Tiger King: £80,000 offered in exchange for information on Carole Baskin’s missing husband

‘Our little family tragedy has become your tragedy’ said the daughter of Don Lewis, who went missing in 1997

The family of Don Lewis, who appeared on the Netflix docuseries Tiger King, are offering $100,000 (£80,000) for information which helps solve his disappearance.

Lewis disappeared in 1997 while married to Carole Baskin, the animal rights campaigner who featured prominently in the Netflix True Crime series. Baskin was Lewis’s second wife.

The Florida man’s family hired attorney John Phillips to launch an independent investigation into Lewis’s appearance. Phillips announced in a press conference that the family were filing a lawsuit against Baskin in an attempt to depose her and obtain on-the-record testimony.

Lewis went missing just one day before a planned trip to Costa Rica. He was never located, and was declared legally dead in 2002.

His youngest daughter Gale Rathbone spoke at the press conference. “Amazingly, our little family tragedy has become your tragedy,” she said.

“Our search for closure and truth has become your mission also,” she said. “We all know by now that [Lewis] was not a perfect man. But do only the perfect among us deserve justice?”

Baskin has told press that she would not discuss pending litigation until it’s been resolved.

Tiger King: Murder, Madness and Mayhem focussed primarily on felonious zoo owner Joe Exotic, his history of animal abuse, and his scheme to arrange the murder-for-hire of Baskin.

Baskin and Lewis established an animal sanctuary together, which eventually became Big Cat Rescue Corp.

The documentary covered Exotic’s allegations that Baskin had killed her husband and supposedly fed him to tigers, claims which Baskin has repeatedly refuted, and for which she has never been charged.