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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
And let me tell you, it did. I've been listening to it while I walk and I am absolutely loving it.
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I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is a mini Kinda Moral.
Mini, mini, mini, mini, mini morbid. Mini morbid, mini morbid, mini morbid.
A mini-ish morbid, and you're here for it.
You are here for it. And I think it's going to be pretty mini, actually, this one.
You know, hang tight. It's a little nugget.
Bear with us. Bear with us. It's just a little nugget.
We've got a lot coming for you this week.
We really do. There's a whole lot on our plate.
And actually, we just added a whole nother shebang to our plate that you can't know about yet, but we've got a whole nother shebang 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. 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 gonna be there at the good night's 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. Everything.
Talia Hall in Chicago has been now postponed until October 11th. spooky season at talia hall yeah and that one's gonna 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 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. 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 DC Improv.
So many monuments. I can't wait. It's going to be a monumentous occasion.
Ooh, it most certainly is. Girl. Girl. September 23rd, we have two shows at Zany's 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 realized that. No. I mean. You can totally.
I mean, it's up to you. Whatever you feel is natural.
Well, 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 COVID-19 just punches us all in the face. punches us directly in the face directly in the dome because this We don't like having these rescheduled, 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 I just realized. What? 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. What a missed opportunity. It's always 2020.
It's always 2020. Well, you know what? Hail you cool cats and kittens.
We are going to be talking about Carol Baskins.
Hell yeah. and her missing husband and her missing husband um so i have a lot of thoughts about this 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, Carole Baskin's second husband.
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.
Yeah. And me. 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, which is probably more than they really should have focused on it 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 salacious, let's talk about the rumors of Carole 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 murdered his own tigers to make room for other animals.
Yeah, and he's caught on camera abusing them.
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 Louis Thoreau.
I don't know if it's Louis Thoreau or Louis 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 the cult.
So it's like you... 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 is funny and his shirts are funny and the fact that he has like condoms with his face on it are funny But let's just remember that these are a bunch of shitbags.
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 don't know if it's episode one or episode two, but him fucking shooting a blow up doll that he named Carol and she's like bound in the back of a truck.
I don't care what Carole 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 dildo 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, OK, 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 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 actions. like condemnation of her so absolutely I think that just needs to be like remembered that these like whether they're men or women but these they are all men at this point but all these guys that own these different uh like zoos essentially or if they want to call them sanctuaries sure um uh they're they're all at stake to lose money if she gets her way so that's a big motivator to 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 at 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 Carole 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.
We're all going to be still questioning it.
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 pure 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 my god, 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 very 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 i honestly don't know each other's sides or something kudos to that my guess for 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.
No one 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 7th, 1979.
And they had one daughter, a girl named Jamie. okay um to so after she was working at the after she had jamie you know she wanted to earn some more money So she began rescuing big cats, like bobcats and stuff.
And she was also breeding show cats. And she ended up...
She was using goats and llamas for a lawn cutting business.
Because they're good for... 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. The more you know. You know what I mean?
So her first husband, Michael Murdock, was abusive.
Unfortunately, when she was 19 years old in 1980, they had one of their huge knockdown drag out 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.
A good Irish way out of that fight. Fuck yeah.
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 solid enough that if you hum it at someone, that's just going to hurt, but not solid enough that it's going to 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 at all. That is not okay. It's not okay either way.
She did hurl a potato at him 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. I hate to... It's the sketchiest meet cute of all time.
And the worst part is, like, she... She talks about this meeting like she's 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 Don Lewis drives up next to her and is like, hey, pretty lady, you need a ride?
And she was like, 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. People are like, 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 seat of the car.
To me, this is like, oh, now you run. 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? 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 skeet. ball 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 uh problem is she's married although he's an abusive asshole apparently uh-huh he was also married so whoops they had an affair 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' 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?
Gladys had it going on but unfortunately Gladys had to deal with a lot of shit from Dawn I will say that He cheated on Gladys constantly 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 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. 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-O-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, Don, what the fuck? That's not cool.
His own daughter said that he was a sex addict.
Yeah, like that's really good. Like, and that's the other thing.
It's like, I feel like we're all like failing to just point out the facts here.
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. Goals. 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 Kittays.
