RedHanded - Episode 95 - Abraham Shakespeare: Lucky Numbers

Episode Date: May 22, 2019

In 2006 all of Abraham Shakespeares' dreams came true.  He won 30 million dollars on the lottery, it looked like all his troubles were over.  But within 3 years all of his money disappeared and soon after, Abraham disappeared too.    See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed. I've gone through some phases in my very long lifespan of 28 years where I've had absolutely no money. And I've also had times when I've had a bit of money, never loads, but like some in my life of Korean abundance.

And although my general happiness did not change that much in between those times, I still think that at least 60% of my problems would be solved by a large lump sum of money. And if you hang out in the Facebook group, you will already know that the lottery comes up in this week's episode. In fact, it's pretty central. Winning the lottery is on a lot of people's lifetime goals list. I say it flippantly loads myself. I say stuff like, oh, like I could only do that if I win the lottery or I'll get back to you when I've won the lottery. Like I say it quite... I'm so full of bants, Hannah.

Bants. Oh, talk to me when I've won the lottery don't worry about it just wall-to-wall bants with Hannah McGuire don't worry hey Hannah do you want to go to the pub call me when I win the lottery well currently it do be like that I'm afraid sometimes it just be like that it's the cutting remarks that's what's made this podcast so shit hot it's cutting remarks like that it's just that sass you've got. Call me when I win the lottery, bitch. Good. Exactly. But perhaps my life isn't really that bad because it would seem that more often than not, winning the lottery has actually brought not too much happiness to the recipients of the big bucks. And here are just a few examples. In 2012, a group of McDonald's

employees sued their co-worker for allegedly defrauding the Maryland lottery to avoid having to split the winnings with them. And then in 2002, Jack Whittaker won $315 million on the Powerball and quite quickly afterwards, he was robbed of over half a million dollars in a strip club. Why have you got half a million dollars with you in a strip club? Why have you got it in cash for a start? Well, I suppose you're at a strip club, probably. It's probably the answer to that question. Fuck no.

Buying drugs is all I can... It's the only reasons to carry cash, I imagine. Yeah, I mean, because if that's all in just dollar bills to put in women's underwear, you're not going to be able to fit that much. It's just suitcases just turning up with massive backpack backpacking rucksacks full of cash it's crazy i mean i'm sorry not to victim blame but jesus christ you turn up with 500 000 at a strip club and then callie rogers won 1.9 million in 2003 at just 16 years old and spunked almost the whole lot of it on cocaine. In 1988, William Budd won $16.2 million, but a series of terrible investments left him living off Social Security money and in $1 million

of debt by the time he died. And actually, there's a study that has recently shown that 44% of lottery winners spend the entirety of their winnings in five years. That's an astonishing statistic, 44%. Wow. And lawyer Andrew Stoltzman has represented six people who have watched their lottery money disappear before their very eyes. And according to him, once a person wins the lottery, they become a global target. There are literally people across the world who put these people on a list to harass and harangue to try to sell bad investments and also just to try and take their money. And that's exactly what happens in our story this week.

Abraham Shakespeare was 41, had $5 to his name and was working as a casual labourer in 2006. He'd had a tough life up until then. As a kid, he had serious and undiagnosed learning disabilities, and the school system had not been kind to him. And even as an adult, he was functionally illiterate. So a lot of the jobs that he maybe could have wanted to go for were completely out of the question for him. He also had a few criminal convictions, which didn't help. And he also didn't have a driving license. But that didn't stop him from driving cars. He fathered children that he didn't pay for, and on occasion, he hit people. But aside from his criminal records, Abraham kind of didn't really exist. He worked cash-in-hand jobs and had very little paperwork attached to him. His life was a transient one. And by 1995, Abraham Shakespeare,

Abe to his friends, had served two prison terms and was living with his mum in Lakeland, Florida. He hung out at his local barber shop a lot and at the Super Choice, which was run by his best pal Eddie Dixon. Most people in the area knew him. He was around a lot. In November 2006, Abraham picked up a job as a labourer. His job was to sit in the front of a truck with driver Michael Ford to keep him company on overnight runs to Miami. On the way to Miami one day, the pair made a stop at a mini-mart in Frostproof. What a fucking name. I know.

I imagine most places in Florida are frostproof because it's so fucking humid. Hammer it home. Hammer it home. And Frostproof was about 206 miles north of their final destination. Michael Ford left Abraham in the cab of the truck and headed for the shop. But before he left, he asked Abraham if he wanted anything. Abe asked for two quick pick lottery tickets. Michael Ford went into the shop, purchased the two tickets and whatever else he wanted. Then Ford returned to his truck where Abe Shakespeare handed him two $5 bills in return for his two lottery tickets.

