Tiger King (2020) s01e03 Episode Script

[Antle] What a story.
It's so wild, it must not be true.
That's the first thing people think:
"Oh, come on, that can't be true.
It's 20 years ago. Cold case,
20-year-old murders don't get solved."
Well, it all starts, you know
Carole Baskin,
who was Carole Lewis at the time,
was married to Don Lewis.
[lions murmuring]
I did see Don Lewis
about maybe a month or so
before he disappeared.
And he did mention to me
that he felt his life was in danger.
[man] There are so many strange twists
in that story,
you would have to write books
and volumes of the stuff that went wrong
there, the lies that are there.
All the circumstantial evidence,
somebody did something to Don.
There's a lot of stories
about Carole having some finger in it
but nobody can prove it.
[Carole] I really believe
that everything happens for a reason.
Everything is unfolding
the way that it has to
for us to become
our highest possible self.
I don't regret any
of what I have lived through.
I wouldn't be standing here today
doing what I'm doing
if it hadn't been
for all of those things
that have happened
over the course of my life.
[visitors chatting indistinctly]
[woman] The last day that I saw Don,
he told me that he was done,
that he was divorcing her,
that she was one of the worst people
he had ever met in his life,
and she was very dangerous.
He did come to Mom
and say for us to stay away from her.
He was afraid of her.
We didn't know exactly why.
He indicated to me
that he was going to tell Carole
that he wanted a divorce.
Never saw him again.
[officer] I was the supervisor
in charge of the homicide section
with the Hillsborough County
Sheriff's Office in Tampa, Florida,
which also works adult missing persons.
In the case of Don Lewis, the call came in
as a typical missing adult.
Initially on
a missing person investigation,
you just think,
"Well, things are gonna work out.
Maybe this guy just went somewhere
and didn't touch base."
However, I would say
within the first week or two
that detectives were starting
to look at the possibility
that we had foul play or something
that was unexplainable
at that point in time.
It pays to have buckets with straw in it,
so they can't get out.
We've got four kitties we're gonna feed.
[Carole] I met Don in January of 1981,
so I was 20 when I met him.
- Um
- And he was how old?
He was 22 years my senior.
- Okay.
- So he was 42.
Yeah, she's just jealous.
You have to understand
that Don Lewis was married with kids,
but apparently, he was coming down,
I think it was Nebraska
and late one night he seen this young girl
walking down the street crying,
and Don Lewis stopped to see
if he could help her.
[Carole] I had been in a fight
with my first husband.
I actually had to throw a potato
across the kitchen
and into the dining room at him
in order to get out the door.
I deal with stress
I think the same way cats do.
I just pace and pace and pace and pace.
And I remember Don pulls around,
and he asks me if I would get in the car,
and I told him no.
Pulls around again,
and I think it was on the third time
he pulled around, and he had a gun
sitting on the front seat of his car.
And he said,
"You can hold this gun on me,
I just need somebody to talk to."
So I picked up the gun, held it on him,
and we drove around town and he talked.
And I ended up
spending the night with him.
[Yates] Don Lewis deserted, basically,
his wife and kids
because he was in love
with the younger blonde woman
known as Carole.
[Lewis Cross]
He told me that he had met her.
I was speechless. I adored him.
I told him that I'd love him
till the day I died,
but it was over.
He used to call her angel,
and I said, "Well,
she's an angel sent straight from hell,
and one day, you'll find out."
[woman] At first it seemed like
they were really gonna make it.
I liked Carole.
I mean
I really, really did like Carole,
but
[sighs] Don was not an easy man.
Don was a millionaire,
he was a multi-millionaire, okay?
And he didn't like her spending his money.
She was very ambitious.
She wanted to go somewhere
and be somebody,
and she didn't want to stay
walking down the street
in the middle of the night.
I've got her diary.
I've got it all.
Good evening, world!
Welcome to saga six of the Carole story.
Okay, well, tonight
we just happened to have gotten
in the mail today
Carole's diary.
"He said he wanted to be loved
for the man he was inside,
and if women knew how rich he was,
he would never know if they loved him
for him or his money."
[McQueen] Don started out with nothing.
You could not have looked at Don
and even had an inkling
that he had amassed the wealth
that he had.
[man] You never saw Don dressed up.
