of you a story.
What not to love about all of us.
So assuming boo won't step on my keyboard and fuck up all this track right now.
I would cry.
I would take a shower after this boo don't fuck anything up.
The both swarming around my backpack is everything okay.
Yeah they probably just smell pebbles.
(04:55):
Oh that's so true.
Yeah I don't talk about pebbles enough.
Pebbles is my little blind poodle.
She's an old girl.
She's an old girl.
She's young at heart though.
She young at heart.
I don't give her some credit.
This dog has so much energy for a blind little old dog and I'm like girl how do you have
so much energy.
I have little bit of energy.
(05:16):
She is like a little white dog though.
She is a little white dog.
She is a definition of a little white dog.
Like ram bag.
Ram bag.
She's as fuck.
Like sometimes a little annoying.
Yeah no you're a little ankle biter.
That's for sure.
A little ankle biter but we love her.
She's cute.
We love my little pebbles.
The sim first time I met pebbles upsets.
Oh she's so cute.
(05:37):
I told I said that we wouldn't ramble too much but here we are.
We can cut some of it out.
This is cute banter though.
I told Bree at the beginning of the before we started the episode.
Okay let's just go into the story.
No banter.
It's a long one.
But then we sit and then banter just it just happens.
It's because when we get a lot around with each other and we haven't talked about life
(06:01):
in a while or whatever.
We just be talking.
Y'all just sitting with us and just listen.
We be talking.
It's like we need a separate podcast of just us talking.
Just us talking.
I don't think a lot of people listen to that.
You never know.
That could be a cute little thing.
We have to talk about something like actually relevant but you know.
Yeah maybe when we get more well known.
(06:22):
Yeah.
Have more time.
Yeah.
Yeah probably not.
Alright well.
Let's get into it.
Let's get into it.
Yeah.
Get into it.
So.
Yo I can't do it.
Yeah.
So today we have a story for you guys.
(06:44):
Now this story is a pretty crazy story.
I think it spirals a lot wouldn't you say?
Fast.
Yeah.
It spirals pretty quickly.
It's a lengthy one.
It's not super lengthy but it is like it will lead us right up to our time limit.
A lot of info.
There's a lot of info.
So again if I told you Chetta like Chetta fill herself around with the audience fills.
(07:10):
If you're confused she's confused.
We're all confused.
I speak for you guys.
Yes.
So try to stay along.
Here we go.
So today's story is the murder of Abraham Shakespeare.
Now the first thing I thought when I first heard about this case is wow what a name.
That is a name.
(07:31):
That's a name.
That's a cool name.
Like what a name.
The last name is Shakespeare.
Shakespeare.
It's very noble.
Very.
Like I've never met anyone named Shakespeare and if you're last I mean Shakespeare out
there can you hit us up and tell us hi because I'm jealous.
I feel like it's pretty cool.
But anywho the story starts out on November 24th 2009 in Polk County Florida.
(07:55):
The Sheriff's Office declares a 42 year old African American male by the name of Abraham
Shakespeare a missing person.
He actually hadn't been seen for six months prior to being declared missing.
Six months.
Six months.
Yeah.
That's crazy right.
Imagine.
It's a long time.
Six months had gone by and it was weird for Abraham to go missing though because he had
(08:19):
actually recently been the winner of the Florida lottery.
Suspicious.
I know.
He has widely known to be a family man devoted to sharing his winnings with anyone that asks.
So the real question here is why would a millionaire and yes he won $30 million.
$30 million.
$30 million.
(08:40):
$30 million.
I said it again.
$30 million.
$30 million.
Are you sure you read those zeros right?
Yeah.
$30 million.
$30 million.
And if you guys don't believe me look on our Instagram at WTLGO Podcast.
That's a nice plug.
Yes.
And look up because we'll have a picture there of him holding $30 million.
(09:01):
That's a lot of money.
Yeah.
So the question stands.
Why would a millionaire that literally went from Rex to riches just up and disappear
out of without a trace?
Suspicious.
Sus.
Very sussis.
That's not sussis.
So let's just rewind.
(09:22):
That was like perfect noise.
That's it really?
Yeah.
Thank you.
How did you do that?
Okay.
I wasn't thinking about it and it just happened or it might be the box line.
But anyway.
That was the tequila shot.
Oh that too.
I forgot.
Yeah.
So let's rewind to three years earlier in November of 2006.
(09:43):
So 40 year old Abraham Lee Shakespeare had been working as a truck driver while also
living with his mother in plant city, Florida.
This is a real community with lots of farming land often used for shabery and orange growing
and it's not super populated and that kind of makes me really hungry for fruit right
now.
(10:04):
Don't know why but it does.
An orange does sound good.
It does sound good right now.
I love me an orange.
So Abraham did not make a ton of money.
He lived paycheck to paycheck.
He was also a single father with his son Moses and if you don't realize already it seemed
like Moses and Abraham their biblical name so that's a thing.
(10:26):
And he co-apparented his son with his ex and he often spent his time actually at home
when not working caring for his utterly grandmother and was just a very hard working all around
decent person.
He seems like a sweet genuine caring family man.
Yeah.
How many of those can you say they were living existing?
(10:46):
That's right.
Probably not many.
Yeah.
Luckily I know a few.
A few, yeah.
Well Abraham's friend Gregory would later state quote, if he could help you he was on
his way.
He was that type of person and if you saw him out he would never have a bad day.
(11:06):
Unquote.
So you get a sense of who he kind of was.
Like a sunshine.
A sunshine.
A sunshine.
I love it.
And so according to his mother he never fought with her growing up.
Always suspected her rules would never come home late and never would come home drunk
or on any drugs both in his adolescence and in his adult life.
(11:28):
So literally sunshine.
He was literally so pure and he was just a decent human being.
I think the only thing and of course we all have maybe the smallest guilt in our class
if anything it was that he loved women and it's not a bad thing that you love women.
He just loved women.
I mean who doesn't?
I love these women.
Suffer kind of maybe.
No I love.
(11:48):
I love.
Don't get it mistaken.
I love my women.
Oh don't get it twisted.
Just not that way.
In the platonic way.
In the platonic way, yeah.
There you go.
So now one thing about Abraham that is actually really unfortunate is that he had a very
limited education.
(12:10):
He had a very small, sorry, he had very small social skills and knew little about how to
handle money but from human interaction he knew some of the basics to get by.
I don't know how accurate this part is because no other side of source could verify why but
it did, I did stumble upon a Reddit thread and a user claim that he had started going
(12:33):
to school at a certain point but dropped out to take care of his family after his father
was out of the picture.
Again, I don't know how true that is.
That was a Reddit thread that can be easily made up.
Someone could have just said that, pulled out their ass or it could be true.
Reddit's not always the most trustworthy source.
Yeah and again, because I didn't find that to be a side of source, I also kind of find
(12:54):
it as a question mark but that's something that we can maybe put into that story.
But either way, make sure to mentally write a post-it note of that in your brain because
his limited education is really what I believe gets taken advantage of later on.
Aww.
Yeah.
Like I said.
So, on an investigation discovery documentary called A Stranger in My Home, they talked about
(13:19):
Abraham and how he loved to take his son on walks.