One of the tickets displayed the numbers 6, 12, 13, 34, 42, and 52, and those numbers were worth $30 million. I cannot imagine what that feels like. I also can't imagine what michael ford was feeling either this may be contentious but technically that ticket was bought with his money technically it's like when like you're in the supermarket and someone takes something out of your trolley are they stealing from you you haven't bought it yet who's taking things out of your trolley at the supermarket oh it happened to me once i I was fuming. What did they take?

Some popcorn or something. I can't remember. It's like Sam's game. Do you remember that game you used to play as a kid where you put all the things on a tray and then someone would take something away and then take the blanket off and then you had to guess which thing was missing? Oh yeah, the memory game. The classic children's party game. So much fun.

It turns out that I thought you win the lottery, you go to the shop where you bought the ticket and explain what's happened and then they contact the lottery people and then you get your money. Apparently, it is not that simple. Is that not? No. Oh. Well, I think in the UK it might be different. But what happened to Shakespeare was a bit of a, just seemed a bit strange to me,

but also maybe I just don't understand the lottery properly. The rules vary from country to country and in the US they vary from state to state. Some states, Massachusetts included I learned, make it impossible for you to collect your winnings anonymously. Why? I would absolutely claim my winnings anonymously. Oh yeah but I mean it's all just you've got to jump through a lot of hoops. In Abraham Shakespeare's case, he was given the option of a series of $1 million payments annually for a number of years, subject to tax, obviously. I believe that the money you leave behind in the care of the state, I believe they invest it in the time that you leave it with them.

So you just have to hope that they do a good job. I could be wrong on that, but that's what I've read. And option number two was a lump sum payment, which incurs huge penalty charges and obviously tax. Abraham Shakespeare plumped for option two. And after all was said and done, he walked away with about $11 million of his $30 million win. $11 million is still a lot of money, but I would be a bit miffed. Do you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Paid tax. I'm like, oh, this is how much I'm on annually. Oh, no, wait. No, it's not. It's not even near that. The tax, I don't really mind. I don't mind paying tax. So much. I mind the

penalty charges for wanting it all at once. It's like when you have a student loan and you're like, oh, maybe I'll pay a bit more off early. No, you won't. Penalty charges for early repayment. Thank you very much. And the real shitter is that the student loan company is based in Glasgow, where education is free. I've only paid interest on my student loan. I haven't even touched it. I'm never going to pay it off. I'm just never. Find me, student loan company. Please don't. I just incriminated myself. So as a man who had never had a significant amount of money and some children he'd never paid for the first thing abraham did was settle his child support debt and he also put a million in a trust fund for his son abraham gave his mum who's called

elizabeth walker twelve thousand dollars and he also bought her a house abraham's stepdad was quick to take a million and saw to it that all of abraham's stepsisters of which there were three received a quarter of a million each shakespeare it that all of Abraham's stepsisters, of which there were three, received a quarter of a million each. Shakespeare was handing out his money left, right and centre. He paid off people's debts. He paid off mortgages. He paid for funerals. He bought houses. And on one occasion, he even paid a $60,000 mortgage for a guy whose last name he didn't even know. And when asked about this, Abraham answered, quote, I don't try to get to know nobody's last names. All right, fine. All right, casual. Now, at first, Abraham was giving his money willingly. He wanted to help people by being a good Christian. The Bible does say that it is better to give than

to receive, but he would soon become weary. Abraham himself didn't go totally unattended in his spending spree. He bought himself a house in January 2007 and a few cars. I don't know whether he ever actually got a legitimate driving license though. Now Abraham would never find peace and quiet in his new home. People hounded him for handouts. Some were family and some were people that he barely even knew. Now his house that he bought for himself was off the beaten track, but people still found him. And he got so sick of it that he bought for himself was off the beaten track but people still found him and he got so sick of it that he bought a doormat that read go away. Being illiterate whether

he could read it or not I don't know. Now Michael Ford soon came after Shakespeare too and he sued Abraham for half of his winnings because remember Michael Ford is the guy who was in the car who went and actually bought the lottery tickets. At trial, Shakespeare dragged a bin bag full of all of the lottery tickets that he had bought over the years into the courtroom. And it worked, because the jury ruled in his favor. His lawyer, Jim Volante, commented that Shakespeare was constantly surrounded by at least 10 people, all trying to advise him. He had more people around him than ever, but it was quite possible that he had never had fewer friends. By the time Jim Valanti met him, Abraham was very tired, and by April 2009, no one saw Abraham around town anymore. Sheriff Grady Judd and

