All language subtitles for Joe.Exotic.Tigers.Lies.and.Cover-Up.2020.S01E01.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0

The loudest mouth gets
the most attention. [ Laughs ]

Narrator: It's the shocking feud
that has captivated the world.

Co-host with me again tonight,
Carole Anne, how you doin'?

Narrator: The exotic zoo owner
with a bad mullet

and an itchy trigger finger.

[ Gunshots blasting ]

The big cat rescuer
whose husband vanishes

and leaves her millions.

What did happen to him?

We have airboats,
we have helicopters,

and we are looking for Don!

Narrator: It's all fun and games
-[ Gunshot blasts ]

Until whispers of
murder are revealed.

The person that did this
was very good.

20 years,
they don't have a clue.

Carole's ground him up
and fed him to the tigers.

Narrator:
In this three-part special,

we go beyond the hype for
the real story of Joe exotic

and Carole Baskin.

What is this really about?

It's all coming back
to Don Lewis.

Narrator: The brash strategy
to get Joe out of jail.

If we'd just checked the septic
tank and find the body,

then we'd walk Joe out.

Narrator:
The unanswered questions

about the hit man plot.

You're gonna give
this mook three grand

to go kill somebody?
Bull[Bleep].

Narrator:
And exclusive new details

about the disappearance
of Don Lewis.

We had the cadaver dog

hit numerous times
close to this dock.

I think it's
a good time to approach him

and talk to him... game on.

Kenny, right?

Narrator: It's tigers, lies,
and cover-up, oh my.

##

##

[ tiger growls ]

Unless you've been
living under a rock,

you've heard the twisted saga
of Joe maldonado-passage,

better known as Joe exotic.

He's the Oklahoma zookeeper
who's absolutely obsessed

with Carole Baskin
of big cat rescue.

Carole Baskin, yep!

That lady that profits
over $1.5 million

sucking on your heart strings
about [bleep] on the Internet

that ain't even true.

Narrator:
Joe holds nothing back

on his self-produced
Internet TV show.

And before you bring me down,
it is my belief

that you will stop breathing.

Narrator:
For nearly a decade,

these two are at each
other's throats,

and it just gets
uglier and uglier.

Good afternoon ladies
and gentlemen, I'm Joe exotic,

and we're gonna make an honest
woman out of this bitch.

Narrator: Carole claims Joe
abuses his animals.

Joe calls Carole a hypocrite.

The biggest accredited sanctuary

in the world only helped
two animals.

For god's sakes,
we do that a week.

Narrator: Things escalate when
Joe accuses Carole Baskin of

murdering her former husband,

Don Lewis, who went missing
back in 1997...

Keep these two separated,
because you never want

to feed two cats
from one nipple.

Even though Carole
has never been

charged or implicated
in his disappearance.

She has this black cloud over
her head of people thinking

that she fed her husband
to the tiger.

I hear it's Carole's birthday

next month, and we're shipping
her two of these.

Narrator: But Joe exotic
isn't exactly an angel.

Griffith: What Joe did,

what he did to the animals,
what happened between him

and Carole,

his crazy life
as a country singer,

and it just goes on
and on and on and on.

It is the biggest [bleep]show
that we have seen to date.

[ Blasting noise ]

Joe has been saying, loudly,
that Don was put

in the meat grinder
and fed to the tigers.

# Oh, here kitty, kitty #

# mama Carole,
she sure loves you #

# oh, here kitty, kitty #

narrator: The feud comes to
a head when Joe's arrested

on September 7th 2018.

Woman: Federal authorities
foil a murder-for-hire plot

that targeted
big cat rescue owner,

Carole Baskin,
and leaves her enemy,

Joe exotic, behind bars.

Narrator: Joe's sentenced to
22 years in federal prison.

Narrator: Joe's got a lot of
friends working on the outside.

In true Joe fashion,
it's an interesting

cast of characters.

My name is Anne Patrick.

I met Joe five years ago.

He was doing
a presidential campaign.

And yes, I'm running for
president of the United States,

and it is about time somebody
said what you were thinking.

He was like, this bitch took off

with all
my presidential [bleep],

now I don't know what to do,
you know,

I'm in the middle
of this campaign.

I said,
"hey, I'll do it!"

I've never even voted
in my life.

Announcer: Joe exotic is here
for the people of america.

I was like, this guy's a [bleep]
nut, but I am, too,

so I was like, let's just
go see what happens!

Narrator: Joe's had
four husbands... at one point,

he had two at the same time.

Woman: You may now kiss.

Narrator: Dillon passage is
husband number four.

Passage:
Since Joe was arrested,

like, the minute
he was arrested,

my life was just flipped
the [bleep] upside-down.

When they said
the murder-for-hire charge,

I was, like... I was shocked.

You know, I didn't think
Joe would ever

take anything that far.

The zoo's new owner
is somebody Joe

came to know and hate,
Jeff lowe.

This is Tara and gentle.

They're really
gettin' into this.

Patrick:
I think I met Jeff lowe, like,

the first day or two
when I went to the park.

Old dude with his bandana,
ball cap,

walked around like he was,
you know, the boss.

Narrator: Joe is in
a particularly bad place

when Jeff shows up.

He's got big-time
financial problems,

and Carole's suin' him.

I have a judgment against me
from some [bleep] down there

in Florida.

Carole Baskin filed a lawsuit
on me for copyright for some

stupid rabbit picture
of her staff with dead rabbits.

Patrick: Joseph needed
the money to get out

from the lawsuit
with Carole Baskin.

So here comes Jeff swooping
in with his $35,000,

and he says, "I'll pay
the attorneys, and then I'll put"

"my name on the zoo,
'cause I'm such a good guy.

I'm gonna help you."

So now everything's in his name.

There are so many unanswered
questions in a story like this,

but the biggest mystery of all
is what happened to Don Lewis.

Narrator: Carole and many others
maintain the belief

that Don was involved
in a plane crash.

Carole's been defending these
accusations on social media

and in her online video diaries.

All these years, I think
the most likely scenario

was that Don left out early

of pilot country estates,
headed out over

the Gulf to fly somewhere
under the radar,

where the air is smoother,

and crashed.

My name's Jim rathmann,
born and raised in Florida,

and I consult for families of
missing persons or cold cases.

I've worked in law enforcement
as uniformed patrol.

I've done a little bit of
undercover narcotics,

and I ended up working for
United States secret service.

When I first started hearing
about the Don Lewis

disappearance, a lot of red
flags stuck out, and it's only

an hour, hour and a half
from where I live,

and I decided I needed to look
into this independently and see

if there's anything I could do
to kind of help out,

provide some new leads, or even

solve this case if
it's possible.

Narrator: Don Lewis has been
missing for 23 years,

and no one's been able
to prove what actually

happened to him.

Rathmann:
As an investigator,

it's important to look at all
the theories and the questions

surrounding a cold case.

In the case of Don Lewis,
there are several.

Has he gone to Costa Rica?

Did he crash his plane
over the Gulf of Mexico?

Was Don Lewis murdered
by drug traffickers?

Was he killed in
a business deal gone wrong?

Was his wife, Carole Baskin,

involved in her missing
husband's disappearance?

Or the craziest of all,

did she feed her husband
to the tigers?

[ Music climbing ]

Chronister: Right now,
it's a cold case.

There's just no real
legitimate leads.

Fritz: Everybody that knows
of his disappearance

has an idea of what happened,

but nobody can prove
a thing at this point.

Once we learned that
her husband had disappeared,

he's never been found,

people went,
what did happen to him?

Rathmann: There's a private
investigator, Dan toporowych,

that I'm really looking
forward to meeting with.

Dan being a private
investigator and working with

Anne Patrick has brought a lot
of information to light.

Some of this information
could be real useful,

not only in the Joe exotic case,
but also for

the Don Lewis case, as well.

Absolutely... thanks for
meeting with me, man.

Absolutely.

What made you get involved
in this?

So my partner, Dave, and I
are both retired cops.

We worked together up in Ohio.

He calls me, and he's like,
"hey, have you watched

the series?"
So after I watched

the series, I called him,
I go, "yeah",

"there... there's more to this.

"Why, where are you gettin'
at?" He goes,

"well, let's write him a letter
and ask him

if there's anything
we could do for him."

We heard back from Joe,
and Joe told

the state he wants US
on his defense team.

So that's when we started
digging into

the bad police work that was
involved in this.

And it just has snowballed,

because it's all coming back
to Don Lewis.

Rathmann: And as you know,
I'm spending a lot of my time

with Don Lewis, and I think
Joe was getting close and...

Yeah, I think
he was gettin' close,

and people were starting
to ask Carole some

difficult questions,
-mm-hmm.

And the sheriff's department's
probably reinvestigating

and starting to ask some
difficult questions.

She needed him shut up.

