The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in Florida renewed its investigation into the case in 2020. Cpl. Moises Garcia told The Tampa Bay Times that the Department of Homeland Security recently assisted the Sheriff’s Office through its Panama office by “running down leads in Costa Rica.”
Garcia declined to comment on the document shown on the show, citing the open investigation. However, Joseph C. Dominick, a former sheriff’s investigator who assisted Garcia on the case, told the newspaper that anything on the series suggesting Lewis was alive in Costa Rica is “all noise.”
Garcia called Baskin a “high-profile person of interest” in the case. When asked if she is a suspect, Garcia said the only person not a suspect is himself, adding, “Everybody else is a possibility.”
Baskin said in a statement on her website on Thursday that Tiger King 2 “continues to do everything they can to falsely convince the viewer that Carole was involved in Don Lewis’ disappearance…And for everyone who still wants to believe that Carole killed Don, then please explain to us why you think armchair detectives, or you are better informed than the Special Agent in Charge at the FBI in this Homeland Security Document which says ‘Don Lewis is currently alive and well in Costa Rica.'”
Lewis’ family is offering a private $100,000 reward for tips that would lead to finding out what happened to him. They have advertised it on billboards and even in an ad that aired in fall 2020 during Dancing With the Stars, when Baskin competed on the show.
Baskin has a theory that Lewis crashed a small plane or ultralight into the Gulf of Mexico, which she detailed in a recent Reddit Q&A. On Tiger King 2, Lewis’ associate in Costa Rica, Rey Rodriguez, said that the man “talked about moving to Costa Rica to start over fresh” and told him “he was there to get away from Carole.” Rodriguez said Lewis flew a Cessna plane back and forth there and then he often brought in heavy boxes filled with $100,000-$200,000 in $100 bills, buried under used clothes, and put the case “in different companies” to hide money.
One of Lewis’ daughters. Donna Pettis, said on the episode, “That sounds like Dad. That sounds like he would have been trying to get his money out of the States so that when he divorced Carole, there would be less that he would have to give her.”