Detective David Wallace started to get suspicious. This was a man who visited his mates at the barbershop every day. Surely he wouldn't just vanish. So Sheriff Judd headed down to Eddie Dixon and asked him where his best buddy might be hiding out. Eddie Dixon told the sheriff, quote, the only thing I know is that that is my best friend. You'll need to go and ask that white woman where that man at. P.S. Abraham Shakespeare is black and so are most of his friends. So who was this mysterious white woman, where that man at? P.S. Abraham Shakespeare is black and so are most of his friends. So who was this mysterious white woman who had suddenly sprung into the picture? Her name was Dee Dee Moore and in 2009 she was 37 years old. She and Abraham had met in 2008

after Moore had met the agent who sold Abraham his new house. The real estate agent was called Barbara Jackson and her first encounter with Dee Dee Moore tells you basically everything you need to know about Ms. Moore. They had met at a small business convention in Kissimmee, and Dee Dee attended the convention in a wheelchair as she had recently been in a car accident, or so she claimed. As soon as Dee Dee found out that Barbara Jackson knew the famous lottery winner cum philanthropist but Abraham Shakespeare, she insisted on an introduction, telling Jackson that she wanted to write a book about the ill-fated lottery winner.

Happy to help and spread Shakespeare's message of giving, Jackson set up the meeting at the house she had sold to Abraham a couple of years before. This meeting was less than two weeks after the convention, and Dee Dee Moore pulled up to Abraham's house in a shiny car that she stepped out of in high heels. I am not a doctor, but I think that wheelchair to high heels might take a little bit more than less than two weeks, in my humble non-medical opinion. Who knows? But if you are suspicious of Didi, you are on the right track. She is a piece of work. In 2001, Didi Moore left a brand new $36,000 Lincoln Navigator in a garage. Did I say that?

Well done. You said it. Hey! In Pasco County, Florida. Then an accomplice tied her up and left her in a ditch in Weama, 57 miles south of the car. Dee Dee waited in the ditch for someone to stop and help her. And when they did, she told them that she had been gang raped by three Latino men at gunpoint. She added that they had stolen her car. Yeah, afterthought. Yeah, yeah. All the racial profiling on point, everything else.

Oh yeah, that too. Now, she was after the car insurance payout, but she didn't get it. She was convicted of fraud and of falsely reporting a crime, and she received a year of probation. So Dee Dee Moore was a certified scam artist. Dee Dee claimed to have already written a financial advice book called Organise Me. Great. Yeah, fantastic, Deei. Well done. But it was never published. But she was very quick to remind everyone that it was copyrighted. How difficult is it to copyright something? I don't actually know. I think you can copyright

anything for about 30 quid. I think you just send it off to a company. Yeah, I really don't think it's that hard. And also, I don't think anyone's coming after it, Didi. I think you're fine. Organise Me. You can have it, love. Business secrets of the phone. Exactly. She just thinks she's cracked the financial code. It is. Absolutely. When she tells him that she wants to write a book about him, Abraham let her into his inner circle and he trusted her. He knew that his illiteracy would prevent him from managing his finances on his own.

And here's this woman who's written this smash hit book, Organise Me, that never got published. And so he trusts her. And so within months, Didi Moore became Abraham's financial advisor and rather unconventionally, I thought, moved into his house. Yeah, how many financial, how he's got a live-in financial advisor who needs one of those and then she went on to buy his house from him for 655 000 he had paid 1.1 million dollars for it just a few years before in my experience that's not really how house prices work no no she's uh she's just hanging him out to dry she She really is. And it's so sad. She is, I can't stand,

out of all of the like despicable human beings we talk about on the show, people who take advantage of vulnerable people are top of my get in the bin list, honestly. Like I just hate it. I hate reading about it. I hate hearing about it. But this is what she does.

It's this idea of like scamming and taking advantage of old people, of disabled people, of disabled people, of vulnerable people. Like you said, oh my God, it just, it rages me more than anything. Now on the 9th of February 2009, Didi Moore became the primary manager of Abraham Shakespeare LLC, which meant that she controlled every cent and every brick of his remaining fortune and real estate empire. It also meant that anyone who owed Shakespeare money, which was quite a few people at this stage,

had to go through her to get to him. Just two months later, Abraham Shakespeare disappeared. Eight people owed Abraham money. He wasn't just handing out his money, no strings attached. To some people, he was offering interest-free loans. One of these people was barbershop owner Greg Smith. Remember him because he is a big deal in our story today. In November 2009, Abraham's family filed a missing persons report with the sheriff's office. None of them had actually seen him since April, but they waited seven months to tell the authorities.

