Arrest made in homicide investigation
Authorities arrested a woman’ Tuesday in a homicide investigation in which USF professors and students discovered the victim.
Just over a week ago, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) contacted USF professors Sarah Kruse and Erin Kimmerle and three students to use ground’penetration radar (GPR) to find the body of Abraham’Shakespeare lying underneath’a concrete slab.
On Tuesday, Dorice ‘DeeDee’ Donegan Moore was arrested and charged with accessory after the fact to first-degree murder (felony), according to the HCSO.
Donegan remains in jail without bond.
Shakespeare, a 43-year-old Lakeland resident and truck driver’s assistant turned’multimillionaire, had been missing since April 2009, according to The Associated Press.
Shakespeare, who won’$30 million lottery in 2006, was found behind a Plant City home believed to belong to the boyfriend of Moore, a friend of Shakespeare, said Paul Bryan, a teaching laboratory specialist in the USF geology’department.
Officials say Moore ‘scammed’ Shakespeare out of his lottery winnings,’according to’the AP.
Bryan said the concrete slab Shakespeare was found under was poured onto the property about six months ago.
‘(Kruse) found an area that’s about 2 feet by 6 feet and said that the disturbance went down about’6 feet,’ Bryan said. ‘She said dig here and here and it turns out that where she said to dig, the head was at one end and the feet at the other.’
GPR is used by many’universities and consulting companies to find sinkholes, utilities, or assist in archeological surveys, Kruse said.
The device sends radar waves into the ground that reflect off layers or buried objects, Kruse said. If there’s a change in soil type, the GPR’transfers energy to an’antenna.
Kruse said she has worked on similar cases using GPR, but Shakespeare’s case was ‘more successful.’
Students have used GPR at other locations, including at Potter’s Field Cemetery in Tampa. Kruse’s class used the equipment to determine grave locations.
‘It’s really’satisfying, in general, when you find targets that you can cleary’recognize,’Kruse said.
Kimmerle said the HCSO asked her not to comment on the case, and she would not release the names of students who assisted in the finding. The detective working the case was unavailable for comment.
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