Search continues for missing lotto winner

PLANT CITY - An intense search is going on for a missing lottery winner. Abraham Shakespeare is the Polk County man who won millions, and then vanished.

Inch by inch, deputies from two counties scoured the ground Tuesday around a Hillsborough County home, using rakes, shovels and metal detectors.

They're searching for anything that could help them find Abraham Shakespeare, who won the Florida Lottery in 2006, taking home $12 million -- then disappeared, along with all his money.

"I pray to God that he's not there but my heart tells me there's a possibility, a strong possibility that they will find Abraham now. This is a reality that we didn't want to face," said longtime friend Gregg Massey, who hasn't seen Shakespeare in ten long months.

He fears the worst, and so do Polk County detectives. They believe he was killed.

Investigators have named Dee Dee Moore a person of interest -- detectives say she told Shakespeare she was writing a book about him.

But they say it was a con.

Now, they're searching properties that records show, are tied to her.

"Polk County contacted us and asked for our assistance and we gladly agreed. It's a very complicated case and again, we're not going to release any details because we have a lot of work to do, a lot of unanswered questions," said Col. Albert Frost with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

At least some of those questions may be answered at a house in Dover, where investigators focused on a slab of concrete for much of the day. The former owner of the home says its was poured just six months ago.

"I've been hearing it and hearing it. I thought this was too weird. And then I said, 'how much of a body can there be, after a year?" said Maryann Plattner, who lives nearby.

Friends and family still hope somehow Shakespeare will be found alive and safe, but that hope is fading as time goes by.

"My heart says that I don't want it to be that Abraham is actually been somewhere laying up dead. You have to think of the agony for his family. Abraham has two small children who will never get to know their father," Massey said.