Rathmann: Seems like Dan
believes that maybe

Carole set up Joe
to shut him up.

Toporowych: So the
investigation into Don Lewis,

and the appeal in getting Joe
out of jail,

we're connecting dots
where it appears to US

that Carole Baskin and Jeff lowe

are connected to each other,

knew each other prior
to Jeff coming out

to the g.W. Zoo and trying
to help Joe out,

[ lawn mower rumbling ]

And it all turns back
to Don Lewis.

Joe wanted that whole
investigation into Don Lewis.

He wants Carole in jail,
and all of a sudden now,

Jeff lowe shows up
at the g.W. Zoo,

and once Joe signed over
the zoo to him, he brought on

his best friend, Allen glover.

Allen's a convicted felon.

What really hurt Joe at
the trial was the testimony of

the right-hand man of Jeff lowe,

Allen glover.

Narrator: Two years after
Jeff lowe buys Joe's zoo,

he skedaddles back to Las Vegas.

He starts a business there

charging folks
to pet tiger cubs,

but Jeff still has a man on
the ground in Oklahoma

to keep an eye on things...
Allen glover.

Dan toporowych
implied that Carole Baskin

may have known Jeff lowe
for years

and might had even sent him
to buy the zoo.

Anne will know about what
happened because she was there.

Let's talk about...
Let's talk about Allen.

All right, well, first of all,
I called him "accident Allen,"

'cause he fell down
all the time.

He was always hurt.
He was a liability at the zoo.

Him and Joe fought all the time.

Well, Jeff was in Las Vegas,

so he was hopin' Jeff was
gonna just stay in Vegas,

but then Jeff had to go get
himself arrested.

Woman: Jeff lowe was arrested
and charged in Las Vegas

after he was caught
running a high-end

cub-petting service
without a license.

At his arrest, lowe was caught

in possession of firearms,

which was illegal because
he was a convicted felon.

Jeff lowe gets arrested
with firearms.

He was a felon in possession
of firearms in Las Vegas.

The gun case
has never been filed.

Patrick: I just think
that Jeff copped to the feds

and was like,
"I'll make a deal with you.

I'll give you Joe,
but you let me go."

Narrator: With no business left
to run in Las Vegas,

Jeff returns to the zoo.

Joe and friends think
he came back with a plan.

Patrick: That's when
he was takin' Joe down.

Joseph had made the decision
that he was leaving.

I just want to go live
my life with

my new husband
and have to do this no more.

And Jeff went after him
like a viper.

Narrator: When Jeff lowe returns
to the zoo in the fall

of 2017, things go from bad
to worse for Joe exotic.

Joe's steaming
because he lost his zoo,

and he blames Carole Baskin.

Jeff goes to Joe, and he's like,
hey, I have a guy who can

take out Carole, and so that's
where Allen glover comes in.

Narrator:
According to Jeff lowe,

Joe pays Allen glover $3,000
to kill Carole Baskin,

but the hit never happens.

Passage: That obviously failed,
because they're all criminals.

And then Jeff's like,
"okay, well,

I have this other dude
who can do it."

Narrator: Needless to say,
Joe picks the wrong dude.

The would-be hit man,
who shows up in December 2017,

is actually
an undercover FBI agent

with a hidden tape recorder.

Rathmann: According to the court
records, Joe says to the agent,

"she's got to go,"
referring to Carole Baskin.

The undercover agent tells Joe
that a hit on Carole

would cost $10,000, but no
money is ever exchanged,

and it's the agent who brings
up the idea of murder-for-hire.

On September 7, 2018,
Joe exotic is arrested for

hiring a hit man to kill
his sworn enemy, Carole Baskin.

Ogle: Joe exotic enters
a not guilty plea

in the murder-for-hire case
against him.

He was very confident...
He was gonna walk out of

that courtroom a free man.

There was no question
in his mind.

Federal u.S. Attorney's offices
have a 98% conviction rate.

98.

Patrick: The grand jury would
not proceed until mid July-ish

because they didn't have
enough evidence

for a hit-man-for-hire.

Narrator:
But federal authorities

have more up their sleeves.

No question, they couldn't make
the murder-for-hire.

They couldn't make it.

So they re-indicted the case
on the Eve of trial

to include these fish
and wildlife offenses.

Man: U.S. Attorney's office
drops a kind of bombshell,

with new charges
against the man known

as Joe exotic.

Woman: Among the 21 counts
maldonado-passage

is facing,
19 are wildlife charges.

You have
these murder-for-hire charges,

and then you have these animal
cruelty charges, all glommed

into one case...
That is very unusual.

Narrator: In march 2019,

Joe exotic is sittin'
in federal court.

He's on trial, charged with
attempted murder-for-hire

and violation of
regulations protecting

wild animals.

Woman: Prosecutors say
Joe exotic killed

the tigers to make room
for other tigers.

It's interesting... usually
the government starts off with

their most serious charge,
would be the murder counts.

But how they started off was
a little different.

Former park employees
called to testify

against him Monday
include Erik cowie.

They brought
the long-haired guy Erik in,

who loved the animals,

who said he was with them when
he had to put one down,

and he cried on the stand.

I knew cats were gettin' shot,

because we discussed it all...
All day long for...

I want to say, even a day
or two before that.

An animal abuser...
That's the worst thing.

I think if we make him
look bad enough,

then they'll just find him
guilty on everything.

The evidence that was found
out later when they exhumed

the tiger bodies did not show

that there was anything
wrong with any of those tigers.

So, in our minds, we're like,

why where they put down?
Money.

The judge said,
we're gonna switch gears now,

and now you're gonna be
hearing about

the murder-for-hire.

Narrator:
Three days into the trial,

the jury is presented with
evidence from Joe exotic's

TV show.

Woman: Prosecutors used Joe
exotic's videos against him

to support
their murder-for-hire case.

[ Gunshot blasts ]

If you're gonna do it,
you're not gonna talk about it.

You're just gonna do it...
You're not gonna put it on

the Internet that you're gonna
kill somebody.

No, you're just gonna do it.

Joe never had any intent
or ability to carry that out.

Narrator: Then Carole Baskin
takes the stand as

a witness for the prosecution.

Woman: In court,
Baskin testified

threats continued through 2017

and that she feared
for her life.

Buskey: To me,
she did seem credible.

Um, she seemed passionate
about animals,

and she just seemed
like a nice lady.

I could tell she was upset
and distraught,

and I could understand her fear.

Narrator:
After a week-long trial,

the prosecution rests without
calling several people

in Joe's inner circle.

The prosecutor had John reinke
on their list.

They subpoenaed him...
At the very last second,

they cut him.

He was the park manager
for 14 years.

He had a lot to say.

He knows what happened.
He was there.

There was nobody
gonna get hurt in this.

Man: The former manager
of maldonado's

roadside zoo spoke
out Wednesday.

Did Joe do wrong?
Yeah, I'm sure he did wrong.

He did sell cubs.
He did transport cubs.

Um, the murder-for-hire thing,

I don't think it ever would have
went this far

without somebody pushing it.

One of the most important
pieces to this entire case

is the murder-for-hire

and the $3,000 payment.
- Yes.

- Yes.
- Tell me about that.

- Bull[bleep].
- Tell me why. Tell me why.

It is bull[Bleep]... okay,
so, Allen, the hit man, right?

He just was a hot mess,
and he worked for Jeff,

and he made sure everybody
knew he worked for Jeff.

Him and Joseph went at it
all the time,

because he was just...
He hated Joe.

- So the $3,000 payment.
- The $3,000

was... really, it was just
money to make him go home.

Allen asked me to get
the ticket, like, he was like,

'cause I fly all the time,

so it was like I got
the ticket for him.

And the plane ticket
was from where to where?

Oklahoma city to I want to say
south Carolina.

It's like, hey, please go.
Here's some cash.

Get you through
till you get a next job.

- Take care, have a nice day.
- Yeah.

And that was Jeff told Joseph.

That's what Jeff told...

Jeff told him to give him
the money to get him out.

Jeff couldn't stand
the two of them fighting.

Narrator:
There are two different stories

about the $3,000 that
Allen glover was given.

The $3,000 was a loan.

Allen was gonna pay it back
when he went home.

Narrator: But the prosecution
said it was evidence of a crime.

And so at no time, you never
heard Joe talking about

giving him money
to go down to Florida,

hey, kill Carole for $3,000.

He never ever... he's gonna give
this mook who can't even

walk across the trail... to his
trailer without falling down

and cracking his melon open?

You're gonna give him three
grand to go kill somebody?

And Allen didn't even
go to Florida.

- He went to south Carolina.
- No! No!

Got... got...

He was on the beach!
All of a sudden,

July, Jeff and Allen decide,

oh, well, Allen got paid
$3,000 cash

to go... to go kill this woman.

