Morbid - Listener Tales 70

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

Listener Tales 70!!!! We've got a miraculous basset hound named Bonnie, randomly occurring blood splatter, a haunted theatre and SO much more! If you have a listener tale feel free to send it to [e-mail] with "Listener Tale" somewhere in the subject line Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is a mini kind of morbid. Mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini. Many morbid. Mini morbid. A mini-ish morbid and you're here for it. You are here for it. And it's good, I think it's going to be pretty mini actually this one. So, you know, hang tight. It's a little nugget. Bear with us. Bear with us. We've got a little nugget. We've got a lot. for you this week. We really do. There's a whole lot on our plate. And actually, we just added a whole other shabang to our plate that you can't know about yet, but we've got a whole other shabang going on now. We just keep piling that plate high. It's like Thanksgiving up in here. It is. Extra mashed potatoes, please. Hell yes. Oh, baby. Oh, baby. Well, before we get too far, let's talk to you about our shows. Just real quick, guys. We just got to run through them.

Just to make sure you know the business. Okay, June 2nd, hopefully we're going to be there at the Good Nights Comedy Club in Raleigh, North Carolina. Raleigh, we really hope to see you in June. June 3rd, the Comedy Zone in Charlotte, North Carolina. Charlotte, I'm crossing all my fingers and toes to see you in June. And my eyes and my arms and my legs. By everything. Talia Hall in Chicago has been now postponed until October 11th.

Spooky. season at Talia Hall. Yeah. And that one's going to be awesome, by the way, guys, because we got something fun planned. Yeah, we do. Then July 8th is going to be at the Comedy Works South in Greenwood Village, Colorado. Colorado, I feel like we're going to see you in June. I really do. I think so. I definitely think so. Yeah. July 11th at the Wilba, hope that happens. The Wilba with Emily Walsh. Come on, everybody. We got to make this happen. I'll just be so sad if she doesn't happen. I'll be so sad. And then August 11th in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia, we're going to come for you. It's just a little later than we anticipated. Elena still wants to ring the Liberty bell. Yeah. Ding dong. That was great. It's been a long day. Ding dong.

And then September 16th, we're going to be in Washington, D.C. at the D.C. Improv. So many monuments. I can't wait. It's going to be a monumental occasion. Ooh, it most certainly is. Girl. Girl.

September 23rd, we have two shows at Zanies in Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville, I can't wait to see you. We're coming for you still. Does that mean I have to do an outfit change if they're the same night? I just realize that. No. I mean, you can totally. I mean, it's up to you.

Whatever you feel is natural. Well, if she's extra as fuck. so it's only natural. That's true. That is true. And then last show for now, September 24th, Huntsville, Alabama at Stand Up Live. Alabama, War Eagle, Roll Tide, all that good stuff. We're going to see you.

And we're excited about it. Football. Football. Sports. Yay. Yay. So, yeah, those are our shows. We're just rolling with the punches as they, you know, as COVID-19 just punches us all in the

face. We are just rolling with it. In the face. Directly in the dome because we don't like having these reschedule, but it's totally, we have to do it for the safety of everybody. And you know, if June comes and we're still not out of this situation, we will move those two. But the good news is these shows will happen.

They just might happen later in the year. That's all. Exactly. And some of them still have tickets available. So go and get your tickets because even if they need to be rescheduled, those tickets are going to translate. And then you'll be the morbid weirdo with the tickets and not the morbid weirdo without the tickets. Exactly.

You don't want to be that morbid weirdo without tickets. So go to morbidpodcast.com and go buy your tickets up. And then we will keep you up to date on if any dates change. And we can't wait to see all of you. We can't wait. We can't wait. And you know what? I think that's really all the business we needed to attend to.

So what I just realized. What? we, I, because of what we're talking about this week, we already said we're going to be talking about Carol fucking Baskins. I should have had you say, hey all you cool cats. And I could have said, hey all you cool kittens. Oh, man. High insight. Am I right? It's always 20. It's always 20. Well, you know what? Hey all you cool cats and kittens. We are going to be talking about Carol Baskins. Hell yeah. And her missing husband. And her missing husband.

So I have a lot of thoughts about it. I have a lot of thoughts about the Tiger King documentary as a whole. Yeah. I don't know if they're going to be very popular thoughts, but you know what? It's our show, so I get to say these thoughts. Basically, I think a lot of people know this case, the case of the missing John Lewis, Carol Baskin's second husband. Y'all.

I think they know this case strictly, like I'm sure some people may have heard of it before, but I think a lot of people know it because of the Tiger King documentary. Yeah, I didn't know about it before. Yeah, I think it's one of those that just kind of slipped under the radar. And now because of this documentary, everybody has an opinion on it, including me. And me. You know, we all have one. But I feel like the more you look into it, the more you're going to see that it's really glossed over in that documentary.

I mean, they focus one episode on it. Right. Which is probably more than they really should have focused on it. wanted to begin with. There's a lot more going on in that documentary. There's a whole shit ton going on in that documentary. And I feel like because they went with that like salacious, let's talk about the rumors of Carol Baskin and her missing husband thing, it did kind of take away some of what that documentary was meant to be about. Oh, I 100% agree with that. Because it turned into all about Carol Baskin and her missing husband and everybody stopped

focusing on the fact that Joe Exotic, while funny and while a very, like, humorous, eccentric character, he also, like, murdered his own tigers to make room for other animals. Yeah, and he's caught on camera, like, abusing them, so. Yeah, and he said at one point that if he went bankrupt, he would kill all his animals. Like, he said that. To Louis Thoreau, like, Lewis Thoreau, I don't know if it's Louis Thoreau or Lewis Thoreau, someone's going to yell at me. You try.

