What Happened to Don Lewis? (Carol Baskin back in court!)

the name of tiger king happened to don lewis in tampa florida on august 18 1997. the day he disappeared his second wife carol baskin said she was running out to get tiger food at three a.m and her car broke down she called her brother for help he worked for the sheriff's department at the time he was on a case so he sent another officer to pick her up and drive her home that's when carol says she saw don he was leaving the house early that morning around 6 a.m no one has seen or spoken to him since when don's body didn't turn up the hillsborough county police department sort of stopped looking and then this spring the new sheriff watched tiger king and all of a sudden dawn's 23 year old cold case started heating back up again if you haven't seen it or if you even have the show is a bizarre documentary about a feud turned murder-for-hire plot between don and carol's tiger sanctuary and a zoo in oklahoma on the show their rival joe exotic claimed that carol killed don and fed his body to their tigers 64 million viewers had a few theories of their own about that ask him kilder husband whacked him can't convince me that it didn't happen venom to tigers they snacking what's happening carol basket the sheriff says carol is not a person of interest but try telling dawn's daughters that you won't believe what they're doing to keep the focus on their former stepmother meanwhile carol is taking it all in stride literally she's on dancing with the stars this season and she still insists she had nothing to do with dawn's disappearance but a lot of people aren't quite convinced not even this guy there's not a shred of doubt in my mind that that lady's husband is uh tiger sashimi right now i'm just saying and this story just gets stranger from here [Music] hey all you cool cats and kittens i'm chris with true crime recaps if you like getting all the crime in half the time you're in the right place it took netflix about seven hours to tell part of this story but we're gonna keep it focused so you can go binge the documentary later when don lewis went missing in 1997 he was worth over 5 million dollars a lot of that was money he and carol had earned flipping properties but in 1992 they also started an exotic animal business called wildlife on easy street that business is at the heart of this story in the exotic animal world there are conservationists and collectors carol is a conservationist in her words she believes in providing sanctuaries and stopping owners who want to breed and sell big cats her former husband don was more of a collector so was her rival joe exotic aka joseph maldonado passage he owned a zoo in oklahoma and told anyone who would listen that carol murdered don and either used a meat grinder to get rid of his body or she buried him in her septic tank netflix turned a spotlight on joe and carol's longtime feud and sparked national speculation about dawn's disappearance we'll get into the many details and theories about what might have happened to dawn but for now all you need to know is that he almost literally vanished without a trace in august 1997. at the time carol cooperated with the investigation she's even the one who reported him missing on august 19 1997 but she refused to take a polygraph and without any evidence to go on she was never considered a real suspect or even a person of interest where did joe exotic come up with that rumor he must know something right well maybe maybe not don's own daughters were the first to suggest that maybe the police could find no trace of dawn because carol had fed him to the tigers they aren't big fans of their former stepmothers in 2002 she had dawn declared legally dead his four kids expected to inherit a good portion of his money but then carol blindsided them with a will that seemed a little too good to be true who has ever seen a will where there's a provision in there if i ever disappear or become missing leave the bulk of my wealth to this person what does carol have to say about it according to her that clause was perfectly reasonable since dawn traveled to costa rica regularly and dealt with a lot of shady characters he was the kind of guy who could just disappear without a trace and it wouldn't even be that unusual he'd even told her stories about people disappearing in costa rica she said dawn was a sex addict who needed it every day and went to costa rica at least once a month to have sex with other women while carol was having her period on august 20th 1997 police found his van at the private airport where he kept his planes his keys and briefcase were on the floor inside the van but no other evidence was found police searched his property but didn't find any signs of a struggle or any crime carol told the police one of his business associates said he'd seen dawn in costa rica after he disappeared from tampa but listen to what hillsborough county sheriff chad chronister told tampa bay news about that cupboard yes we recovered his car at one of the private airports but we pooled all the passenger manifest he wasn't on any type of plane commercial or private that left the country and more importantly he had two passports neither one of his two passports were flagged as leaving the country during this time period either we also uh john marcicano at the time and another detective flew down the costa rica no one down there had seen him in several months prior to his disappearance