Family of Carole Baskin’s ex-husband criticizes her for saying she is still alive in Costa Rica

The family of Carole Baskin’s legally dead husband tell DailyMail.com they investigated claims that he was “alive and well” in Costa Rica in 1997, but found that the “witness” had recanted his statement.

This week resurfaced a televised interview that Baskin gave to Good Morning, Great Britain in November 2021 in which he said that during the filming of the second season of Tiger King, he learned of the sighting of Don Lewis in Central America.

In his appearance, Baskin said he only found out about the sighting while filming the Netflix hit.

Don Lewis was last seen in August 1997. At the time of his disappearance, he had filed a restraining order against Baskin and told police that his wife had told him she was going to kill him. He was declared legally dead in 2002.

In a statement to DailyMail.com, Lewis’s family members said Baskin’s 2021 claims are “simply not true” and that she is simply creating “a false narrative”. Baskin has always denied any role in Lewis’s disappearance.

Jack Smith, a spokesman for the Lewis family, told DailyMail.com that the document Baskin used to support her claim in the second season of Tiger King is from 1997, not post-2002 as she alleges.

The statement said Baskin was using the document “to fill a different narrative about what happened to our father.” Our father is still listed as a missing person in the national database of missing and unidentified persons.

The press release continued: “The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department is still actively working on our father’s case, and we are in constant communication with them as they continue to move forward with our father’s case.”

Smith said that the document seen in season two regarding the sighting was created by US Customs in September 1997.

Baskin said that, as the document’s heading says, Department of Homeland Security, which was not established until 2002.

The unverified letter from the Department of Homeland Security stating that Don Lewis is still alive and well and living in Costa Rica. He was 59 years old when he disappeared and would be 84 now.

Baskin and Lewis in Tiger King season 2. In 1997, he left his residence and was never seen by friends or family again.

However, the details of the report are identical to the details described by tampa bay weather in a September 1997 article. Baskin is quoted in the article as saying, “I really don’t know what to think [about the sighting.’ 

She continued: ‘If this is true, I’m really, really glad he’s not in jail somewhere.’

Smith told DailyMail.com that in November 1997, Donna, Don Lewis’ eldest daughter traveled to Central America to follow up on the sighting. 

He said that she and her husband went to the various properties he owned across Costa Rica and spoke to multiple local residents but had no success in locating Lewis. 

Joe Exotic (pictured), whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, is now serving a 21 year prison sentence for hiring two hitmen to kill Baskin

Smith continued: ‘They later learned that the informant had recanted his statement about seeing Don Lewis, and also learned that his main car of use in Costa Rica, his Toyota Land Cruiser, had been sold within four days of his missing persons report being filed.’ 

He added: ‘The signature on the paperwork of his Land Cruiser didn’t match his signature, according to Mark Songer, a handwriting expert.’ 

The claim that Lewis is ‘alive and well in Costa Rica’ had earlier been called into question by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, which remains in charge of the hunt for Lewis and still has an open missing persons case for him.

Jack Don Lewis remains listed as a ‘missing endangered adult,’ who on August 18, 1997 ‘left his families [sic] residence and has not been seen or heard from since.

The New York Post reported Thursday that the sheriff’s office largely dismissed Baskin’s comments that his ex is alive and thriving in the tropics.

A spokesman for the office said they had not heard anything about Lewis’s whereabouts, despite Baskin’s claim that a Department of Homeland Security official had contacted his ex and subsequently informed the sheriff’s office.

The sheriff’s public information office, Fentress Fountain, said: “We have not received any communication from our federal partners confirming the location of the missing person, Mr. Don Lewis.”

“The investigation into the disappearance of Don Lewis continues to be a priority for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, as are all missing persons cases.”

At the time the claim was first generated, the lead detective on the case, Cpl. Moises Garcia – told the Tampa Bay Times that the case remains open, despite the document.

‘We continue to push hard on this case… We still have some avenues. Not a week goes by that we don’t have our hand in this case,” he said.

He told the outlet that federal officials had recently assisted the sheriff’s office by “looking for leads in Costa Rica,” but did not confirm that those leads led to reports that Lewis was found “alive and well.”