You know. He did a documentary about Joe Exotic and he said that he told him that. He was like, he told me if he went bankrupt, he would kill all of his animals. Well, and he said in the documentary, the sheriff guy was saying he would just go up in an explosion like they did in a cult. So it's like you've said that to multiple people. Exactly. So it's like, which I know, we're all focusing on like, because it's funny and he's funny and like his hair. funny and all everything his shirts are funny and the fact that he has like condoms with his face on

it are funny yeah but like let's just remember that like these are a bunch of shitbags like this whole thing was about a bunch of animal abusing shitbags right and joe exotic is funny to a certain extent but then you get into the nitty gritty of that documentary and i i don't know if it's episode one or episode two but him fucking shooting a blow-up doll that he named carol and he she's like bound in the back of a truck. I don't care what Carol Baskins did. That's not funny. Well, exactly. And we're definitely going to touch upon that at some point because I really want to talk about that, the fact that that's just being totally ignored. He did like crazy shit. Like he put a delto in her mouth and then shot her in the head. Yeah. I mean, he was, he made like terroristic threats to her in public

openly on social media like for years. Right. But we'll get into that. So basically, if you watch this documentary, and that's all the information you have about the Carol Baskin situation and her missing husband, I urge you to go look further because while it doesn't, there is nothing that's like telling me she 100% didn't do it. But it's still, it's going to make you sit there and go, okay, well, there is more to this story than what they were giving us. There's always more. Because all we heard in this documentary was a bunch of rival, I mean, animal, big cat, enthusiasts, yelling like rallying against this one woman who they're saying is trying to get them all shut down because they're doing like the cub petting and they're breeding and abusing animals and all this

and she's exposing them so everyone needs to remember that they have a lot of reasoning behind their like condemnation of her so absolutely i think that just needs to be like remembered that these like whether they're men are women but these they are all men at this point, but all these guys that own these different, like, zoos, essentially, or if they want to call them sanctuary, sure. They're all at stake to lose money if she gets her way. So that's a big motivator to be like, yeah, she definitely killed her husband. Let's rally against her.

So I think everybody just remains, you know, got to remember that. And you know what? There's shady shit going on that everybody's fucking zoo sanctuary, petting farm, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, for real. It's crazy. And that's the thing. It's like she's definitely eccentric. She's definitely narcissistic. She definitely loves herself. She is cunning. I could see how she could be manipulative. By no means, am I going

to say that Carol Baskin is this like withering flower that is just floating around saving the planet? Because that's not what's happening. But I just think we all need to get a better view of the whole thing. So let's get into it. So Carol's name is Carol Stairs Jones. That's her maiden name. She was born June 6th, 1961 at Lackland Air Force Base in Bexar County, Texas. We love a fellow Gemini. We love it.

Carol is a fucking Gemini. I was just going to say she is a true blue Gemini. Of the highest order. I could definitely see that. Which leads me to believe even more. Maybe she did fucking kill her husband. I don't know if we will not end this being like here's the way that this like with closure. Yeah.

We're all going to be still questioning it. So according, so when she was young, she was always super into animals, especially cats, had to clearly transfer it into her later life where she wears nothing but cat prints and has a very interesting design aesthetic. But she wanted to actually be a veterinarian. But then she found out that veterinarians also have to sometimes euthanize animals. And she was like, I can't do that. So she didn't want to be a vet anymore. A pure moment, Carol. A peer moment.

Yeah, a very wholesome moment in young Carol's life. Unfortunately, she seems to have had kind of a tough beginning to life. According to her own accounts, she was sexually assaulted by multiple men who lived across the street from her when she was 14 years old. Oh, that's awful. Yeah. And she grew up in a staunchly religious family. And they basically told her it was her fault because she was a whore. That's basically what they told her.

Because you see her dad later in the documentary on her sanctuary and you're like, oh my God. Like you guys got over that? Yeah. I think they literally, I'm assuming she grew up in this religious family. So I think maybe she went a different way, but she kind of understood that her parents were still like, I don't know. They honestly don't know. to each other's sides or something.

Kudos to that, my guess, for all. I'll figure it out a way to make it work. But yeah, so she feels like she didn't really have a lot of support in the matter. Noam was, you know, giving her a hug and telling her you didn't deserve that. Like, you know, it was basically like, well, what'd you do to deserve it kind of thing, which is not awesome. So she ended up dropping out of high school pretty early. She had some troubles.

She ran away from home. She was living on the streets at one point. she was sleeping in parked cars. And eventually she moved to Florida from Texas. And she became involved with a man named Michael Murdoch. He was her boss at a department store that she got a job at. She was only 17 at the time. And they got married April 7, 1979.

And they had one daughter, a girl named Jamie. Okay. So after she was working at the, after she had Jamie, you know, she wanted to earn some more money. So she began, like, rescuing big cats, like bobcats and stuff. And she was also breeding show cats. And she ended up getting, like, she was using, like, goats and llamas for, like, a lawn cutting business, like, her own little, because they're, like, good for, like, like, actually

some people hire people, like, to bring goats into their yard and they'll, like, clean up your yard for you. By just eating the grass? Yeah, they're just, like, great at doing that. You learn something new every fucking. day in this world. So she was just doing that. Who knew? Who knew? Carol.

You know what I mean? So her first husband, Michael Murdoch, was abusive, unfortunately. When she was 19 years old in 1980, they had one of their huge knockdown dragout fights. She was trying to get away from him. So she says that she just threw a potato at him. I mean, whatever it takes. Which I'm like, good choice. I mean a good Irish way out of that fight. Fuck, yeah. Like, let's Irish our way out of here. And it's also like a potato is a good, that's just, that's a good weapon.