Now and then he would take his son, little Moses, to the really, really rich neighborhoods
that were around and just show him the big houses and his son would just be so fascinated
by them.
And it's just so wholesome.
Aww.
It's just like, and it just gives me…
Sunshine!
Sunshine on a cloudy day.
(13:41):
Literally, he's the embodiment of that song.
Oh my god.
I actually don't remember how that song goes.
If there's any bad parts, I take that back.
No, I don't think there are but I can't even sing it because I know I'm going to
fuck it up and I'm going to get hate so it's okay.
Well, Abraham, I'm sure like many parents out there really wanted a better life for
his son but knew he couldn't provide that to him so he wanted to inspire him the best
(14:05):
way he knew how which was by helping people, giving good to the world, being grateful to
be alive and hopes that one day he could, you know, support his family better than he
is already.
My heart.
So ironically, very soon, that will all change.
On November 15th, 2006.
(14:27):
Shit.
That's my birthday.
It is.
Why do our birthdays come up so often?
My birthday came up in the last three, didn't it?
Yeah, because it was like a few days away from when it was like that.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Oh shit.
Well, on November 15th, 2006, Abraham and a friend of his at the time named Michael
(14:49):
Ford decides to walk over to a convenience store that afternoon.
Abraham asks Ford if he can go in and while he's shopping and go and buy two footer lotto
tickets and hence Michael $2.
$2 for two lotto tickets.
$2.
$2.
And he won 30.
(15:10):
30.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
So Michael goes in, gets his things, gets a lotto tickets and gets them to Abraham.
They're on that same night, the announcer on the telly, I like saying that, telly.
I'm a telly.
I'm a telly.
This is America.
Don't at me.
I'm sorry.
(15:30):
So the announcer on the telly is rolling those numbers and calling them off when he
realizes that he has just won a whopping $30 million.
Boom baby.
Crazy.
Holy shit.
I know I said that at the beginning but whoa.
(15:51):
I wouldn't disbelieve.
I'd be like, is this fake?
I would be in shock.
Like what would you...
Like did I just get got?
Before we go any further it gets really morbid here but what would you do with $30 million?
Can we just talk about that for a minute?
Man, I'd like, I don't even know.
Okay, but the way I was brought up, like I am a frugal person and I also, I enjoy the
(16:14):
finer things but I wouldn't go crazy.
I don't like a big house.
Like I would buy, you know, bigger than what I'm in.
But not that much.
Like not like crazy.
I like a cozy.
I'd buy myself my dream cars.
I'd probably donate a lot.
I'd buy my parents, my parents love their home.
They'd probably stay in their house but buy them their dream cars.
(16:38):
I'd buy my dad a new boat.
Like oh my god, spoil my cats, spoil Simon, buy him his dream cars.
Like everybody get a car.
You get a car.
You get a car.
Literally I'd have like four cars.
Probably do something and honor Ryan.
Like a lot.
You just go off.
Like I'd literally like-
(16:58):
It sounds like you have the same kind of heart that William Shakespeare would have.
I mean William Shakespeare, that did not just say that.
Oh god.
It sounds like you would have the same kind of energy that Abraham Shakespeare would
have.
God, William Shakespeare.
Well, I think if I had $30 million.
Yeah, what would you do?
I think like pretty comparable to yours.
(17:22):
I would probably start off, first of all, obviously pay off all the bills.
Yeah, oh yeah, for sure.
First, the debt comes first.
If that student loan forgiveness doesn't come in.
Oh baby.
If any of you all want to send us some cash for these debts, go ahead.
That's beside the point.
I would definitely pay off my debts.
I would definitely then start thinking about my future.
(17:45):
I would think about where I'm headed.
Yeah, same.
Then I would probably think about obviously my family, my friends.
I would want to support them.
I would make sure they're comfortable.
I think that would even come before thinking about my future and investing.
I think I would definitely need to be safe in my composure to know that my family is
good, my friends taking care of.
(18:05):
I don't have to worry about my family suffering or anything.
Then I would probably then focus on my things.
I would probably think about, of course, like I said, do I want to go to college again?
Do I want to spend that money on building and investing?
Fun stuff?
Because you know that would be used.
But it's also so much money where you'd have so much left over.
(18:28):
You would have so much that you wouldn't even know what to do with it.
Let's say you get like fucking four supercars at like $100,000 piece.
You're still rolling in millions.
That's not even a dent.
It's not a dent.
It's insane.
But just wait to hear what Abraham does with his money and how this turns into...
(18:54):
Man, I can already see this going real south.
Real south.
And it does.
And no pun intended because this is the south.
But wow, it's just fascinating, this story.
I'll keep going.
All right.
Tell me all about it.
All right.
Well, first of all, according to Fort Allottery rules, and I figured this was kind of an important
part to throw in.
(19:15):
Others may choose to receive a portion of the Florida Lotto Jackpots and a one-time
cash option or a cash option or in a 30 annual payment option.
So Abraham chooses the one-time lump, a lump sum payment.
Period.
And of course, taxes are included.
So he ended up with a payout of about $16.9 million, which is obviously still a fuck ton
(19:41):
of money.
But that's also almost half of it being taken away.
Taxes, man.
That's some bullshit.
I hate taxes.
I'm sorry.
Anyway.
Taxes are some lump of shit in itself.
If taxes was a person, I'd fight them.
I knew we all would.
Join forces.
I love it.
All right.
Well, of course, as soon as he had won, the press had been all over him about being the
(20:05):
small town man that went from extra riches overnight.
There is that photo that the Lotto winner takes with the big checks and, well, of course,
post that on our Instagram again at WTLGL.
Podcasts.
Go for it.
But the problem is to me about this is that, and this is according to Tampa Bay Times that
(20:32):
I found this on.
And it says, quote, actually, I want you to read it.
I'm some big letters.
You can't miss it.
Quote, under Florida's existing law, the lottery agency immediately releases the name of winners,
city of residence, game, date one, and amount one to anyone who requests it.
(20:56):
It does not disclose the winner's home address or phone numbers, although such information
can usually be discovered elsewhere, such as property records or voter registration files,
which remain publicly accessible.
End quote.
What the fudge?
Yeah, that's my problem.
(21:17):
And I just want to point that out real quick.
Sorry, Tampa Bay Times, but that's a bitch ass move.
Yeah.
You're literally doxing him without doxing him.
You're like, just so you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fuck you, Tampa Bay Times.
Yeah.
So that's, that was just something I needed to point out because first of all, I, I think
about that and I'm like, okay, this is in the early 2000s too, by the way.
(21:41):
And like we said, things are a little different, but like not much.
But the thing is, is that think about how easy it is for someone knowing your name obviously
is already on, you know, the news to then look you up and find you whether or not they
may put your home address out there for people to find.
(22:01):
People are still going to be able to find you whether or not like your name is the first
thing people need, but not only that, the fact that they put your, their, the residents,
your city is just crazy to me.
Okay.
But also like, yes, if we get a name, we can look someone up and like, sure, that's like
a thing that people do.
But this is like almost suggesting it.