And when I first read that, my initial gut reaction was to think that his family didn't care that he was missing. They just wanted the money and they didn't even realise he was gone until they needed a bill paid. But actually, they hadn't been to the police station because Dee Dee Moore had told them that Abraham had taken his money and gone into hiding. He'd had enough and just wanted to be left alone dd took abraham's mother elizabeth to a local cracker barrel for dinner one night to assure her that abraham was fine he just didn't want to be found brief sidetrack here i asked one of our in the field american agents what cracker barrel is i literally text her and i was like what is cracker barrel and she was like oh christ

apparently it's a restaurant with like little house on the prairie vibes uh they don't serve any alcohol but they do have a shop inside the restaurant that they call a general store and i was like oh is that like a 7-eleven like a like a corner shop and she was like no it's like uh you get them in the sort of quite rural areas where you can like buy food and spices and stuff but also like shit to fix your toaster. Great. I don't know what that is. What the fuck is it? It just sounds like a place for people to go eat who like to use derogatory terms for white people. A barrel full of derogatory termed white people.

Oh, God. Apparently they have their own like branded stuff You can buy Cracker Barrel syrup. I don't know. Can you just buy a shirt that says Cracker on it? Oh, I don't know. Why? What sort of merch have they got? We should look into the Cracker Barrel merch.

Stay tuned. We'll find out. Excellent. Or if you're near a Cracker Barrel in the States, go in and take some pictures for us. That would be much appreciated. Oh my God, I'd love that. I'm going to Austin next week. Oh shit, you are.

Maybe I'll find a Cracker Barrel there. I reckon if there's if there's gonna be a cracker barrel anywhere it'll be in texas yeah probably i'm gonna go anyway during this cracker barrel meeting didi's phone rang and it was abraham didi passed the phone over to elizabeth so she could speak to her estranged son on the phone abraham confirmed what didi had been saying, that he was safe and sound, but that he wanted to be left alone. Confident that Elizabeth's worries had been put to bed, Dee Dee left Cracker Barrel probably feeling quite pleased with herself. But Elizabeth's worries were alive and kicking. She didn't tell Dee Dee, but Elizabeth was sure that the man on the other end of the phone was not her son. Missing persons posters went up around Lakeland describing Abraham as 6 foot 5,

190 pounds, black hair and brown eyes. The poster also offered a reward of $5,000, which considering the literal millions he had doled out to his family, seems a little mean to me. It did. Now in the midst of all this, Dee Dee Moore told newspapers that she could set up an interview with Abraham.

She also told his mother that she could meet up with him. But neither of these things happened. Dee Dee did manage to tell the press that Abraham intentionally wanted to disappear because he was behind on his child support payments. She told the Ledger that he, quote, intentionally did not want to be found. But off the record, Didi was telling other people in Lakeland very different stories, several of them.

She told some people that Abraham had contracted AIDS and gone into hiding to die in peace. Let's be educated about this. You don't catch AIDS, you catch HIV. And HIV doesn't necessarily mean you'll develop AIDS. And also these days, HIV is not a death sentence exactly now she told others that there was a video of Abraham having sex with a 14 year old girl and that he had run away to escape the consequences she's such a fucking piece of shit she literally tries to come up with the the most awful thing she can think of to get the heat off her she's like oh he's actually a pedophile and that's why he's run away. Or like, oh, he's got the worst disease I think of.

Or he's just a real scumbag and he doesn't want to pay child support payments. That's why he's run away. Yeah, exactly. She's the worst. She is the worst. I got so angry I've lost my place. Where am I?

Right. Now, the sheriff's department and the police in Lakeland thought that this was a bit suspect. And honestly, so did everyone else. Let's not forget Didi had form so Didi was called in for questioning and she presented the authorities and later the press with a video of Abraham Shakespeare and if we can find it we'll definitely post it on social media so you guys can take a look. Basically what this video shows is Didi filming Abraham

who almost has his back to the camera and Did Dee is asking him what really feel like very leading questions. She's like behind the camera and he's not, he's like sort of side on, but like is very obviously not wanting to be a part of this conversation. He's not looking at her when she's speaking. He's just, he doesn't want to be doing this at all. It's very obvious from his body language, I think. Now she asks him if he's tired of people hounding him for money, to which he replied, they don't take no for an answer. Then she asks him where he wants to go. And Abraham says, it don't matter to me. I'm not a picky person. Dee Dee

tries to get more out of him, but he isn't having any of it. And the camera is switched off. Right. What a bizarre thing to film. Why have you got a video of this yeah this isn't like her being here i am hanging out with my old buddy abe and we're just doing like a facebook live or you know snapchat video or whatever and we're just having some casual chat she's creating evidence she wants a reference for after he's gone and this is the thing it's so premeditated everything oh it's calculated as fuck she thinks she is so smart and also dd moore is a crier she cries all the way through her police questioning and through most of her interviews with the press there is nothing wrong with crying i cry all the time i was just having a conversation with my sister the other week actually i was like you