It's like solid enough that if you hum it at someone, that shit's going to hurt, but not solid enough that it's going to like kill someone. Right. It's a very in-between weapon. It's smart. It's just smart. But she threw it at him and we're not making light of abuse, by the way. No, not enough.

That is not okay. It's not okay either way. She did hurl a potato item in her own. words. And then that was basically to distract him long enough where she got out of the house. While she was walking down the street barefoot, Jack Don Lewis drove up and offered her a ride. Can I just say? When they described this in the documentary, I was like, this is the creepiest way to get together. It truly is. Like, you would not win me over by doing this. This is not a super cute, like, meet cute. No, not at all.

It's the sketchiest meet cute of all time. And the worst part is, like, she, she talks about this meeting, like, she's, like, with starry eyes. Like, oh, it was just this wonderful thing. And what happened was she's walking down the street barefoot after she just threw a potato at her abusive first husband. And Dawn Lewis drives up next to her and is like, hey, pretty lady, you need a ride? And she was like, uh, nope.

I know. and she just keeps walking. So he turns around and pulls up next door again. Now this is usually the beginning of every bad story we tell you where someone ends up murdered. Like someone circles around and just keeps asking. This is like what we get in listener tales. It really is. This happened to my mom.

And you're like, oh, fuck. And they just kept circling around. Well, he circles around and he shows her that he has a gun on the passenger's side of the car, seat of the car. To me, this is like, oh, now you run. Right. But no. he was like, this is not to threaten you with. He was saying, you can hold the gun up to my head the whole time we're driving.

I just want to talk and give you a ride. So he was like, this is your sign of trust. Here's my issue with that. Number one, this is a stranger. Number two, how the fuck am I supposed to know that that gun is loaded? And number three, how am I supposed to know if you don't have a gun on the side of you that is loaded that you're going to use to kill me when I hold that gun to your head? Precisely. All my issues. And also when someone's first, like, meet up with you is like, hey, you can hold this gun to my head to make sure that I'm not a ski fall. I'd be like,

yeah, I don't know. I feel like that's a weird thing for you to just like bring right to the table. You're like, I'm actually good. Thanks, though. Like, I am good. Well, she was like, all right, cool. So she gets in. She's like, what an act of trust. Yeah. And she said she held the gun to his head the entire time. which how romantic I guess I don't know hot and heavy already well and it gets even more romantic because they went to a hotel so so things got real real real fast problem is she's married although he's an abusive asshole apparently uh-huh he was also married so whoops they had an affair um he was married to a woman named gladys they had three daughters together and had been married for decades at this point And also, Gladys's hair, honey. It's a situation.

It's the situation. It's the situation. In the 70s, I'm willing to bet it was the hair. Oh, yeah. It was the situation. Like, people were like, Gladys, who's your hairdresser? Oh, yeah. Gladys had it going on.

But unfortunately, Gladys had to deal with a lot of shit from Dawn. Yeah. I will say that. He cheated on Gladys constantly. Yeah. Throughout their marriage, in fact, according to the Tampa Bay Times, she would pack extra food in his lunch when he would go off to work, knowing that that extra food was for his fucking girlfriends.

What? Yep. You know how she would know this? Because they would leave notes and little like napkins with kiss marks, like lipstick marks on it in his lunch bag for her to find. That's horrific. And she would just go with it. And she's feeding them.

Like what the fuck? And she's feeding these. little bitches. Let me just feed your mistress. She also said that like to date women younger than their daughters and she said in one interview quote, I couldn't compete with that. Nobody can sister.

How sad is that? That's horrific. I'd be like, uh, D-I-V-R-C-E. That's the thing. It's like, girl, you don't need to put up with this shit. No. And also like, Dawn, what the fuck? That's not cool. His own daughter said that he was a sex addict. Yeah, like that's really good. And that's the

other thing, it's like, I feel like we're all like failing to just point out the facts here. Right. No one deserves to go missing or murdered by any stretch of the imagination, but it's like, let's not paint certain people with broad brushes. So Don was a self-made millionaire from real estate dealings. He had a used car business that he built these things from the ground up. He was self-made. Gladys and Don did divorce in 1990.

Carol also divorced her husband. and then he and Carol got married in 1991. Okay. Both of them loved exotic cats. So Don was like right on board with Carol's love of the kittes. The kittes. But with Don, it felt like it was more like of a collecting thing. Right.

Like he did love cats, but like he was rich and rich people just love collecting weird shit. They do. That's just like a thing. From what I hear. Like if you're rich listening to this right now, I bet you have. collection of some sort. Like, raise your hand. I know you're there.

To Carol, it was likely kind of a little bit of both because, you know, she did obviously love cats from the beginning and she always loved cats. But girlfriend liked having the money that Don came with. Like, come on. Let's not pretend she did not like having a millionaire husband. I mean, I'm not going to lie to you. I would love if Annie became a millionaire. Are you listening, babe?

So I think it's, I think it's definitely a little bit of both. like she also liked the collecting aspect of it but she cared like she to me she seems like she genuinely does care for these animals yeah that's the thing she she definitely comes across like she does yeah um if not she's a great actress but carol is like like she is smart as hell like she's incredibly savvy she really might say cunning yeah oh yeah she is definitely cunning uh she definitely could you can see how she could manipulate you could see how she can be cold and calculating for sure like i'm not going to deny that um i do believe she cares about the animals but she's also a little hypocritical because she's saying that you shouldn't keep animals in cages but she's got

her animals in cages they're big cages like they're big you know enclosures but you're still keeping animals in cages i mean i know that it's like a sanctuary because now it's is it called Big Cat Rescue. But, you know, like, I don't know. I think there's a lot of hypocrisy running through all of these. Yeah, no, there's people in that documentary. But, and at one point, she was breeding them like a nutbag. I guess since she has chilled out on that and isn't doing that.