(22:24):
Like it's like suggesting it or it's like, Hey, if you haven't thought about it, like
now you're thinking about it.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
Like it's like, yeah, you're on the ball.
I'm like, oh, I'm so shitty.
And it's just so shitty.
The way they just, I agree.
No, I definitely agree.
And one press interview Abraham mentioned quote, if I lost all my money today, I'm a happy
(22:44):
man because I was able to achieve one of my dreams and that was to be a millionaire.
Stop.
He's so cute.
I know.
And again, hurts my heart so bad.
He, it just bugs the fuck out of me because I'm like, what happens?
Basically we know the title of this episode, but I'm going to keep powering through.
(23:08):
Well two months go by, it's January 2007 and Abraham decides to purchase a home on the
market for $1.1 million in North Lake, land, Florida.
Still not even a dent.
Not even, I know.
He still got like 15.8 left.
Oh my God.
(23:29):
Now this mansion had a four car garage, a pool, and they were in Adirka, shakuzi, shakuzi,
shark, shark, shark, shark, sharkuzi, sharkuzi.
I mean, where's my wine?
Where is your wine?
That's right here.
(23:50):
Fuck.
Okay.
I don't know if you heard the sounds, but that was good.
He said bone apple teeth.
God, okay.
Sorry.
The mansion had a four car garage, a pool, one indoor and outdoor shakuzi, and a separate
(24:11):
guest suite just to give you a brief idea of the layout.
So it's a pretty fucking big house.
And again, we're going to put this on her Instagram.
You can find it there.
He also bought his mother a home 15 minutes away.
She wanted to, and had hope actually that his mother would have just moved in with him,
but she actually did not like the house at all.
(24:31):
She actually hated it.
It felt way too big and it did not look to her like anything like a home.
It just seemed like some kind of massive resort to her.
And so she, or so he decided to just buy her a home and it was a cute bungalow just 15
minutes away from his house.
But let me tell you, if Abraham was one thing, he was selfless and he remained frugal, frugal
(24:56):
till the end I could say actually.
When it came to spending on himself outside of his home, he preferred actually to continue
shopping for clothes at shopping centers like Walmart, whereas most of people around him
thought he would just start shopping at high end clothing companies.
He continued to buy his jewelry from pawn shops and instead use his money to help build
(25:18):
affordable homes to people without the ability.
By his cousins, all new homes provided for his son by setting up a million dollar trust
fund.
And he even gave his longtime friend, Greg Smith, who was a local barber, a eight, sorry, 87,000
dollar business loan, 87,000 dollar business loan.
(25:44):
He's so sweet for literally all of that.
For all of that.
Whatever.
What's the friend's name?
Now his friend's name was Greg Smith.
Now keep that name in mind.
Better be grateful.
Keep that in mind.
Oh gosh.
Because Greg comes back later.
Oh God.
So does one other friend.
So just keep that in mind.
Now this man had to have been one of the most obviously generous people that the lottery
(26:06):
has ever seen win.
I couldn't ever see so many people just doing that and doing what he did.
Yeah, a lot of people are greedy.
Yeah.
And if you needed that help, he would help you.
It's just crazy to think that there are so many nice people in the world, but that is
a really started to hurt Abraham and it worked against him.
Old friends he hadn't seen since childhood associates and most of them were just random
(26:28):
people to came out of the woodworks left and right attempting to get closer and closer
to him.
And it really started to overwhelm him like it would.
I obviously with anyone, no matter how nice you are, it's going to overwhelm you.
So even worst part about this is that he was actively giving away this money to these people.
So no.
(26:50):
I know you just said that he still has a lot of money, but when you're giving it away like
this at this amount of rate, it's like he is so firstly just so kind.
Secondly, he can do whatever he damn well pieces with his money.
He can spend it however he wants, but it's the people that are taking advantage of him
(27:11):
and getting close to him because they know that he has the money.
That's so shitty.
Yeah.
That's the thing though.
There are so many.
Trying to reconnect.
Yeah.
There are so many kind of like there's so many like generous people in this world, but
that's the problem.
Like we live in a cruel world where people will take advantage of you in a heartbeat.
And it's literally proven by this man by this.
(27:34):
I mean, let this be the story of anything to show you that he had to be really careful
in this world because people will take advantage of your niceness like that.
I'm not saying be an asshole, but I'm saying also.
Watch your energy to get.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Like you said, like quote that like seriously though.
Now the pressure from the world even got so bad that one night people would literally
(27:59):
walk onto his property.
No, I'm knocking at his door bothering this poor man.
That night it scared him out of his house.
So he stayed with his friend Greg and Greg will later recount Abraham retelling him quote,
I wish I ain't had no money unquote.
And it just, it's just like this man is just enjoying it.
(28:20):
He thought it's just like another thing that really hit me when I like was researching
this was that I feel like it's not obviously only me and I feel like it's a lot of young
people too because we're young and we're still learning.
But like I always forget that money isn't the end up be all, you know, this is the story
to again, if not anything else that shows you that money can always buy you happiness.
(28:45):
It seemed like it was kind of weighing on, you know, Abraham because of the fact that
he felt like he was losing his like his respect for everybody.
Everyone just saw him for his money.
Everyone just saw him for one thing only and that was the fact that he was a millionaire.
Especially too, because he's such like a genuine guy too, he doesn't care about the money,
cares about friendship, you know.
(29:05):
Yeah, exactly.
And oh, I just fixed my heart.
So in April of 2007, five months after winning the lottery, Abraham meets 27 year old Centeria
Butler, who Abraham's family was kind of skeptical of at first for good reason.
She was younger and she wasn't prior, she wasn't with him prior to the winnings.
(29:28):
But Abraham really liked this girl and eventually in a year later in 2008, she give birth to
Abraham's second son.
So they had another baby boy come in the world.
So now that Abraham has a second child with Centoria, he realizes he has no money being
saved and he starts to get a little anxious because a lot of the responsibilities are
(29:50):
being piled on him at once and he's been helping all these people all the while.
So really starts, you know, he really starts filling it and yeah, the pressure and he was
so actually generous that he managed to end up with $2 million left at this point.
Mind you, he started with 16.
(30:10):
Almost 17.
They were 16.9.
Yeah, 16.9.
So let's round out to 17.
$17 million.
He is now only two years later left with $2 million.
That's so unfortunate.
It's just really sad.
And so in October of 2008, a lady contacts Abraham that claims to be a very successful
(30:35):
businesswoman named Doris Moore, who is most known as Dee Dee.
She heard his story and wants to write a book about his story.
So let's hold up a sec and just talk about Dee Dee Moore for a second.
Well, Dee Dee was a fordagal that was also growing up learning how to help people.
(30:59):
She always wanted to actually help people, which is kind of ironic considering what we
might know later.
Growing up, she always knew she wanted to become a nurse.
She was always a high achieving student, got her license and CNA, which I think is a medical
term, don't know, medical people, let me know.
And it really wanted to do some good for the world.
(31:19):
So one thing about Dee Dee growing up was that she was always embarrassed that her friends
and their families had money while her family was a low income household.
But Dee Dee always knew that she needed to work her way up, getting to that special point.