Narrator: Jeff lowe releases
audio recordings

to the media after
Joe's conviction.

Jeff lowe is the one
who provided the money.

You know, at that point,

this park was no longer
in Joe's control.

It was in Jeff's control.

So how does the owner of
the park essentially walk away

scot-free?

Hernandez:
Jeff lowe was after the zoo...

That was in the design.

Second, the opportunity
presented itself

when he got arrested.

I think he cut a deal with

the agents while
he was in Las Vegas,

which explains why his case
has not proceeded.

If I deliver
for you, government,

you're not gonna file
the case against me.

So that's why you dance
with the devil,

to work off your own case.

There's more and more evidence
that Carole Baskin

was in on it with Jeff lowe.

We do know that lowe was
cooperating with the government

and may have accepted a plea
deal in exchange for

his cooperation.

He's a prior felon.

If he goes down for a felon
in possession of arms,

that's just five years flat.

Throughout this trial,
Joe maintained

that Jeff lowe set him up.

I didn't feel there was any
collusion whatsoever to, quote,

get him to hire
someone to kill her.

Yeretsian: There were so many
different individuals

that hated him,
and it made sense,

for him to go away,
that they all worked together.

Jeff lowe said it, gotcha.

Well, I've got it all,
Joe, this much, I have it.

You're [bleep].
You are so [bleep].

Narrator: The jury deliberates
for four hours in the case

against Joe maldonado-passage,
aka Joe exotic.

Jury came back,
finding Joseph maldonado-passage

guilty on all counts.

Buskey: The evidence
that was presented to US

of all his wrongdoings
stood on its own.

It's solid.
It's black and white.

It's paper. It's video.
It's audio.

And so we literally pored
through it and went through

every piece of evidence
and cross-referenced receipts

and everything else,
and we put it all together,

and it made a nice little
road map.

None of the evidence we saw
looked like it was a setup

in any way, shape, or form.

And you gotta think if
anybody's gonna sit there

and say
they're gonna kill you...

You will stop breathing.

You might want to take
that seriously.

Even if you think
they're joking around,

still, take it seriously.

At the reading of all
the verdicts and especially

when we got to
the two murder-for-hires,

he was found guilty.

I can remember him just
shaking his head like,

[ scoffs ] You know.

He just thought it was a farce
or thought it was a joke.

And it's like, sorry,
the evidence was there.

The law's the law, you can't
do what you're doing.

Unfortunately, you got caught.

Yeretsian: As an attorney,

you win or lose your case
when you pick your jury.

There was enough there
to create reasonable doubt,

as far as
the murder-for-hire goes.

But clearly, they turned
their back on it

and decided to find him guilty
of all charges.

Passage: We talk, like,
3 to 5 times every day.

If I'm trying
to lift him up and stuff,

I'll talk about our life after
he gets out and, you know,

what we have planned,

and he wants me
to look at houses

and kind of get a place for US.

Hope is the number one thing
for Joe.

You know, if he doesn't have
anything to be optimistic about

or to see in his future,

then he's not gonna mentally
be able to stay sane and,

you know, make it through
the situation he's in.

Joe's very hopeful
that he will get out.

Griffith:
Joe was sentenced to 22 years,

but if you look at the law
and look at how other people

have been sentenced...
Pretty harsh.

Patrick:
What they usually do is

run your charges concurrent,
side by side.

But the judge
stacked those charges.

Hernandez:
22-year sentence.

There's sex offenders with DNA

and a confession across
the street in the county jail

that got half of that.

That's his sentence... he's not
gonna be in prison for 22 years.

I'm gonna...
I'm gonna guarantee you that.

My name is Eric love.

I'm from bedford, Texas.
I'm a private investigator.

I've been affiliated
and working in

law enforcement
for the last 34 years.

I have a daughter named Gabby.

She says, "oh my gosh,
you've gotta watch Joe exotic."

So a private investigator's mind
looks at things

maybe a little bit different
than other folks.

I started thinking about it
and think, the case is full of

injustices, and then Gabby
says, "dad,

why don't you look
into this case?"

And I told her, I said, "listen",

"he was wronged, and we're
gonna right the wrong.

I think we can get him out."

That's why team tiger
was put together.

- Jeff hoover, nice to meet.
- Pleasure to meet you.

Patrick: It's such an injustice
that they just

couldn't sit back and watch it.

It is the absolute best of
the best.

Thanks for coming,
and what got you interested

in putting all
your time into this?

I like complex cases.

I like helping out,
and I like working, and...

You in it for the money?

- [ Laughs ]
- I'm not making a dime.

I do this because I truly
enjoy investigating by, like,

helping out.

I want to right wrongs.

If there is a wrong available
to be righted,

I want to do that.

He's the one that brought
the team together, actually.

I wrote Joe a letter,

and he immediately responded
with, "Eric,

I desperately need your help,"

and then Anne called me,
the power of attorney,

and at this point, I knew I had

a full basket, and I've got to
get some help, right?

Then I called Francisco,
and I said,

"I've got a case for you."
- Now you did.

That's exactly how it happened.
[ Laughter ]

It's interesting
how they did his whole case.

When they did the prosecution,

they actually did
the tiger aspect of things

first, right?
- That was for shock and awe.

Right... to kinda
cast that shadow over Joe,

- the monster.
- And then go for

the murder-for-hire.
- And did you catch,

on cross-examination,
they asked the usda officer,

"how many of these have
been prosecuted

to your knowledge?"

- This one.
- Just the one.

If you look at his court
records, you'll scratch

your head.

We think there's incompetence,
we think there's collusion.

When I called Francisco,
and we discussed it,

I said look, Joe was targeted,
he's incarcerated.

He's not guilty of
what he's charged with.

This is a presidential
pardon case.

And when we lay out that case,
we feel that the president

will side with US and we'll
get the pardon because anybody

can be a victim of what
Joe was a victim of.

Hoover: Oh, anybody could.
Absolutely.

- Absolutely.
- Absolutely.

There's not just
one Joe out there.

There's more Joes out there,
you understand?

If you go fight Goliath,
you better have some ammunition.

The, uh, defense was
prohibited from

bringing any information
on about Carole Baskin.

The question here to
investigate and is,

was there any, uh,

any collusion or cooperation
between Carole Baskin

and Jeff lowe?

They didn't even
put Jeff lowe up there.

They didn't... wouldn't even
let them talk about Jeff.

We have reason to believe
that Jeff lowe was,

in fact, setting up, uh,

Joe months before
this happened and that he,

in fact, had communication
with Carole Baskin.

The defense was precluded from
impeaching her credibility

with matters about her husband

because it didn't
seem to be relevant.

Well, I'm definitely gonna do
everything I can on my end.

I'm working the Don Lewis case
very hard,

but I'm also gonna be trying
to connect the dots and help

out your team out here and be

able to provide you some
information or whatever else

that I can find
that's gonna help you

and your case.
- Well, you have 50 million fans

hopin' you find something
to help US.

Yeah, I hope so, too.

Well, thank you guys so very
much for having me out here,

and I look forward to being
in touch soon.

The team's ultimate goal
is for Joe to have freedom,

and we'd like it pretty quick.

Appeals or writs,
post-conviction...

Anything that's
post-conviction...

It's not easy to get
things overturned.

You really have to convince
the appellate court that

an egregious error did happen
or something

was kept out that should have
come in, and it

would have made
a huge difference,

and the jury would have maybe
found him not guilty.

Rathmann: I think the defense
probably did the best

that they could
with what they had,

but now, looking back on it,
you continue to find error

after error after error.

When you find a continuous
amount of errors,

you need to re examine that
case. You need to reexamine,

did they actually
convict this person

off all the right reasons?

Or was he wrongfully convicted

and has a chance
to freedom again?

After meeting with team tiger,

I'm more convinced than ever
that there's a lot more to

this story, and clearly, I'm not
alone in thinking that.

Hi, everyone.
This is tricia Griffith

with websleuths radio podcast.

If something doesn't make
sense on paper,

if you look at it and go,
why did that happen? Hm.

There's a reason...
My name is tricia Griffith,

and I am the owner of
websleuths. Com,

host of websleuths radio podcast
and websleuths YouTube live.

Websleuths is a place for people

to gather on the Internet
to discuss true crime.

We have time,
and we have the ability

to go look in places that law
enforcement departments can't.

Joe exotic became
a phenomenon, and everybody

surrounding Joe exotic,
and people started looking into

Carole Baskin, missing husband,
and then finding out that

her husband had supposedly
literally flown away,

never to be seen again.

We all went, uh-uh, no,
there is something really

wrong here.

Before he went behind bars,

Joe exotic really did raise
the alarm bells when it came to

Don Lewis being missing.

We have airboats,
we have helicopters,

and we are looking for Don!

