Last week, the world was plunged back into the murky waters of Tiger King discourse thanks to a very surprising revelation:
Don Lewis — the husband of Carole Baskin who disappeared in 1997 — had reportedly been found alive and well in Costa Rica.
Now, if you actually clicked on any of the articles that were circulating on Twitter, you’d find that Lewis was still missing, and that this ground had already been covered extensively in a little-seen 2021 sequel, imaginatively titled Tiger King 2.
But Baskin was a fan of the theory for the obvious reason that if Lewis is still alive, then she couldn’t have murdered him and fed him to her tigers.
That was the theory put forth by Carole’s number one rival, the Tiger King himself, Joe Exotic.
Exotic — whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage — is currently serving a 21-year prison sentence on murder for hire charges.
But the pesky matter of his incarceration didn’t prevent Joe from sounding off on the exaggerated reports of Don Lewis’ aliveness.
“Don Lewis is NOT alive, I have her original diary and trust me she hated him so bad she could not kill him fast enough,” Exotic said this week in an email to Radar Online.
“When this story came out, I said I would voluntarily move to death row if he was alive and it made world headlines,” he added.
“I investigated her so much I am 100% sure she, her father who is now passed away and …. killed Don Lewis and ground him up.”
Exotic does seem to have a point regarding Baskin’s claim that Lewis is still alive.
That theory seems to be based on nothing more than a discovery she made in 2002 of an undated Department of Homeland Security containing a report that Lewis had been spotted in Costa Rica.
The agency was never able to corroborate those claims, and subsequent investigations by the Tampa’s Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office turned up no sign of Lewis.
“We know he’s not alive OK,” said Jack “Ripper” Smith a spokesperson for Lewis’ family.
“It’s very disturbing because the family is getting messages from people telling them, ‘Congratulations!’” Smith tells Radar. “The family is distraught.”
Exotic, meanwhile, claims this is all a stunt orchestrated by Baskin in the hope of raising money for her animal sanctuary.
“Carole did not think this stunt through very well but that is what she has done for the last 22 years,” Exotic alleged in his email to the outlet.
“Anything she can to get in the press to raise money for her roadside zoo, which is only a front to scam money.”
Exotic continued to rant against Baskin, accusing her of failing to properly
“She pulled this stunt not thinking that if he was alive, she would have to give all that insurance money back and give all property to him and his daughters,” he alleged.
“She is who designed his will, she is the one who reported him missing, she is the one who had him legally declared dead.”
We’ll have further updates on this story as new information becomes available.
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