with no sign of their father and most of his money in carol's hands don's family called foul saying the will was fake carol hired an expert whose surprise surprise agreed it was authentic then four other experts weighed in saying it was forged and then a former big cat rescue volunteer revealed that carol told her to lie and say she witnessed the power of attorney being signed in june a judge made it official don lewis's will was fake and his signature on the power of attorney was forged the thing is it doesn't matter the problem was the statute of limitations had already expired the will had already been executed at that point there's no there's no recourse a judge deemed it valid so the civil side of it with the execution of the will the disbursements of the funds is one thing but then you have the criminal side of it it's unable to be prosecuted because the statute of limitations carol still insists the paperwork is genuine and she had nothing to do with her husband's disappearance ironically also in june carol won another victory in her years-long feud with joe a federal judge gave carol baskin control of joe exotic's former zoo in winniewood and that judge also ruled that everyone on the property must vacate within 120 days the animals must also be removed he was sentenced to 22 years in prison for killing tigers and trying to hire a man to murder carol then on september 9th the ex-wife of carol's longtime handyman made a confession to 48 hours trish farr payne says her ex-husband kenny farr was acting very strange in august of 1997. she claims he showed up one night with dawn's van his guns and a large padlocked freezer that disappeared off her front porch about a week after dawn vanished trish says kenny allegedly told her dawn's gone and i don't want you talking about him two days before carol reported him missing when she pushed him for answers he said don't ask me questions you don't want the answers to but finally trish says he threatened her in a way that left no doubt in her mind what he was capable of he said if you try to leave me again i will put you in the grinder like i did dawn if you asked trish why she didn't spill this secret before now she'd tell you what she told 48 hours i was afraid for my kids i was more afraid for them than anything kenny worked for carol for years after dawn disappeared until he was arrested for domestic violence but still carol wrote on her blog that she loves him like a son she says she gave kenny the guns after dawn disappeared and she doesn't believe he had anything to do with it and kenny himself emailed a statement to 48 hours simply saying his ex-wife's claims are ridiculous the hillsborough county sheriff says they are exploring all leads but they don't have a suspect yet but don's family isn't about to give up we're asking that anyone with vital information please come forward so that progress can be made on his case years ago when my sister called donna called me to tell me the devastating news i was shocked i still to this day miss my dad i love my dad for 23 years i've gone to bed every night knowing the only chance i have of seeing him again is in my dreams for 23 years i've woken every morning to the heartbreak of his strange disappearance but hopefully with all this help we now have one day soon we and you too will know the truth the case is unfolding before our eyes in some very unusual ways on september 14th carol appeared on abc's season premiere of dancing with the stars i don't think you'll be too shocked by the song and outfit choice here [Music] [Applause] [Music] rising up back on the street since now i'm back on my feet [Music] [Applause] is the real shock came at the commercial break i'm gail one of don lewis's daughters we are a real family and to us he was daddy i'm linda one of don lewis's daughters and we miss our dad i'm donna i'm don lewis's oldest daughter we need to know what happened to our father i'm ann don's former assistant all we're asking is justice for don don lewis mysteriously disappeared in 1997. his family deserves answers they deserve justice do you know who did this or if carol baskin was involved 100 000 reward has been funded you can call the tip line at 646-450-6530 or call our office at 800 litigate thank you apparently carol found out about that commercial only 10 minutes before she took the stage here's what she had to say about it to et online i'm not at all surprised why do you say that it's just been i think a huge publicity stunt on their part so what more could they possibly do than that anything you would have to say to them no anything you'd have to say to anybody who's seen that ad i haven't seen the ad if you didn't see it either don't feel left out according to filmdaily.com that ad would cost about 120 000 if it aired nationally instead they paid about 6 500 to buy airtime for tampa and jacksonville only those are the areas where someone might have information about don's disappearance so far they've gotten more than 100 tips called in according to the family's attorney some of them are pretty specific and mention locations they'll be investigating i have to wonder if any of those tips offer any proof about some of the other theories that have been floating around dawn's disappearance over the years starting with the infamous meat grinder don's daughters have wondered publicly why the police didn't dna test the meat grinder but the police say there wasn't a meat grinder on the premises