Griffith:
Constantly saying that Don was

ground up and fed to the tigers.

And maybe Carole needed
Joe exotic to stop talking.

And maybe he is close
to the truth,

but he's the only one
behind bars.

##

##

Rathmann: When I first
started hearing about

the Don Lewis disappearance,

I felt terrible
for Don Lewis's family.

I can't imagine what it was
like for them

for the last 23 years
of their lives

to not have a clue of
what happened to their father.

He just disappeared.

He left behind all of
his animals, his fortune,

his businesses, and everything
has just gone... like, he just

hasn't come back.

I recently lost my father,
so, you know,

you kind of have that added
drive to really find out what

has happened to Don Lewis
and try to get them

some sort of answers that
they don't have.

It's a pure mystery.

Tricia Griffith has been
in contact with so many of

the key players involved in
the disappearance of Don Lewis.

I'm glad you're taking some
time to talk to me about this.

This is quite the case.

Yeah, I don't think
we'll ever see anything

like this in our lifetimes,
in our children's lifetimes.

So you had a chance to talk
to some key players recently.

Specifically, I talked to
Anne McQueen.

- Rathmann: Mm-hmm.
- And Anne worked for Don

for many, many years.

She really was one of his
trusted, I would say, advisors

trusted people,

and in the end, she was
the trustee, executor of

the wills and the trust.
- Right.

She had the keys to the kingdom,

and Anne said, a couple months
before he disappeared,

Don comes in, and he gives her
an envelope, it's sealed,

he says, I want you
to hold on to this.

You'll know what to do
with this some day,

if you need to.
- Right.

He said,
"don't open it."

And that Friday,
when she called him,

and she couldn't find him,
she knew.

So you're talking about
August 15th of 1997, right?

- Friday?
- Griffith: August 15th 1997.

Apparently, Don and Carole
had such a big fuss

that Don went to sleep
in the trailer itself

of an 18-Wheeler.

He didn't look like he slept.

In fact, she said,
he looked like hell,

and that's when he said,

"I'm done with it,
I'm gonna go back.

"I'm gonna tell Carole
it's over.

I'm done. I'm getting
a divorce today."

Anne tried to call Don just

a couple of hours after
he left that morning.

And then in the afternoon.

And then at night,
all through the night.

Saturday morning,
Saturday afternoon.

Now she's panicked.

She finally calls
Carole Sunday and said,

"I'm really worried about Don,"
and Carole goes, "oh, well,

"he does...
He does that all the time.

"He leaves and doesn't tell
anybody," and Anne's like,

"no, he doesn't."

Carole said that she saw him
that Sunday morning,

but he didn't go to church
with her, and she went to

church with Kenny, the handyman.

So then Carole says,
"well, gosh,

do you think I should call
the sheriff?"

And Anne said, "uh,
do you think?"

Narrator: Carole
and Anne McQueen have

publicly disagreed about

the circumstances surrounding
Don's disappearance.

Anne claims Don
always told her where he was,

but again,
there are several times

when she called me
because she couldn't find him

for days on end.

Her sarcasm about me not calling

the police until the next day
was unwarranted.

Narrator: Carole files
a missing persons report

with the sheriff's office
after talking with Anne.

According to law
enforcement records,

Don Lewis disappears on Monday,
August 18th 1997.

Carole says she saw him head
out of the house that morning

and never saw him again.

Griffith: A week later,
Anne gets a call

from the security company

that says our alarms are
going off...

Now, Anne at this time was
down at the sheriff's office,

going to talk to them about
Don, and she couldn't leave.

And so she told
the security company,

call the police,

and they get there, and Carole
and Ken farr have removed

everything, every file gone.

That was the last time, they
never went back to the office.

Their jobs were over.

The code for the alarm

that Anne gave me
the night before

must have been changed because
we could not shut off the alarm,

and the police arrived.

Griffith: Remember the envelope
that Don had given

Anne a couple of months before?
- Couple months before that?

Griffith: She gets it,

she opens it, and she said
her knees just buckled.

It was the restraining order
application that Don

tried to get against Carole,

but it was denied by the judge.

It was tough for women
to get restraining orders.

Men, I'm sure,
almost impossible.

In that restraining order,
it said

in there, two times
in their relationship,

she's made some sort of threat
against his life.

I never threatened
to killed Don.

He called me his guardian
angel because I was always

the one protecting him.

Narrator:
At this point,

Anne McQueen still thinks
she's Don's power of attorney.

She's about to get a surprise.

In the end, Anne McQueen
was the trustee,

executor of the wills
and the trusts.

Right.

Narrator:
Carole doesn't trust

Anne McQueen
and publicly accuses her

of embezzlement,
a claim Anne denies.

Griffith: Carole comes waltzing
into court with the document.

- Rathmann: Right.
- The power of attorney.

The document said,

in case of my disappearance,

my power of attorney
will be Carole.

Who writes "in case of
my disappearance"?

Nobody puts that
in a power of attorney.

Narrator:
Anne McQueen believes she holds

the power of attorney
for Don Lewis's estate.

Then his wife, Carole,
shows up with

a new piece of paper
that changes everything...

A later-dated form that names
her as power of attorney.

Rathmann: The person
who had the most to gain

would have been Carole.

She now is able to collect
all of Don's properties,

she put herself
ahead of all the trusts,

and she made millions upon
millions of dollars from that.

So I wanted to have
an expert look

at the power of attorney
and the will.

Thomas vastrick is
a handwriting expert.

- Hey, Thomas, how are you?
- Hey, Jim.

Rathmann: Many, many years
of experience in

examining documents,

all different types,
for signatures, for frauds.

He's worked with the united
states postal service.

He wants to know, it's either
it is or it is not a forgery.

When I looked at Mr. Lewis's
signature, both the last will

and testament and the durable
family power of attorney,

I noticed that the signatures
were too similar to be normal.

If you're writin' your name
10 times or even just two times,

you'll notice differences
between each signature.

It's called natural variation
'cause it's natural.

And I noticed in these
a lack of variance,

and that, to me, in my opinion,

is a telltale sign of
an attempt to trace.

That raises the specter
of can we find

a signature that was used as
the basis for the tracing?

So I found this marriage record.

This marriage record is dated
in 1991,

five years before the will
and the power of attorney.

This was the document
that contained

the Lewis signature that was
used as the model.

I created a little
illustration that shows

the signatures
from the will on the top

two samples, then the signature
from the power of attorney

and then from
the marriage record.

There's just a very strong,
similar appearance to these,

more so than you would expect
to find between any two random

signatures by the same person.

And if you look
at the word "Donald,"

it looks like it's spelled
with an e instead of an a.

And I found this mistake in
all of these signatures.

Now you can look and find
a couple differences between

each of the signatures,
and that's fine.

- Right.
- But this near exact

replication is just classic
evidence of a tracing.

What about the notaries
or the witnesses you have?

I have samples of each of 'em,
and I find the same pattern.

I cannot say that all three
of these are tracings.

I can say that, in my opinion,

at least two of them are
'cause one of these could be

the model signature
for all we know.

Right... wow, that's powerful.

So it's...
I want to say impossible,

but it's near impossible
for somebody to have

the exact same signature to
a t and, period, if they sign

their name thousands of times,
but here it is,

we actually have
the same signature

within a five-year period.

- For four different people.
- For four different people.

What are the chances of that?

I'm not a statistician,
but I think i'd

have to use exponential
numbers to explain that.

Agreed.

Narrator:
Carole says she gathered

the witness and the notary
to the documents.

All of the witnesses
and notary on the documents

provided affidavits stating
that they saw Don

sign them and that
he understood what he signed

and that he was competent
to do so.

This kinda can be
a game changer.

Obviously, this was used in
the civil aspect of things,

which awarded her
all the finances.

On a criminal side,
it's really big

for the sheriff's office
to have this information

and the state attorney's
office on what direction

they're gonna go.

So not only do they have
the person who would have

done this tracing,

it also gives them
a notary to speak with

and two witnesses, as well.

So you actually have multiple
people involved with

the signing of this to interview

and that need to testify as to
what had actually happened.

We already know that there was
a restraining order

that had happened two months
prior to his disappearance.

We also know that he was
getting ready to go through

a divorce... if this was
actually done prior to

his actual disappearance,
and it was part of the plan,

it could show premeditation
and murder.

With this, there was a lot of

properties that were gained...
Over the years,

these properties have been sold.

If this is actually tracing,
it's gonna cause a lot of

legal concerns
for all those people

that have bought properties,

transferred properties...
Technically, they never owned

them, never owned them legally.

##

Narrator: On June 3rd 2020,
sheriff chronister of

hillsborough county
has an important announcement

about Don Lewis's will.

Chronister:
The will was a forgery.

Two experts deem it
100% a forgery.

It certainly casts another
shadow of suspicion.