need to get over crying at work it's fine just cry at work everyone cries at work oh yeah fucking hell i cry at work all the time constantly i used to have a really horrible boss the one that i've spoken to you about at length and he had this thing about women crying where he was like i just feel like they do it to get out of trouble because when you start crying it shuts down the conversation and i was like it does it does shut down the conversation but it's not in my control i don't want to cry in front of you. And it only shuts down the conversation if you are so emotionally crippled that you can't cope with somebody crying in front of you. I cry at work and I have to say it doesn't shut down conversations with the people that I'm lucky enough to have worked with

because they're just like, oh, okay, that's happening. I'm just going to carry on because, okay, we're going off on a tangent. But when I cry at work, it's not so I can get attention or sympathy or get out of trouble. It's frustrating and it's humiliating and you want it more than anything to stop. But she is doing it on purpose. Absolutely. And I think like there is no, even if I'm on my own, if I am crying, it's because it is out of my control. And the first thing you do is try to stop yourself.

You're not just sat there sobbing. Oh, God, yeah. Unless you're dd more or what's his face um mcphilpot mcphilpot that's the one it's a good example because if you're crying especially in public especially on camera i would think my initial reaction would be to try to stop of course she does not she goes with it that's it that's how you know when someone is fake crying because they're not trying to stop themselves it's like if you watch a child child, like a toddler or a child crying, and they're doing it because they want something or they're like squeezing their eyes to get the tears out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place

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that Abraham was a victim of foul play, and they had two major reasons for thinking this. Firstly, the call that Dee Dee claimed was made by Abraham while she was at the cracker barrel with his mum pinged the same cell phone tower as Dee Dee's own phone, which meant that Abraham, or at least his phone, wasn't very far away from Dee Dee at all. And for once, and I love it when this happens, the police were ahead of the game. They had been waiting for Didi to make a mistake for quite some time. They had searched her house and her hard drive with no luck. The sheriff's office sat her through a lie detector test, which, as we know,

a totally pointless exercise. It's so pointless, we're not even going to tell you whether she passed or not, because it's irrelevant. But Dee Dee was so offended by all of this prying into her life that she kicked up an enormous fuss about absolutely everything. And she actually said, quote, I am not going to be OJ Simpson and run. Who do you think you are? Also, why are you bringing in OJ Simpson?

Right, what an incredibly odd celebrity case to pick. Like the most contentious one. Like, yeah, I guess he did get off. But like. He did it. I'm pretty sure 75% of the world think he did it. You know? Like, why would you choose OJ Simpson?

She doesn't pick someone who was like falsely accused and then completely vindicated afterwards. She picks someone that everybody, most people fucking think did it yeah exactly so the sheriff's department weren't getting anywhere with dd or her house or her hard drive but luckily they had another lead and this is major reason number two why they think dd is the major suspect here the police already knew that elizabeth abraham's mum was right to trust her instinct the The man on the other end of the cracker barrel phone call. It's also so fucking stupid. Like, Elsa, how do you think you're just going to get another man to speak to his mum and she's not going to recognise her son's voice? Her own son, who she lives with as an adult. I don't know, honestly. Because guess who it was on the phone? The cracker barrel

phone. It was Greg Smith, the owner of the barbershop that Abraham frequented and the recipient of a $63,000 loan from Abraham. After Abraham disappeared, Didi got in touch with Greg and told him that she could write off the debt if he helped her with something. That something was making Abraham Shakespeare's disappearance seem voluntary and get the heat off her. Diddy told Greg that the cops were trying to frame her for Abraham's murder and that she needed him to run around town telling people that he had seen him. Now Greg claims at this stage he truly believed that Abraham was alive. And I don't believe this for a second.

No way. Maybe he's not the brightest pixie in the forest, but like in interviews and stuff, he's like, yeah, I had no idea. And I'm like, well, then why were you pretending to be him on the phone if he's alive and well and completely fine? And he's just like, oh, well, you know, I sort of squared it with myself because I thought it would make his mum feel better. So that's why I decided that it was okay to do it. No way, man.

You're just trying to get out of debt. Yeah, you did it because you had $63,000 worth of debt hanging over your head so yeah he agreed to help dd he made the call to shakespeare's mum to try and convince her that her son was safe he even tried to do an impression of his friend's voice but as we already know he didn't do a good job of this and no sooner had he hung up the phone greg was pulled over by the police who had tapped abraham's phone they're just waiting for him. I love it. They're literally like, go on then. Like, ah, it's so good. It's so good. Now, Greg was taken in for questioning by Detective David Wallace,

who was initially suspicious of Greg, but it became very apparent in the first interrogation that Dee Dee Moore was the one that they were after, just as they had suspected. Detective Wallace knew that Dee Dee was somehow responsible for Abraham's disappearance, but he didn't have enough evidence to convict her. Everyone in and around Lakeland felt the same way. Abraham's friends had been receiving texts from his phone, which was strange considering that Abraham couldn't read or write. So Detective Wallace

turned Greg Smith into his very own double agent. He already had Dee Dee's trust. She thought that he worked for her. So Greg was given a mic and told to record every conversation that he had with Dee Dee. Greg put this mic into a Red Bull can that he kept in his car. And he is so, so pleased that he literally beams in interviews when he's asked about it. And he called it the DD catch can. He loves it so much. He loves it so much. I like that.

