Amanda Knox, the U.S. citizen exonerated in the murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher in Italy, said people were rushing to judgment about whether animal rights activist Carole Baskin killed husband Don Lewis.
“My simple reaction to that case was actually in response to Carole Baskin, and the number of people who saw a documentary and made a claim about how Carole Baskin killed her husband,” Knox said. “And I found that it was irresponsible for anyone to be going around claiming that someone killed their husband because they happened to see a documentary series. That’s not enough to actually make any kinds of claims of guilt or innocence.”
Baskin’s then-husband Don Lewis disappeared in 1997. The case remains unsolved, but was covered in the recent Netflix docuseries Tiger King, which profiled Baskin and the eponymous “Tiger King” Joseph Maldonado-Passage (a.k.a. Joe Exotic).
As part of his grudge with Baskin, Maldonado-Passage floated unsubstantiated theories that she buried Lewis’s body in a septic tank, or fed him to their tigers.
Well, their rivalry ended with “Exotic” getting convicted and sentenced in an Oklahoma federal court on claims, including plotting to kill Baskin. But Lewis is still missing. The questions around his disappearance remain. His family and a former assistant recently filed a “bill of pure discovery” in his disappearance, demanding that Baskin and two former Lewis employees hand over what they know about the disappearance. Lewis is presumed dead.
Baskin, the CEO of Big Cat Recuse in Tampa, Florida, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
The Lewis family purchased ad space amid Baskins’ first appearance on the reality show Dancing with the Stars. They asked viewers for any information about the case.
“Do you know who did this, or if Carole Baskin was involved?” attorney John M. Phillips asked.
Baskin said she hopes their commercial will solve the case, and attacked it as a “publicity stunt.”
“It was [a publicity stunt],” Phillips told News 4 JAX. “It was a publicity stunt for Don Lewis. It absolutely was.”
[Screengrab via Law&Crime Network]
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