Florida Lottery win brought no luck to ex-con

LAKELAND, Fla. - When Abraham Shakespeare cashed in a $30-million Florida Lottery ticket in 2006, the barely literate ex-con posed for a photo with a giant oversized check.

He promised the money wouldn't change him. Three years later, his body was found under a 30-by-30 concrete slab behind a friend's home.

That friend, Dorice "DeeDee" Moore, has been called a "con artist" by police. She's been charged as an accessory to Shakespeare's murder, but she says she didn't kill him. No one else has been arrested.

While the details of the slaying are a mystery, how Shakespeare squandered his wealth is not. Shakespeare, 43, started handing out wads of cash days after he won the lottery, according to court documents from Polk County, where he was born and lived a problem-filled life.

After spending most of his teen years in a juvenile reform school, over the next decade he was arrested for everything from trespassing to assaulting his girlfriend. With another girlfriend, he had a son. He was arrested in October 2006 for being behind in child support.

On getting out of jail, Shakespeare went back to his job as an assistant truck driver, an $8-an-hour gig that entailed unloading boxes from a tractor-trailer at fast-food restaurants.

When the truck's driver, Michael Ford, stopped at a convenience store to buy a soda, he asked Shakespeare if he wanted anything. Shakespeare handed $2 to Ford. "Can you get me two quick picks?" he asked. That was on Wednesday, Nov. 15. By Friday, Shakespeare was in Tallahassee, holding the big check.

In those last weeks of November 2006, Shakespeare was like the Santa Claus of Lakeland. He gave one man $5,000. Another man, a $10,000 loan. To his stepsisters, $250,000 each. To his stepfather, $1 million.

Shakespeare bought a $1.1-million house, paid off the mortgages of two friends who were nearing foreclosure and buried five people, most of whom he didn't even know personally.

His former co-worker, the truck driver, sued him, claiming he actually had bought the winning ticket and that Shakespeare had stolen it. A judge ruled in Shakespeare's favor, but not before he spent lots of money on legal fees.

The state of Florida took $6,000 for back child support.

Shakespeare set up an account for his son, and put a million dollars in it.

There were more lawsuits and more brushes with the law.

"His life was miserable," said his mother, Elizabeth Walker. "He couldn't say no."

Then he met Moore, a heavyset, bleached-blonde woman with a criminal record. She said she wanted to write a book about Shakespeare's life. He trusted her, and her company bought properties he owned.

Three months later, detectives said, he was killed and buried behind Moore's home.