So she just started working basically.
(31:41):
Although along the way, her family would consider that she would pull a lot of shady schemes
and she would do in order to just get a little more extra change in her wallet.
But they never asked questions.
Sus.
I don't like this lady already.
Yeah.
So sometime in the mid 90s, she worked for a medical staffing company and really did well
(32:03):
there.
And while there, Dee Dee had a side hustle working at Nextel.
I think that's some kind of phone company.
Oh my God, I remember Nextel.
Nextel, yeah.
I was like young to know about that too.
I've heard of it before.
Oh my God, that's so old.
Well, here she started really getting down her strong business skills, which led to her
(32:25):
and a co-worker to start a medical business called American Medical Professionals LLC.
Oh, good for them.
Now this co-worker of hers was the president and Dee Dee was a vice president.
And everything had been working really well for this new business of theirs for years.
She actually or eventually suggests opening a branch in Plant City, Florida.
(32:47):
She felt that the area would be best supported by their business.
And so her team and her agreed.
And then she just starts moving there and says of the same project.
She's not very far.
I don't think she's still in Florida.
I think she just started to move there.
And so everything is working great for some time until the co-workers she started the
(33:10):
LLC with and other team members quickly begin to notice that the company has oddly been
losing her money from the company's budget, but stopped seeing any progress.
So they are like, all right, what's going on?
They launch an internal investigation and soon find out that Dee Dee has taken about
$62,000 in payroll schemes from this company that she started right before the trial of
(33:35):
the American medical professionals LLC versus Doris Moore.
Somehow the main branch of her company just so happens to catch fire and all the files
the company had against her just went up in flames as well.
Convenience.
How convenient, right?
It's very convenient.
So the years after got pretty hard for Dee Dee.
(33:59):
After this, she obviously was fired from this company that she created.
I was about to say her own company, girl.
Fire from Maxdale and was banned from ever selling phones for any phone company.
Damn.
Didn't even notice it being a toy right that eventually Dee Dee and her then husband James
had to file for bankruptcy because they had been falling so far behind their bills and
(34:23):
following was their divorce.
In 2006, she eventually found a new boyfriend while co-parenting her son, which brings
us back to where we were before in October of 2008 when Dee Dee reaches out to Abraham.
So Abraham is told from Dee Dee that this is a very successful business woman that wants
(34:52):
to write a book about his story.
So they both agree to it and they want to meet in more detail, right?
So Abraham brings his girlfriend Centoria and they meet up at some restaurant sitting
on a patio getting to know one another and while getting to know Dee Dee, Abraham is
quite intrigued to hear how successful Dee Dee is.
(35:14):
She explains how she is the president and the owner of her own business called American
Medical Professionals.
She's divorced with a teen son named RJ.
So Abraham and Centoria are impressed and they hire her.
I don't know if you all caught that lie, but it's in there.
I caught it.
(35:36):
Within days, she was over the house daily, learning more and more about Abraham, his
lifestyle, his family, and Dee Dee is learning a lot of things, one of which she learned
how badly Abraham has been saving his money or handling his money in general and how much
it's bothering him.
So Dee Dee goes, hey, it just so happens, I'm a really good financial advisor.
(36:00):
I can definitely help you with your finances.
Convenient.
Again.
A lot of people over the years had smindled Abraham already and he knew he needed the
help so he just didn't apply.
She was like, okay, cool, let's just do it.
Let's get into it.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
I feel so bad for this poor man.
(36:21):
I feel terrible.
I actually feel terrible for this poor man.
And look at pictures.
Don't look at pictures because I keep saying look at our Instagram.
But like, we see pictures of him.
WTLGO podcast on Instagram.
We go on there and you'll just see his beautiful smile and he has like the most, like, you
(36:41):
have to know how gracious and like so nice he is.
And then you put it without smile and like, you're just like, oh, like, I just want to
get to know him.
Like, I feel like he'll like tell you a good story or something.
Like a speed man.
So not long after this initial conversation, just days later, Dee Dee poses a question
to Abraham and says, I think that we should create an investment company together.
(37:04):
She says this will be how we make most of the money back and I'll start record.
Sorry.
I'll also start recollecting the loans that everyone owes you.
Knowing good and well, Abraham does not know shit about how to start an investment company.
She asks this question anyways.
He says, okay, and not even three months later, Dee Dee manages all of Abraham's assets, all
(37:27):
of his assets.
You should never let anyone manage all of your assets.
Not at all.
And again, unfortunately, Abraham's circumstance, I think he was just like, you know what, someone's
here, someone's here to help me like, they didn't know any better.
And I feel like a broken record saying this, but like, I feel bad because like he's a nice
(37:47):
person probably assuming that someone's going to do something nice back for them.
Yeah, he finally like got a win, you know, he got a win and he's happy.
He's like, of course now, like it's working for me.
And then Dee Dee.
Fucking Dee Dee.
Fucking Dee Dee.
All of this money that belonged to Abraham said in the hands of Dee Dee through this
(38:08):
investment company that she manages, she started spending so much time at his house that her
boyfriend and son would literally come over and hang out whenever they chose to.
No.
Ffff.
Ffff.
Affing way.
Literally, I'm not kidding you.
No, Affing way.
I think Abraham was kind of friendly about this because he befriended this woman and initially
(38:30):
she was supposed to be writing this book and then here she is doing everything else for
him.
Yeah.
So I think they just adapted a person like a, a relationship and he kind of was like,
okay, it's fine.
I know.
Like, she's my friend.
I think he's so friendly too.
For him, for him, it's like a new friend, you know, new friends.
(38:50):
Yes.
Yes.
And probably his son to play with his son.
To play with his son when he has to split over.
Yeah.
And they were about the same age too.
Yeah, exactly.
They're maybe a couple of years difference, but they're about the same age.
So it's like kind of works for both of them.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Well, I suppose so I guess.
Yeah.
And I think you guys are catching on to Dee Dee if you haven't already.
(39:11):
Fucking Dee Dee.
Oh, it gets crazier though.
So tune in.
Cause fortunately to add Abraham situation had already been bad enough before Dee Dee
came into the picture because he had already been losing the house.
He lost so much money that he can afford to keep up with the house.
So the plan was that Centoria would move out and stay with some family with her son.
(39:36):
And then Abraham would stay back at home to have him and Dee Dee try selling the home
while they looked for a smaller home to move into.
So not a bigger home, but like a smaller home that's more affordable to keep up with.
That's smart.
Yeah.
Abraham was cool with this plan.
He didn't care as long as he could be in a house that housed him and his family.
That's all he cared about.
(39:57):
So Centoria moves out and he's starting to get Dee Dee's help with selling this house.
Abraham really starts getting excited and higher spirited again because he's finally
feeling we're stable.
But Dee Dee really starts suggesting that Abraham not leave the house at all.
She suggests that if he kept leaving the house to visit his children or even go to the grocery
(40:18):
store, then he'll just be harassed by more people and this will never have its resolution.
He says, okay, I'll just sit back and just, you know, let you do all the work.
It's cool if you really want to do it.
And she's like, yeah, I'll jump in.
