Animal activist Carole Baskin has claimed that her missing ex-husband, Don Lewis, whose 1997 disappearance is chronicled in Netflix’s series Tiger King, is not missing or dead, but alive and doing well in Costa Rica. She made this claim in a recently resurfaced 2021 interview.
The theory that Don Lewis was not actually dead or missing first floated in 2021’s sequel to Tiger King. Producers showed documents, allegedly obtained from the Department of Homeland Security, that seems to reveal his whereabouts in Costa Rica. However, no one knows if the documents are legitimate. Baskin took to the British ITV show This Morning in 2021 to state that her ex is not missing.
Carole Baskin Claims ‘Dead’ Ex-husband Don Lewis Is “Alive and Well In Costa Rica”
She said that she believed Homeland Security had been in contact with her supposedly missing ex: “They said my husband, Don Lewis, is alive and well in Costa Rica. And yet all of this drama has been made about me having something to do with his disappearance, when Homeland Security has known where he is.”
She also told PEOPLE, that “I’ve mentioned it in the more than 60 interviews I’ve done since then, where reporters asked about Don, so I’m surprised everyone in the press is acting like they aren’t aware of it. I was not aware of the Homeland Security document saying Don was alive and well in Costa Rica until TK2 aired In Nov 2021.”
Baskin also said in her interview with This Morning in 2021, that, “When [Tiger King 2 producers] presented a letter that looks to be from Homeland Security saying that Don was alive and well five years after I saw him the last time … I reached out to the FBI and said I want a copy of that letter.” “I want to know what that says because part of it was redacted, and I don’t know who the people involved were,” she continued.
However, there still an open missing-persons case for the ex, and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office told TMZ as well as the New York Post that the office still considers Lewis a missing person. “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 department, 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.”