In the documentary, two things about one of the documentaries I watched for this, that one of them is funny. They're like a criminal catching device straight out of James Bond. No, come on now. It's a mic in a Red Bull can. It's not quite like M level, like amazing. And the second thing they do is they try and throw in loads of William Shakespeare references. It's a mic in a Red Bull can. It's not quite like M-level, like, amazing. That's so funny. Brilliant. And the second thing they do is they try and throw in loads of William Shakespeare references.

So, like, when they're talking about D.D. Moore, they're like, well, this shrew could not be tamed. Oh, my God. It is abhorrent. Like, truly, truly. It's uncomfortable. I love that people sat around a table and brainstormed all of those ideas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For 2020. For all the different types of William Shakespeare references they could squeeze into it I'm trying to think of some now I'm drawing I'm trying to remember the other ones that they said oh I can't but it was long pause yeah long pause Hannah runs through every Shakespeare play that she can think of

trying to think of a pun doesn't manage it breaking news no i can't think of any never mind we'll come back to it you can think of any tell us greg obviously he's loving it he loves his fucking didi catch cam uh catch cam catch can and so he kept meeting didi in car parks all over lakeland and during these car rendezvous didi would tell greg to do a number of things to try to convince people that ab Abraham was still knocking around. I mean, if the police are just trying to frame you for this, would you go to this much effort? No, you would go to this much effort because you fucking murdered that person. Exactly. And she thinks that she has got Greg Smith in the palm of her fucking hand,

like she really does. Dee Dee gave a letter to Greg Smith to deliver to Abraham's mum. This letter, again, detailed that Abraham was fine, but that he wanted to be left alone and he didn't need to come back if he didn't want to. The major detail here that Dee Dee just can't manage to get into her head is that Abraham Shakespeare wasn't capable of writing a letter. But it doesn't stop there. The most outlandish thing, by far, that she asked Greg to do is that she asked him to call a friend of his,

pretending to be a drug dealer from miami called ronald apparently this ronald had seen abraham in a bar and greg had to relay this information so that people would stop telling the police that abraham was dead all of this was caught on tape via the dd catch count greg claims that through all of this he thought abraham was alive i've've got to side-eye that. I really do. He's like, oh, right up until the last minute, I truly thought that he was alive and well. No, you didn't, Greg. Drop it. He's also written a book about Abraham's demise,

which apparently is not very good, according to Amazon reviews, which are obviously the fountain of knowledge on things like this. But in January 2010, even Greg couldn't stay ignorant to Abraham's very probable death because Dee Dee told him during one of their car meetings that she needed help to move Abraham's body and that it was currently buried on property that she owned. Dee Dee told Greg that Ronald, the mysterious drug dealer from Miami,

had killed Abraham for his money and that he had threatened to kill her son and cut him up into little pieces, nice touch, if she didn't hide the body. And it would appear that Dee Dee had forgotten that she had previously asked Greg to pretend to be the Ronald himself. She's delusional. It's like when Rumpelstiltskin spins hay into gold. She thinks that her words immediately become true when they come out of her mouth. Yeah, you're right. That's exactly what it is. She's so like, I don't know, just like so narcissistic.

She thinks that she's like some fucking master puppeteer. Even now, she still thinks that. We'll talk about that at the end. So Greg agreed to help Dee Dee move the body, all the while assuring her that there was no way he would give her up to the police because, quote, if you go down, I go down. Dee Dee told Greg that Abraham's body was on a property that she owned, currently occupied by her ex-boyfriend. Greg agreed to move the body in the early hours of the morning very soon. He asked Dee Dee to show him where Abraham's body was and he gave her an iron bar that he kept in his car and told her to drop it on top of where Abraham's body was. She dropped the bar on top of some concrete outside her property. Of course, all of this information was fed straight back to

Detective Wallace and his team. But Dee Dee wasn't done. On top of admitting that she had Abraham's body, she gave Greg Smith the Smith & Wesson revolver that had been used to kill Abraham Shakespeare. How she managed to fit that into the Ronald the Drug Dealer narrative, I have no idea. How could you be like, oh, he killed him and then he threatened to kill my son so I moved the body, but I have the murder weapon. That makes no sense. I don't think I'm imaginative enough to understand how that makes sense. Now, Greg told Dee Dee that he would need to move the body. Dee Dee was later caught on CCTV in a Walmart buying body-moving bits.