And I think she's even admitted, like, in the beginning, I was breeding too much. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, because at one point she had, like, the most big cats in the country or something like that. Oh, shit. So she had a fair share of moments where you're like, eh, I don't think anybody in these big cat arenas that we saw on the documentary, at least, I'm sure there's some out there that are. But the ones we saw in this documentary, I don't think any of them fully have just the animal's interest in mind.

Well, and I think, I think you're right. I think it starts off like that because people even say that about Joe Exotic. Like his heart started in the right place. And then you see where you can get and your heart goes to the wrong place. and I think it's probably hard to make it steer back. I fully agree with that. So Carol, just had a way of steering it back because she's a Gemini.

Yeah, there you go. So she figured it out. Now, like we said, she's pretty eccentric. You know, like just watching her in the documentary and just knowing that she starts everything with, hey, you cool cats and kittens. I mean, you know, she's a little eccentric. We love a flower crown, Carol.

We do love a flower. I mean, you love a flower crown. I used to wear a flower. Ground's like it was going on a fucking style. Ash loved a flower crown. Yep. Lana Delray, bitch. But you know what?

Oh, God. We're such different people. We really are. It's like, oh, Lord. You're like, I want to gno. Oi, but I do love that one song of hers from the Great Gatsby. But, you know, I digress. So Don could also be described as pretty eccentric.

As I feel like most super rich people have an eccentric side. I get that. People said that. He was worth somewhere between like five and seven million. Some people say even up to 20 million, which is a big jump. But either way. Didn't he used to like bury his money in the backyard and shit? Yeah.

He like Ron Swansoned it, which is pretty rad, I think. Like he would like bury money and like gold bars and shit, like which is awesome. I mean, if you have the means to do it, hey. Yeah. I mean, why do you buried banks and shit? Just bury your, he literally was Ron Swansoning before. for Ron Swanson, Ron Swanson. You know, I wouldn't be shocked if Papa has some gold coins buried somewhere.

Right? I could see it. John is Ron Swanson, so he would definitely do that if you could. So he was definitely a multi-millionaire. Mm-hmm. But people would see him, like, looking in trash cans for, like, food scraps sometimes. That's interesting. And, like, picking trash and shit.

And he never wore, like, fancy clothes. In fact, the day he went missing, he was wearing, like, a, two dollar shirt from Kmart. Hell yeah, he was. Like he just wasn't, you know, he wasn't into that. But then on the flip side of all that, he did love planes and sometimes he would just buy a plane with cash

as one does. And he just, yeah. And he would just walk around with big wads of cash on him all the time. And he had dealings in Costa Rica and he owned 200 acres there. That is a lot of acreage. Exactly. And he was planning on moving, he was planning on moving the sanctuary

down there to that 200 acre, lot. But he had a lot of, a lot of shady dealings down there that nobody really knows a whole lot about. And like I said, he made his millions through real estate deals, which once he married Carol, he went from, he significantly grew those deals. Oh, really? He made a lot of money with Carol, too. Was she, like, involved in the real estate? Yeah, like, she helped him out with that stuff, like they became kind of a team that way. Okay. And that became, kind of an issue when it came to like separating his estate later because his gladys and his daughters thought they should get more but then carol was saying well she made this when he was with you but he

made this when he was with me i should take this because this is mine okay but then i'll cut into it later but like it comes down to carol really because he left it to her um but that was kind of where she was coming from with that also isn't it weird where he left everything to her yeah certainly is he didn't leave everything to her though yeah yeah yeah that's a I feel like there's a lot of like people just being like well you know this happened and they didn't look further into it to see

what the actual thing was they just took the Netflix documentary where it was totally sensationalized like it absolutely was yeah but he also so Don was also dabbling a little bit and buying out mortgages okay so he would charge

people that were defaulting These huge interest rates to like buy them out. And then after a few months, if they weren't paid up, he would foreclosure on their house. Well, that's kind of shitty. Or he would sell off their mortgage and it would fuck them even further. Perfect. So, yeah. So not a good thing.

So those people probably didn't think he was that awesome of a guy. So already we're making some enemies here. I was going to say that's definitely going to get you an enemy or two. Yeah, definitely a few enemies. He was also sending a lot of his funds down to that 200-acre plot in Costa Rica. And he was doing this via his business assistant Anne McQueen. And that's the little lady in the documentary. The little lady.

I don't remember. She's like a tiny little old lady. A tiny little little lady? I don't remember, actually. I think it's that. Yeah. Sorry. Maybe.

Sounds good. You're like, cool, cool, cool. I'm like, yeah, totally. She was little. But she was accused by Carol of also taking a life insurance policy out on Don only a few months before he went missing. Okay. So that's weird. Anne doesn't deny this because she can't.

But she says that he told her to do that. Oh, okay. Which is suspect. Yeah. This is the lady from the documentary. Yeah. And yeah, it's just a little, it's a little weird. Shiding.

And Anne also said that she was the only woman that he didn't. hit on, like, because he just hit on every woman, which to me is like, me thinks thou doth protest too much, yeah. Yeah, I think, I think they have a little bit going on in the office. Yeah, I don't, yeah, it's, I just don't see that just being like a business relationship. And you know why I don't see it like a business relationship? Because I don't think Don had a lot of just business relationships with women. I mean, yeah. Carol actually said that he traveled to Costa Rica. And there's evidence of this. He traveled to Costa Rica a ton on quote-unquote business. And he would go there, I mean, once a month, literally. Can you imagine going to Costa Rica once a month? I know, and just flying

your private plane down there. And Carol said this was for him to carry on his secret trists as well, because he would do it a lot when she was having her period. Oh. And he said, and so she says, and one of his daughters, like, said this in the documentary, like, referred to this, that he was basically a sex addict. Right. Carol said he had to, he needed sex once a day. That's a lot, to be honest. At least. Yeah, yeah, that's a lot.

