True Crime Campfire - Bad Luck: The Murder of Abraham Shakespeare, Pt 2

Episode Date: March 13, 2020

In part 1, we began the story of Abraham Shakespeare, a fun-loving, good hearted guy who, at age 40, won 17 million dollars in the Florida lottery and immediately began using it to benefit his community. In fact, in just a couple of years, he spent all but $1.5 million of his winnings, and he was starting to realize that if he wasn’t careful, he could be broke again before long. It was weighing on his mind. We also started telling you about a serial con artist and thief named DeeDee Moore, whose driving force in life was greed. DeeDee dreamed of living the good life, and she seemed determined to do it on other people’s dime. And despite committing crime after crime, DeeDee had never experienced any consequences beyond probation. And when people like DeeDee don’t have to face consequences, they get the message that they can get away with absolutely anything. Sadly, the paths of these two very different people are about to cross, with devastating results. Join us now for part two of this bizarre true crime story.Sources:Book, Unlucky Number by Deborah MathisCNBC's "American Greed," Episode "The Lady Killer"ABC's "20/20," Episode "Lotto Hangover: Big Money, Big Problems"Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes a day early, ad-free, an extra episode a month, a free sticker and more!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. In part one, we began the story of Abraham Shakespeare, a fun-loving, good-hearted guy who, at age 40, won $17 million in the Florida a lottery and immediately began using it to benefit his community. In fact, in just a couple of years, he spent all but $1.5 million of his winnings. And he was starting to realize that if he wasn't careful, he could be broke again before long. It was weighing on his mind. We also started telling you about a serial con artist and thief named Didi Moore, whose driving force in life was greed. Didi dreamed of living the good life, and she seemed determined to do it on other people's time. And despite committing crime after crime, D.D. had never experienced any consequences beyond probation.

And when people like D.D. don't have to face consequences, they get the message that they can get away with absolutely anything. Sadly, the paths of these two very different people are about to cross, with devastating results. Join us now for part two of bad luck, the murder of Abraham Shakespeare. situation. One of her first employees at A&P was Patricia Paulson, and Pat had a 23-year-old son named Shar, which sounds a bit like a cling-on name to me, so obviously that means I like it. Char. Shar was a pretty boy. But he wasn't exactly, how should I put this, living his best life. He had dropped out of community college. He didn't have a job, and at the time, Dedy met him, he was living with his mom, or couch surfing with friends. So,

Don't all rush him at once, ladies. Try to keep it in your pants. Oh, boy. But as I said, he was pretty. Very pretty. I'm not going to lie. And 34-year-old Ms. Deity took one look at Sharr and thought, mine, I want to go to there. So by the end of January 2007, Didi had started up a relationship with Sharr and separated from her husband James, lucky James.

And despite the 11-year age difference between them and the fact that his mom worked for her, which is just messy. Didi asked Shar to move in with her and her teenage son, RJ. And Shar, who I'm guessing was eager to get the hell off his mom's couch, jumped at the chance. But now you see, Didi had to impress her boy toy, or as they called it in the UK, her toy boy boy, which is interesting. I'm not sure which I like better. But there you go. Boy toy toy or toy boy boy. Toy boy is a little harder to say.

I think boy toy flows a little better. It does, it rolls off the tongue a little better. Sorry, my British friends. And she jumped into that with both feet. So first she made him an officer at her company, this 23-year-old guy with no college degree and no qualifications for the job whatsoever, other than that I imagine, you know, he looked nice in a pair of boxers or whatever. So I'm sure that's going to work out great. And she started buying him pricey clothes, vacations, watches, and she didn't charge him a dime in rent. So lucky-ducky Shar, right?

look y'all it's not only men who like to date younger lovers and spend conspicuous obscene amounts of money to hold on to them sometimes women do it too although admittedly not as often and especially women like ddie who focus mostly on surface stuff like fancy clothes and fancy cars and just generally the appearance of success she rented a house for sharr's mom too and let her live their rent-free and she set her business offices up there too and she told shar that she had all this money because I love this. She'd turned in some deadbeat taxpayers, and the IRS had paid her for it. You know, like they're so famous for doing. And Sharr, bless his heart, believed this. Or at least he pretended to believe it. I don't know which.

But as far as he knew, supposedly, Didi was every inch the successful businesswoman. So life ticked along for a while like that. And by 2009, two years after they met, Didi and Schar were living in a big, expensive house. in one of Lakeland, Florida's ritziest areas, Sharr had a shiny new corvette and a Rolex watch, living large, off his Sugar Mama. So how the hell has Didy come into all this money? Well, in 2008, Didi met a woman named Barbara Jackson

at a small business conference, and by the way, Didi showed up to this conference in a wheelchair, saying she'd recently had some kind of serious accident and she was in too much pain to walk. And I have no idea what her game was here, but I'm sure it was some scam she was running on, somebody and you'll see why I say that in a minute. So, anywho, at this conference, Barbara Jackson gave a talk where she mentioned meeting a down-on-

his luck man who had won the Florida lottery and immediately started using it to help his community. And Barbara was really moved by this. She said this man had changed her entire outlook on money and she wanted to be more like him. She wanted to be more generous. And after this talk, Dee Dee had approached Barbara and she seemed so moved by the story that she was almost in tears, Katie. She was so moved. And she said, is there any way you could introduce me to this man?