He had his blue jeans and his t-shirt
but he carried a 500-dollar-bill around
in his pocket
just because he could.
We said he had a green thumb,
a green thumb for money,
because anything he touched,
practically
he made money on.
I worked for Don Lewis for ten, 15 years,
but knew him much longer than that.
And you'd have to know Don
to know his properties.
He liked to hide his stuff.
Like, he would hide money, bury money.
You know, hide gold bars,
bury the gold bars.
Don Lewis didn't want people knowing
what he had
and what he was worth,
but I'm gonna say
Don Lewis was probably worth, um
20 million? Maybe a little more.
I think it was closer to
seven to seven and a half million dollars,
is what he was worth.
I don't think anybody knew,
but I know at least five million,
if not ten million.
I knew him as his lawyer,
I knew what he was doing,
I knew a lot of what he was doing.
[Lewis Cross]
Don had money when he met Carole.
Carole pretty much had nothing.
He had something she didn't.
Were you having fun? Were you having fun?
[tiger yowls]
[Carole] Growing up,
my parents were very plain folk.
We usually lived in mobile homes.
I never really got how poor we were
until I was a teenager.
I had been raped at knifepoint
by three men
that lived across the street from me
when I was 14.
In my family,
they were fundamental Christians
that believed if a woman was involved
in something like that,
she must have been asking for it
in some way.
Well, I left home at the age of 15.
I got married to Michael when I was 17.
He was Jamie's father,
and he was extremely abusive
but the idea of leaving
and having to raise a child on my own
was terrifying.
I was 20 when I met Don,
and 24 before I left my husband.
Don had a fascination with animals,
so we were a great team.
[woman] He was
more of an animal collector, I think.
He definitely liked the idea
of having a lot of different kinds
of animals.
[snarls]
See?
He gets along with the rest of the cats
real good out here,
though he just don't like people.
[auctioneer speaking indistinctly]
They started out
by going to the exotic animal auctions.
We started in 1992
with the purchase of a bobcat
who was going to be killed by taxidermists
at an auction.
The following year, we bought 56 bobcats
and lynx from a fur farm.
The next year, 28 bobcats and lynx.
The following year,
22 more bobcats and lynx.
And by the time we did that,
there were no more fur farms in the US
that were killing bobcats and lynx.
[reporter]
It's called Wildlife on Easy Street.
Guests tour the sanctuary,
take tons of pictures,
and even help feed the cats.
[McCarthy]
When they started Wildlife on Easy Street,
they bought, sold,
bred big cats for years.
Now, I would like to remind you, Carole,
that you are the one who spent
94,000 dollars
to buy animals
to fill your so-called sanctuary.
You still have them there
at your facility,
you're still tagging them as rescues,
and you're still 'frauding the public.
[man] I believe
that I sold Don and Carole Lewis
their very first tiger in 1995.
They flew their private plane
up to Shelbyville,
and that's how I met them,
and they seemed to be good people.
Sold 'em Scrappy, was his name.
He was an excellent little tiger.
This is the VHS that she made
back in the day.
The last time I probably seen it was 1996.
You'll get a kick out of it, I'm sure.
[Carole]
Our names are Don and Carole Lewis.
We have really enjoyed our exotics.
Throughout this tape, we'll show you
how we take them from the mother,
acclimate them
to social life with people
She had called me up
and asked about raising baby animals,
said she was gonna do a "how to" video.
[Carole] They have to be taken this young
from the mother
in order to make
good quality pets from them.
A lot of people don't believe
that it's right
to raise up exotic animals as house pets.
[Joe] You know, back in the early '90s,
she bred and sold cats.
And [chuckles] it's so funny,
because the very people
that are against breeding
used to do the same thing.
[Carole]
I think you'll see throughout this tape
that they are very happy
and they're so much fun!
Okay, now we're gonna jump around
because I'm sure
you don't want to hear about
all the cats they bought,
all the kittens they bred,
and how many died
because they didn't have any clue
what they were doing.
I think that Carole did start feeling bad
about selling the animals
and maybe breeding them
and crossbreeding them.
Carole wanted the animals
just to collect and love
and he looked at it more as a business.
Don and I had differing feelings
about conservation and breeding.
He loved cubs, he loved breeding cats.