Do I believe he's been killed,
that he's dead?

Yes, I do.
Do I know who did it

and how he died?
That I don't know.

But certainly there's
a lot of suspicions,

and we will do whatever
would be required to solve

this case.

Rathmann: The re-opening of
this investigation is really,

really exciting.

I feel like
I'm on the right path.

Chronister: We're receiving,
on average, six tips a day.

Anything that's viable,
we're gonna pursue.

There's nothing
more important to US

than bringing justice
to his family.

Narrator: All these theories
about what happened

to Don Lewis
and the insinuations

about Carole Baskin has sent
Jim rathmann on a quest,

a quest for answers.

Did Don Lewis make a business
deal that went south?

Did he disappear
to Costa Rica like

some folks think?
Could Don have cooked up

this whole crazy thing
on his own?

Or was it murder?

Rathmann: I'm on a mission
to get to the bottom of

what the truth is.

To be able to solve
this Don Lewis case,

find out who was involved
and what really happened.

##

##

Narrator: According to
sheriff chronister,

experts have determined that
Don Lewis's will and power of

attorney are forgeries.

All of a sudden, a 23-year-old

missing persons cold case is
on the front burner.

Don's wife, Carole,
always claimed she believed

he flew off in his plane,
never to be seen again.

Man: Lewis was last seen
nine days ago here

at pasco's pilot
country estates,

shopping for ultralight
and experimental planes,

apparently for export
to Central America.

Rathmann: Don Lewis was
a multi-millionaire

from tampa, Florida.

He made his wealth in
the real estate, kind of

flipping homes, buying up
mortgages, things like that.

But he also had a passion
for exotic animals,

and so he had a sanctuary

he called
wildlife on easy street.

He had over... well over 100
cats, lions, tigers, leopards.

I would call him
a modern-day hippie.

I never saw him get mad.

I never saw him raise his voice.

Had a head for business
and a deal.

Narrator: In January 1981, Don's
living with his wife, Gladys,

their three daughters and a son.

When he meets Carole,

she's in a bad place in life,
running away from her husband,

Michael murdock, the father of
her daughter, Jamie.

Something clicks between Don and
Carole and keeps on clicking.

They carry on
a 10-year affair until

Don divorces Gladys,
and they get married in 1991.

They seemed happy
despite their age difference.

They did real estate deals
and started collecting bobcats.

Eventually, they turned
wildlife on easy street into

a business that breeds
and sells exotic animals.

We've got four kitties
we're gonna feed.

[ Cat mewling ]

They're quite anxious,
as you can hear.

Rathmann: Don cared
greatly for his cats.

That was his passion.
He loved it.

And he also liked
to go to Costa Rica.

Fritz: Costa Rica used to have
quite a vibrant trade

in exotic animals with very,
very little regulation,

where here, we have tremendous
regulation of it.

And then, in 1997,
he just disappeared.

##

Man: In recent months,
Lewis's wife says

he'd begun to show signs of
early Alzheimer's.

He'd even accidentally,
she says,

leave cages open, and some of
his beloved cats had escaped.

I'm very worried, but I don't
feel that separation.

It's feeling that that helps me
to hang on and think

that he is okay,
that he will just

walk back in the gate.

Narrator: Three weeks
after Don goes missing

on August 18, 1997,
Carole shows up in court

with power of attorney form
that the sheriff now claims is

forged, giving her control
of Don's fortune.

A power of attorney dies
with the person.

You cannot
administer their estate

past their death
with the power of attorney.

The question becomes, why do you

have a power of attorney
and a will?

Power of attorney if you don't
find the body, will if you do.

Narrator:
In her video diaries,

Carole explains why Don
wanted her to draft

a new power of attorney.

He said he wants to make sure
I am always taken care of,

and he even had me draft
a will and a power of attorney.

He had me change the will
a few times because he seemed

to just delight in making sure
that none of his greedy kids,

as he said, were in it.

Narrator: Carole now rules
over an estate

worth around $7 million.

Rathmann: And we now know
that before Don disappeared,

he was living in fear.

##

June 12th of 1997, Don Lewis
actually went and filed

the restraining order
against Carole Lewis,

known today as Carole Baskin.

She had access to a pistol.

He felt that his life was
in jeopardy.

So the statement reads,

"this is the second time
Carole has

"got angry enough
to threaten to kill me.

"Me and Carole got in
a big fuss, and she ordered me

"out of the house
or she would kill me,

"and if I came back,
she would kill me.

She has a revolver, and she took
my .357 and hid it."

It's an important piece of
evidence because it actually

shows that there were some

issues within this marriage
and that the marriage,

it was also getting violent.

He tried to get a protective
order, he couldn't get it.

It got turned down for
whatever reasons

it got turned down...
Then he told her

he was gonna divorce her,
and she freaked out.

What I'm upset about
is that he didn't

come talk to me
before he did it.

I see every day people
that file an injunction

that's not granted where
it could have been granted

had an attorney
set the stage properly.

Rathmann: Now, according to
everybody that I spoke with,

Don was not too fond
of taking anything

to the sheriff's department
or law enforcement, period,

so the fact that he went
in to do that

for a restraining order
is quite suspicious,

that he felt like his life
was gonna be in danger.

How many protective orders do
you see filed by a man against

the wife? I've never seen one
in 30 years as a lawyer.

And then he disappears.

Rathmann:
August 20th of 1997,

Don Lewis's Van was found at
the pilot country airport,

which is in north of tampa.

So this Van was found about
a day after Don Lewis

was reported missing.

A lot of the theories that
were circulating with the Van

being left at the airport is
that Don went ahead and got

in a private plane
and flew to Costa Rica.

Perhaps he crashed his
airplane in the Gulf of Mexico.

Narrator:
When they find Don's Van,

the sheriff's office wants
to search Carole's property,

but she says no.

She also declines
to take a polygraph.

Refusing to take a polygraph
means that Carole had

a pretty good lawyer.

Because there's no benefit
for her to take a polygraph,

while it's not indicative of
guilt or innocence,

it's a method that
a truly trained person can

tell you if they're lying...
Most of the times,

it's not in their best interest.

Rathmann:
I'm on my way to meet one of

the last people to see
Don Lewis alive.

Dale lively
was the mechanic that

worked many years
with Don Lewis.

It was just his go-to person
to fix all of his vehicles.

He worked on Don's Van
just a few days before

Don disappeared.

I'm sure he has some
information to share with US.

##

Dale.

- Hey, Jim, how you doin'?
- How are you?

If you wouldn't mind,
like, tell me when

he had that Van in here for
about when...

And when abouts was that?

The last time I worked on it was
a week before he disappeared.

I had it in here
for two or three days

doing some air conditioning
work on the dash.

And so I had all the dash and
everything out of it and got it

all fixed.
- Rathmann: And then...

Called Don,

and he came out here that day,
and he spent about an hour here.

-Okay.
He was talking about Costa Rica.

He told me that he was
gettin' ready and he was

gonna move his cats down there.

-All the cats from the wildlife
-right.

On easy street?
- Right, that's what

he wanted to do.

Did you think maybe
he was getting ready

to transition his life into
a different role than...?

I think so,

but Don liked to be
around his kids,

and then he got into
a discussion talkin'

about Carole.

Can you tell me about that?

I didn't know there was
problems going on,

but he was afraid of her,

and he had tried to get
a restraining order out on her,

and he was afraid
she was gonna kill him,

and that he just
had to get away from her.

You know, you don't really
think a whole lot

about it when somebody
tells you that,

but then when the situation
came up like it did,

it kind of makes you think.

And then he tried
his best to get me

to go to Costa Rica
with him that weekend.

- Did he?
- He said, "you'll love it.

The people are nice.
It's beautiful."

But I wasn't able to go.

What about his mental state?

What do you... because I know
there's been a lot

of talk about that.
- Don was... yeah. I mean,

I've heard the stories that

Carole said that he was...
Had dementia and Alzheimer's.

I never saw
a single thing about that.

Don was just as sharp
as he ever was.

Narrator: Don Lewis was
much older than Carole,

but still fairly young to be
suffering from dementia.

Were there early warning signs
that only Carole could see?

So being that you knew him
all those years,

you never saw a change.
- I saw no change whatsoever.

So let's talk a little bit
about the Van.

He was getting
ready to drive that,

and it was Don that drove

that Van off, right?
- Right, Don drove it off.

Rathmann:
And when they found his Van,

the Van was released back
to Carole.

- To Carole, yeah.
- And Carole drove it back

to the sanctuary,
and it was processed

a few days later.
Sheriff's office comes out,

they find a fingerprint.
- Mm-hmm.

Whose fingerprint did they find?
- Mine.

Where did they find it?

Lively: It was on
the center part of the dash

where I was working, yeah.

So that was the only
print that they found?