Fucking hell, never buy all of your body disposal equipment in one place. Yeah, come on now, cross state lines if you can. That's how to do it. But Greg would not be the one to dig up Abraham's body. How he was planning on drilling through concrete without waking up any of the neighbors, I don't know. On the 27th of January 2010,

Detective Wallace and his team uncovered the body of Abraham Shakespeare on the property owned by D.D. Moore. His identity was confirmed by fingerprint analysis. Abraham Shakespeare had been killed by two gunshots. It was determined that Abraham had died on either the 6th or the 7th of April 2009, right about the time that he stopped showing up at Greg's barbershop and the Superchoice. Dee Dee was arrested, primarily on suspicion of being an accessory to murder after the fact. But that charge wouldn't last long.

While she was being questioned in custody, Dee Dee tried every trick in the book. She stuck to her Ronald the Drug Dealer Miami Man story. And she also, again, did a lot of crying. She talked about how being hounded by the police over the past few months had ruined her family, and her mother had heart disease, and all of her family were too scared to come to her house for Thanksgiving. She literally, she lays it on with the trial.'s in this interview and she's like and my mum's got heart disease and no one will come to my house and but and the detective's like uh sorry pardon me what how do they how do they know what's happened and she's like well i'm honest with my family and he's like don't think so and she also tried to initiate a sexual relationship with one of the police officers that she would later claim that Ronald had put her up to.

They ask her in an interview, is it true that you initiated a sexual relationship with a detective? And she's like, yes, but only because Ronald told me to. He said that you're going to know if they're recording you because he won't be recording you if he's flirting with you. So when he flirts with you flirt back and he's just like how does your brain work like it terrifies me like to live in her head must be pretty scary i think now you'll have to watch the interview with her to get the full effect of what's actually going on but she seems completely convinced by herself she thinks that she's one step ahead of everyone and there really isn't that much that Dee Dee can do here.

The police and Greg Smith have her in a corner. And I would have loved to have been in the room at the moment that the police told Dee Dee that Greg Smith was their inside man. Dee Dee's trial got underway in April of 2010. She was charged with the murder of Abraham Shakespeare in the first degree. Dee Dee, of course, pleaded not guilty. But she was sure to keep herself in the press, painting herself as a victim of the system. And this is what she said, quote,

I have an impetuous notion to let my voice be heard because there's got to be a reason for this life-altering trauma happening to me. I inwardly chastise myself for opening up, so please don't criticise me. The picture you paint of me in the news, I wouldn't want to hang around myself. She is unbearable. Truly. Oh, I don't even know what to say about that.

It speaks for itself, to be honest. Oh, it does. So the prosecution had a very neat and tidy case. Dee Dee wanted Shakespeare's money, so she wheedled her way into his life, took all of his assets and killed him. Then she buried him on her own property and tried to get away with it the evidence included hours of tapes from the dd catch can the testimony of greg smith and the smith and wesson murder weapon it seems pretty cut and shut but dd's defense team led by byron hailman claimed that everything the prosecution

had was circumstantial and without dd's fingerprints or DNA at the crime scene or a witness to the killing, there was insufficient evidence for a murder conviction. There was blood found at the burial site that did not belong to Abraham or Didi, but the police weren't able to use it to track anyone else down, especially not the mysterious Ronald, because he doesn't exist. Didi did not take the stand in her trial, but that didn't stop her from getting a word in. Actually, she had so many outbursts that the court officials turned off her microphone. That's brilliant. It's so good, isn't it? I've never heard of that happening. I've never heard of that. Even the court officials would be like, just shut up. Just nope, off. And as you can imagine, these tantrums did her no good at all.

Not only did they piss the judge off, the jury didn't buy it. And it took them just three hours to convict Didi Moore of murder in the first degree. On the 10th of December 2012, she was sentenced to life without parole. At sentencing, the judge called her, quote, cold, calculating and cruel and probably the most manipulative person this court has ever seen. And the judge was spot on. Even though Dee Dee is behind bars, she has not changed one bit. She is of course appealing her conviction from inside. Dee Dee claims that her case was not properly stated by her legal team and that on the evidence that was presented, she would have convicted herself had

she been in the jury. She also tried to claim that Greg Smith tampered with the jury. This woman does not know when to quit. It's everything she can possibly think of. Yeah, everything, everything. And there's an interview with her in prison. The words that immediately come to mind when you watch it, for me, are delusional and desperate. She really will try anything and her emotions can switch in seconds. She enters the room and immediately tells the interviewer that she never gets nervous and that she's been on TV before. I mean, she's so fucking narcissistic. Oh, 100%. She's like, don't worry, I'm a professional.