that could dispose of a body carol says she only has a small hand crank grinder and it would be impossible to use on a body 48 hours talked about this theory with one of the volunteers whose job it was to feed the big cats back when dawn went missing i was always well women i fed the big cats so if you want to talk to something then talk to me because that was that was my route until until 2000. and at that point they only had a couple of adult tigers they had cougars and they had leopards it wasn't something like a you know 50 tigers or something out there so i would know if they're if something in their food changed if they're if they're if they weren't eating these were these would have been things that i would have known about and and again would have been happy to discuss with the sheriff's department even the sheriff has his doubts he says the big grinders were taken away from the property several weeks before dawn disappeared although he's not necessarily ruling anything out as he says i'm not saying they couldn't have been involved but they weren't on the property then there's that other theory the idea that carol buried don in or under a septic tank carol says this rumor was actually started by a disgruntled employee who was fired three years after dawn disappeared she says it's impossible for him to be in the tank because someone would have seen him there if they were looking that is and furthermore she claims the second septic tank wasn't installed until years after dawn went missing but interestingly jack smith the family spokesperson and creator of the youtube channel ripper jack says that he and a group of researchers found receipts and permit paperwork that show the septic tank was actually installed and serviced at the time of don's disappearance other theories involve an elaborate scheme to lure don to the airport strangle him leave his van where it was found with the keys on the floor load him into the small single engine plane he owned and toss his body into the gulf of mexico or maybe as carol has said it was one of the people he was dealing with in costa rica two guys known as the helicopter brothers who were practically costa rican mafia hillsborough county sheriff chad chronister knows this for sure as he said to tmz there had to be at least two killers this had to be well thought out there's someone else involved in this there's someone who was paid to do it there's someone who helped to do it don met carol in 1981 she was 20 years old married to her boss and the mother of a little girl don was 53 and married to the mother of his children as the story goes carol was trying to escape an abusive husband when she met him dawn was charming and charismatic and not opposed to having affairs but this was no one-night stand they carried on a 10-year affair before they divorced their spouses and got married in 1991 but the couple's marriage wouldn't last as long as their affair dawn allegedly started carrying on affairs with other women but that wasn't even the biggest issue in their relationship carol says he hoarded junk he thought he was going to resell he started digging through dumpsters he brought homeless people home to live with them he used the lawn as a bathroom and he seemed increasingly confused carol alleges he had alzheimer's although there's no evidence of those claims since he disappeared before he could be tested but she says she found a prescription for an mri along with a bipolar diagnosis in his bedside table when she was looking for clues on june 20th 1997 only two months before he vanished don told the police that carol threatened to shoot him and took his guns he told his assistant that he'd tried and failed to get a restraining order against her but police weren't able to find any evidence of that in court documents on the morning of august 18th carol says he left the house around 6 am when she didn't hear from him again she called the police on august 19th in 2004 she married her current husband howard baskin unlike dawn howard agreed with her that animals should be rescued and not bred or sold together they've grown big cat rescue into a powerful non-profit organization but that kind of non-profit wildlife sanctuary doesn't come cheap neither do the many lawsuits they filed or been a part of over the years now carol is the focus of yet another legal proceeding her former step-daughters have filed what's called a pure bill of discovery against her kenny farr and susan bradshaw the woman who says carol forrester to say she witnessed the power of attorney being signed this type of lawsuit is not about money yet instead they're suing for information about what happened in august 1997 and they're prepared to pay for it if they have to thanks to an anonymous donor they're offering a one hundred thousand dollar reward for any tips that might lead them to justice at last here's hoping they get the answers they're looking for and if you've gotten some answers out of this please subscribe and hit the bell to get all the crime in half the time every wednesday and sunday see you back here on sunday with amy to get a recap of epstein's island story and the latest news on galaine maxwell's upcoming trial thanks for watching and take care

Channel: True Crime Recaps

Views: 62,287

Rating: 4.9088669 out of 5

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Id: geJ0SPFMHXA

Length: 18min 7sec (1087 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 23 2020