The Kittays. But with Dawn, it felt like it was more like of a collecting thing.
Right. Like... He did love cats, but he was rich, and rich people just love collecting weird shit.
They do. That's just a thing that rich people like.
From what I hear. If you're rich listening to this right now, I bet you have a collection of some sort.
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 definitely a little bit of both, like...
She also liked the collecting aspect of it, but she cared.
To me, she seems like she genuinely does care for these animals.
Yeah, that's the thing. She definitely comes across like she does.
Yeah. If not, she's a great actress. But Carol is, like I said earlier, she is smart as hell.
She's incredibly savvy. One might say cunning.
Oh yeah, she is definitely cunning. You can see how she can manipulate.
You can see how she can be cold and calculating.
For sure, like I'm not gonna deny that I do believe she cares about the animals, but she's also a little hypocritical about 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 enclosures, but you're still keeping animals in cages.
I mean, I know that it's like a sanctuary...
Because now it's 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, they're definitely in that documentary. but um 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 her 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.
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 flower crowns like it was going out of fucking style ash loved a flower crown yep wana del rey bitch but you know what oh god uh but we're such different people we really are It's like, oh, Lord.
You're like, I want to. Nope. Except 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 Swanson'd it, which is pretty rad, I think.
It is. like bury money in like gold bars and shit like which is awesome i mean if you have the means to do it hey do that shit Yeah, I mean, why are we trusting banks and shit?
Just bury your... He literally was Ron Swanson-ing before Ron Swanson Ron Swanson-ed.
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 he could.
So he was definitely a multi-millionaire. but he would 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 $2 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.
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 the sanctuary down there to that 200 acre place. lot right um but he had a lot of a lot of shady dealings down there that nobody really knows a 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.
Okay. Was she involved in the real estate?
Yeah. She helped him out with that stuff.
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 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 in buying out mortgages.
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 foreclose 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 old lady? I don't remember, actually.
I think it's her, 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.
Shady. And... Anne also said that she was the only woman that he didn't hit on.
Because he just hit on every woman. Which to me is like... me thinks thou doth protest too much and 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.
Tell it again. 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 I know, and just flying your private plane down there.
And Carol said this was for him to carry on his secret trysts 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 needed sex once a day. that's a lot to be honest at least yeah yeah that's a lot at least one today 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 to chill, dude.
So she says he was going down to Costa Rica and, you know, meeting women and that he had a girlfriend down there.
It was confirmed later that he did have a girlfriend.
Investigators spoke to her. 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... 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.
It's like kind of all over the place. So Carol and Don, when they first got married, they bought a bobcat as their first cat.
That was the first thing that they bought was a bobcat.
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 Bobcats 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 Um, 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.
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 and it changed the whole thing.
Yeah. 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 know. 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 open a rescue.
We have 56. spot cats now we gotta do something and they initially called their rescue wildlife on easy street which is so cute it's adorable very wholesome And Don began buying injured, abused and abandoned cats all over the place.
Mm hmm. 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 fun. 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 was just not what it was looking to be from the outside.
Potatoes were flying. They definitely were.
So in June 1997, a protection order was requested by Dawn against Carol.
Mm hmm. 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 and takeaway 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 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 and 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 peace out of that.
That's my little nugget of wisdom for you.
Marriage counseling with Alina. 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 gonna kill you so he was like yeah i think she feels i feel like she's gonna kill me And then 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, OK, that's enough.
He was not granted this protection order by a judge.
Dun, dun, dun. 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.
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. Or something 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 um his mental health was declining and he saw a psychiatrist once and then was like fuck that i'm not going back 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 just Carol's word.
Which is really convenient if we look at what happens to him in the following months.
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. Mm-hmm. that morning don had told uh carol that he was getting up early he was gonna go uh 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 was 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 office.
And then I'll be doing this. That was the last time she saw him, according to her statements.
Allegedly. 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 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. They did find the keys to the van on the floor of the van, which is a little weird.
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.
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 so and this is a tiny airport and you can it would have been okay to do that like 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 a 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 account.
OK. They think maybe. could he have bought a plane with cash on the spot and that's why we don't have records of it right um but you know uh 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.
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 clusterfucks.
