This a local story and strikes home because I had met the guy briefly about two years ago. He seemed kind and gentle. Very sad.
Body Is that of Missing Lottery Winner
By Merissa Green
LAKELAND | A body found Thursday in Plant City is that of missing Florida Lottery winner Abraham Shakespeare of Lakeland, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office confirmed this afternoon.
The body was identified through fingerprints, said Debbie Carter, Hillsborough County Sheriff spokeswoman.
"The cause of death has not been determined at this time, and we do not anticipate having a cause of death until Monday," she said. "The detectives have completed the search at 5802 S.R. 60 E. and crews are working to fill the excavated area but will remain on scene throughout the weekend."
Investigators found his body under a concrete slab behind a house at 5802 State Road 60 E. Detectives dug the body up after receiving information that Shakespeare was buried there, according to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.
Gee said the remains were found more than five feet beneath the ground in a 30-foot-by-30-foot area where homicide investigators had been told to look for Shakespeare's body. The Hillsborough Medical Examiner's Office arrived Thursday night and will finish its work today, Gee said. Gee gave no timetable when the body would be positively identified.
"We believed all along the body would be here," he said. "Somebody put that body in that hole, and we're going to get to the bottom of it."
UPDATE: DeeDee Moore Arrested in Shakespeare Slaying
Gee said authorities have a murder investigation on their hands. At the beginning of the investigation that began in Polk County, Judd said his detectives had hoped Shakespeare, missing since April, was alive and that he wanted to hide from those people asking him for money. But as the investigation continued, investigators concluded he "met an untimely death by sinister means and motives," Judd said.
Judd told reporters this week that his agency received good information that Shakespeare's body might have been buried at the Plant City house.
Investigators on Tuesday began searching at two neighboring houses along State Road 60 in Plant City.
Recovering the remains brought to an end the three-day search for a body and possibly the nine-month ordeal for those who wondered what had happened to Shakespeare. The tall, slender man crowned with dreadlocks hadn't been seen by friends since last spring.
Gee said much of the digging behind the house was done by hand because investigators didn't want to disturb evidence by using heavy equipment. Officials from the University of South Florida's Geology Department supervised the dig and used scientific equipment to locate and preserve the body, Gee said.
Richard Land, the former owner of the property, said he sold the house and land to Dorice "DeeDee" Moore, the woman who befriended Shakespeare and who has been identified by Judd as a person of interest in the lottery winner's disappearance.
She paid for the property with a check that was from an account for Abraham Shakespeare LLC, Land said.
According to property records, the house is owned by Shar Krasniqi, whom Judd identified earlier this month as Moore's boyfriend.
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