I'm a writer. No, she wasn't. And I'd love to tell his story in a magazine article or maybe even a book. The world needs to hear about this man. And, of course, this generous lottery winner was Abraham Shakespeare. And bless her heart, I'm sure she feels awful about it now. Barbara set up the meeting. And then she was surprised when, like, a week later, Dede showed up to meet her in Abe,

and she was out of the wheelchair and bounding around in spike-heeled shoes. And Barbara was like, how did you get better so fast? Wow. And Dee-Dee's chirpy little answer was scuba therapy. Scuba therapy. You know, scuba therapy? Did y'all know that scuba diving cured, like, spine injuries? Because I didn't. You learned something new every day, right?

Good gravy. Yeah, I had surgery on my ankle almost a year ago, and I'm just now feeling okay about wearing heels again. and maybe I should have done scuba therapy instead of just regular, boring, old physical therapy. Here you are, at PT, like some kind of sucker. Right? And, Dedy must have charmed the pants off Abe because soon the two of them were spending quite a bit of time together. And Dedy was like fake taking notes for this piece that she was supposedly going to write about him.

And, you know, Abe liked the idea of Dedy writing up his story. Who wouldn't? I would too. And she came across to him as having her own money, not needing anything from him, which was unusual. his life at the time, you know, because ever since he won the lottery, people had been lining up. And Abe had been in the midst of a falling out with a friend of his who had been helping him collect his loan payments from the people that he'd helped. So when Dee Dee offered to step in and help Abe handle his finances, he was grateful to accept. Now, both of Abe's closest friends, the one that he just had the falling out with and his barber buddy Greg Smith tried pretty

hard to talk him out of this. But it was no dice. I mean, she had him in her in her little hooks. He liked her and oh i'm sure she liked him liked a look of his bank account anyway to dd freshly hooked up with this hot blonde boy toy who needed spoiling abraham shakespeare's money must have looked like manna from heaven and abe's friends didn't know how right they were to be worried by the time abe introduced her to greg smith in 2009 she'd already convinced him to sign over almost everything he had to her everybody just take a moment with me to feel sick to your stomach. Oh, God, I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. And ostensibly, this was because it was the best way to protect his assets from borrowers,

tax collectors, and Abe's two baby mamas who were coming after him for more money. And during the time they were working together on this so-called article, Dee Dee was allegedly writing about Abe. He confided in her about how much of his money he'd already spent. Man, that must have chapped her ass, too, don't you bet? So much less for her to steal, you know. And he told her about all the back taxes that he owed, and the ex is coming after him for more child support, and all the people asking him to invest in their business ideas or bail them out of debt. And Didi, like any psychopath worth their salt, quickly figured out that he had some real anxiety about all of that.

He was starting to be very aware that if he wasn't careful, he could be broke again, like soon. So, Dedy had started working on him, stoking that anxiety from a little glowing ember to a big roaring flame. she got in his ear about how the IRS was going to come and take all the rest of the money because he did have back taxes. Again, Abe was not great with numbers. And, you know, how his exes were going to take him to court and everything. People were never going to stop hounding him. She just found that first little crack of anxiety. And she just took a crowbar and started leaning on it as hard as she could. And it worked like a charm because it didn't take long after that for Didi to talk him into giving her control of everything, all his accounts. Man, it's like watching a horror movie where the main character runs up the stairs and said out of the front door. And you want to say, Abe, no, don't sign that paperwork. But remember, campers, people like Dee Dee have a special kind of dark magic. She was charismatic. She was charming.

And we know from her days as a nursing assistant that she was good. at seeming compassionate. The operative term there is seeming, of course. I'm sure she convinced Abe that she had his best interest at heart. And because of the way she presented herself, she didn't seem like somebody who would need to steal. She was always dressed to the nines, and she talked all the time about how successful her company was.

Yeah, and I think Abe was honestly just in over his head at this point. I mean, he had never had this kind of money before. He'd never had any money, really, and it just made him an easier target for her, I think. So Abe just kind of grabbed on to the only lifeline he could think of to grab and signed over basically everything he had to D.D. He also signed an agreement giving D.D.'s company, AMP, ownership of five outstanding loans.

Money people still owed Abe, valued at about $400,000. One of those five loans, this is going to be important later, was the $63,000 loan Abe had given his buddy Greg Smith to save his mom's house. So now, instead of owing Abe, Greg owed Dede's company this money. So the day that Abraham brought Didi to meet Greg at the barbershop was the last time Greg saw him. And three weeks later, Greg got a call from Didi. She wanted to come by the barbershop and collect his loan payment. She said, Abe's on a crew, so I'm going to come pick up your payment this time.

So Greg gave her the check, no problem. He always paid more than his agreement required him to. And Dede took it, but she didn't give him a receipt. And that bothered him because Abe had always given him one. So he said, I'm not really comfortable giving you this check without a receipt. And D.D. was like, it's no problem. I'll give you one tomorrow. Do we think she did Gampers? She did not. So Greg was really nervous about this, and he kept after about it.