So after a month goes by around March of 2009, Dee Dee convinces Abraham since the house
(40:40):
isn't selling for some odd reason, quote unquote, to just sign over the house to her.
No!
What?
Oh my God.
And not the company that they made, by the way, her company, American medical professionals.
In that way, the burden of his home is just lifted.
(41:02):
I know.
I know.
I know, girl.
At this point, Dee Dee wastes no time moving her things into the house and begins renovating
the home.
Yeah, of course.
Again, nothing about this bothers Abraham because in his eyes, she's getting rid of
the problem.
She's helping.
Yeah.
So he's in fact so happy about this that, according to Dee Dee, Abraham just decides
(41:26):
to go on some kind of victory travel.
It actually isn't super random that Abraham actually choose to travel around this, maybe
not around this time, but in general, because Abraham had actually always wanted to travel
the world.
He made that really known to his family.
He made that really known to his friends.
But what was odd was that, why would Abraham choose to leave his family behind, especially
(41:50):
without even a goodbye?
Well, Dee Dee Moore being the closest to him and the closest in contact with Abraham,
sure to anyone trying to reach him, he was so stressed out from everyone asking him for
money and thought it was best that he get away and go off the grip for a while.
Yeah, without talking to his mom, without talking to his mom, without talking to his
(42:14):
girlfriend who has his baby, who he loved.
Yeah, no, I don't believe that for one second.
Thank you.
And Dee Dee maintained that Abraham was sending her text messages and insisting that everything
was okay.
Family and friends were a little skeptical at first because it was weird.
Abraham was not the type of guy to average us up and leave, not even at his lowest low,
(42:38):
but at the same time they knew that he was really stressed out at the time.
And they thought maybe he just really needed to get away for a while, so they accepted
that for a minute.
Abraham's cousin, Cedric Edon, was collided saying, quote, he did mention wanting to leave
town.
We wanted to help him because everybody else's dream he was trying to fill and never had
(42:59):
time for himself, unquote.
That's when Dee Dee's alleged interactions between her and Abraham started getting a
little more suspicious because now his worried loved ones began receiving text messages from
Abraham saying, quote, I don't think I'll be coming back.
And how he doesn't want to keep paying for child support.
(43:22):
Oh my God.
I'm just scratching my head because it's like, huh.
This is news to Centauria because last time she tracked, she was upset, oh sorry, he was
obsessed with his newborn baby.
And he could even bear to be apart from his oldest son.
(43:43):
Abraham's mother found it especially weird because when reading the text message that
he sent to her, she realized that the text message had little to no grammatical error
or punctuation mistakes.
True perfect.
Keep in mind, he didn't write that shit.
He's illiterate.
Yeah, he didn't write that shit.
He didn't write that shit.
(44:04):
Six months go by.
Still no one had seen or heard from Abraham except for Dee Dee.
So his cousin Cedric finally reports Abraham's Shakespeare and missing person.
When investigators first started looking into this case, they felt that it was not super
out of the ordinary for a lottery ticket winner to take their money and leave the country.
They did look at a long list of people that Abraham lent money to, but everyone checked
(44:27):
out.
They were not finding many labels, sorry, many leads.
And not surprisingly, here comes Dee Dee, readily available to give cops any information
they need.
She has it there.
She tells officers.
He left at his own expense and he didn't tell her where he was going, but she knew
he needed to get away from all the chaos in his life.
(44:52):
Cedric tells police he was skeptical of Dee Dee because she was the last one that obviously
seemed alive.
And Dee Dee randomly asked Cedric, not even a couple days before he caught the police,
to give Abraham's mother a private card of Abraham.
When she opened it, it was a goodbye card with $100 inside.
(45:13):
So that's really questionable as to why he would want to do that.
So investigators are like, okay, we need to look into this Dee Dee check.
Who the fuck is she?
Not a direct quote, but you can imagine.
So they bring her back and for questioning, Dee Dee just tells them, I just do what Abraham
(45:35):
hired me for.
And then she tells police unnecessary information about Abraham.
Dee Dee then gives the missing person's unit a video tape and on it she's recording Abraham
with a camcorder with one of those early 2000 camcorders.
And it's actually him.
It's him in the video.
(45:56):
He's wearing a white t-shirt and he had dreadlocks.
So he kind of had it wrapped up in like a do-rag.
And it looks like he's texting at the moment and Dee Dee's like asking him.
She's holding the camera towards him and she asks, hey, you want to get out of here?
He says, yeah, let's get out of here.
Dee Dee says, well, where do you want to go?
(46:20):
You want to get away from everyone asking you for money?
He says, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
Let's go.
Let's go.
She says, you get tired of people asking you for money all the time.
Give me your opinion on it.
Dee says, quote, I've been tired.
I've been tired a year ago.
She says, are you going to miss your home?
(46:42):
Yep.
I'll miss it.
But time goes on.
I'm stomped on that video because this is actually, obviously this is actual video.
Actor.
It sounds like an act.
So I saw this through the documentary I was watching.
I don't know a ton about everything before and after because you never can really get
(47:03):
the whole story.
But it's weird because knowing Abraham was such a dedicated person in general and then
he just decides to like, this be like, you know, I'm, you know, go with leaving, whatever.
You know, it's fine.
I'll just leave and I don't know.
It's just odd.
So I don't know.
(47:25):
But apparently it's a police that checks out.
So before the night, Dee Dee went to the station.
She fucked up.
She went to Centoria and asked her if she could tell the police Abraham randomly stopped
by angry that got into a screaming match and he left.
So of course, Centoria is like, what the fuck?
(47:45):
No, like I'm not going to tell my, I'm not going to tell the police that the father of
my children that's missing is just came when he didn't.
And what the fuck?
Like where is my husband?
Where's my boyfriend?
What the fuck is going on?
Why do you want me to do that?
Yeah, of course.
So Centoria the next day, obviously goes to the police and told them what Dee Dee told
her.
(48:05):
Investigators did hone in on one suspect that Dee Dee had helped direct the investigators
to, which was Abraham's old friend, Michael Ford.
Now if you don't remember, Michael Ford had been the guy that went and helped him get
the lottery ticket, the $2 dollar lottery tickets.
What I didn't tell you about that was that Abraham had won the lottery and his friend
(48:29):
Michael actually tried suing him.
This is right after he won the lottery.
He felt that since he was the one to go in physically by the ticket, he was the owner
of the winnings.
But in court, the judge quickly ruled out Abraham being the sole owner of the winnings.
So Dee Dee says, yeah, he did it.
He's the one who did this.
(48:50):
Okay.
I'm backtracking.
It was literally Abraham's money.
So it's Abraham's winning.
It was literally his $2.
Yeah, like it's literally Abraham's winning.
Yes.
Thank you.
So obviously we know that this guy just literally wasn't a friend to him at all.
Silly goofy.
Silly goofy guy.
Silly goofy.
Silly goofy guy.
(49:10):
Like, not a good guy.
It just, again, comes to show you people will act when it comes to money.
Like people will show their true colors.
Also can we talk about how literally if Michael asked Abraham for some money that Abraham
literally would have given it to him.