At least once a day. Yeah, like, it's, shit's going on. I have things to do. I have to, you know, I got to eat breakfast. I don't know. It's just like you got a chill, dude. So she, he says he was going down to Costa Rica. and, you know, meeting women in that he had a girlfriend down there.

It was confirmed later that he did have a girlfriend. That's really sad. Yeah. So it's like he was doing some shady shit. And he was pissing off a lot of people. And he was doing shady business down there as well. So he's got this whole network of people that aren't too happy with him. So it's like, sure, Carol's on that list for sure.

But there's also a long list of other people. outlets that could have taken Don Lewis out if that's what happened. And it's like a list that's here, there, and everywhere. They're really, it's like kind of all over the place. Um, so Carol and Don when they first got, um, got married, they bought a bobcat for as their first cat. That was the first thing that they bought was a bobcat. Um, that was the beginning of everything.

And they were like, holy shit. We want to like, we want more. This is so fun. We love big cats. So they were like, we're going to buy six more bob cats. from the place we got this original one. Damn. When they looked further into the place, though,

they figured out that where they were getting these bobcats from, it was actually a fur farm. Oh, no. And basically fur farms breed animals just for their fur. It's awful. Like, we as a species should be ashamed that we suck so fucking much. Yeah, we truly do suck. That those exist, that we just skin animals for fucking coats.

It's unbelievable. So, yeah, so we suck. But once Carol and Don realized that this was a fur farm and what was happening there, they bought 56 bobcats to save them from the fate of being skinned for a coat. I love that so much. Which these are the kind of things. It's like they did these kind of things. So it's like I know that they cared. And I know that they had good intentions together.

Right. It just went awry at times. And I think egos got into it. I think narcissistic personalities got into it. Lots of money got into it. Lots of money got into it, and it changed the whole thing. Yep. But I think now, I do believe now that, like, the rescue that she is running, I believe seems legit.

Oh, I agree with that 100%. And I do believe she cares for these animals. I just do. No, I don't know. I'm sure people won't agree. But, like, I think you can tell that she does. Yeah, I just, I feel it in my bones. So this is when they began trying to do some good.

This is when they were like, all right, we got to do good shit for cats. And they initially called their rescue. They were like, we're going to, we're going to open a rescue. We have 56 bot cats now we've got to do something. And they initially called their rescue wildlife on Easy Street. Which is so cute. It's adorable. Very wholesome.

And Dawn began buying injured, abused, and abandoned cats all over the place. Soon they had like over, like hundreds of cats. They were just like all about it. In June 1997 is when it becomes, apparent that like this wonderful we just buy we just save cats and we're so fun and eccentric and we

have you know nothing's wrong this is when you see that like things weren't super awesome in this marriage things actually were going very wrong yeah it wasn't it it was just not what it was looking to be from the outside so potatoes were flying

they definitely were so in June 1997 a protection order was requested by dawn against Carol. What was said for the grounds of this was that Don had gone away on a trip, and when he returned, she had allowed, like, garbage men to come take away garages full of his thrift store finds.

Like, he was a big finding things at yard sales, like estate sales. He just liked junk. Like, again, rich people love collecting shit. So this was, like, some American Pickers deal where Don just loved, like, finding old antiques, equipment, storing a bunch of junk that he thought would eventually be worth something. Well, that's what he was doing exactly. He was probably just going to sell it later. That's all it was. It was someday this will be worth something. It was American Pickers. And Carol let people take it away without his permission without selling it. She just had it all

taken away, which is rude. And, you know, so he was pissed when he got back and found this out. Yeah. They argued about it. And he said he was requesting the protection order because during this fight that occurred over the garage sale shit. She told him, if you don't leave the house, I'm going to kill you. Which maybe she was just being hyperbolic. But which like totally, like, don't tell your spouse that you're going to kill them. No. That's just my, I'm going to give you some like words of wisdom.

Like, don't do that ever because it's not good. And like that's not a normal fight. Like, does it make her a murderer? No. but that is not a normal marriage fight. Like I can tell you with 100% certainty, John and I have not, will not ever tell each other that I'm going to kill you. Like, that's not going to happen.

It's just not cute. So if you are in a relationship or one of you is actively telling the other one, like with full seriousness, I'm going to kill you. Get out of that now. Just piece out of that. That's my little nugget of wisdom for you. Marriage counseling with Elena. So there's a marriage counseling with Elena.

So, yeah, so she said, you know, leave the house, don't come back or I'll kill you. And she basically told him, if you try to come back, I'm going to kill you. So he was like, yeah, I think she feels, I feel like she's going to kill me. And then he also. I get the sense. She's just going to murder me. She's very subtle about it, but I feel like she wants to kill me. But he also said, this wasn't the first time she said this.

So he said, this just happened to be the time where he was like, okay, that's enough. He was not granted this protection order by a judge. Dun, done, done. And if you want to, like, that you can look up, I just briefly looked at, like, what it takes to get a protection order in Florida. It takes a lot. And I think it takes a lot. And unfortunately, it just wasn't seen as an issue. I think it's one of those things where it's like, they need to have already hurt you.

I was going to say. Awful. Like, you know, like protection orders are real bullshit. Like, physical abuse has already had to have happened. Yeah. Like, they're basically like, you need to be beaten first and then we'll give you a protection order. Like, it's a lot of bullshit. So he wasn't giving one.