Leaving message after message, and Didi kept stalling him until finally the next month rolled around, and Didi once again called and said, I need my check for the loan. This time, Greg, good for him, refused to pay until he got a receipt. for this payment and the previous one. And because he straight-up said he wasn't going to give her the check unless he got those receipts, D.D. finally wrote them up. She said, Abe's still on the cruise. He's having a great time.

I'm handling everything while he's gone. Not long after this, Greg got a letter from Dedy's company, who is now the owner of his loan, saying that they were going to foreclose on his mother's house for non-payment of the loan. This was total nonsense. Not only had Greg never, ever missed a payment to Abe, but he'd always paid more than they'd agreed to each month. Plus, he'd handed the checks directly to D.D. herself for the past two payments.

There was no way she could think he was in default. So Greg freaked out, as anybody would. He called Abe. No answer. no return call. So he called Didi. And again, no answer, no return call. Greg was feeling like his head was about to explode. Finally, he called this girl Judy. Judy was a party girl who used to hang around with Abraham at the clubs. Since Abe's lottery win, she'd become a sort of errand girl for him. Greg thought maybe Judy would know what the hell was going on and how he could get in touch with Abe.

And Judy dropped a bombshell. According to her, before he left town, Abe had given her, party girl Judy, power of attorney over his holdings. She said D.D. had advised Abe to do this. Advised him to give Judy, who was just his casual friend and Aaron Girl, not his best bud or trusted advice. or anything like that, his power of attorney. I'm just going to say it again because it blows my fucking mind. Power of attorney over a millionaire's holdings. What?

Supposedly, this was to free Abe from having to deal with boring day-to-day aspects of his financial dealings. In reality, I think it's pretty obvious what's going on here. Yeah, I think it's obvious that Dee Dee found somebody else. she could manipulate to help maneuver her into a position of authority. And Greg was floored. He knew Judy. Judy didn't have any business being anybody's power of attorney.

Probably not even her own. Yeah, that was the impression I got from reading the book, for sure. Judy's main concern in life was where the next party was. He couldn't believe Abe would do this. but of course Abe's motives for signing his life over to these two women that wasn't Greg's primary concern at the moment at the moment his primary concern was this threat of foreclosure so Judy told him that Abe had finished his cruise and now he was in Texas

she said ah I saw him just the other day he's doing great she said don't worry about this foreclosure thing it's just a mistake I'll make sure Didi gets in touch with you today. But hours went by with no call from Didi. This stresses me out just to listen to it. I mean, I can literally feel my chest getting tight. Like, as a homeowner, she was like, like, that word foreclosure is just a bad, bad word.

And then any time you're, like, really anxious about something and nobody will answer you or call you back, it's just increasingly, I can't even imagine what he was going through. And then to have this weirdness in the background of, like, where the hell is my friend? Yeah. Why won't he call me? It's just awful.

And you're like, you know you're in the right, too. Yeah, totally. And everyone's like, oh, don't worry about it. And he's like, but I am worried about it. I'm pretty much sure I'm going to worry about it. Yep. And like we said, Greg was not going to drop this. Hell no.

He blew up Dee Dee's phone with more calls and texts. He was furious. And finally, finally. He got a text from Abe. It said, bro, I'm on a cruise. I'll be back in town soon. I had to get out of town. People were driving me crazy asking for loans.

Don't worry about any of this. I'll be home soon. Now campers. There's an important detail you need to know about Abraham Shakespeare at this point in the story. Abe couldn't really read or write. And because of that, he had never sent a text before in his life. So now Greg was thinking, what the hell is happening? How is he sending me a text?

But here's the thing. Unless you're one of us, and by us, I mean true crime nerds, your mind probably isn't going to go straight to somebody's murdered my friend in a situation like this. Greg thought maybe somebody wrote the text for him. Maybe he's learned how to write. He didn't know. He also noted that Abe had said he was on a cruise. Remember, Judy had just said he was in Texas? Mm-hmm.

And she said, I just saw him the other day. Well, apparently, according to him, he's in the middle of the ocean. So how did you do that, Judy? But at this point, he wasn't thinking anything really sinister had happened. He was just confused and concerned, and a little irritated with his friend. Mm-hmm. But he was weirded out enough that when he got home that night, he talked to his wife, Lakeisha about it, and he said, look, nobody involved in this knows your phone number.

They only know mine. Why don't you try sending Abe a text and pretend to be his girlfriend or something? Say something like, oh, baby, I miss you so much. When are you coming home? See what he says. This was a brilliant idea. If the person texting was really Abe, or saying what Abe told them to say, they'd be like, what? Who the hell is this?

