Tiger King star Carole Baskin has spoken out about her late husband Don Lewis, who mysteriously disappeared and he has never returned. The multi-millionaire was 59 when he vanished without a trace from his home in Tampa, Florida on August 18 in 1997.
Lots of mystery has surrounded his missing person after the mutli-millionaire left behind his wife Carole and his reported US$5 million fortune.
Conspiracy theorists have been delving into the missing person’s past to try and work out what really happened to him on a reddit thread. They were sold on the idea Don had been flying his plane to Costa Rica every month because he had become tangled up in the dark drug trade.
Chatter led to discussions about claims from a so-called friend suggesting Don liked to bury cash in the ground. Theorists concluded Don was killed in a drug trade gone wrong.
The hit Netflix docu-series “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness” (available in Costa Rica) focuses on the rise and fall of zoo owner Joe Exotic, which closely relates to his passionate hate towards animal rights activist Carole.
The show chronicled Joe’s downfall – including his apparent plan to have Carole, 58, murdered, seemingly as revenge for the fact she campaigned to have his zoo closed.
However, viewers were also fascinated by Carole’s own mysterious past and of her missing millionaire ex-husband Don.
Throughout the documentary Joe accused Carole of murdering her husband Don Lewis and feeding him to her tigers, to get her hands on his large fortune.
Carole has always denied murdering her husband, calling the theories “totally outlandish”.
Carole speaks out about her husband’s sexual past.
As viewers became more and more curious about just how Don disappeared, Carole has now spoken out about her husband’s sexual past.
The Big Cat Rescue star has claimed her late husband Don took frequent trips to Costa Rica for sexual dalliances.
She claimed he indulged in daily sex in Costa Rica while Carole was on her period.
In Carole’s article on Big Cat Rescue’s website titled Refuting Netflix Tiger King, Carole went into detail about Don’s hidden past.
She penned: “Don spent one week per month in Costa Rica. Don was a man who wanted to have sex daily. He would go to Costa Rica during the week I was having my menstrual cycle.
“I accepted this as something I had to live with.
“During the week he was away, I would haul off the property as much of the junk as I could. Wendell told Don I was doing this.
“Don tried calling the police to get them to stop me. They told him he would need a restraining order. It is unclear if it was Don’s idea that to get a restraining order he should say I threatened him or if someone like Wendell suggested that.
“Don filed for the order on June 20, 1997, and it was denied.”
The animal rights activist told friends Don was planning to eventually move to Costa Rica.
In early 1997, he began transferring ownership of his properties in Florida to a Costa Rican company he controlled.
In the days leading up to his disappearance, he had bought a plane ticket to Costa Rica and he was loading equipment onto a truck destined for Miami.
Carole penned: “Don had told me about people going to Costa Rica and disappearing. Our Costa Rican attorney, Roger Petersen, said the Helicopter Brothers (the Brothers as they were known, who ran a high monthly rate investment scheme) were the local version of the mafia and Don was loaning them money.
“Don was not easy to live with and like most couples, we had our moments. But I never threatened him and I certainly had nothing to do with his disappearance.
“When he disappeared, I did everything I could to assist the police. I encouraged them to check out the rumors from Costa Rica, and separately I hired a private investigator.”
Carole lashed out at the way she was depicted in the Netflix documentary and took aim at the way details of her ex-husband’s disappearance were presented in the docuseries.
She wrote in a statement: “When the directors of the Netflix documentary Tiger King came to us five years ago they said they wanted to make the big cat version of Blackfish (the documentary that exposed abuse at SeaWorld) that would expose the misery caused by the rampant breeding of big cat cubs for cub petting exploitation and the awful life the cats lead in roadside zoos and back yards if they survive.”
She slammed the documentary as “lies and innuendos from people who are not credible”.
The cat lover claimed she feared Don had developed Alzheimer’s and she had arranged for him to see a specialist.
She added: “I rescheduled an appointment for him to see the specialist Dr. Gold. But he disappeared before the appointment date.”
Source: The Mirror UK, Netflix, Wikipedia, Q Files