One of Don's daughters actually said that Carol tried to have him see, like, a psychiatrist because she said his mental health was declining. And he saw a psychiatrist once and then was like, fuck that. I'm not going back. Okay. But she said he would, like, forget where he was. He would call her lost. And, like, Carol said that.

Carol claims that allegedly he, like, wouldn't use the, he, like, refused to use the bathroom sometimes. Okay. he was really declining. Okay. All of this is speculation and it's basically, it's just Carol's word. Which is really convenient if we look at what happens to him in the following months. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And that's why it's like take it with a grain of salt. This is just what Carol says. Unfortunately, we can't know. So August 19th, 1997, Don was 59 years old. This is when he went missing. That morning, Don had told. Carol that he was getting up early. He was going to go load stuff

into a truck because he was going to be making a trip to Costa Rica. And he was going to be bringing stuff down to start that sanctuary. So he had a truck that was going to Miami. And then he was going to Costa Rica. Right. So he said, I'm going to finish loading the truck. And he also said, I have to drop some signs off to my real estate office, like my lawyer.

And then I'm going to, I'll be doing this. That was the last time she said. saw him according to her statements. According to her statements. Right. It was the next morning. Now, he did drop the signs off to the real estate office. No one saw him do that. But the signs were there. So nobody knows how or when those came.

It was the next morning that Carol reported him missing. Okay. So the next day, police found Don's a blue caravan at Pilot Country Airport in Spring Hill Florida. Now, the window was broken and it was like kind of beat up the van. But that damage was apparently done to the van before he went missing. So it's irrelevant. But it's stated a lot as like, oh, somebody must have done that to the van. It's like, no, that already happened. Um, they did find the keys to the van on the floor of the van, which is a little weird. Um, no evidence other than that was found. No evidence of foul play. Nothing.

Okay. Now, he could fly a plane. He was not a licensed pilot, but he knew how to fly a plane. Right. And he flew planes often. There are no records saying he flew that day, like no logs or anything like that. But Carol said he had flown before without records or logs because he's not licensed. Right.

So he couldn't. And this is a tiny airport, and it would have been okay to do that. It's not okay. But it would have been easy to do that. he also was apparently involved in three small plane accidents before oh shit so it is possible one theory suggests that maybe he crashed his small plane into the water yeah that's it we just never saw him again right it's a possibility i mean it's a weird theory but like yeah you know well do they have like records of like how many planes he had and like his one gone like yeah well that's

i think what they're thinking is maybe because he took out a lot of money that day out of his personal account and his business accounts. Oh, okay. They think maybe could he have bought a plane with cash on the spot? He did like to. And that's why we don't have records to have it. Right. But, you know, so when they, so after, so, you know, he's, they find the van.

They don't find any evidence of foul play. They're sitting there wondering what the hell's happening. Investigators did go down to Costa Rica to talk to people down there because that is where he was supposed to be going. Right. They found he had all sorts of creepy, shady business dealings and the girlfriend down there. Mm-hmm. They talked to all of them.

They went down several times. They talked to several people down there. They got conflicting reports about whether some people said they saw him. Some people said they didn't. So it just becomes one of those cluster fucks. Well, because, like, word of mouth is, like, the worst. It's just, yeah, it's one of those things. So they thoroughly searched the wildlife rescue in Florida.

searched the acreage down in Costa Rica. No evidence of foul play anywhere. They cannot find any evidence of this man. Which is crazy when you think about it. It's like, how do you just go missing without a trick? Yeah. And well, and I guess he had two oscillots. And I'm not sure if they were already down in Costa Rica or not, but they were shipped out of wherever they were. And they can't figure out who did that or where they went. That's weird. Yeah. So it wasn't in December 1998 that Don's daughter Donna Pettus with Gladys actually put forth the theory that Carol had killed Don, put him through a meat grinder, and fed him to her tigers. Which later inspires a Joe Exotic Original.

Yes, a very scary Joe Exotic Original. One might say the most scary. Where he found the most convincing doppelganger. I have ever seen. I don't know how he did it, but wow. And if I was that lady, I'd be afraid that he was going to kill me just because I looked like Carol. Right? I'd be like, this is getting too scary, man. Too much.

Well, and his daughters and his ex-wife said that they were really pissed because law enforcement didn't test the meat grinders for DNA at the... And meanwhile, the police were like, okay, well, the meat grinders were removed from the actual facility weeks before dawn even went missing. Oh, I don't think they mentioned that in the... Yeah, and they were like, this was just a rumor. And they also said the meat grinders that were there were like these small meat grinders. Right.

But in the documentary, they show this like industrial grade meat grinder. She didn't, they never had that. That was annoying. And I'm not saying that it's not possible to like put somebody through a meat grinder. Right. It's been done before, I'm sure. but this is like a fully grown male body and it would take a lot of time, a lot of effort

and a lot of tools to get him into tiny pieces to then slowly put him through a me grinder. Right. Right. Like that takes a lot of time. And if he was last seen, you know, on one day and then reported the following morning, that's not a lot of time to do all that it would take. to put him through them a little tiny meat grinder.

Well, and you would think they would find some kind of like, I mean, that would leave a big fucking mess. 100% of it. That's why that theory is, to me, absurd. Yeah. It's just, it's not. It's just a fun theory that people like to say. But remember, you know, the ex-wife and the kids are all going to want a piece of his

fortune that he left behind because they, you know, it's their father. And they low-key deserve it after all he fucking put them through. Well, that's the thing. It's like they all deserve a piece. Everybody does. Yeah. You know. But he left Carol with power of attorney.