Yeah. And so, Lakeisha did it. And lo and behold, quote unquote, Abe texted back, Love you too, miss you too. I'll be back soon. So now Greg was getting a really bad feeling. I mean, obviously this was not his friend. So why the hell was somebody pretending to be Abe? So the next day, Greg was still blowing up Deities and Judy's phones, trying to get an answer about, you know, is my mom's place going to be foreclosed on or what and finally judy called him back and said okay dd wants to meet us that night at the hard rock casino she's going to bring char we'll hang out we'll talk about it it'll all be fine right so gregg showed up at the casino and wandered around for a while looking for dd and judy and shar and none of them were there i know that's going to shock you but they didn't show

i know it's a shock so finally he got a hold of judy and judy said i'm so sorry we had an emergency see, Abe got hurt. Now, as far as Greg knew, Abe was supposed to be in Texas on vacation or possibly still on the cruise. He'd gotten two different stories, you know, on that as you know. So he said, well, what the hell happened? And Judy told him that Abe had

gotten into an altercation with an underage sex worker and the girl had cut him on the arm and they'd had to take him to the emergency room. And Greg was like, what? Like, first of all, he had never known Abe to pay for sex. And he certainly couldn't imagine him having anything to do with an underage girl.

It just was completely out of character for him. So he didn't really buy this. But again, he just didn't know what to think. So he was like, okay. And a couple more anxiety-ridden days went by. And then Greg finally heard from Didi. And she said, okay, look, I talked to my attorney. This is just a mistake.

The foreclosure isn't happening. Don't worry about it. I have some paperwork for you. Can I come over and give it to you now? So, Didi showed up, and every other time Greg had ever seen her, she'd been dressed up, perfume, perfect hair, perfect makeup, manicured nails, the whole thing. This time, Didi showed up a total mess. She was all disheveled, her hair was all messed up. She was dirty.

She had what looked like concrete dust all over her, like, sweatsuit. She looked like she'd been doing some kind of construction work. And when she saw him kind of looking, she said, oh, God, don't look at me. I've been hanging drywall at my house all day. drywall Dedy who's obsessed with looking like she's just stepped out of the pages of Vogue Right

Dedy for whom manual labor was definitely not part of the plan Huh And she said Abe had left on another trip But she said he told me to tell you hi And she said it was so sweet of you to check up on him She also claimed that Abe had a new lady friend Who was texting for him

Because I guess at this point it had finally occurred to her that people might remember that, you know, he couldn't read or write. And, oh, by the way, did you know he's been taking literacy classes, too? He's learning a lot. Yeah, nice save, Didi. So Greg got this paperwork from her, signed by Didi and her attorney, and he felt a little bit better at that point, but the past few days had been so completely bizarre that he told Didi he wanted to have his attorney look at over before he signed it. And she seemed annoyed by this, but she was like, fine, and she kind of flounced off.

And the next day, she showed up at Greg's... barbershop to finalize the documents. She was driving a brand new, shiny black Hummer. And she had Judy with her in the passenger seat. And so Greg, you know, Greg, when he saw her outside, he grabbed the paperwork, and he walked up to the driver's seat to hand it to her, and he could immediately tell that Didi had been crying. Oh, weepy Didi.

Weepy Diti. And instead of taking the paperwork, Didi said, would you mind getting in and taking a ride with us? There's something I need to talk to you about. And Greg says that he immediately felt uneasy. at this. So here's this lady he barely knows, who hasn't exactly engendered confidence and trust over the past few days, and now she's here, she's all red-faced, and something just didn't feel right. But as is so often the case in these situations, he just felt on the spot, and he just

couldn't come up under pressure with an excuse not to do it. So he said, okay, and he climbed in the back seat, and yet again, we're going to remind you this until you're sick of it. It's so much better to be rude than dead. Oh, yes. Remember that, campers. Better rude. than dead. So, Dedey started driving and there was this weird, like, thick tension in the air. And Greg started to get genuinely uneasy, like almost to the point where he was scared. Something was off. And finally, Dedy pulled into a Home Depot parking lot and burst into tears. And she turned around and looked at Greg and said, everybody thinks I did something to Abe and I didn't. Everybody thinks I did something to Abe. And this just completely stunned Greg.

because he hadn't heard anybody say anything like that. It hadn't even occurred to him that Dee-D might have, like, done something to hurt Abe or whatever she was talking about. And he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. And, man, when you feel that, listen to it. Mm-hmm. Because it's not lying to you. And he thought, what the hell is going on here? Am I being set up for something?

That was his initial thought that, like, maybe these two women were trying to set him up for who knows what. And here he was in a closed space with two women he didn't trust a stuff. far as he could toss him and now one of them is talking about doing something to Abe. So he tried to placate Didy and he just basically started flooding her with like, oh, come on, people don't know what they're talking about. Nobody thinks you heard Abe. I haven't heard anybody say that. It's fine. And it worked. And Didi calmed down and the tension in the air kind of dissipated. And when Didi dropped him back off at the barbershop, Greg got the hell out of there as fast as he could. This moment in time is so weird to me.

It is. It's creepy. I almost wonder if she was, like, projecting or if maybe she was trying to see if Greg was suspicious of her. Yeah. Either way, I can't imagine how terrified Greg felt. Yeah, I mean, you can tell when I saw I'm talking about it, I believe, on an episode of 2020, and you could tell it still was creeping him out, even just to talk about it in retrospect. And right around this time, a bunch of people were starting to get these bizarre text messages from Abe. So, for example, Abe had a college-age step-sist. who he'd always treated with the utmost respect.

But when she sent him a text saying, you know, where are you, Abe? The text he sent her back wasn't angry and used swear words, which was completely out of character for him. And another friend texted Abe with a question that only he would know the answer to, and he just never got a reply. Shades of the Liz Gollier case, right? So stories started to fly about where Abe was and what he was doing. He was in Puerto Rico on business.