He would go down to Costa Rica
once a month,
and every time he was in Costa Rica,
I'd have the vet out here
and I would neuter and spay as many cats
as fast as I could.
The attraction for Don in Costa Rica
was the lack of regulations, you know.
If they could have the cats down there,
he would've been free to breed them.
[Carole humming, singing]
[man] Was that consistent
in what Carole wanted to do?
Apparently, not.
They were arguing about it.
She didn't want to take the cats
and go there.
[Lewis Cross] That is when we learned
that they weren't getting along real good.
He also had a girlfriend in Costa Rica
so I think one of their main problems was
she couldn't be the only one in his life.
[Sanchez] I think she thinks
she would be the one to change him.
[Lewis Cross]
She thought she was pretty enough,
young enough,
that she would be all he needed
and that was never going to happen.
[man] Did he have other women?
I suspected it.
I never saw it in person,
but I've heard enough to book
to say that's probably true.
[Lively] He liked ladies, I'm sure.
I would see him with two
or three different ones, you know?
[chuckles]
[Lewis Cross] Don was 17 and I was 14
when we got married.
My mom had to sign the papers
and so did his mother,
because he was too young.
Life was good.
The only thing that went wrong was
when someone would call me and say,
"I've seen Don with so and so."
[Sanchez] That was a problem with him,
because he did have a roaming eye.
There's names, you know: sexaholic.
If my dad had anything,
that would have been it.
"What is my sick need
that I'm trying to fill
with this venomous man?
I've asked forever,
but I still don't know.
He's all I've ever known,
and he's the only man I've ever loved.
I hope Jamie never finds herself
in such a sick
and perverted relationship."
[McQueen] At the end,
I know there was talk of divorce.
I think he was preparing his estate
and assets in a way
that he could get a divorce
without losing everything,
and I think he thought she was there
solely for the purpose
of getting his money.
And that was
what he was trying to protect.
[Farr] If Don Lewis had have gotten
a divorce with Carole
the way Don would have worked,
she would have been left
with really nothing.
She would have lost the cats,
she would have lost everything
down to the house and a car.
Would have been a devastating blow.
Oh, yes, he's a good boy.
Yes, he's a good boy.
[Joe] "I listened while he told me
that all of his money is his,
and everything he earned by himself
and brought into this marriage by himself.
I wish there was some way out for me."
I'd say she found a way out, wouldn't you?
- [indistinct chatter]
- [panther yowling]
[McQueen]
Don started looking a little bit funny,
and then one day he came in
and he brought me a piece of paper.
It was in an envelope, and he said,
"Here, you need to take this home,
you need to keep it.
If anything happens to me,
give it to the police."
He'd given me a copy
of the restraining order
that he had filed for.
[Rathbone] "This is the second time
Carole has gotten angry enough
to threaten to kill me."
"Carole and I got into a big fuss,
and she ordered me out of the house
or she would kill me.
She has a .45 revolver
and she took my .357 and hid it."
Daddy never really involved "the law"
in anything.
Um, it was just something
that he resisted.
For him to go down there
and write that out
and present it before a judge
- was major, in my eyes.
- [Lewis Cross] So wise.
That is not something he would do
unless he was at his wits' end
with how to protect himself
but he was denied protection.
It doesn't show stalking,
it doesn't show battery,
it doesn't show anything.
It shows a verbal argument,
and that's not enough
to get an injunction.
[man] And so that's why you think
it was denied?
That's why I know it was denied.
- But obviously
- That was dead on arrival.
What raises my eyebrows
is "she threatened to kill me."
- That's not enough to get a
- Nope.
- a restraining order?
- There's free speech.
We don't restrain free speech
in this country,
we punish it after it's done.
I'm sure in the judge's eyes
it was hearsay,
but that happened in June,
and he disappeared in August.
[reporter] A local millionaire vanishes
without a trace,
but did he simply walk away?
Or did something more ominous
happen to him?
I never threatened him.
[reporter 2] His wife, Carole Lewis,
says he was planning to transport cars
to Costa Rica.
He said to be sure
and get the Costa Rica truck ready
'cause he was leaving early, early,
early in the morning for Miami
and that was the last thing
that he said to me.
The last thing he said to me was
that he needed me
to have Kenny get a truck ready
because he was going early, early, early,
he said, the next day to Costa Rica
and that was the last I saw of him,
so I just don't know.