Not saying that like he should have or was a good idea or that he deserves it.
(49:32):
But like according to his track record, like looking at all of it seems like he was pretty
giving.
Yeah.
He's pretty giving.
Michael, I mean, I'm sorry, not Michael.
He didn't have to sue them guy.
Abraham would have given him money had he not done that.
I would assure you.
Oh, I like I'm shocked.
Let me tell you if I'm trying to come up at me and was like, let me see you because
(49:54):
I because you gave me my money, your money to get something.
Yeah, we go out.
Money, my guy.
Literally.
So Michael, fortunately for him, had an alibi because he didn't live in Florida at the
time of Abraham's disappearance.
He actually moved to Georgia.
So the main suspect just goes right back to Dede.
So police are like, all right, we need to track the calls Abraham has made to Dede.
(50:19):
They found out that Abraham's phone peaked last from a tower near his home and found
that it's been turned off and turned on over and over again.
Suspicious.
Suspicious.
Bullery touching stuff.
Mm hmm.
She's playing with the metal bit.
Oh, I see.
Obviously, the police needed more evidence on Dede, so they secretly placed a checker
(50:43):
onto her car.
As they should.
Yeah, the next time she can in a station is put on her car.
But this next note is just wild.
It gets even more wild if you can't even imagine.
So just two days after Christmas in 2009, Dede goes to pay Abraham's mother a visit.
(51:03):
While she does, Abraham's mom receives a hot call and picks it up.
The person answers and says, hey, mom, it's me, Abraham.
Please don't call the police.
I just want to be away.
Tell the police you'll never see me again.
So the worried mother, elderly mother, mind you, obviously calls the police immediately
(51:30):
and tells her, I'm tells the police what she's heard on the phone and says to her,
this obviously is not my son.
Yeah, really.
So the police tracked down the call made to his mother, Elizabeth Walker, to the least
expected character to return to the story.
The call came from Greg Smith.
(51:50):
If you remember, it's a barber friend that Abraham gave $87,000 to in loans for his barber
shop business.
Because they were friends.
And how is he going to do that?
Oh my God.
Boo's looking at me like, what the fuck?
What the fuck?
It's all on people.
(52:12):
Because then tracked down Greg himself to a busy shopping mall parking lot while on
a stakeout to find Greg.
Probably spent $87,000.
Let me tell you, he beer buy whatever was left over.
He better be doing some some good stuff with that because I'm telling you the fact that
he's caught in this lie right now is fucking taking me to my avenue.
(52:34):
So just so happens, they see instead good old Dee Dee pulling up to the parking lot.
Oh my God.
You said I can't with this bitch.
Oh my God.
Of all people, right?
Oh my God.
Of all people.
Well.
Honestly, like disappointed but not surprised.
Yeah.
(52:54):
Honestly, are we?
Disappointed but not surprised.
And so instead they follow her, they follow her car to see where she parks.
She parks.
And she parks right next to Greg Smith.
She then gets out of her car, goes into his and hands him a wad of cash, gets out and
then drives off.
(53:16):
So the officers are like, look at me.
I'm not suspicious at all.
I'm sure they're looking at each other.
You see that?
Yeah.
You see that?
You see the shit?
You saw that shit, right?
T. T.
So of course, like I said, the investigators get off this car.
(53:37):
And they confront Greg as to why he had made this call first of all to Abraham's grandmother
pretending to be Abraham.
To clarify, the call was to the mother, not the grandmother.
Yes.
I'm sorry if I said grandmother.
God.
Insert.
Insert correction here.
Thank you for correcting that for me.
And oh yeah.
Why the hell is he with DD Moore handling a wad of cash?
(54:01):
No.
For.2 seconds.
That's not the most suspicious thing in the world ever.
Yeah.
So quickly, without any hesitation, Greg comes forward and tells police.
DD came to me and told me if I call Abraham's mother and I act as Abraham, DD would pay
me $5,000.
So police were actually super worried about Greg.
(54:24):
He was simply just a shit friend that took advantage of the situation.
But police were not letting this go.
They still wanted Greg to help catch DD in a confession for knowing the whereabouts of
Abraham.
Sight note.
While this is all happening, one investigator is on the case doing a deep dive into who DD
(54:44):
really is.
He found out that she had been fired from her company.
She was accused of several thefts, frauds, and arson.
In addition, she actually had been arrested before for insurance fraud after accusing several
men of raping her or for stealing her car.
(55:05):
Until she never had to plan to write that book, by the way, that was something.
We believe survivors, but I don't think she's a survivor.
She's not.
That's a blatant lie, right?
Yeah.
No, it's a blatant lie.
I actually dug deep into that.
So basically with that, she had known these guys.
(55:25):
They weren't any people out of the ordinary.
Basically what she had done is she had basically set up a scheme where she was able to fortunately
act like she was a victim of rape.
I meant to say we believe victims, not survivors.
No.
Yeah.
We believe victims.
Sorry.
(55:46):
Yeah, we believe victims.
Correction.
Continue, sir.
But I think it was an investigator who had actually honed in on this and found out that
she was just lying about all this.
So that just came out and she was kind of pinned for it.
She got caught.
Just crazy people out there.
Because that's just discrediting all the people that actually did experience it.
Yes.
(56:07):
So shitty.
Exactly.
So authorities started out a plan to use Greg since Dee Dee doesn't know much about
what the police know.
And so they placed a wire into an empty drink can.
They then gave him to meet up with Dee Dee at a gas station.
During this discussion, the police got nothing to work with from this conversation.
I mean, there are like some subtle hints, but nothing to pin her on.
(56:30):
But before wrapping up the conversation, Dee Dee says, quote, I'm being blamed for Abraham's
disappearance.
I would pay for someone to take the rap for it if I could, unquote.
This dumb bitch.
This dumb, stupid.
My brain actually.
(56:53):
I guess thinking what I'm thinking, like.
I mean, who?
She's so guilty.
This is enough information for investigators to attain a subpoena for Dee Dee's phone
records.
And they do in fact find that her phone was pinged off with the same cell towers as Abraham's.
And they get investigators are now like, we are pretty confident Dee Dee's behind all
(57:15):
of us.
Now we just need to have a location of his whereabouts.
So investigators turn Dee Dee's wish into their command.
Those have Greg called Dee Dee back the following day to tell her that he has a cousin that
already is a criminal or sorry, that already has a criminal record and is willing to go
(57:35):
to jail if she paid him $50,000.
But what?
No, this is what wait and provided the locations that Abraham's whereabouts to really sell
the story to police.
Okay.
So what I'm saying is, is he's willing to go to jail as long as he pays, she pays him
$50,000.
(57:55):
How is he supposed to use it?
But listen, listen, listen, I get to finish.
I didn't get to finish yet.
Okay, I'm sorry.
It just doesn't make sense.
Okay.
Yeah, it's going to make sense.
I promise.
Okay.
She's like, all right, but don't bring your cousin yet.
Just meet me alone at the gas station and we will drive over.
What she didn't know is that that police, that that cousin was a police officer undercover.
(58:16):
Okay, period.
That makes sense.