He was in Jamaica getting treated for AIDS, which is just what? Like, that's bizarre. He was dodging child support. He was dodging people asking for loans. He was on the run after assaulting an underage sex worker. He was addicted to dope and just lying in a hovel somewhere on drugs. And that last one was especially ridiculous because everybody who knew Abe knew he had never touched a drug in his life. Like he was really against drugs.

And the sex worker story, that was just incredibly close. that story that Didy and Judy had given Greg after they failed to show up for that hard rock casino meeting. And later, of course, most if not, all of these rumors were traced back to Ms. Dedy herself. And may I just say, it is so disgusting to me that most of these stories go out of their way to paint Abe in a negative light. Like this nonsense about assaulting an underage girl, getting addicted to drugs, dodging child support. Like, it wasn't enough for her to take Abe's money and do God knows what else to him. I mean, you're going to find out in a bit. But she also felt like she had to dirty him up in the minds of his friends and family as well,

which is just repulsive to me. She's such a bitch, and I hate her so bad. Oh, my God. Yeah, she's definitely a candidate for the True Crime Camp Fire woodchipper, if you ask me. So, meanwhile, all that summer of 2009, nobody could get Aid to actually call them. People would get these sort of weird text messages, but nobody had actually heard the man's voice in months, like since April. And everybody was starting to worry, including, of course, his mom, Elizabeth, who, if you'll recall, had warned Abe from the start that the lottery

win was, quote, devil money that would bring him nothing but trouble. And by the fall of that year, Abe's mom was starting to worry that she'd been right about that all the long, and that something terrible had happened to her boy. Either that, or he was in some kind of trouble he didn't want to tell her about. Maybe he was hiding out somewhere. people kept encouraging her to file a missing person's report, and she was really on the point of doing that, but then her nephew Cedric showed up one afternoon and handed her a birthday card and a gift, a cross necklace. There was $100 in the card, and it said, don't worry, mom,

I'll be home soon. Love Abe. And Cedric told her he'd spoken to Abe on the phone a bunch of times. According to him, Abe had said that he was fine, just burned out. He said he needed some time away from everybody. Cedric said Abe had asked him to tell his mom he loved her. This was Elizabeth's nephew, Abe's cousin. Why would he lie? So after that, Elizabeth felt better. She started telling everybody not to worry. Abe's fine. He's just taken a break. But her peace of mind didn't last long. As more months ticked by, the worry crept back in, and in November of 2009, she finally filed a missing person's report on her son, who had been missing since April. And she and a bunch of other family members actually persuaded Ced Cedric to go with her. And at the police station, after quite a bit of pressure in questioning, Cedric finally dropped a bomb.

He'd been paid to lie to Elizabeth about talking to Abe on the phone and to give her that bogus card and birthday gift. He got paid $5,000, in fact. He said, look, I'm sorry. My wife and I are having financial problems. We have a kid in college. Oh, I'm weeping. Yeah, boo-hoo.

He said he really thought Abe was fine and that this would just help Elizabeth stop worrying. But now he was starting to think that maybe something was wrong. Now, campers, who do we think paid Ced Ced Cedric that five grand? Um, was it Miss Dede. Oh, it sure was. Ah! And, by the way, police soon came to believe that Cedric hadn't come clean about all this because he was worried about Abe.

He'd come clean to get revenge on Didi. because Didi, who is apparently an even bigger dipshit than we thought she was, was threatening to repo Cedric's house and his car. Oh, wow. Because remember, Dee's company now owned all the outstanding loans. Abe had given out before he went missing. Wow. Wow.

Okay, Didi, darling. Bless your heart, honey. If somebody has dirt on you, you don't threaten to repo their stuff. but you know it's interesting it just goes to show well i think it goes to show a couple of things one that greed is always the number one driving force with this woman and two that she had less than zero respect for abe and all the people surrounding him like oh please as if this cedric loser could possibly take me down right yeah good luck with that deedie greedy greedy greedy ditty you should just call her greedy from now on greedy more it fits right

Right? It's so fits. So the next day, the police called Dee Dee Fee in for a chat. And she was perfectly cheerful about it, agreed to come right in and help. She fed them the same line she'd fed everyone else that Abe had left to get the money-grabbing hordes off his back. Why had she taken control of his accounts? Well, you know, she just wanted to help him. She loves to help people. Aw.

She's such a philanthropist. She also said, Abe had told her that he had a fake passport under the name Rodriguez that he could use to leave the country undetected. Why he'd feel the need to do that, she didn't bother to explain, but okay, that's what she came up with on the spot. Why would he need to leave the country under a false name? She's just the worst liar. It's unbelievable. And as they spoke to her, the detectives realized that Didi and her boy toy Sharr and her teenage son were living in Abraham Shakespeare's house. So they said, um, Didi, why are y'all living in this guy's house? And Didi told them this is bananas, that she'd bought the house from A.

for $650,000. Now, Camper's, I'm not good at math, but this was a $1.5 million house. And she bought it for almost like less than half of that. When they asked her to produce documentation that proved she owned it, she couldn't do it. I know, it's shocking. They also found out that she'd moved right around the beginning of April, which was, coincidentally, right around the same time Abe disappeared. And right around the time, she'd had her attorney drop the power of attorney paperwork for Judy. Hmm.