[Farr] We was building this cage,
and Don started to tell me something.
He said, "Kenny, if I can pull this off,
it will be the slickest thing
I ever did in my life."
And I know
that there was more to follow
like he didn't finish
what he was saying
and he left with a phone call,
and he left out.
I never got to see him again after that.
That was the last thing
that Don Lewis ever said to me
was, "If I can pull this off,
it will be the slickest thing
I ever did in my life."
[McQueen] He was shipping some cars
down to Costa Rica.
Everything had to be down in Miami
Monday morning
and I had to get all the titles
to the cars and stuff ready,
but I needed him to tell me something.
I kept waiting for him to call me.
He didn't call me.
I started calling him.
Didn't answer the phone.
He didn't answer the phone.
This continued all through Saturday,
all through Sunday.
I got no answer.
[phone ringing]
[McQueen] I finally got ahold of Carole.
She says, "Do you think
I should call the police?"
And I said, "Do you think?"
[Marsicano] Jack Don Lewis was last seen
on August the 18th.
He was reported missing on the 19th
by his wife
at about 1:30 in the afternoon.
The detectives walked the property
and drove the proper
Now, you're talking about 40 acres.
Apparently there was nothing there
that suggested
that they should pursue that area
any further.
There were aerial searches done
but found nothing.
Then, after three or four days,
we found his van abandoned at an airport.
With the keys still in it,
his briefcase in it, but no Don Lewis.
[Farr] And it didn't make sense.
Like, with what he said to me,
if he was truly wanting to disappear
and nobody know where he was at,
would you leave your van
where you got in a plane to take off?
You wouldn't want nobody to know
you was in the plane,
- because that's now a clue.
- [man] You think it was planted?
I think someone else drove the van there.
I don't know if it was planted there.
[Farr] I think the police did
a horrible job
at the investigation side of it.
The cops never looked at the van
when it was at the airport
and they let them bring that van
back to Easy Street.
And it was there for a couple of days
before the cops came to look at the van.
To even look in the van.
A couple of days that van sat there.
[Lively] They came and spoke with me
because they found my fingerprints
inside of his van.
Four days before he disappeared,
he dropped his van off
for me to do some work to it,
but he tried to talk me into
going to Costa Rica.
He said, "Come on
and go to Costa Rica with me."
[man] Why did he want to go
to Costa Rica so badly?
He liked it down there.
The long-term plan,
according to the investigation,
was that he would eventually move
the Big Cat Rescue,
or Wildlife on Easy Street
as it was known then,
down to the Costa Rica area.
We actually sent myself
and another detective
and did multiple interviews
down in Costa Rica.
We spent about four or five days
in the area
to try and determine
if there was any link there at all.
[man] And how would he get to Costa Rica?
He flew commercial out of Miami.
But Don did fly a lot of airplanes.
He owned
I don't know how many airplanes he owned.
But all of his planes were small
and you could not fly those things
that far.
It's impossible with the size
and types of planes that Don had,
that I know of, that he could nonstop
go from here to Costa Rica.
You'd have to make four fuel stops.
It's just not in the cards.
[Mariscano] I don't believe
that Jack Don Lewis flew to Costa Rica.
There's nothing at all to indicate
that Don left his van there
and got in a plane
and crashed it somewhere.
There was no record of any take-off
of an airplane,
there was no flight filed. Nothing.
Don lost his pilot's license
the day after he got it,
so he never flew legitimately again.
Every flight he ever did after that,
and there were a lot of them,
he was flying illegally,
so, no, he wasn't reporting.
He would go down over the Gulf of Mexico,
down underneath the level
where radar picks you up.
[Fritz] My understanding was
is he went to
evaluate some new plane that was for sale.
I was told
that he was pushed out of the plane
out of the door 50 feet over the Gulf,
way out.
[Carole] If he had any kind of an accident
out over the Gulf,
we never would have found anything.
He had had several plane crashes
and had really damaged himself
in one of them,
and I don't think
he was ever completely right
after that last crash.
I was seeing behavior in him
that just didn't make any sense.
Like, he could remember things
from way back when he was a kid,
but he couldn't remember where he was
for the last five minutes.
And one of our volunteers came to me
and said
that that looked like Alzheimer's to him.