Right. So she had complete control over his state. There was language put into the documents that said something along the lines. And a lot of people have been harping on this. That Carol is in charge of everything in the event of death, etc. But it also included the language in the case of. disappearance. Which is weird as fuck. Sure. That's weird. But they both had to sign this document. Uh-huh. This wasn't Carol putting that language in there. That was Carol and Don putting that language

of it. Oh, he signed the document as well. Of course he had to. It's his power. It's his will. They left that out in Tiger King. Of course they did. And it's bothering me because it's like, that's fishy on both ends. Because if you look at it, they were both part of this. If it's Carol, yeah, that's fishy because she's getting ready to be like, well, if he disappears, I get the money. It's also fishy on his end because he's literally setting up his own quote unquote disappearance. Because another theory is that motherfucker got in trouble and he needed to get the fuck out of Dodge. And so he just quote unquote disappeared.

And I think it would be fishy if he's signing off on this because he's basically saying in the case that I disaping. peer myself. Right. Then this is the case. So, I mean, that's just, to me, that doesn't prove anything either way. It makes both of them look shady as fuck. That's a very good point. Yeah. So she has a blog that she has just written a blog post for. And the blog post is called refuting Netflix Tiger King. Okay. She is very unhappy with how that documentary went. Well, it does paint her in A not so great a light. Absolutely, it does. And she, according to her and her husband, Howard, who, who, yes, is something else.

Sweet baby angel. I love Howard. Like, hilarious. My man. But, like, just look up the pictures of their wedding where he is wearing a tiger outfit and she has him on a leash. It'll do something up in your psyche. I don't know what? Love, you know what I'm saying?

It'd be like that sometimes. But so what she's saying is that the producers, when they first pitch this to her, they said this is going to be kind of like a blackfish situation. Where it's going to be about the animals, we're going to be exposing the abuse. Uh-huh. And she was all about it. That's what she was for. She says she feels wholly betrayed that it became about her and her missing husband. Because it did.

Yeah. So I do get that. I mean, but then again, when they started talking to you, about it, why'd you talk about it? Well, that's the thing. That's the other thing. So it's like, I get why you probably didn't like the finished product, but you should have known while you were chatting about it. What they were going to do with all that footage.

And so apparently there was, so in one of that, in that blog post, she says, quote, after Don disappeared, there were years of my having to manage the properties under a conservatorship demanded by Gladys and the daughters. The numerous attorneys they involved. all being paid out of the estate, reduced the assets significantly. Ultimately, the assets in the PRSL trust that had the daughters as beneficiaries went to them. Those assets were worth about $1 million. Okay.

So the daughters got about $1 million. Each or half a million each? I think just, I think it's all together. Okay. Yeah. So then she said the assets in the other trust worth about $2 million by then came to me. So she didn't get that much more than them. No. So the claim the girls made in the series that I picked the assets they got and that they were bad assets is nonsense. They got the assets

from the trust they were beneficiaries of worth one million dollars. Again, this is from Carol's. Well, this is Carol's word. So we take this with a grain of salt, but this is what Carol is claiming. Right. Honestly, and it's true that this documentary became just this like circus of like oh 100% it became the fucking joe exotic documentary the joe exotic and carol show like it was literally like let's watch joe exotic he's so funny but then it's like yo we watched this dude like make terroristic violent abhorrent threats yeah against this woman on social media every day on his channel every day, in public every day.

And it's like, then we forget he hired someone to murder her. Like, he was part of, that's why he's in prison. And then we see that same man climb into a bathtub at the end of the fucking documentary, untouched. Yep, just untouched. I'm like, yo, he was murdered or he was a hitman. Like, what? Like, yeah.

It's very bizarre. Like, the whole thing is very bizarre to me. And he admits he was going to go do it. Yeah. But then he just, like, got confused and went to a strip club. Like, that's my favorite part. That really is. And also, it was only, well, it was only $3,000 to murder someone.

I mean. It's the most bizarre murder for hire plot I've ever seen in my life. It's wild. It truly is. But what kills me is it's like, what is it? You said, like, Cardi B, who, like, I know nothing about Cardi B. But that's all I know of her. Apparently she wants to get him out of jail.

And I'm like, why though? She set up a go fund me to get him out of jail. But like, why though? I don't know. Because it's like, here's the thing, totally separate from Carol Baskin and her husband. This man did try to have her murdered. Like, I don't understand why we're all. And I don't understand why we're all.

And pick somebody else to do it. That's not going to get confused and go to a strip club. That's the thing. And it's like, and Joe Exotic, the reason. he hates Carol Baskin is not because he believes Carol Baskin killed her husband. That is just a convenient excuse. He hates her because she's trying to have, well, she tried to have his shit shut down because she thinks he's an abusive, like, you know, just money hungry, you know, zoo owner, basically. Which it does kind of seem like that's what he is. Exactly. And it's like, so these,

these dudes all have like total reason to have. hate her. And their reasoning is money and they don't want to lose their money and they don't want to be seen as animal abusers. And she was trying to, you know, exploit that whole thing. I still sit in a gray area. I'm not sold that she didn't do it, but I'm not sold that she did do it. Because so far, what solid evidence is there that she did it? Yeah, there's nothing. Exactly. So it's like, is there solid evidence that says she didn't? No, no. Is there solid evidence that says she did? No. But basically all evidence that we're pointing to that she did is kind of just like, well, I feel like she did because she's an asshole. Like it's literally like. And it's like, well, Don was kind of an asshole too.

Everybody in this whole thing is kind of an asshole. So it's like, an asshole does not make you a murderer. Right. And it's also just, I need someone to explain to me also like how she killed him. Right. Like she didn't just put him through a meat grinder. You got to tell me how she killed him. Well, are people thinking that she literally just like locked him in the thing and then like the tigers just ate him? I don't know. And that's why there's no evidence?