Yeah, but they didn't find any

on the steering wheel
or anywhere else.

The door handles.
Carole drove it back.

Why weren't her prints on it?

- Agreed.
- Her prints should have been

all over the steering wheel
and...

And so should Don's.

Yeah, Don should have, too,
if he drove it.

Rathmann: Exactly... what did
that signify to you?

Someone had to have wiped
the Van down.

They should have found my
fingerprints on the doors,

on the steering wheel,
both doors,

because I was all over the Van.

If Carole drove it
back from the airport,

why weren't her
prints in the Van?

Unless she the wore gloves
or wiped it down?

Two detectives
were here to talk to you,

essentially as a person
of interest.

I was able to explain
why my prints were in there.

I had the dash all apart...
That you should have

found it all over the thing.
- And what did they say to that?

Not a word... they spent about
10, 15 minutes, and they left.

I never heard from 'em again.

It's like check the block,
we talked to him.

- Exactly.
- What do you think

happened to your friend, Don?

I think Don is still
here in Florida somewhere,

but they just
haven't found him yet.

Narrator: Carole seemed to
support the idea that Don

had flown off in a plane
and possibly crashed.

Baskin:
He's really a very good pilot,

despite his licensing problems.

Man: Former airline pilot
Wayne pimm

was Lewis's flight instructor.

Pimm's logbooks show Lewis
never got his license.

Wayne pimm taught Don Lewis
about flying, or at least

attempted to teach him
about flying.

Wayne reached out to me
a little while back.

He told me that he had some

information about Don that
other people don't have,

and hopefully we can get
some new leads along with

proving and disproving some of
the theories

that are out there.

About what year was it
when you first met Don?

1985.
I started teaching him.

He, around that time,
started buying

and selling a lot of airplanes.

Every time I turned around,

he was showing me another
airplane he had just bought.

Rathmann: What kind of plan
did Don Lewis fly?

Mostly light aircraft...
This is similar to one of

the aircraft he might have
been flying in.

Single engine, back seat,
fairly cramped.

About how many miles can you
actually go on

a full tank of gas?

- 500 miles.
- But you most certainly couldn't

go all the way to Costa Rica.

Nonstop, no way.

So essentially, the theory of
him taking off from the pilot

country airport
where his Van was found

and flying that to Costa Rica
wouldn't be a likely

scenario without him
landing somewhere.

I highly doubt that scenario.

Narrator:
Even when Don did fly,

he had a little trouble
staying airborne.

Do you recall him having
a plane crash?

The biggest one I know
about was the one in cedar key.

He was having some problems
with the engine and apparently

tried to land at cedar key

and came up short and ended up
in shallow water

a few miles off of cedar key.

And was that the only crash
he ever had?

Yeah, I know of another one
up in the panhandle.

Got caught in some bad weather.

In making the approach
to the field,

he didn't see
some power lines that ran

across his approach path
and hit the power lines.

That second crash was
considerably more serious,

and he was very lucky
to have survived.

- Oh, wow.
- Yeah.

I've also heard
about the third crash.

From what I understand,
that was in the early '90s.

After that third crash,
he was done flying,

and he had no intention
to fly anymore.

Narrator: Don never did
get a pilot's license.

Multiple sources say
he gave up piloting and had

not personally flown
an aircraft for years before

he disappeared.

How did you hear of
Don disappearing?

- News report.
- What was your initial thought?

I didn't have knowledge
that... at that time,

that he had quit flying.

So my logical conclusion was
that he went to the airport,

took off, and possibly crashed.

What do you think
happened to Don?

I think there was foul
play, yeah. I do.

You think an airplane's
even involved at all?

I don't think an airplane
was involved.

I think it was a convenient
ruse to...

Like, to make like I did
and police did.

They automatically thought,
well, he took off and crashed.

Rathmann: August 20, 1997,

about 4:30 in the morning.

Don Lewis's Van is found at
the pilot country airport.

What can you tell me about that?

The gentleman that reported
the Van,

his name was Dewey gallops.

He was the person that ran
pilot country estates.

And then I recently learned
that Dewey and Don had some

sort of a falling out
about some airplanes

that were on consignment
at Dewey's airport,

and that some airplanes
or an airplane was sold at

a considerable loss,
and Don was upset about it.

And because of that, he pulled
what airplanes he had from

the airport and vowed to never
return to that airport again.

Based on other people
that knew Don,

they said absolutely no way
he would have set foot on

that airport.

Rathmann:
If Don Lewis had a falling out

with somebody at that airport,
a couple $100,000 were lost,

and that wasn't the airport
he typically went to,

then why was his Van there?

Seems to me like somebody's
just trying to set the stage to

distract from the real
investigation or where

they really need to be looking.

Right now, we are headed
to go see Mr. Joe Fritz.

Used to be one of
Don Lewis's attorneys.

He actually has claimed to have

heard what happened
to Don Lewis.

##

##

How do you know Don Lewis?

How long have you guys
known each other?

Before he went missing?

Probably 8, 10 years.

So clearly, you guys built
a friendship over that

ten years.
- Oh, hell yeah.

I have pictures of my son
and I out at his place

and my son
covered up in bobcats.

When was the last time you
recall seeing Don Lewis alive?

It would've been within 10 days
of his disappearance.

Did you know that he was
having issues with Carole?

The only thing I remember
was I was in that era

asked who would I recommend
as a divorce attorney?

So he asked you
for a recommendation?

No, he did not.
Anne McQueen did.

Anne McQueen did. Okay.

What do you think
happened to your friend Don?

I had heard that he got
strangled with

an electric cord from the back
seat of this airplane

with somebody else flying and
got dumped out over the Gulf.

Narrator: Don Lewis's lawyer
just dropped a bombshell.

He claims Don didn't fly off
into the sunset.

He heard that Don was
strangled with

an electric cord and dumped
into the Gulf of Mexico.

First of all, I heard it
from two different sources.

It kind of fits the scenario
because he was a pilot.

He'd owned planes.
Um, he'd had a license.

He lost his license.

His Van is at
country pilot estates.

It's an unmanned airport.

Nobody logs you in,
nobody logs you out.

It's not unusual for somebody
to take off in a plane.

So it all fits together.

He got lured up there to do
a great deal on an airplane.

He showed up.

Our sheriff chronister says
more than one person's involved.

Yes, he's right.

No question in my mind
that this was a murder.

The question is, is who did it
and who was behind it?

Rathmann: Is it even possible to
throw somebody out in flight?

If you had to open that door,

going against 120, 140 knots
and trying to force that door

open and push out a person that
you would say,

at least weighed 150,
160 pounds,

that would have been
very challenging.

Narrator: A lot of Don Lewis's
friends support the idea

that Don and Carole's marriage
was coming to an end.

So Jim digs in
with tricia Griffith,

who has recently unearthed
an odd letter that Carole wrote

to Don's ex-wife in 1990.

I am good... my eyes are kind of
rolling back in my head like

a slot machine because I've been

trying to grasp this letter
that Carole Baskin

wrote to Don Lewis's wife
in 1990.

Rathmann:
I just started reading it.

I got some into it, and i'm
trying to make sense of this.

I mean, who writes

an 11-page, single-spaced
letter to the wife of

the man that you've been
having an affair with

for years?
- So what I found interesting is

that on page four,
it says, "perhaps"

"I asked for too much,
but I had to get out of

"my marriage
and would have eventually

killed my husband to do it."

So she's literally talking
about her ex-husband,

Michael murdock,

in August 20th of 1990,
talking about she would kill him

to get out of
the marriage, tricia.

This is August 20th of 1990.

Just seven years later,
Don Lewis mysteriously goes...

Disappears, and she's talking
about she would have killed

her husband to get
out of the marriage.

You know, tricia, in one of
her video diaries,

she actually validates
this letter.

If I had been choking to death
and the only way out was to

grab a pair of scissors
and stab him in the eye,

that might have resulted in
his death... I was not implying

cold-blooded murder.

You've got to go back
and find somebody that

knew her to figure out
her frame of mind.

Rathmann: I agree with you,
and I'm definitely gonna see

what I can do about finding
someone back in

that time that would have
known her to really be able to

speak to her behavior,
her mannerisms,

her thought process.

Narrator: Carole may have been
itchin' to get

out of her abusive marriage
with Michael murdock.

So is her letter to Gladys
reflective of her mindset,

or was it a symbol of
her frustration?

Rathmann: I need to talk to
someone who knew Carole in

the 1990s to try to
understand what she was like

on an emotional level.

Todd schreier is the son
of Alan schreier.

Alan actually
dated Carole Lewis about

two years after Don Lewis
went missing.

Todd ended up moving in
with Carole Lewis

and his father, Alan.

So when you moved in, what was
that experience like for you?

I was
a sophomore in high school.