Maybe he doesn't know who he is.
Maybe he doesn't know where to call home.
That's all bull.
I don't believe a word about dementia
or forgetfulness or any of that crap.
No, no, no.
He knew exactly what was going on.
Who, what, where, when, how, why,
he knew all of that.
That's not a problem.
[reporter]
Carole says he was an unusual man.
Eccentric is a good word to use.
[Williams] Carole's smart.
She's setting the stage for
"He just up and disappeared,
and we don't know what the hell happened."
She spent, I'm sure,
a lot of time setting the stage
for the dementia and the forgetfulness.
[reporter] According to diary entries
allegedly written by Carole,
she was feeling boxed in
by Don's notorious cheating.
[Williams] "It's no use to leave him."
"I wish there was some way out for me."
[reporter] Police combed the area.
But after a year and a half
of investigating numerous theories,
police still have no suspects.
[Fritz] Somebody, sometime,
someplace, somewhere, somehow,
wanted to be rid of Don Lewis.
And apparently, they got their way.
My understanding was that he was killed.
[man] By?
Won't go there.
[growling]
[man] I need my clapper!
I need my clapper, Mark,
what are you doing?
[cameraman] Go in front of the camera
and say, "Take two!"
[man] Take two.
Everything was fine
Just as sweet as wine ♪
But her husband went and disappeared ♪
But then it got a little crazy
It got a little hazy ♪
And the cops said
There's something wrong here ♪
Oh, here, kitty kitty ♪
The best thing he's done,
it's worth just bringing up:
the music video, "Here Kitty Kitty,"
about Carole killing her husband.
And a look-alike Carole
walking along with him
while he's singing,
feeding body parts to her cats.
He's got extreme shit.
You haven't seen "Here Kitty Kitty,"
you don't know what you're missing.
[Kirkham] Joe had everyone convinced
she'd murdered her husband,
and we were all going with it.
And me, as a reality show producer?
Oh, I was "Fuck yeah, man,
roll the cameras," you know?
So the whole world's wondering,
did you actually grind your husband up
and feed him to the tigers
so there's no evidence?
I'm gonna show you some stuff
that will put that right in your head.
But you can't prosecute
There's just no use ♪
There's nothing left but tiger tracks ♪
People want to believe something
that's just totally outlandish,
and so it has been a problem.
[snarls]
[Joe]
These tigers have such an acidic stomach
that when you feed them a whole turkey,
there's no bones that come out, okay?
It's gone.
[lions murmuring]
[man] Is there any chance
Don had been killed by one of his cats?
- No.
- Why?
Didn't happen.
There'd be a body, there'd be blood,
there'd be this, there'd be that.
No. There wasn't a cat out there
that could eat 100 pounds of flesh.
There'd be a skeleton. There'd be bones.
There'd be something.
His own kids demanded
that they DNA test the meat grinder.
Sheriff's office wouldn't do it.
We had a meat grinder.
If you've ever seen
a Butcher Boy meat grinder,
it's about that big around.
That became, like,
this wholly exciting thing,
that I ran him through that grinder,
and it's like,
I couldn't have run his hand
through the grinder, much less a body.
I mean, there's another theory
that one of the buildings they built,
there's a septic tank underneath it
that he was put in that.
[Joe] If we could ever get the law
to go in there
and dig up that septic tank,
I promise you
he's underneath that damn thing.
[Joe]
Hey, Carole, it's a voice from your past.
Get me the fuck out
from under the septic tank.
It was in the ground, it was operational,
Judy had moved into the property
before Don ever disappeared,
so how would I have then
put him in the septic tank?
I believe
that there's a lot of people out there
that are speculating
and don't have anything to back it up.
One day, somebody's gonna stub their toe.
There is a god
her name is karma,
and she has a sick sense of humor.
[Mariscano]
Yeah, we heard all the stories.
We've done everything we could do
in terms of trying to put those to rest,
but sometimes legally, there
You can't pursue exactly
what you'd like to do.
You have to stay within the bounds
of the law.
Anybody could be a suspect.
Now, having said that,
clearly the most information
that we're gonna get
are the people that were closest to Don,
so that's where we've looked.
[Fritz] Anne McQueen was probably
the closest person alive to Don Lewis.
She watched out for his best interests,
he watched her back.
