Silke Jasso
It looks like Carol Baskin, Tiger King star, has some explaining to do. Baskin claimed that her ex-husband, Don Lewis, who had long assumed to be dead, is actually alive. In a clip from a 2021 interview, Baskin claims that Lewis is alive and living in Costa Rica. Baskin alleges that a letter from the Department of Homeland Security was produced and an agent spoke with the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office in 2002. They claim they knew where Lewis was.
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“They said my husband, Don Lewis, is alive and well in Costa Rica. And yet all of this hay has been made about me having something to do with his disappearance, when Homeland Security has known where he is at least since back then,” Baskin told the British ITV show This Morning at the time.
But, in a statement with the New York Post, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, which has been investigating the missing person’s case, stated he is still listed as a “missing endangered adult” who on August 18, 1997, “left his family’s residence and has not been seen or heard from since.”
It continued, “We have not received any communication from our federal partners that confirms the location of missing person Mr. Don Lewis,” Fentress Fountain, public information officer for the sheriff’s office, told The Post. “The investigation into Don Lewis’ disappearance remains a priority for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, as do all missing person cases.”
Carole Baskin’s Ex Don Lewis Allegedly Found Alive
Lewis was then declared legally dead in 2002, if fond today he would be in his 80s.
Season 1 of the Netflix series Tiger King touched on Baskin’s arch nemesis, Joe Exotic, who claimed that she killed her ex-husband. The second season of the series went on to detail several events that led up to Lewis’s disappearance. Following the second installment, Baskin then filed a lawsuit against Netflix and Royal Goode Productions, LLC, for using said footage of her in the second season.
In 2021, the sanctuary owner spoke to ET online about her decision to not participate in the second season. “They had been going around to people who were in Tiger King, asking them to sign new release forms, so as soon as they contacted me, they said, ‘Hey, we just wanna clear the air,’ and I said, ‘Lose my number,’ and that was the end of it,” she told the outlet.
But, she went on to say that she was still tuning into the doc series.
“I’ll have to,” she said, “because no matter what ends up being in it, you know they’re gonna trash talk me again, and so I have to be prepared to do what I did last time and say, ‘No, here’s all of the evidence that proves these lies are lies.’ And so I’ll have to be able to do that.”
He hasn’t been found alive–this was debunked a YEAR ago. A credible journalist would have done some due diligence before regurgitating this year-long blatant lie.