Well, what the like, I mean, that should have been red flag because who is taking the rap
for money when they're not going to be able to spend the money.
But then again, who's calling the family member, the person that's missing.
And then it's like, Hey, can you lie to police for me?
(58:37):
So I feel like DD is just a dumb bitch in general that can't even see no from right.
I don't like.
I see no lies here.
Oh, okay.
I just dropped a tablet.
Um, five.
Where'd I go?
I probably said what's the one meme where it's like, and then my head hit the floor.
(58:57):
Oh, my God.
That's a funny one.
If you guys haven't seen that, that's funny.
So Greg, sorry, I found it.
Okay.
So Greg rides with DD from Lakeland to Plain City where it seems she has purchased a new
house completely separate from the one Abraham sold to her company.
(59:17):
A whole ass different house.
She walks him around to the backyard to a large cement slab in the back and says, that's
so suspicious.
Like I already know what like, is that not painfully obvious?
Well, DD tells Abraham quote, tell your boy to take six feet down.
(59:42):
And you'll find Abraham's body.
Yeah.
Fucking clearly because there's a big ass cement slab in the back of her house.
That's fresh and newly poured.
So DD's dumb ass walks away, comes back out the house with a whole ass, 38 caliber gun
and tells Greg she got it from the person that used it to kill Abraham and needs his
(01:00:04):
cousin to get rid of it.
At this point, investigators want to wait till DD leaves the home so they could do a
sweep of the house without DD being aware, but they know who their girl is.
So on January 25th, 2010, they returned to DD's home, sorry, her second home, dug up
(01:00:24):
the concrete where six feet under had been the badly decayed body of Abraham.
He suffered two bullet wounds to the chest.
Police returned to Abraham's old home where they in fact found Miss DD completely surprised
and confused about what was going on.
She was then arrested on the charges of Abraham Shakespeare's murder.
(01:00:46):
Per usual, DD conjures up stories during her videotaped interrogation.
Her story also kept changing.
First thing, three guys came in and shot him.
Took everything we had and the safe and left with it.
They put a gun in my mouth.
I peed my pants.
I was scared.
They forced me to cover up this crime scene.
(01:01:08):
She did provide a name to these men.
She listed off and they did actually exist, but her alibi is checked out.
I mean, their alibi is checked out.
So she then says, Abraham got super mad at me and he and I just had to shoot him in
defense.
Ma'am, you cannot just change your fucking out.
Oh my God, what's like more suspicious?
(01:01:30):
That's not how this works.
She's not.
She like thought that she covered and like she thought she covered up.
Yeah.
She saw all her teeth, not at all her eyes.
Like she thought that like she was doing a good job or that she was a good criminal
or whatever, but she is so messy.
She's so fucking messy.
She's so messy with it.
She fucked up a long time ago.
(01:01:52):
And it's just, it's just like girl, like first of all, okay, you made, you made out
one story.
You almost got by on that too.
That three man story about the burglars.
They checked it.
The people existed.
You can't just make up a whole another fucking story and think that, oh, oh yeah.
Okay.
That makes more sense.
Thank you for coming forward.
That just makes you look more suspicious.
(01:02:13):
What the fuck is wrong with people?
Like what?
Wait, I would just like to add that I'm glad that she's like stupid because she got caught.
I am too.
I am too.
Like, like let me like clarify that.
Very easily.
And that does make me actually really happy because I'm like, she, who this bitch, this
bitch, well, while DJ is trying to say face, investigators are interviewing other people
(01:02:40):
around her and then they stumble across her ex-husband, James Moore, and they find some
pretty juicy piece of information from this.
James mentions that shortly before Abraham's disappearance, DD paid him to dig a hole on
her property in a plant city so that she could start a paintball field for her new home,
(01:03:05):
you know, for her boyfriend and her son.
That would be dope though.
Not gonna lie.
That would be cool.
But that's not what she wanted to do.
Clearly.
But they don't know this, you know.
So as it is understood, things like this take more than obviously just a day of digging
to do and James just says, okay, he comes to dig, starts digging, but it starts to rain.
(01:03:29):
So he goes home.
D-Day calls him back later that day and says, hey, I need you to really finish this because
the inspector was coming to check the house the next day.
So he does.
And he says when he had arrived again, it seemed that D-Day was dirty and very out of
breath.
She claimed it from being running around all day, but he didn't really think much of it.
(01:03:53):
He just kind of knew that D-Day was a weird ass woman and I'm sure he would have known
this from being married with her for so many years.
Could only expect that to be the reason why he got a divorce with her.
But hey, that's not my business.
So the next day, as far as witnesses knew, D-Day was having a new driveway poured and
offers the workers extra to pour a concrete slab over the freshly resoyed hole.
(01:04:14):
So I guess they didn't have time that day, so they returned two days later and they pour
D-Day her 10 by 10 concrete slab.
This witness statement was a solid for a prosecution statement.
So they had this in their pocket for her trial.
During the trial, D-Day maintained her innocence.
(01:04:38):
Not fucking surprising.
It was revealed from the prosecution that D-Day scammed Abraham and his family into believing
that she would be willing to help Abraham.
She took his remaining million dollars to buy herself a separate new home, a $70,000
corvette for her boo, for her little boo thing, a $30,000 truck for herself, a hummer just
(01:05:01):
because, expensive jewelry, clothes.
By the time D-Day had been caught, Abraham only had $10,000 left to his name.
His family got no reimbursement from this, by the way.
The only reimbursement, or sorry, I don't even say reimbursement, the only thing or the only
money that any of his family got was that million dollar trust fund that no one else
(01:05:22):
could touch.
They didn't even get her the mom's house?
Uh, no, nothing.
They...
I thought mom's house was paid for.
Oh, mom's house was paid for?
I'm sorry, I didn't see what you were saying at first.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I guess you're right.
Yeah, so they got mom's house.
And the trust fund.
And they got the trust fund.
I mean, that's a lot of money, but that's nothing compared to what it was.
(01:05:43):
But compared to what it was and compared to how much he still had, and she used, there's
not even the fact that she, no matter how much money you won, it's the fact that someone
else stole that money, stole that money from you.
His family...
So frustrating.
Of course, was being as supportive and powerful as possible during this trial.
(01:06:04):
They were trying to, of course, you know, they wanted to really give his name a satisfying
rest.
And I don't blame him for that.
They were really powerful throughout this whole thing.
It was really sad to watch trial videos and stuff.
In 2012, Doris Moore, aka Didi, was found guilty for the first degree murder of Abraham
(01:06:24):
Shakespeare serving life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Good.
And he still maintains her innocence to this day while held at the low correctional facility
in Ocala, Florida.
Do you know how old she is though?
I want to say Didi at the time was, I want to say she's in her sixties, just from a
rough estimate.
(01:06:45):
Like right now?
Yeah, right now.
I know for a fact, her, his son is around our age.
So I think he actually was born in 98.
So he would be 25 this year.
Oh, wow.
So he's able to access his fund.
I think after 18, right?
You're able to...
Yeah.
I think, I don't know.
I'm not a trust fund.
I know, I wish.
But he deserves everything to him.