Don trusted Anne with every penny he had.
He would've been lost without her.
I cooperated in every form and fashion
that they wanted me to cooperate.
[man] Who were the other suspects?
I think it was me and Carole.
[Mariscano] In any investigation
like this, you go to
the husband or the wife
or whatever close family member
that is still surviving
or still around that you can interview.
[Williams] Carole's brother was a member
of the sheriff's department,
and I think he maintained
some sort of, well, you know
"That's my sister,
I want you to tread lightly."
And I don't know that happened, but
I'm sure he wouldn't just stand there
and do nothing.
Her brother worked
for the sheriff's department,
but I don't think I don't think
that there was collusion there.
[Carole]
I never really knew my brother, because
Fosh, by the time I was 15,
he would have been, what, nine.
So we never had much of a relationship.
It's funny,
he grew up to be a sheriff's deputy,
which was the last thing I ever thought
my brother would grow up to be,
because he was so shy.
[Mariscano]
The day that Don went missing
the investigation indicated
Carole had left Wildlife on Easy Street
to drive to a nearby store
named Albertsons
to pick up some milk byproducts
for the cats.
At three o'clock in the morning.
Her car broke down,
and Carole ran into her brother,
who was accompanied by another deputy.
The second deputy gave her a ride
back to her home.
After that,
Carole indicated the last time
that she saw her husband
was just several hours later,
and he was never seen again.
And I don't know, but I would have hoped
that the detectives would have
pursued that and made sure that
there was nothing
out of the ordinary about that.
Maybe if you have a sheriff
that's in there that's saying,
you know, this guy is kinda crazy
and, you know, dementia,
and he does this all the time,
he's probably in
Maybe the sheriff's department would drag
their feet at that point and be like,
"Well, let's just wait and see
where it goes."
In her family,
there just wasn't a lot of love for Don.
I know her father, Carole's father,
Vernon, could not stand him.
Absolutely could not stand Don.
[Farr] So, Carole's dad, Vernon,
come and built cages with me.
He definitely had his daughter's back.
I just felt like Carole did something,
and they needed to protect her
and get the money. Let's get the money.
[Farr] After Don disappeared, Carole
and Vernon, her dad, had asked me
"Kenny, we need to get something
from the office."
And I'd like to say,
I had did this kind of stuff
for Don Lewis for years.
When he needed something done,
I would go do it for him.
I got a phone call stating
that the office alarm had gone off,
and Carole was there.
Her and Kenny Farr had cut the locks
on the gate,
cut the locks on the office.
Cut the power to the trailer,
cut the water, cut the sewer.
The cops came because the alarm went off.
Anne McQueen come up
because that was her office,
know what I mean?
She's been here for years.
There were two wills,
and there were two power of attorney
in my office in a box underneath my desk.
But whatever paperwork
or whatever they needed,
there was nothing
that the cops could do
to stop the wife taking anything.
[McQueen] The will
and the power of attorney,
they were all taken out of the office
that day.
I was executor for both of their wills.
I was the power of attorney
for both of them.
[man] Who was the power of attorney
on the new documents Carole produced?
Not me.
That new power of attorney
gave her control over the estate.
[Joe] But she prepared
his power of attorney.
A normal person would put
"Upon my death," you know.
First sentence, "Upon my disappearance."
[man] Isn't it suspicious that the power
of attorney says, "Upon my disappearance"?
Is that normal verbiage?
I have, in 37 years,
never seen it say, "Or disappearance."
Never have.
Um, in that respect,
this is terribly unusual.
I don't know who anticipates
Everybody anticipates their death,
but who in the world
anticipates disappearance?
[man] And how did Carole behave
in the aftermath of his disappearance?
[Farr] After Don disappeared,
Carole and her family got rid of
everybody that worked for Don.
They got rid of everything
that he owned.
[Rathbone] There was a note pinned
to the refrigerator door that said,
"Never speak that man's name again
in this house."
Do you remember that,
Donna telling us that?
- I forgot.
- I remember that very well.
[man] But then what about
all of Don's assets?
Not the insurance policy. Was there
I had nothing to do with that.
[man] All his real estate,
all of his holdings?
All went under his will, didn't it?
The will wouldn't have come into play
because if you disappear,
you can't do anything for five years.