So, the detectives quickly determined that there had never been any formal sale of that home to Dee Dee. And when they confronted her with that, she said, Well, we didn't do it formally. I've just been buying him vacations and plane tickets and stuff, and that's going towards the purchase price. What? I know, yeah. That's the exact pitch and timber of every what that is going on in our camper's heads right now. So that first interview didn't do Miss Dedy any favors with the police.

And soon after this, Abraham's on-again-off-again girlfriend Tori, the mother of his youngest child, got a call from D.D. D.D. said, look, I know you've been trying to get more child support from Abe. I want to make you a deal. She said, I'll give you a car and I'll give you the deed to one of the houses I'm about to foreclose on. All Tori had to do was call the detectives and say she'd seen Abe recently. It would really help Abe out, Dedey said. And it would help you, too. So Tori thought about it for a minute. And then she said, sure, I'll do it.

But as soon as Didi left, instead of telling the detectives what Didi wanted her to say, she told them, this lady Didi tried to bribe me to lie to you. Yes, ma'am. Good for you, Tori. Love it. Yes, ma'am. C. Dedey or greedy had tried to convince Tori that Abe was in Jamaica getting treated for AIDS.

Just what? I don't know. I don't know, campers. I don't understand. She didn't buy that for a second, Tori did. And she, like everyone else, had a bad feeling. This made the detectives even more suspicious that something bad had happened to Abe Shakespeare. Soon after this, Greg was still trying to get the foreclosure paperwork sorted out, and D.D. agreed to meet with him again. She showed up at the barbershop in that big-ass Hummer, which made Greg nervous after that creepy crying jag last time. And in the Hummer, she once again freaked out about how all these people think I did something to Abraham.

The police are questioning me. And this blew Greg's mind because he had no idea there was a missing person's investigation going on or that the police were involved at all. But, D.D. had more to say. She offered to pay Greg $300 if he'd call this guy, Dave Wallace, and tell him he'd seen Abe at a strip club in Miami. She didn't bother to tell Greg that Dave Wallace was a detour. detective investigating Abe's disappearance. Oh, my God. Greg didn't, like, super love the idea, but after much weeping, gnashing of teeth and persuading, he agreed. He figured, look, 300 bucks was 300 bucks.

And more importantly, maybe this would get her to finalize the paperwork. Yeah, and Greg says that at this point, he didn't believe any harm had come to Abe. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he expected, you know, any day now, Abe's going to turn up, he's going to have some kind of explanation, and two weeks later, after Greg had made this call to this guy, Dave Wallace, Didi called back and offered him $350 for yet another call, but this time she wanted Greg to call Abe's mom. She said, tell her you're okay, but you can't come home because you've gotten into a little trouble for choking a girl at a club, and the police are looking for you. You'll come home when all this blows over. Jesus,

Christ. Choking a girl at a club. It's just unbelievable. It's never like, oh, I'm backpacking through Europe, you know, like something nice. It's always some awful thing, which is just, I can't. She's the worst. And Greg was like, what? Like, he didn't like the sound of this at all. But here's the thing, Dee Dee was good. She begged. She pleaded. She cried. And then she said, you know, here's the thing. It'll make Abe's mom feel better. You and I both know he's fine. But his mom is really upset. and this will help her not to worry anymore about her son, you know? And that was the thing that finally did it. So, Dedy's plan, such as it was, was to take Ape's mom to Cracker Barrel, where it would be noisy,

and she couldn't hear very well. And just side note, I freaking love Cracker Barrel. It's the bomb. I love the food. I love the weird little store with, like, all the rock candy and the candles. And it's like, you can get yanky candles at that place. What's not to love? They have the best hash brown casserole.

I just can't even. Anyway, and they have this Sunday fried chicken. Oh, I like Cracker Barrel. Anyway, so... I'm hungry now. I know, I'm sorry. Well, you did the banana bread thing to me in the last one, so I had to get my own back somehow. So it would be noisy Cracker Barrel, and she said, use a pay phone in a noisy spot, so it'll kind of muffle your voice, and she'll be able to, you know, think it's her son, right?

So Greg reluctantly made the call. He kept it short. He, thank God, left out all the specifics about choking a girl at a club. but he assured Abe's mom that I'm okay, Mom, I'll be home soon. And Didy was just thrilled when she saw Greg the next day. She said, you were really convincing. She believed it. Ugh, God, this woman is a flaming piece of shit.

