![\"Abraham](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/d887e53b-15b0-4f67-b723-17771ac480a0.jpeg\")
Abraham Shakespeare was murdered several years after he won the lottery. (Supplied)<\/p>\nWhen Abraham Lee Shakespeare won US$30 million (A$46 million) in the lottery on November 15, 2006, his life changed forever.<\/p>\n
But the massive sum of money ended up ruining his life, before he was murdered just three years later.<\/p>\n
Shakespeare had given co-worker Michael Ford two dollars and asked him to buy him two lottery tickets at a convenience store in Florida.<\/p>\n
But when Shakespeare won the big prize, he was sued by Ford.<\/p>\n
Ford claimed Shakespeare had stolen the winning ticket from his wallet. A jury thought otherwise.<\/p>\n
But for the remaining years of his life, he found himself continually approached by friends, hangers-on and strangers wanting money from him.<\/p>\n
“I’d have been better off broke,” he told his brother.<\/p>\n
In 2008, a woman named Dee Dee Moore approached Shakespeare, ostensibly seeking to write a book about his rags-to-riches story.<\/p>\n
Abraham Shakespeare was murdered several years after he won the lottery. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Though she had no experience writing, he said yes.<\/p>\n
By this point, he had already given away most of his winnings.<\/p>\n
Moore offered to become Shakespeare’s financial adviser, gaining control of his assets.<\/p>\n
She then transferred all his money into a company bearing his name. But Shakespeare had no access to the cash.<\/p>\n
Then, in April 2009, he disappeared.<\/p>\n
His family hoped that he had done what he had spoken of doing in the past, taking his money and disappearing into anonymity, somewhere in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n
The truth was far more grim.<\/p>\n
After months with no contact, his family reported him missing in November that year.<\/p>\n
Moore had told people Shakespeare had left town to go to Texas, Jamaica, Puerto Rico or elsewhere in Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She also sent text messages from his phone to friends and family pretending to be him, in spite of the fact he was illiterate.<\/p>\n
Then, in January 2010, police searched her house.<\/p>\n
Shakespeare’s body was found buried underneath a concrete slab.<\/p>\n
Moore blamed others for his death, including a drug dealer, a lawyer and even her own teenage son.<\/p>\n
Then she claimed she had shot him in self-defence.<\/p>\n
![\"Dee](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/41f3b767-4a02-493c-acec-14c42f27b64d.jpeg\")
Dee Dee Moore remains in prison for Abraham Shakespeare’s murder. (AP)<\/p>\n
But the jury was unconvinced.<\/p>\n
She was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. She remains behind bars.<\/p>\n
Shakespeare’s murder prompted calls to allow anonymity for lottery winners in Florida.<\/p>\n
Unlike in Australia, Florida law requires that lottery winners be publicly revealed.<\/p>\n
That includes their name and city of birth.<\/p>\n
But the law wasn’t changed, and lottery winners remain on the public record.<\/p>\n
Remarkably enough, Shakespeare’s ex-girlfriend Antoinette Andrews won the lottery herself in 2017.<\/p>\n
The mother of his teenage son won US$1 million (A$1.53 million) in 2017.<\/p>\n
Her other son told WTSP they intended to be careful with who they trusted and were hanging up on well-wishers before they could ask for money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Abraham Lee Shakespeare won US$30 million (A$46 million) in the lottery on November 15, 2006, his life…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-284869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}