So Carole had him declared legally dead
five years and one day
after he disappeared.
[man] Here's the latest on the case.
A judge has just declared Lewis dead
since he's been missing five years,
but Hillsborough County
Sheriff's deputies say
they will keep the case open
until they have proof.
A lot of things happened
during those five years.
A lot of things were moved around.
She took out a lot of good things
for herself
and put in bad things in their accounts.
We ended up with all the yucky stuff.
[Lewis Cross] She was taking property
out of Don's name and our names
and putting it in her name.
[Carole] I was the other woman for years.
After the kids came back
and they said that the mother didn't get
a fair settlement
and they tried to take him back to court,
get more money out of him,
that's when he disowned them.
And so he said to nullify their trust,
but I didn't because I felt like
those are his kids.
And someday
he's going to feel differently,
so I left it in place.
[man] So what's the theory
that makes the most sense?
Well, there's no proof.
I feel the one that would benefit the most
from something happening to my father
um is Carol.
She knows.
You've got to look at it
in the eyes of the law.
I mean, I can sit here on this interview
and tell you I'd kill 37 people a week.
Well, that's okay
but you got to have the bodies
[laughs] or it doesn't count.
[Carole] Oh! You got me!
[reporter] His wife says the worst part
is not knowing.
No closure and no redemption for her.
There's no way that I can finally say,
"See! I didn't do it!"
I can't do it.
Nothing has ever shown up
on this case whatsoever.
That poor woman is having to live
under a cloud of suspicion all this time.
She sure is.
Hell, for the fun of it, let's see,
Carole's bitching that
she has this black cloud over her head
of people thinking
that she fed her husband to the tigers.
I mean, imagine that maybe
she didn't have anything to do with it,
and let's say she did love Don,
and she did mourn his death tremendously.
To live with people
constantly saying those things
and making those accusations,
you know, that can be hurtful
and can change a person too.
- [man] Was there ever a formal memorial
- No.
or funeral or anything?
- No.
- So no one
I remember the day
his death certificate came
I opened the letter and I just
I remember looking out the window
and then the next time
that I remembered anything
it was pitch black outside.
It was just like
I had just completely zoned out.
I don't know where I went,
but that was the closest thing
that I had to a memorial.
[man] And what about the money in the end?
We definitely did not end up, um,
with, um
If I had to say it, probably ten percent.
[man] You inherited only ten percent
of his estate?
Mm-hmm.
[man] And where did the rest go?
Carole.
[Carole]
There is a science of getting rich,
and it is an exact science.
The ownership of money and property
comes from doing things in a certain way.
Those who do things in a certain way,
whether on purpose or accidentally,
get rich.
Relative to most animal people,
I would characterize her
as reasonably rational.
[Carole chuckles]
[Carole] We met on November 1st in 2002.
On November 1st of 2004, we got married.
[Howard] My number one goal in life
is gonna be to make this woman happy.
[McQueen]
I'd love to be able to attend a funeral,
see a headstone.
I would like closure.
[man] And what about justice?
That would be nice
but I've never been a greedy person.
We all feel
that Carole knows more
than what she's telling.
There's nothing that I really want to say
to any of these people.
I know that the only reason
that they are saying the things
that they're saying
is because they see me as a threat
to their livelihood and to their ego.
And with that being
their driving motivation,
there's nothing I'm gonna say or do
that's gonna change that.
[Sanchez] We never felt
that it was investigated well enough.
They did say Carole was the prime suspect
at the time,
but until, like she said,
until someone comes forward
Until someone would come forward
I cannot tell you that we have zeroed in
on any particular suspect.
I'd be remiss if I said that.
There is absolutely no physical evidence
at this point in time
that would point
at one particular individual.
[Sanchez] When we started to speak out
we did People magazine.
Inside Edition came to talk to us,
and Hard Copy I believe wanted to.
That's when we got the thing
from Carole to stop.
"I have the money, you do not,
and if you continue talking,
I will take everything away from you
and your family."
[Lewis Cross]
That's why we haven't spoken out.
[man]
'Cause you're afraid of Carole Baskin?
Oh, yes, I am.
I am.
[Joe over the phone] I'm taking Carole on
because everyone else is scared to.
She has a lot of answering to do.
Her day is coming.
[closing music plays]