Like, my dad is pretty
laid back and easygoing,

and he's very emotional,
very loving.

Carole is not.
She's cold.

She's distant. She very much
blatantly doesn't like people.

Rathmann: This seems odd.

There's more love for
the animals than there are

for the human beings that are
surrounding in her life.

The rules were ridiculous.
What do you mean,

I'm not allowed on a side
of the whole house?

So you really weren't allowed
to go to certain sections of

the house...
You had to pretty much

stay in your living quarter
area and to stay there

the whole time?
- Yeah.

And you weren't
allowed to have friends over.

You weren't allowed to...
- No.

- So...
- Carole was very, very private.

She didn't want me there.

She was the reason
I had to move out.

I had to live with my grandma
the rest of high school.

When about is it
that you find out

that her husband became missing?

So I think my dad eased me
into it, and it was like, "hey",

"there's a rumor that Carole
fed Don to the tigers,

"and it's just... it's satire.

It's outrageous, but whatever
you do, don't ever bring it up."

You know,
I think Carole's a bitch.

I don't think Carole
killed her husband.

If you had to guess,
in your best guess,

what do you think would have
happened to him?

I think you should be spending
time in Costa Rica.

There was a lot of land,
and I think the end goal was

Costa Rica, and he had a lot of

affiliation in Costa Rica,
and so I think

there's answers in Costa Rica.

So your dad...
Is there any way at all

you could facilitate
this meeting?

Connect...
- I'll give him a call,

see if I can put
you guys together.

I really wanted to speak
with Alan schreier

because he can really give me
some insight.

Not to mention at some
point or another,

he's gonna have to ask her,
"what happened to your husband?"

- Come on in.
- Hey, Alan, how are you?

- Good, how are you?
- Good. Pleasure to meet you.

- Likewise.
- You met Carole in 1999, right?

- Alan: Correct.
- How did you guys meet?

I was on a lot of dating apps,
and match.Com.

She answered it.

So she called me up and she
says, "if you want to see"

"what I look like,

"you can buy this week's
edition of people magazine.

I'm the featured article."

So at first I thought
it was one of

my friends screwin' around
with me, 'cause we're

practical jokers.
- Right.

But I found
that it was the truth.

So we met, and we hit it off.

And what... you were in
the real estate world, right?

Yeah, I owned about
50 or 60 homes.

- Okay.
- I'd buy and fix them,

sell them or rent them.

Carole, she was
the smartest person I ever met.

You know, when you make money
and you... and you do things,

people try to take it from you.
- Mm-hmm.

A lot of people came at her with

some really frivolous lawsuits
and so forth.

She was 19 and 0 or 20 and 0 in
the court beating these people.

She wouldn't hire an attorney
and pay him.

She researched it, read it,
and did it herself.

I think she's ruthless
in her business.

If you get in her way,
she's gonna come after you.

About how long into
your relationship with her

did she talk about Don?

Shortly thereafter, you know,

everybody was asking,
everybody read that article...

I don't know if you ever
saw that article

in the people magazine...
Did she feed him to the tigers

and so forth and so on?

And you know, I asked her.

I came out and asked her,
and she says no.

She told me he was
a very unscrupulous person.

He did some things that were
across the gray line

and so forth.

She told me that at towards
the end of his life,

he would do dumpster diving,

wouldn't know where he is,
and she had to go pick him up

in a car.

And the other thing is
he... he always

used to carry five or $10,000
around with him.

That's asking for trouble.

So basically,
she was letting you know

that he mentally wasn't
all there.

Yeah.

Did she ever say what
she suspected had happened?

She suspected that, you know,
the people that he was hanging

around with, maybe he owed
somebody some money

and did something and...
And they, uh,

you know, took care of him.

Did she ever say that
she was still concerned

for him since he wasn't found?
- When I met her,

it was almost two years
since he disappeared,

and we were together,
like, two years

and three months,
something like that.

We split up before
the five years was up,

and that's when everything
hit the fan,

when I guess she went there

and declared him dead
and got... got everything.

Narrator: Five years
after Don goes missing,

Carole has Don
legally declared dead,

which gives her control over
the estate and all his assets.

Carole told me that
Don did not speak to

his ex-wife or his kids
for several years.

Couldn't stand 'em,
didn't care if he ever saw 'em

at all, and he wanted Carole
to change a will

or change something,
and so they weren't gonna

get anything.

And I guess Carole did,
then all of a sudden,

after he, uh, missing or passed
or whatever, uh,

Carole... they were really
bad-mouthing Carole to the paper

and anybody that
would ever listen.

And she's, listen, I was gonna
give you 10%, but if you're

gonna talk to me like that,

I'm not giving you anything.
- Right.

So is there anything else
you could...

You could share with me
about Carole?

She did not care for my son
or people.

A lot of people
she didn't care for.

-Your son, Todd, was about
-Todd.

How old about this time?
- I want to say about 15.

He moved in with US
'cause he had

a problem with his stepfather.

But I knew from the get-go,

Carole doesn't like people,
Carole likes cats.

Mm-hmm.

Alan: And when my son had to
move in, he had nowhere to go.

So he moved in with me...
She was not happy with that.

There was a strict set of rules.

Don't come on our side
of the house.

This is your room.
This is your bathroom.

- He did not like her at all.
- Okay.

She was cold and, you know,
it was awkward.

Never a conversation...
She'd be in the same room,

wouldn't say anything, made him
feel very uncomfortable.

Rathmann: Okay.

Narrator: Now Carole has
a daughter of her own

by her first husband,

and this mother-daughter
relationship

sounds complicated.

Carole's daughter,
her name is Jamie.

- Yes.
- And Jamie was about

how old at that time?
Jamie was a little older

than my son, probably about 18.

Did Carole spend a lot of
time with Jamie?

At work... it was...
To me, it's a strange

relationship, you know?

So where was she living at the
time when you first moved in?

On the sanctuary.
- She was...

There was
a house on the sanctuary,

and Carole had a house about
three miles from there.

Jamie's relationship with
her mother was very distant.

Rathmann: You know, the lack of
emotion, the lack of empathy,

the lack of that personal
connection with somebody,

find that to be very odd.

Did you ever have maybe any
indication as to maybe

your own internal alarm
going off that maybe

she could have been involved
with his disappearance?

Interesting question...
When I first was with her,

the answer was 99.9% I was
sure she didn't do it.

- Okay.
- Now, I'm 50-50.

And what made you kind of
change your stance

a little bit?
- The will.

I really believe in my heart

she forged the will and so
forth, some other things.

And what do you think
happened to Don?

Do you still think
that something...

Maybe one of his business
dealings when awry?

I do and I don't.

I do, okay,
'cause it makes sense.

But the person that did this

was very good cleaning up.

20 years, they can't find him,
they don't have a clue.

Very calculated.

There was one more thing she did

I found out... I used to have
a lot of properties.

And the lady said,
"did you sell some property

in Costa Rica?"
I said, "no.

I don't know anybody
in Costa Rica."

So she did a transaction

without your knowledge...
- Right.

Using your name?
- It didn't hurt me at all,

money-wise or anything
like that.

- She just used your name.
- Yeah.

Is there anyone we should
speak with that

comes to mind that would have
some information to share

perhaps on what happened to Don?

There was a guy, Kenny farr...
He used to be Don's gopher.

Rathmann: Mm-hmm.

And then after he was missing,
became Carole's gopher,

but I knew he came from
the wrong side of the tracks.

This is the second time

Don's handyman, Kenny farr, has
come up in this investigation.

Griffith: Carole said that
she saw Don that Sunday morning,

but he didn't go
to church with her.

She went to church
with Kenny, the handyman.

- Thank you again, Alan.
- All right, you take care.

- Have yourself a great day.
- All right.

Rathmann: Alan said Carole made
a transaction without

his knowledge, but I can't
find a record of it.

After talking to Alan,

it's clear I need to look at
Kenny farr more closely,

and tricia lets me know that
she dug up some more documents

that are very intriguing.

Carole and Kenny were close,
very close.

Shortly after Don went missing,

she sold him all of
this very valuable property,

money-generating property.

And he gets three properties
for a total of $9,080.

Narrator: But
these properties were worth

a whole lot more than that.

They have trailers on them
where he gets income.

Rathmann: Why would Carole
give up valuable properties

to Don's handyman
for under market value?

Narrator: Investigators are
always told, follow the money.

In this case, the trail
seems to lead to Kenny farr.

Rathmann: Kenny farr was
Don Lewis's handyman,

so he helped build cages,

fix and repair miscellaneous
items that would break

throughout the sanctuary...
September of 1997,

it was actually just a month
and a few days

after Don Lewis disappeared,

property transactions were
sold to the handyman,

Kenny farr, for way less
than what they're worth,

which is highly suspicious
because these properties

were money-generating
properties.