Well, because like word of mouth is like the worst. it's just a yeah it's one of those things so they um they thoroughly searched the wildlife rescue in florida they searched uh 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 ocelots.
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 until December 1998 that Don's daughter, Donna Pettis, with Gladys... actually put forth the theory that Carol had killed Dawn. 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... 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 gonna kill me just because i looked like carol Right?
I'd be like, this is getting too scary, man.
Too much. Well, in 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 Don even went missing.
Oh, I don't think they mentioned that. 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 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.
Mm-hmm. 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 meat grinder.
Like, that takes a lot of time. And if he was last seen 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, you would think they would find some kind of like, I mean, that would leave a big fucking mess.
100%. That's why that theory is, to me, absurd.
Yeah. It's just absurd. Yeah. It just is 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. It's like, you know... But he left Carol with power of attorney.
Right. So she had complete control over his estate.
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.
This wasn't Carol putting that language in there.
That was Carol and Don putting that language.
Oh, he signed the document as well. Of course he had to.
It's his it's his will. They left that out in Tiger King.
Of course they did. And what's 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 it's also fishy on his end because he's literally setting up his own quote unquote disappearance if it's because another theory is that motherfucker got in trouble and he needed to get the fuck out of Dodge.
He had to disappear. 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 disappear myself.
Right. Then this is the case. So. I mean, that's just to me, that doesn't prove anything either way.
It makes 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 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 costume. outfit and she has him on a leash it'll do something to 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 pitched 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. 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 it's all together.
So then, she said, the assets in the other trust, worth about two 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 $1 million.
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 thing.
Oh, 100%. It became the fucking Joe Exotic documentary.
The Joe Exotic and Carol show. 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 against this woman.
On social media every day. On his channels 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. Yeah. Yep, just untouched. I'm like, yo, he was murdered.
Or he was a hitman. Like, what? Like, yeah.
It's... 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.
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 GoFundMe 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. And who's to say he's not going to save up more money 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 Carole Baskin is not because he believes Carole 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 exactly and it's like so these these dudes all have like total reason to 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 none. Exactly. So it's like...
Is there solid evidence that says she didn't?
No? Nope. 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. She didn't just put him through a meat grinder.
You gotta 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 cover them in sardine oil.
So that was a little weird. Does that make her a murderer?
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. 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.
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 laugh about and be like, he's funny, but it's like, everybody please remember that he hired someone to kill a woman, so...
And then just remember that guy getting into a bathtub.
Yeah, let's not just lift him up too much.
Favorite part. Because again... He's a dick.
Carol Baskins is a dick. That Doc Antle 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 adult oh but in 2002 he was declared legally 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 right. 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. Um, 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, that was another one that wasn't working.
But, you know, again... Watching the documentary, I'm like, watching how violent Joe Exotic was when talking about Carol...
It's like really 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 else is happening around her?
Violent and manipulative. Yeah. Two or three supposed straight men be in love with him.
Yeah. I mean, those men could have been bi.
That's true. But 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.
Yeah. a lot of these people to be around him that is true Which is sad.
It is really sad. I also just wanted to point out that...
If you guys aren't listening to Jensen and Hole's Murder Squad podcast... like what are you doing first of all go listen to it uh 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 leg work and like reached out to sheriff's offices and talked 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 Hole's 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 place.
Now we just wait and see what comes of it.
It's in the sunken place. It really is the sunken place for Carol Baskin's case.
We just watched Get Out the other day. 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 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 when i 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.
Yeah, exactly. Big wolf. That's the tale of Carol Baskin.
What a good tale. And we'll update this if anything comes about.
Yeah, for sure. But go watch Tiger King.
It'll blow your damn mind. Follow us on Instagram.
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Don't send your stories anywhere else. Oh, I was like, no, send your stories.
No, send all your stories to the Gmail. Yeah. morbid podcast at gmail.com uh follow us on spotify oh yes do that we just find us on spotify i don't know just type in morbid at true crime podcast where the and you don't need premium to listen so go listen for free to any podcasts on spotify And we hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it. Weird. But not so weird that you wear a flower crown 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 keep it so weird that you're Joe Exotic.
Bye. Don't do it. That was a good one. Don't get Joe Exotic bangs.
Don't keep a Joe Exotic beard ever. Bye.
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