Abraham Shakespeare — the $30 Million Winner Who Was Murdered for It
Summary
Abraham Shakespeare was a barely literate laborer who rode as a truck driver's assistant in central Florida, owing back child support and living hand to mouth, when he bought a Florida Lotto ticket on a work trip in November 2006. It won a $30 million jackpot, and he took the discounted cash option of roughly $17 million. Almost immediately the money made him a destination: relatives, acquaintances, and total strangers came asking, and Shakespeare — a soft-touch who reportedly found it nearly impossible to say no — gave much of it away.
Into that swirl of need stepped Dorice "Dee Dee" Moore, who approached Shakespeare in October 2008 saying she wanted to write a book about how the lottery had brought him misery and hangers-on. Instead, prosecutors said, she methodically stripped him of what remained. She set up a company, Abraham Shakespeare LLC, took control of his accounts and real estate, and moved his assets and money to herself — prosecutors said she withdrew about $1 million and bought luxury vehicles, and had his home transferred to a company she controlled.
Shakespeare was last seen alive in April 2009. For months Moore told family and investigators he was alive and simply hiding from the people who wanted his money, even sending text messages from his phone and paying others to suggest he was in contact. On January 27, 2010, his body was found buried under several feet of dirt and a newly poured concrete slab behind a home connected to Moore in Plant City, Florida; he had been shot twice in the chest.
Moore was arrested on February 2, 2010, and charged with first-degree murder; on December 10, 2012, a Hillsborough County jury convicted her. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus a 25-year minimum for using a firearm in a violent felony. Shakespeare's case is the starkest entry in this catalogue: not a slow squander or a self-inflicted ruin, but a man killed for a fortune that a predator decided was easier taken than earned.
The Win
Abraham Shakespeare grew up poor and stayed poor into middle age. He could barely read or write, worked as an assistant to a truck driver, and was behind on child-support payments — an ordinary, struggling man with no buffer between himself and the next bill. In November 2006, riding along on a delivery run, he bought a Florida Lotto ticket at a Town Star convenience store in Frostproof, Florida.
The ticket matched all six numbers for a $30 million jackpot. Like most American winners, Shakespeare chose the discounted lump sum over the long annuity, walking away with roughly $17 million. For a man who had never had a cushion, it was an almost incomprehensible amount of money landing all at once, in cash, with his name and face attached to it in the press.
What distinguished Shakespeare from the start was his openhandedness and his vulnerability. By every account he was generous to a fault and constitutionally unable to refuse a hard-luck story, and his limited literacy left him dependent on others to manage paperwork and money. Those traits, combined with very public sudden wealth, made him exactly the kind of winner who attracts a crowd — and, eventually, a predator.
The Spending
The requests began immediately and never stopped. Family members, old acquaintances, and strangers who had read about the win came to Shakespeare asking for loans, gifts, and help, and he gave — buying a house and a car, handing out cash, and quietly absorbing the role of everyone's lender of last resort. Friends later said he came to feel hunted by his own good fortune, telling people he sometimes wished he had never won at all.
The most consequential relationship of his post-win life began in 2008, when Dorice "Dee Dee" Moore presented herself to him. Her stated pretext was sympathetic: she wanted to write a book about how the lottery had ruined his peace and surrounded him with people who only wanted money. It was the perfect cover for someone who wanted exactly that money, because it cast her as the one person interested in his story rather than his cash.
Moore inserted herself into Shakespeare's finances with striking speed. She established Abraham Shakespeare LLC and took control of his accounts and property, and prosecutors later showed she funneled his assets and money to herself, using funds for vehicles and personal spending. By the time anyone close to Shakespeare grew alarmed, the man who had won $30 million had been quietly separated from most of what was left of it.
The Unraveling
Shakespeare dropped out of contact in April 2009, and his disappearance was at first obscured by exactly the cover story Moore had built. She told relatives and investigators that he was alive but in hiding, weary of the people who wanted his money — a narrative made plausible by how openly he had complained about being besieged. To sustain it, prosecutors said, Moore sent text messages from his phone as if they were from him and arranged for others to relay that he was fine.
His mother and others did not believe it, and pressed authorities. As detectives closed in, Moore's story shifted and contradicted itself, and she made statements attempting to pin the death on others. On January 27, 2010, investigators excavated the yard behind a Plant City home tied to Moore and found Shakespeare's body buried under several feet of dirt and a freshly poured concrete slab. A medical examiner determined he had been shot twice in the chest.
Moore was arrested on February 2, 2010, and charged with first-degree murder. The case against her rested on the asset transfers, the elaborate cover-up, and her own shifting accounts. What had looked for a time like a wealthy man choosing to vanish was revealed instead as a homicide committed to keep a fortune that had been taken from him piece by piece.
What Went Wrong
After
On December 10, 2012, after a trial in Hillsborough County, a jury convicted Dorice "Dee Dee" Moore of first-degree murder in the killing of Abraham Shakespeare. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In the years since, Moore has maintained her innocence and sought a new trial, but the conviction has stood, and the central facts established at trial — that she took control of his fortune and then killed him to keep it — remain the public record.
For Shakespeare's family, the verdict closed a case but not the loss. His mother, Elizabeth Walker, had been among those who refused to accept that he had simply vanished and pushed investigators to keep looking — pressure that helped lead to the discovery of his body. The fortune that was supposed to lift the family instead cost them a son and brother.
Shakespeare's name has become shorthand for the deadliest version of the lottery curse. Where most cautionary tales end in bankruptcy or estrangement, his ended in a grave under a concrete slab. His story is a reminder that a sudden, public fortune does not merely tempt a winner toward ruin; in the worst cases it marks him as prey.
Lessons
- A sudden, public, lump-sum fortune can mark a vulnerable winner as prey, not just tempt him toward ruin.
- Generosity and limited financial literacy together leave a winner dangerously exposed to exploitation.
- Never let a single unsupervised person take control of your accounts, property, and legal paperwork.
- A confidant who insists they are the only one not after your money deserves the most scrutiny, not the least.
- The social pressure of a windfall can itself become a cover that hides a crime against the winner.