The Murder of Susan Taraskiewicz Notes:

Header Image Source: Photo by Iwan Shimko on Unsplash

"27-year-old Su Taraskiewicz was a Northwest Airlines ramp supervisor and only the second female ground service employee working for the airline. She was the first woman promoted to her supervisor position. On September 12, 1992, Su left work to go get food for her coworkers and vanished. On September 14, her body was found stuffed in her trunk, parked at a nearby auto body shop. She had been stabbed multiple times and beaten to death. At first, her family assumed that she was the victim of a random act of violence until in late 1993, her mother Marlene found her diary and was shocked at what was written in it. It told of sexual harassment, threatening graffiti in men's room and cargo holds, and other incidents that had occurred to her while working for Northwest Airlines. Marlene was certain that it had something to do with her murder.

In one incident in April of 1989, a coworker named Bobby damaged her radio twice. Su asked her boyfriend to talk to Bobby about getting her a new radio. When she spoke to Bobby again, he threatened to kill her boyfriend. She filed several complaints to the airline and her union, but little was done about it. After she filed the reports, the harassment worsened; she received several anonymous phone calls, with the caller threatening to hurt her. Also, on several occasions, her and her boyfriend's cars were vandalized. Friends and co-workers who supported her also had their cars vandalized.

Su's diary only covered the first eight months of her time at Northwest. However, several co-workers reported that the discrimination and harassment continued. In February of 1992, she was promoted to ramp supervisor. Originally, another co-worker had received the job. However, Su learned that he had illegally bid for the job. She filed a grievance and won; as a result, she received the position. Shortly after her promotion, Su found a graffiti drawing of a coffin with her name on it in her locker. Despite this, she continued to work harder.

She and her co-worker, Deborah Mazeikus, were involved in a meeting with Northwest that did not go well. During the meeting, Su became upset and started to cry. Deborah was concerned about the emotional toll that the harassment was causing in Su's life. She told Deborah that she was scared, but did not elaborate on who she was scared of. Deborah believes that she was afraid for her life. The harassment continued, and then came September 12, when she mysteriously disappeared after leaving work to pick up food for her crew. Surprisingly, her co-workers did not report her missing for a day and a half.
When she was later found dead, police suspected that her death may have been connected to a federal investigation of Northwest Airlines that took place in the summer preceding her murder. Some of the baggage handlers working with her were operating a stolen credit card ring. When shipments of new cards were transported by Northwest jets, they would steal them and use them or sell them. Ten of them were later arrested and convicted, some of which were named by her in her diary.
Su's family later settled a sexual harassment lawsuit with Northwest Airlines. A $250,000 reward is being offered by her family for an arrest in the case, which remains open but unsolved.

Before Susan left work on the night she vanished, around 1AM she received a telephone call from an unidentified person who wanted to meet her. Marlene believes that the call was from someone Su trusted, who lured her to a meeting with her killer. Two prime suspects in the case are two of Su's coworkers: Joseph Nuzzo and Robert Brooks (also known as Bobby). Su had several problems with the two; Brooks had broken her radio for no apparent reason and later threatened her. Nuzzo also threatened her after she broke up a fight between him and another employee. As a result, he was suspended from work for six months. He blamed Su for this; during this time, he keyed her car, slashed her tires, staked out her house, made anonymous telephone calls, and told others that he would "exact revenge".

Shortly after Nuzzo returned to work, he and several other baggage handlers began to steal credit cards from mail bags air-freighted by Northwest. Brooks was also involved in the scam, using the cards with Nuzzo. In August of 1992, several baggage handlers were subpoenaed by a grand jury. Nuzzo allegedly believed that Su had told the police about the scheme. Two days later, he was fired. A few weeks after his firing, Su was found dead.

Nuzzo was later convicted on various charges related to the credit card scheme. Brooks moved out of the area prior to the murder; he cooperated with police and later pleaded guilty to theft and fraud charges. However, he was later charged with lying to a federal grand jury. He claimed that he was working in another state on the night of Su's murder and that he didn't talk to Nuzzo on the day of Su's murder. Both statements were proven false. Nuzzo and Brooks remain suspects, along with Su's other co-workers at Northwest..."

— Source: Fandom.com Unsolved Mysteries

The Murder of Abraham Shakespeare Notes:

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"Abraham Lee Shakespeare (April 23, 1966 – ca. April 7, 2009) was a casual laborer from U.S.A. who won a thirty million dollar lottery jackpot in Florida, receiving $17 million in 2006. In 2009, his family declared him missing, and in January 2010 his body was found buried under a concrete slab in the backyard of an acquaintance. Dorice "Dee Dee" Moore was convicted of his murder and is now serving life in prison without the possibility of parole. Shakespeare's troubles began after winning the lottery. 

The Florida Lotto winning ticket worth thirty million dollars was sold at a Town Star convenience store in Frostproof, Florida, on November 15, 2006. On that day, Abraham Lee Shakespeare and co-worker Michael Ford were headed toward Miami when they stopped briefly at the convenience store in Frostproof to buy drinks and cigarettes. Ford got out of the truck and asked Shakespeare if he wanted a soda. Shakespeare instead asked Ford to buy him two lottery tickets. Shakespeare said that he paid Ford $2 for the tickets out of the $5 he had on him that day. Ford later approached Shakespeare demanding a share of the jackpot of no less than $1 million, which Shakespeare refused to pay, prompting Ford to sue Shakespeare and alleging that Shakespeare stole lottery tickets out of Ford's wallet. The jury did not believe Ford's stolen lottery tickets story and Shakespeare prevailed in the courts. Shakespeare had chosen a one-time, lump sum cash payment of $17 million. He moved out of his working-class neighborhood in Lakeland, Florida and into a gated community. Several months after his lottery win, apart from a $1 million home, his only other major purchases included a Nissan Altima and a Rolex watch from a pawnshop. By late January 2010 the sheriff involved in the investigation of Shakespeare's disappearance told AP that the lottery money "is gone now."

Friends stated Shakespeare had grown frustrated with the apparently constant appeals for money from both hangers-on and strangers. He told his brother, "I'd have been better off broke," and told a childhood friend, "I thought all these people were my friends, but then I realized all they want is just money." One of these was Dorice Donegan "Dee-Dee" Moore, who launched a business with Shakespeare, Abraham Shakespeare LLC, giving herself control of the firm's funds. Moore subsequently withdrew $1 million and bought herself a Hummer, a Chevrolet Corvette and a truck before going on vacation. She later claimed that the money was a gift from Shakespeare.

On November 9, 2009, Shakespeare's family reported him missing, stating that they had not seen him since April of that year. Family and friends had originally hoped that he had taken his money and was living on a beach in the Caribbean Sea. A tip-off led investigators to the backyard of a home purchased by Moore, where Shakespeare's body was found buried under 9 feet (2.7 m) of dirt under a newly constructed concrete slab. Shakespeare was 42.

Hillsborough County detectives say Shakespeare died April 6 or 7 in the single-story ranch home in Plant City. Police took Moore into custody on February 2, 2010, in connection with the murder of Shakespeare. A judge set a $1 million bond. The police stated Moore had tried to convince an acquaintance to unearth the body and move it a week after the death, and had continued to try to convince others that Shakespeare was still alive. On February 19, 2010, Moore was formally charged with first degree murder..."

— Source: Abraham Lee Shakespeare Wikipedia