‘Tiger King’: Carole Baskin Reveals Why She Never Took a Polygraph for Missing Husband’s Case
Skeptics of Tiger King star, Carole Baskin, have a lot of questions about her missing husband, Don Lewis. The Netflix docuseries spends a lot of time focusing on his case, which Baskin says, has been unfair. In a series of new videos, Baskin addresses Tiger King’s portrayal of herself, Lewis, and why she never took a polygraph test to prove her innocence.
Baskin is not ‘yet’ a suspect in Don Lewis’s case
As the Tiger King dust settles, many of the docuseries stars are stepping out to clarify any misrepresentations shown. One woman who’s been adamant about her portrayal is Big Cat Rescue owner, Carole Baskin.
As stated on her website, Baskin feels Tiger King to be “salacious” and not at all close to the truth. In terms of the 1997 disappearance of Lewis, she’s not been named a suspect and Sheriff Chad Chronister said there’s no evidence of anyone specifically tied to Lewis’s case, though he is asking for new leads.
“I’m extremely suspicious, but not just of her, of this whole circle here. I don’t want to allude to the fact or insinuate that she’s a person of interest and that this is who we are focusing on. I’m not comfortable saying that yet,” he previously told TMZ.
Here’s why Baskin never took a polygraph test
According to Baskin, Lewis disappeared “amid a horrible time” in their lives, when “[he] was acting so irrationally.” She claims she was trying to get her husband medical help at that time adding his friends convinced him she was trying to “have him committed” and “take his money away from him.”
Then, Lewis disappeared. Baskin said she was worried about him because he allegedly climbed into dumpsters often and “brought home all kinds of garbage.” She also said he suffered from memory lapses and sometimes forgot where he was and had, at times, gotten stuck in a dumpster.
Baskin explained a situation involving the Big Cat Rescue secretary becoming conservator after getting Lewis’s grown kids to sign over rights.
However, when Lewis didn’t come home, Baskin said she agreed to take a polygraph initially. Why didn’t she? On the advice of a criminal attorney who explained a polygraph only shows if you’re having “an emotional response,” he convinced Baskin to back out, fear of everyone convicting her as guilty when she wasn’t even a suspect.
She went on to explain if she passed the test, it could also come back as “inconclusive,” though all she wanted to do was give Lewis’s children “peace of mind.”
“That would be taken to say that I’m this stone-cold killer that has no emotional response,” she said.
“There was nothing good that was going to come out of that. I knew I didn’t have anything to do with Don’s disappearance and it wasn’t going to help anybody find him. So there was absolutely no reason to take a polygraph then — or now, 23 years later when people are still accusing me of killing my husband.”
Baskin said she was ‘desperate for somebody who loved’ her
As stated in Tiger King, Baskin was 19 years old when she met Lewis. He was a married father, but, according to Baskin, he’d left his wife.
“He had told me his name was Bob Martin,” she says in the video. She added that she didn’t know who he really was for “three or four years.” Once she did discover the man she’d fallen in love with was Lewis, she still didn’t leave but has regrets about it now.
“It was never my intention to break up his home,” she said.
However, Baskin says that once Lewis’s wife asked for a divorce, she also asked for $1 million in property and a quick divorce after allegations came to light that Lewis had allegedly sexually assaulted a minor in the family.
In the 16-minute video, Baskin elaborates on the business side of their relationship. Still, regardless of what’s said, fans and critics will likely make up their own minds about Baskin (or already have).
Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness is available on Netflix now.
