Original subtitles

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?