They had people living on

these properties
that were paying rent.

They had a trailer on there.

So not only was he sold
the property itself,

but he was also sold

the money-generating aspect
of it.

These were estimated to be
at about $50,000 apiece,

and he was sold three of those

only one month after
Don Lewis disappeared.

He was given about $150,000
worth of properties.

Why would Carole give up

valuable properties to

Don's handyman?

Rathmann: I couldn't help
but wonder if this

could be some sort of payoff.

I have been able to speak with
his now ex-wife, Trish,

on the phone.

Some of the information
she told me, I wasn't expecting.

Rathmann:
Seven days a week. Wow.

Trish stated that on that
particular day, he was home.

He got a phone call and a page
at approximately 1 P.M.

On August 17th of 1997.

Narrator: This is the very
same day that Don disappeared.

Rathmann: A person showed up
at the residence.

She's unsure of
exactly which person it is.

Kenny farr then left
with this person.

Rathmann: It was like
he was in a hurry.

He was in a panic
to get out of the house.

This is on Sunday, August 17th

of 1997, two days before
Don Lewis was officially

reported missing.

Rathmann: Like pistols
and rifles, or...?

Rathmann: Oh, wow.

Two days prior to him
being reported missing,

and now somebody else
already knows that

he's missing with all of
the firearms?

It's highly suspicious.

Rathmann: I can't believe
what I just heard from

the ex-wife of Don
and Carole Lewis's handyman.

It's mind-blowing.

Narrator: After Trish tries
to leave him,

she claims that Kenny farr
threatens that she'll end up in

a meat grinder,
just like Don Lewis.

Rathmann: It wouldn't be
a first thought for many people

unless you have some sort of
experience with it.

Narrator: Trish explains that
it's a piece of equipment found

at most zoos, and wildlife on
easy street was no exception.

Rathmann:
So they had a meat grinder.

Rathmann: So an industrial-sized
meat grinder.

Rathmann: It would be possible
to put a body into that then.

It would be...

Narrator: Joe exotic has
suggested that Carole

fed Don Lewis to the tigers, but
Trish has a different theory,

involving both the meat grinder
and a nearby lake.

##

Rathmann: Did the sheriff's
office ever search that area

that you know of?

So it's still been unsearched
23 years later.

Nobody's ever searched
that area.

Griffith: If somebody
has the ability

to not only murder somebody,

but to put them through
a meat grinder,

there is a special kind of
crazy, and I don't mean crazy

they don't know what
they're doing.

I mean crazy they have no soul.

They have no ability to feel
empathy or sorrow or guilt.

You would have to be lacking

in these frontal lobe
brain emotions

to be able to do something
like that, you would have to be

able to convince yourself that
this was the right thing to do,

and you are righteous in
doing it, and go out there

and put a smile on your face
and not think twice about it.

That is a cold,
cold human being.

Narrator:
It's a pretty outrageous theory,

but worth looking into.

Rathmann: Trish told me that
only a few weeks after

Don Lewis disappeared
that she found a receipt

in Kenny's pants pocket

where he auctioned off
an industrial-sized

meat grinder at the tampa
machinery auction.

It's really important to be able

to check the block off
on this one.

The owner of it is Dave Nelson.

I'm gonna sit down
and talk to him

and see if he has the records.

- Hey, how you doing?
- Hey, good, sir, how are you?

Thank you so much for

spending a few minutes
to talk to me.

No, my pleasure.
My pleasure.

So, uh, i'm an investigator.

I used to be
a homicide investigator.

I worked for the united
states secret service

for a little while, as well.
- Okay.

I've been looking into
the disappearance of Don Lewis.

Are you at all familiar
with Don Lewis?

Did he do a lot out of here?
- Oh, I knew, Don.

- Sure, I knew Don.
- You did? Okay.

Yeah, I did.

I started working here in 1982,

and Don was already
a customer at that time.

What kind of stuff was
he purchasing out here?

Oh, he traded in anything.

Anything he thought he could
make a dollar on, he'd trade.

- Yeah.
- Yeah, Don was...

Don was very street smart.

So you did get to meet him
and get to know him over...

Over the course of time.
- Oh, yeah, he was...

Don as a great guy.

He, um, he was strange,
but, you know.

- Strange as in...
- Eccentric.

- Yeah.
- You know, he loved animals.

I think he liked animals
more than he liked people.

Uh, but, you know,
he was always very quiet,

soft-spoken guy,

never had any problems with him.

You know, he, uh, always did
what he said he was gonna do.

That's one of those guys,
you know?

Yeah, one of the reasons why
I wanted to come in

and talk to you,

I ended up getting a statement
from an ex-wife of Kenny farr.

Just within a few weeks of
Don Lewis disappearing,

he auctioned off an industrial-
sized meat grinder.

Okay.

So that brings me here,
because I'm curious to know

if you guys have files.

We're looking back around
August or September of 1997.

No, I wouldn't have
any hard copies.

Um, what year was that again?

- Remind me?
- It would have been August

to September of 1997.

Let me take a look real quick,

but I don't believe
I go back that far.

Narrator: The company purges
records after seven years,

so he's unable
to retrieve the receipt.

I'm just not gonna have it.

What do you think happened
to... to Don?

You know, it's hard to say.

Um, but like I said,
Don was eccentric.

- Yeah.
- So I guess at first,

people thought, he, this...
He could

have just got in a plane
and left, you know?

- Yeah.
- But as time went on,

it just didn't...
- Didn't fit.

He didn't seem to be
that kind of guy, huh.

Didn't fit... no, not that would
just disappear forever.

Loved his animals too much?

His animals, his money,
you know,

he had properties and money
stashed all over the place.

It wasn't unusual for Don
to have a fistful of money in

his pocket,
but I really don't think

he on his own just disappeared.

I think probably something...

Somebody killed him.

- Some foul play.
- My gut tells me that.

That's my goal is to get
to the bottom of it.

Well, I hope you do, I mean,

that... something like that
deserves justice.

Narrator: Trish's theory is
that after Don was put

in the meat grinder,
he was dumped in a local lake.

And wouldn't you know it,
Don Lewis owned a lake house.

Rathmann: As I am going through
Don's property records,

I noticed a lake house that
was sold in 1998,

exactly one year after
Don Lewis went missing.

Could his body and the meat
grinder have been dumped there?

We're gonna check it out
and see.

Narrator: Jim follows up
on Trish's lead,

which takes him to a lake
in Brandon, Florida.

Rathmann: It would be very easy
to dump a body in this lake,

especially in 1997,
because this residential

community around here
did not exist.

So you really just had
Don Lewis's lake house

surrounded by woods.

So you really had nobody to be
able to see anything.

Very much an ideal spot.

Lots of alligators in that area,

and that's actually a very
easy thing to do,

if you kill somebody,
to carry the body

and toss it in a swamp.

Rathmann: Don Lewis's lake house
was a direct shot

to the southwestern
portion of the lake,

and when you are looking
for a body,

there is a high chance that it
could be in their own backyard.

Most people are gonna travel
the path of least resistance,

so the most likely scenario
for how somebody would have

disposed of Don's body
at that time

would be in the lake.

Narrator:
The lake in Brandon has

never been searched
by law enforcement.

The only way to find out
if Don's

remains are in the lake
is to search it.

Rathmann: There's a lot of
factors that get involved

when you're talking
about doing water searches.

I just think it's incredibly
important to reach

out to those that are
experts in their field.

Good mornin'.

Mike zinszer is a world-class
water-investigative expert.

He's been in the Navy.

He set up underwater
crime scenes

for Florida state university.

He's worked on important cases
like twa flight 800

that crashed off of long island.

He's worked on
the Natalee holloway case

and countless amount of others.

He is an expert in this field,

and so bringing in Mike to
this case to help US

search for possible remains
of Don Lewis is real important.

We also have
captain Mike hadsell of

peace river k9
search and rescue.

He's an expert in the use

of highly trained cadaver dogs
and sonar.

Narrator: This dog can sniff out
both machinery and a body.

Rathmann: Game on.

Narrator:
Next time on "Joe exotic:

Tigers, lies
and cover-up."

Man: We wanna make sure
that we do everything we can

to leave no stone unturned.

Narrator: The high-stakes search
for Don Lewis's body...

The dog starts alerting.

Like, you're thinking
in this area?

Leads to a confrontation
with a key player.

We are going to try
to make contact

with Kenny farr.

How you doin', bud?

Narrator: New information
changes the trajectory

of the search.

All: Justice for Don!
- Narrator: And with team tiger

behind him,
could Joe exotic be looking

at a presidential pardon?

Joe exotic: I'm finally glad
that, you know, Don's family is

finally maybe gonna
get some answers out of this.

Because I have not
yet rented a backhoe,

drove it to easy street,
and dug up

the [bleep] septic tank, okay?