(01:07:06):
This whole family deserves everything that, everything good, everything good in the world.
Because they had a family member that really loved the world.
Ray of sunshine.
Ray of sunshine.
And someone decided, some evil in this world decided to rip that from them.
God, that's like, this, okay, but that's like the reason why I'm frustrated is, I mean,
(01:07:29):
obviously, like what's not to be frustrated about.
But like, this man deserved it.
He deserved the world.
Like he truly deserved this money.
Yeah.
And not a lot of people, like, you know, you can really say that they like deserve it,
you know?
(01:07:50):
But he like deserves it.
But that man deserved it.
He worked hard.
He worked hard.
He cared about everybody.
He didn't have a lot.
He didn't have a lot.
He didn't even have education.
He went to Walmart.
He went to Walmart to buy his clothes while he was over here giving people away money.
And he like, he, I mean, building a portable housing for people.
(01:08:10):
Moral of the story.
He deserved it.
And somebody literally took it away from him.
Took it away from him.
Took it.
Like that's the part that's so frustrating is he deserved this money and this evil woman
like just ripped it away.
Like including his life.
Like not even like fuck the money literally took his life over this money.
(01:08:34):
A man who would have given you that money when, when he literally would have probably
given these people money.
If that's all they wanted, I'm sure all they had to do was ask and this man would have
been alive.
And people don't fucking care.
Even though he definitely should have not given them money.
No, no, like he's nicer than he is.
(01:08:55):
And it just sucks that one silly mistake because he didn't know any better to trust
her with all of his funds.
Definitely took advantage of him when she knew she had.
And now investigators still believe that Didi did not do this alone.
They believe that she hired someone to physically kill Abraham.
(01:09:18):
But whether or not she shot him or whether she has to win us to do it, she still had
the intent to murder and cold blood.
And he was very involved.
And she, this was premeditated for sure.
Oh yeah.
Premeditated and she disposed of.
And yeah, that's one thing that she has not, she has not come forward with.
Even during the trial, she kept telling these lies.
(01:09:39):
She didn't, she never came for it with the truth.
You can tell she didn't.
She is still hiding things.
We don't know what actually happened between her and Abraham the night or the day that he
was killed.
Like we just know around that time he was killed.
We just don't know when.
And we also don't know.
And of course forensic investigator, things like that are going to say maybe it was this
or that day, but we don't know for sure.
(01:10:01):
So it's only has to say with that.
And then also on top of that, of course, obviously the fact that this random woman comes into
life and just takes everything away from them.
But then on top of that, it's like Didi knew that he had a whole family.
He had children to support.
He wanted to support the whole world.
And again, I don't know how Didi came into the picture, but what some believe is that
(01:10:25):
she found him on the news, watching the news one day and knew that this is a guy she could
take advantage of and she did it the right way.
I don't know if she knew from the beginning that Abraham didn't, that may have lacked
education, but she did come out of nowhere and kind of just fixate herself on around
this family.
So it's just crazy how a forest could just ruin something so beautiful like that.
(01:10:51):
And let this story be one of those told.
I think this is one of my favorite stories being told and not only because it's Black
Hair Story Month, I don't want anyone thinking that we're going to tell way more stories
about people of color, people that have lost their lives for the most pointless reasons.
And we're just a waste of sunshine.
There's one that I really want to cover.
I think we're going to cover it.
(01:11:11):
We were going to cover, I want to say like two weeks ago, but I walked over it.
That was a case about a female veteran who was not a veteran, I'm sorry, she was a female
soldier who unfortunately had been murdered by someone else.
And again, she is another story.
She was a Hispanic woman who had been killed working on the US military.
(01:11:34):
And it's just thoughts like that.
You shouldn't kill anyone, obviously.
But the fact that you can take someone's life that's trying to do good to the world,
trying to make this world a better place.
This man truly would have actually made impact on the world.
He would have made an impact on the world.
I mean, he already did.
Like he did affordable housing.
He got his so-called friend a business.
(01:11:55):
Yeah, but that friend then came up and that's another thing too.
His friend came up behind his back and just decided to take advantage of whatever DJ was
trying to tell him for this money, whether or not.
And I think that's kind of shady too still to me because he was let off.
But I still think it was shady personally because he knew that his friend was missing.
(01:12:16):
I get from his words, he was saying that, you know, oh, I just want to give his mom
a satisfaction.
I just want her to have closure.
You weren't fucking having his mom have closure.
You just wanted this fucking money that DD claimed to give you.
So let that be a thing.
It's just this story.
It's heartbreaking, but it needs to be heard.
(01:12:36):
And I'm happy I told it.
Ooh, West story.
But rest in peace.
Rest in peace, Abraham Shakespeare.
Rest in peace and God bless your soul.
Literally.
But nevertheless, I'm just again, this is why we tell stories.
We want to tell them to get people's stories out and get their names out.
(01:12:58):
Give their names out.
Yeah.
I didn't know a ton about this story.
I knew a little bit about it from the news.
But it recently kind of resurfaced because I think DD is still forcing her way out of
that prison.
Bitch, you're not getting out.
But it kind of resurfaced.
And I really want to cover this just, of course, just as a story, just a story to tell and
(01:13:22):
to learn from.
A true story.
A true story.
Let alone.
A fortunate one.
But that is the case of the murder of Abraham Shakespeare.
Thank you all for listening so much to our episode today.
We are obviously consistently working to get great episodes out for you weekly.
(01:13:42):
More to come in the future.
Make sure to go on to our Instagram at WTLGO podcast.
Make sure to go on to our TikTok.
We did not.
I'm sorry.
We actually did not do any video today, but we will do some at some point soon.
I plan to at some point.
I got to get all dolled up.
(01:14:03):
You got to get all dolled up.
I wasn't ready today.
No, it's okay.
We're both wearing green sweatpants, which is so cute, but we're definitely wearing
sweatpants in our youth.
So it's fine.
Love.
We ain't ready yet, but we'll get there.
Still go on and follow us.
We'll be posting soon.
Make sure to send us your inquiries or anything that you have for us in terms of stories or
listener stories.
(01:14:23):
Many of you have them.
I know you do.
If you have them, make sure to send them to WTLGO, sorry, sorry about that one, WTLGO
increase at gmail.com.
And that kind of runs us up to the end of this episode, everybody.
Have a happy safe rest of your weekend.
(01:14:45):
Stay safe.
Stay safe out there.
Carry on.
A brand new legacy.
Carry on my way, Tucson.
Carry on.
I don't know the words.
Carry on.
Abram's legacy.
Abram's legacy of being a ray of sunshine.
Yes, please, guys.
Be decent people.
Be people that help other people.
You don't have to have money to help wise.
(01:15:06):
And that's okay.
And that's not scam people.
Yeah.
Oh, oh, shit.
Scamming is the title of this episode of anything.
Scamming is not something you should do.
If you start a business, don't fuck it up.
In that way, at least.
How are you going to like literally scam your own business?
This is really scammer-owned business.
You fucked up your own business and got fired.
(01:15:27):
How you get fired from your own business?
Well, with that, we will see you when the lights.
Goes out.
Bye.
Bye.
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