An attorney for the missing husband of "Tiger King" star Carole Baskin believes that his former client and friend was strangled and thrown out of an airplane over the Gulf of Mexico.
The hit Netflix series "Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness" has breathed new life into the decade's old investigation into the sudden disappearance of Don Lewis (a.k.a. Jack Don Lewis), an apparent multimillionaire who was married to Baskin.
According to Baskin, she met Lewis in 1980. He subsequently left his wife and married Baskin, and they jointly ran an exotic animal habitat in Hillsborough County, Fla.
Lewis was reported missing by Baskin in 1997 and he was later declared dead. His attorney, Joseph Fritz, said that he believes Lewis was killed.
"In my view, there's no question but that he was murdered," Fritz told former prosecutor and Fox Nation host Nancy Grace in a new episode of the Fox Nation series "A Tiger King Investigation."
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"He loved those cats. He never would have just walked away from them -- ever," Fritz continued, "He was proud of those cats. He loved his cats. Some force made him leave."
Fritz's "working theory" in Lewis' disappearance was that he was coaxed to a private county airport by the offer of a deal to purchase an aircraft and then murdered.
"Don Lewis, he was terribly cheap while he was very wealthy. He was cheap beyond belief," Fritz told Grace "What would have lured him more than anything else is a good deal on an airplane. So that's what I assume happened -- that he got lured up to the Pilot Country Estates to look at an airplane."
Lewis' abandoned car was found in the parking lot of the private airport. Baskin subsequently told police that he was planning on traveling to Costa Rica, where he had a home.
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"What do you believe happened to Jack Don Lewis?" asked Grace.
"What I had heard was that he was strangled from the backseat of an airplane over the Gulf [of Mexico] at 50 feet and dropped out over the Gulf," said Fritz, who noted that Lewis preferred to fly low, under the range of radar detection, because his pilot's license had been revoked.
Following Lewis' disappearance, Baskin inherited his fortune, which Fritz estimated to be between $5 and $10 million.
"Let me point out," stressed Grace, "Carol Baskin has not been named as a suspect, an official suspect, in Lewis's disappearance or death."
Fritz admitted that he doesn't know who killed his former client and friend.
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"Mr. Fritz, do you think we're ever going to find out what happened to Don Lewis?" asked Grace.
"One day one of these people is going to stub their toe and want a get-out-of-jail-free card and that's when something's going to happen," said Fritz.
To hear more of Grace's interview with Joe Fritz, including his criticism of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's department and why he calls Baskin a "liar," watch all of "A Tiger King Investigation with Nancy Grace" on Fox Nation.
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