Animal rights activist Carole Baskin is one of the stars of Netflix’s “Tiger King” docuseries that took the world by storm at the start of the pandemic in 2020. What seemed to be a series about animal conservation quickly broke down into a world full of backstabbing and murder for hire plots.
The first season ended in the arrest of Joe Exotic, who is currently still behind bars despite his frequent requests for a pardon for former President Donald Trump and Cardi B.
Although the fifth episode of the long-awaited sequel, “Tiger King 2,” seems to hint that Exotic was set up by rival Jeff Lowe, most of the sequel consisted of the search to find Baskin’s lost husband, Don Lewis.
Although Exotic claims that Baskin murdered Lewis and fed him to her tigers, there has never been any solid proof that has led authorities to connect her to his disappearance. Now, over a year after the first “Tiger King” emerged, Baskin has revealed that Homeland Security told her that they’ve found Lewis “alive and well” in Costa Rica.
Carole Baskin ‘Glad To Hear’ That Ex-Husband Don Lewis Is ‘Alive And Well’
The couple was married in 1991. Their relationship quickly dissolved, something that was heavily documented in Baskin’s online video journals that are peppered throughout the sequel. Despite announcing that he fully intended to go through with a divorce, Lewis suddenly went missing only six years after they were married.
In an interview on ITV’s “This Morning,” Baskin explained that Netflix told her that “we just want your answer on [Lewis’ disappearance] so that we can lay that matter to rest,” however “that’s not what they did; they turned it into this huge mystery.”
She revealed that “one of the really exciting things that came out of ‘Tiger King 2’ is that they produced a letter from Homeland Security, and it says that a special agent in charge with the FBI at Homeland Security reached out to the sheriff’s detective George Fernandez, which means this had to have happened after 2002, because Homeland Security wasn’t even around until 2002.”
She explained, “They said that 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.”
When asked if he could survive in Costa Rica by himself, Baskin replied that he “didn’t think that he was capable of supporting himself.” She admitted that she had “agreed” to let him take “about $1 million dollars down into Costa Rica… so he could prove to himself that he could make a living.”
She said that some investments that he made went bad, and that they were only able to recover $80,000 out of the initial investment a few years later.
“So I don’t know how it is that Homeland Security says he’s alive and well in Costa Rica, but I’m glad to hear it,” she concluded.
Carole Baskin Keeps Switching Up Her Story
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Some fans thought that it was “interesting” that Baskin seems relieved that her husband is alive and well, when, only a week before, she seemed sure that he had crashed his plane in the Gulf.
In a Reddit AMA, Baskin answered the most upvoted question: “What do you think happened to your missing husband?”
She replied: “I believe Don crashed a small experimental plane or ultralight into the Gulf for a number of reasons. He wasn’t licensed to fly, yet did all the time. He couldn’t file a flight plan and had to take off from closed airports to evade detection. He had to fly under 200 feet to stay off the radar which means he would typically fly out over the Gulf because the air is smoother there, whereas over land there are up and down drafts that will crash you at the height.”
She added, “Since phone records indicated he was planning to go to Texas, and his van was found at a small private airstrip and we have never found Don or wreckage, I think this was the most likely scenario.”
Others quickly called “bollocks” on this explanation, explaining that “you don’t need a pilot’s license to fly an ultralight aircraft, you don’t need to file a flight plan, you don’t need to evade detection, and you don’t need to fly under 200 feet.”
So is Don Lewis still alive and well in Costa Rica somewhere? The second season is over and fans seem to be left with more questions than ever before.
