As you Netflix and chill with ‘Tiger King,’ you can help crack this cold case, cops say
You can’t have Netflix and Chill without “Tiger King.”
It’s one of the most watched shows as we all hunker down amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The freaky docuseries follows zookeeper Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic, who was arrested in Gulf Breeze, Florida, in a murder-for-hire plot in 2018.
Maldonado-Passage was found guilty of trying to hire two different people to kill his arch enemy, animal activist Carole Baskin, who still heads up Big Cat Rescue animal sanctuary, near Tampa. He is currently behind bars, serving 22 years.
But there’s another aspect to this crazy show: Baskin’s husband, Jack “Don” Lewis, who has been MIA for more than 20 years. Joe Exotic thinks Baskin did away with him and fed him to her animals. She denies any wrongdoing and there has never been an arrest.
Besides providing hours of endless entertainment and memes in quarantine, the show has helped bring the active cold case into the spotlight. And now law enforcement is asking for the public’s help.
In a Facebook post on Monday, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister sent a message out asking for anyone with any information about Lewis, who would be 81, to contact the sheriff’s office. The animal handler was last seen Aug. 18, 1997.
“Of all the crazy storylines on the Netflix docuseries, ‘Tiger King,’ none are more captivating than what happened to Carole Baskin’s husband,” reads the sheriff’s post. “So, with all the attention surrounding it, I figured it was time to use the popularity of the show to see if anyone wanted to come forward with new leads.”
The tip line number is 813-247-8200.
This story was originally published March 30, 2020 at 1:02 PM with the headline "As you Netflix and chill with ‘Tiger King,’ you can help crack this cold case, cops say."