Yeah, that's the thing. Because it's like if that was what she did, why wouldn't she just make it look like an accident? Because maybe that would be too convenient with like the how he had the protective order and everything. Yeah, I guess you're right. And she did say that if you do want somebody to eat someone that you come. cover them in sardine oil. So that was a little weird. Does that make her a murder? No, it doesn't make her a murderer. Probably not the best thing to joke about, though, when your husband mysteriously disappeared and people think that you fed him to a tiger. Very true. But then I look back on like the West Memphis

three. Yeah. Yep. If we're going to, if we're going to sit there and take people just like making jokes or like being stupid and like talking as evidence, then a lot of people are going to go to jail for bullshit they didn't do. Yeah. No, it's definitely not evidence. But it does make you. go, hmm. Memes are fun, but like, memes are fun, but they're not evidence. But it's like, Joe Exotic is fun to like laugh and about and like be like he's funny. But it's like, everybody, please remember that he hired someone to kill a woman. And then just remember that guy getting into a bathtub. Yeah, let's not just, let's not lift him up too much. Everybody. Because again, he's a dick. Carol Baskins is a dick. That doc Antel guy's a dick.

That Jeff Lowe guy's a dick. Everybody's a dick. I'm here to tell you everyone in that documentary is a dick except for Howard. True. Who reminds me of Nigel Thornberry, and I'll leave you with that. He really does. Oh my God. That's crazy.

You're welcome. Well, and you know what's crazy, too, is so the Hillsbury County Sheriff's Office, the website still says that Don Lewis is an endangered missing adults. Oh. But in 2002, he was declared legally done. dead. Okay. Because after a certain amount of time, they declare you that. Right. But the case was reopened now because with the new interest with the documentary, it really was. Like the documentary, they were like, yes, we should reopen this because now everybody's, which is smart.

Everybody's eyes are on it. So. And they say they're getting about like six tips a day about it. So, but they said a lot of them are nonsense. I was going to say how many of those are for realsies. Yeah, a lot of them are just crazy theories. Right. Because another theory that, Joe Exotic floated was that like she threw him in like a, you know, uh, sewer. Oh, the sewage system. Right. Yeah. And that shit didn't make a whole lot of sense either because she was like that was already there. It just wasn't. Yeah. She's like, you're down. That was another one. Like that wasn't working. But, you know, again, it's like, watching the documentary, I'm like, watching how violent Joe Exotic was when talking about Carol, it's like really a lot. It's like,

alarming that that's not being talked about more. Yeah. And that like everyone's just like that bitch Carol. And it's like, but wait a second, we don't know that she killed her. Nobody has the smoking gun here. Right. Can we not just forget what's, what else is happening around her? Violent and manipulative. He made two or three supposed straight men be in love with him. Yeah. I mean, those men could have been by. That's true. But they, they said that they were straight. Yeah. But maybe they just didn't realize it. Yeah, maybe. I don't know.

But I think, I mean, I think he definitely used, like, drugs to ply a lot of these people to be around him. That is true. Which is sad. It is really sad. But I also just wanted to point out that if you guys aren't listening to Jensen and Holes Murder Squad podcast, like, what are you doing, first of all? I was going to go listen to it. they did a really good episode about this case and they have a lot more like detailed information about certain things because they like did legwork and like reached out to sheriff's offices

and talk to them and like I don't want to take their information that they like worked hard to get so if you want some more details go over to Jensen and Holes murder squad and go listen to them because they did a great job on this and who doesn't want to listen to Paul Holes talk about true crime cases. We love to hear it. We love it. So, yeah, I think that is really where we sit now. Love it.

The Carol Baskin case. It's kind of in a nebulous. Now we just wait and see what comes of it. It's in the sunken place. It really is the sunken place for Carol Baskins case. What is unfortunate, actually, is that Carol says that after the documentary aired, she, like, unplugged her phones. and like can't go out and she's been receiving like death threats all over the place.

Yeah, that is really sad. Because people think she killed her husband. Because, you know, we are in a gray area. So then go over to the other side. If that woman didn't kill her husband, what a sad existence. Can you imagine how shitty that is if she didn't kill her husband? No. That now she's known as this.

Yeah, like that's fucked. And she's like, real pissed because she was like, you know, I go on my bike rides and like people are like throwing things at me and like threatening me. And then she said like, you know, it took away from the abuse that was supposed to be, you know, shown to the world. And like, that's what I thought this was going to be. And now it's become about me. Which sucks. Which is sad.

So it is sad because there was a lot of like points in that documentary where you were like, what the fuck? Like, which I was like, I didn't know. Like, I would have held a baby tiger had I got the chance. And now after watching that, I'm like, fuck that. I don't want to hold a baby tiger. Nope. So, yeah, so I'm not telling you how to feel. No one's an innocent little angel here, but no, definitely not.

But so far, no one except Joe Exotic is involved in murder. Exactly. Just putting that out there. The only person involved in murder is Joe Exotic himself. Exactly. Big wolf. So that's the tale of Carol Baskin. What a good tale.

We'll update this if anything comes about. Yeah, for sure. But go watch Tiger King. You'll blow your damn mind. Follow us on Instagram. At Morbid Podcast. Hit us up on Twitter. A Morbid Podcast.

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And we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you wear flower around every day and you say, hey, what's up? All you cool cats and kittens and people think you killed your husband. Maybe you did. Maybe you didn't. But don't give it so weird that you're Joe Exotic. Bye.

Don't do it. That was a good one. Don't get Joe Exotic Fangs. So keep it jokes on it weird. Bye. Bye.