And on his way home from meeting Didy again, Greg got pulled over and swarmed by cops. See, contrary to what Didi thought of her, Abe's mom was not actually stupid. And she knew perfectly well that the voice. on the phone was not her son, and as soon as she hung up, she'd called the investigators. And they'd been following Greg ever since, because they didn't know what his involvement might be, right? And they had traced the call to his cell phone because he had ignored Dee Dee's instruction to use a pay phone, and it's a good thing he did, right? And they'd been tailing Greg all morning, and they had just seen Dee hand him some cash, and they didn't

know what it was for, right? So they pulled him over, and after the shock wore off, Greg said he would be happy to talk to them. He wanted to help. Something the fucked up was going on here. He knew this. And Greg told them everything. And when the detectives asked him if he'd be willing to keep hanging out with Dee Dee and see if he could get anything out of her, he said

absolutely. And the cop said, look, if it starts getting good, we'll wire you up and you can get her on tape. And Greg was kind of into this idea. And he said, oh, you mean like on TV? Which I think is kind of cute. Like, he was into the idea of wearing a wire. And honestly, Greg was really starting

to worry about Abe at this point. And he felt guilty that he hadn't tried harder to convince him not to trust this lady in the first place and soon he talked to Judy again party girl Judy and Judy seemed to be finally putting two and two together herself and she said look deedie's been asking me to report sightings of abe and one time she asked me to stop abe from going to the bank to ask about his accounts because see abe was starting to get suspicious about what was happening to his money and he'd wanted to go to the bank and check it out and deedie had told judy do what whatever you have to do, but do not let him go into that bank and ask questions.

And Judy was starting to think Didi actually had done something to Abraham. And Greg was just furious at Judy for letting things get this bad. I mean, she had power of attorney, so she could have gotten Abe's money out of that account and back into his hands herself if she wanted to. And instead, she just allowed herself to be led by Didi. And when Greg hung up with Judy that day, he was convinced his friend was dead. and he called Detective Wallace and he was like, I'm in. Whatever you need.

Just tell me. And during the time that all this is going on, the detectives had a couple more interviews with Dee-D and they just got increasingly bizarre. Like, she would alternate between being weepy and kind of wounded-seeming, like, hurt that anyone would suggest that she could do anything untoward. Too defensive and angry.

She told all kinds of conflicting stories. She's such a terrible liar, guys. She's the type of life. to see that like one story isn't flying and just immediately switch to another one. Oh, you don't buy that? Okay, well, how about this? You know? So they weren't getting anywhere with Dee Dee herself.

So they figured, okay, time to call in the pinch hitter. Time to call in Greg. And Greg, I think Greg is such a smart, smart guy because he was the one that came up with that idea about Lakeisha texting and saying, I miss you, baby, and that worked out. And now he came up with this genius idea to rig a can of Red Bull with the recording device inside because he was afraid she might frisk him or so like obviously she was getting paranoid and he said I always have Red Bull with me so if I just have a can of Red Bull she's not going to think anything of it and he would like even pick it up and pretend to drink from it at

times and stuff very smart and there was a detective working the case that had been like an undercover narcotics officer and he was like I wish I'd thought of that like that's genius so maybe Greg missed his calling and eventually with the pressure on her mounting Dee Dee told Greg she was writing a letter from Abe to his mom. Again, woman, he cannot read. Oh my God. He's not going to write a letter. She just keeps forgetting about that little detail.

And she was like, come over so I can read this to you. And so she read this entire letter that she was writing to Abe's mom, supposedly from Abe. And then she said, do you think it's convincing? Like, just blatantly. I don't know what she thought Greg was going to think at this point. And Greg, bless him, got this entire thing on tape. and then he and Deity, with detectives tailing them the whole way, went and dropped that letter off in Elizabeth's mailbox,

where detectives retrieved it. And now, the detectives decided they were going to amp up the stress. Because when you amp up the stress on a suspect, they tend to make mistakes. So they told her, Deity, we don't believe a word you're saying. We think Abraham Shakespeare is dead, and we think you killed him. And this was the first time that they'd just come right out and said this to her. So it took her by surprise

And after having, of course, a good cry Weepy D-D-D promptly changed her story. She said, okay, look, Abe might be dead. But I didn't kill him. If anybody killed Abe, it was a drug dealer. This guy named Roy, he's in the mafia. And he's been threatening me. And I'm scared for my life.

And that's why I haven't told you until now because I'm terrified. She said, Abe, you know, he'd gotten involved with these drug dealers, and now they're after me. More gross racist stereotypes to use against Abe, of course. Well, of course, a black man must be involved with drug dealers, right? Oh, screw you, Dedy. You're the worst. So the police were like, uh-huh.

Okay, D-D. We'll look into all that. I imagine that they had a hard time keeping a straight face at that. Yes. And soon after, she asked Greg to meet her at a Denny's, and she told him, She needed someone to take the fall for Abe's death. She said, I can't turn in the mob. Somebody's got to take the blame for Abe's murder.

Detectives were, of course, delighted. And they magnanimously set up an undercover officer to pose as a guy going to prison for 25 years who would agree to take the rap for Abe's death if she gave him $50,000 to give to his family. Didi was pleased as punch about the whole thing. You can hear it in her voice on the recordings. She thought she was going to get off scot-free and get to keep all Abe's money.

But the fall guy said, not so fast, Didi, if I'm going to do this, I'll need to know where Abe's body is, what exactly happened, and I'll need the murder weapon. So, remember that day D.D. showed up at Greg's place covered in concrete dust? Turns out, that was the day she and her unsuspecting ex-husband, who just thought he was there to help her put down a basketball court for R.J. covered Abraham Shakespeare's dead body with a huge concrete slab. D.D. told her fall guy, and he said, well, that. That's a problem. If I'm here to take the fall for you and he's on your property, that's not going to fly. We've got to move him.