Yeah. Where's my light? Ready for my close up. In this interview, Dee Dee called all of the people who suspect her of Abraham's murder ignorant. Quote, they have no brain cells if they think that I had anything to do with it. Really, Didi? Then she goes on about how much she likes Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Tinkerbell, as if that absolves her of anything. It's so fucking weird. Like, she's crying as she's saying that. She's like, I'm a sweet person. I like Disney. Tinkerbell's

my favorite. Oh, my God. And also during the interview, you can see that she has a pile of papers in her lap and she claims that they are witness statements from people her defence team refused to call to the stand. But she doesn't let the interviewer read them. She literally just held it up for less than a second. He's literally like, oh, so can I read them? She's like, no, I don't have their permission. He's like, OK, so can I know any of their names? And she and she's like no i don't have any of their permission for to do that and he's like okay but like let me investigate this for you like i'm on your side like i want to

tell your story and i can't do that if you won't help me and she's like no and then she leaves and uh until so she's literally walking out of the room and then she like really dramatically turns around for like one final parting shot. And she's like, one of the witnesses names is Deanna. And then she walks out. And I have a feeling, a feeling which is confirmed by the sheriff's department, that like Ronald, Deanna is probably just a figment of Dee Dee's imagination. But she is continuing to fight her case. Well, good luck, Dee Dee.

But you are exactly where you should be. Yeah. What a horrible woman. So yeah, that's the story of Abraham Shakespeare and the horrible woman, Dee Dee Moore.

Yeah, thanks for listening. Thank you for listening. And we've got a happy birthday. Oh, yes. It is Charlie Austin Warwick's birthday, or it was. We were a bit late. But happy birthday.

We hope you had a wonderful time and that you will have many more years of birthdays. That sounded ominous. Fuck, sorry. Sorry, Charlie. Many more years of birthdays. I'm watching. Oh, my God. Brilliant.

Brilliant, brilliant. So, apart from that. It's the podcast awards tonight. We're recording on Saturday morning. It is the podcast awards tonight. So, by the time this comes out something will have happened i don't know what yeah something will have happened that's for sure we could be not placed at all and be raging we could be bronze we could be silver we could be

gold who knows what's going to happen we're up against the bb Classic FM. Exactly. The big dogs. The big boys and girls. Exactly. And we are also, again, thanks to you guys, like we said last week, in the top 20 of the Listener's Choice as far as we know right now. So we will find out what the situation is when we get there. Thank you guys so much for voting. You always come through for us, which is so nice. Yeah, you're the best.

Yeah, we'll fill you in. Well, actually, like, it's too late. If you follow us on Instagram, on all the social medias, at Red Handed The Pod, you will get, we'll have had all of the live updates. If not, you can go check them out now and you'll probably see lots of videos

and photos of us. We'll do one of those highlight things that people do, that the kids do. Yeah, that the kids do. We'll figure that out. Go do that. Go follow us on there. And if you would like to help support the show

in another way, you can do that on patreon.com slash red handed on there like we said you can get all sorts of fun things you can get shout outs like we're about to do and get bonus episodes extra content all the good things so here are some people who have done so this week okay that well there's absolutely loads we'll take it we'll take half yeah i'll take half and then I'll hand over Georgia Weingarten Jeff and Lee Hamill Claire Luth Lauren Bianco

Melissa Stephen Anna F Abbey Ann McCormack JJ Sara Samantha Wood Mildy Brooke Leora Merkin

Dave Smith Victoria Elvin Vicky Sharp Christina oh I'm sorry Christina Geis maybe Renee Dresner.

Lauren Diotalevi. Chant. Sorka Sullivan-Williams. Saoirse, sorry. Saoirse Sullivan-Williams. Sarah Nordek. George Abood. Tuva Wigginmo.

Sorry, I'm scrolling. Sam Harvey. Jenna Kaplan. Rebecca L. Mason. Kristen Daly. Makala Oman, and it is your turn, Carol Vorderman. Antonisha, did you just call me Carol Vorderman? Antonisha Slayton, Maggie Malako,

Jessica Terry, Shluya Mapp-Williams, Julie Globuski, Gabriel Brett, Megan O'Connor, Laura, Lorna Sorensen, Thank you. Stillwell, Grace, Jamie H, Jenny Murphy, Corin M, Ali Kurtright, Courtney Nankin, Catherine Clemens, Tisha Wells, Kyra Lee, Ellie Mason, Hannah Rudman, Jacqueline Quach, Madeline Doss, Emma Scarpetta, Jamie Linswini, Cindy Reddad, Lisa Greeley, Kendra, Megan Clayton, Christine Otolo, Katie Kerwood, Alexia Gordon, Hannah Page, Jennifer Gearing, Angel Jackson and Michaela Zuna. Thank you. Thank you guys so much.

For changing our lives. Absolutely. And we'll see you next week where we may or may not have won an award. Exactly. Who knows? See you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye.

He was hip hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry.

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