'Joe Exotic: Tigers, Lies and Cover-Up': Did Carol Baskin set up Tiger King to shut him up about Don Lewis?
One of the most signifying phases of this year's quarantine period has been the 'Tiger King' craze with the Netflix documentary blowing up to imperceivable proportions and shedding light on the madness of the titular king, Joe Exotic, and his rivalry with Big Cat Rescuer Carol Baskin. There's hardly a person on the planet safe from the sensational story. That was in April, but all the way in September, media is still continuing to obsess over the now incarcerated Joe.
The case in point is the topic of a new three-part documentary 'Joe Exotic: Tigers, Lies and Cover-ups' where his defense team argues that Baskin did set him up in a false murder-for-hire case, not because of the alleged life-threatening attacks he made on her, but primarily because he was getting too close to solving the mysterious disappearance of Baskin's ex-husband and OG Big Cat King — Don Lewis.
Right at the beginning of the documentary, PI Dan Toporowych is approached by Jim Rathmann, a former deputy who co-hosts a cold-case indulging podcast called 'Real Life Real Crime'. While Toporowych was requested to get onboard the currently incarcerated Joe's team, Rathmann came to know about the details of the case as he lived quite close to the site of the plane crash that Lewis is alleged to have died in.
Something didn't sit right with Rathmann, as he mentions noticing more than a few "red flags" in Baskin's claims of how her ex-husband died. Similarly, with Toporowych, he watched the Netflix documentary and wrote to Joe who requested his engagement in the defense team. Toporowych claimed that is when they "started digging into the bad police work" involved and the first part of the almost three-hour documentary focuses on the plausibility of Baskin's motives.
However, the claims of the two former cops-turned-crime investigators aren't entirely baseless, as revealed and thoroughly discussed in the eight-part Netflix docuseries. Baskin's husband did die a very mysterious death, right on the verge of divorcing her. Not to mention, Baskin inherited the whole of his Big Cat Rescue Foundation which she runs now with her current husband. That and, of course, all of Lewis' inheritance otherwise which he had assured his ex-wife before Baskin, was going to their daughters.
According to Toporowych, when Joe started making the outrageous, pompous videos about Baskin having murdered Lewis, social media turned against her and the sheriff's department began digging into the crash once again. This prompted Baskin to speak out in her defense on the internet right before she hit Joe with lawsuits surrounding animal cruelty.
Joe was reportedly struggling financially at the time, and mysteriously a man called Jeff Lowe appears in his life, ready to offer him money in exchange for a business partnership. Joe agrees to it, and in his personal claims, he said it was Lowe who hatched the plan to kill Baskin together with him, before being mysteriously hunted down by the cop and giving up Joe's alleged murder-for-hire plans.
Joe has the Internet convinced that Baskin had hired Lowe to trick him into hatching a false plan that would get him incarcerated. And while the Internet might think this was simply because Baskin was sick and tired of being the butt of Joe's jokes, or even of his animal cruelty, Toporowych and Rathmann are of the opinion that there was more truth to allegations of Baskin killing Lewis than he let on.
According to them, Baskin set Joe Exotic up simply because his claims on the internet were started to dig up her own supposed crimes. 'Joe Exotic: Tigers, Lies, and Cover-Ups' three-hour special premiere begins on Sunday, September 27 at 9/8c and concludes on Monday, September 28 at 9/8c on ID.