Carole Baskin's missing husband has become one of the most talked-about takeaways from Netflix's super-popular docuseries Tiger King. Jack "Don" Lewis was last seen on Aug. 18, 1997, and many fans of the series have theorized that Baskin was responsible for his mysterious disappearance. The case was recently reopened on account of the interest surrounding it, and now a lawyer who represented Lewis believes his client was strangled and then thrown out of an airplane.
"In my view, there's no question but that he was murdered," attorney Joseph Fritz told Fox Nation host Nancy Grace. "He loved those cats. He never would have just walked away from them... ever. He was proud of those cats. He loved his cats. Some force made him leave." While Fritz said that he doesn't have a clear idea of who is responsible, he believes that Lewis was invited to a private airport to purchase an aircraft, at which point he was murdered.
"Don Lewis, he was terribly cheap while he was very wealthy. He was cheap beyond belief," Fritz continued. "What would have lured him more than anything else is a good deal on an airplane. So that's what I assume happened." Lewis' car was discovered abandoned in the parking lot of a private airport, and Baskin told police that he had planned to travel to one of his homes in Costa Rica.
"What I had heard was that he was strangled from the backseat of an airplane over the Gulf [of Mexico] at 50 feet and dropped out over the Gulf," continued Fritz, who confirmed that Lewis would often fly below radar detection because his pilot's license was revoked at the time. As for whether we're ever going to find out what happened to Lewis, Fritz indicated that it was only a matter of time before someone "stub[s] their toe" and speaks on the situation to get a "get-out-of-jail-free card."
The attorney's theory would line up with what Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said about the case recently, in that he believes multiple people were involved in a possible murder of Lewis. He also indicated that he was suspicious of Carole Baskin, but ultimately he was just generally suspicious of the "whole circle" surrounding the big cat community featured in Tiger King.