So the detectives followed Miss Dedy to Walmart, where she bought face masks and febreeze and tarps and cleaning products and a Frappuccino because moving a body is thirsty work. That should be the new Starbucks, like, motto. Moving bodies. It's thirsty work. And later that day, she brought this undercover cop slash fall guy, a 38 caliber pistol, the murder weapon. They had a whole lovely condo about how they needed to file off the serial number, clean it with bleach, and put the fall guy's fingerprints all over it.

D.D. seemed happy as an ocean full of clams, bless her heart. Oh, yeah. So this, unsurprisingly, was all the detectives needed. habeas grabus time our favorite time so initially Dee Dee wasn't sure what they all knew so the first thing she did

was try to throw Greg under the bus and say he killed Abe and then the detectives told her about Greg and his Red Bull can and they started quoting her back to herself from the conversations they'd heard over the wire That must have been freaking hilarious.

Oh, man. So then, Didi, who had apparently, like, short-circuited and was still not computing what was happening here, tried to throw the fall guy under the bus, who she described as Greg's friend. Jesus, Murphy, she's so dumb. Dedy, darling, he's a flippant undercover detective. Oh, my God. How are you so bad at this? Just is not computing. So when she finally got that little factoid through her head, D.D. said, okay, I'll tell you what happened, but I want a deal.

A deal. This bitch thinks she's in a position to ask for a fucking deal right now. I cannot. And I shit you not, campers. D.D. said, I'll tell you who killed Abraham, but I want immunity. And I want to keep the house and the money. How in the... Oh, my God. What? Immunity. And she wants to keep the money.

Unbelievable. Yeah, that was basically the detective's reaction, bewildered amusement. The detectives were laughing their asses off in her face. Yeah, I mean, you can see parts of this interrogation in some of the shows. that have come out and like one of the detectives like puts his hands on his head and is just staring like what are you how do you think that's what what planet are you on yeah and then and then at one point she's like well you don't believe anything I say and he goes because you're a liar and she goes well I lie because you don't believe me and he just laughs in her face wow I lie because you don't

believe me yeah so yeah it's just baffling so they finally get it across to her, that they had her admitting to Abe's murder on tape. And there wasn't any deal to be had for her. And as they were walking her dumbass out of the interrogation room to book her on murder charges, she collapsed onto the floor in tears, of course. And she said, It was R.J. He was just trying to do what a good son would do. RJ. Her teenage son. Wow. She said R.J. had caught Abe trying to choke her, and he'd shot him to defend his mom. Wow. So she threw her teenage son under the bus. That's charming. She later tried to deny. She'd said that, by the way. Yeah. Sure, Jan. Yeah.

and the next day they got a warrant to search the house and the spot where Didi had told the undercover cop slash ball guy that he'd find Abe's body and six feet down on the third day of searching they found the body of Abraham Shakespeare still dressed in the same clothes he was last seen in shot twice in the chest with a 38 caliber gun just very very sad and it was a very somber moment for the detectives that had been working this case and later on they found a video that Didi had shot of Abe right before she killed him. And she was saying, so, Abe, you're going away for a while? And Abe was like, yeah. And she kept, like, questioning him about, well, where might you go? I don't know. Are you thinking maybe California or maybe Jamaica or whatever? And he was like, yeah.

And he seemed like he was really kind of uncomfortable with being filmed and he didn't really want to be there. And it's clear she was planning to show this to people later to, like, prove her stupid story about his whereabouts and his reasons for leaving. And it's really chilling because in the video, he's wearing the same clothes that they found him in. So obviously what had happened was as soon as she stopped videotaping, she shot him. That's exactly what I think happened.

I think the second she put that video camera down, she shot him. Yeah. It's awful. So, of course, Dedy was convicted and sentenced to not only life without parole, but an additional 25 years for gun charges. So she's not going to see the light of day again anytime soon. And B.H. is trying to get a new trial. I suspect she will fail.

I sure hope so anyway. and I'm sure prison has given her something at last to cry about. That's actually real. And this is my favorite part. She said on a 2020 interview that anybody who thinks she's guilty is a moron. So, okay, doll baby. Enjoy never seeing daylight again, darling. So now, because of this nightmare of a human being,

Abe's kids have to grow up without their dad, and Abe's mom has to live out the rest of her life without her son. and it's a flipping travesty and it makes me mad enough to scream because here was a genuinely nice man and he did not deserve this and it's just not fair and it makes me sad so rest in peace

rest in power Abe you were a good guy so this was a wild one right campers you know we'll have another one for you next week but for now lock your doors light your lights and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire and we want to send a shout out to

our newest patrons, Cassandra and Star. Such pretty names, I'm so jealous. And if you haven't become a patron yet, you're missing out. Patrons get all episodes a day early, add free, plus one extra episode a month. We'll also send you a free TCC sticker, and soon we'll be announcing even more patrons-only extras. So come join us if you can. You can follow us on Twitter at TC Campfire, Instagram at True Crime Campfire, and be sure to like our Facebook page. If you want to support the show and get access to extras, please can,

consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash true crime campfire.