Jack Donald Lewis, also known as Don Lewis (born April 30, 1938) was a businessman from the United States. He was a self-made millionaire and the co-founder of Wildlife on Easy Street, now known as Big Cat Rescue. He disappeared under mysterious circumstances on August 18, 1997. Carole Baskin, the co-founder and current CEO of Big Cat Rescue, was Don's wife at the time of his sudden vanishing. In March 2020, Netflix's hit documentary series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness brought new attention to the case.

Lewis was born in Dade City, Florida to a single mother of three, who sold fresh bread and worked as a seamstress. In high school, he held several jobs, including mechanic and farm hand. He graduated from Pasco High School a year ahead of schedule in 1955.^[5]

Lewis started hauling rock and sand in Dade City, then bought five dump trucks.

In the early 1960s, he began driving tankers for Texaco and Red Wing carriers in Tampa. On the side, he bought washing machines, repaired them, and resold them at a profit. He invested in used cars, making money at auctions. His next big move was real estate. Lewis bought bad mortgages from other lenders, then let homeowners remain if they paid him 18 percent interest. If they made six house payments on time, he would sell the mortgage. If not, he foreclosed.^[5]

Gladys Cross was Lewis's first wife.

The couple met at the A&P when Lewis, a bag boy, winked at her.

Two years after their first date, they married.

She was 14; he was 17.

Eleven months after that, their first daughter was born.^[5]

Carole Lewis was attracted to his free spirit.

“I just fell in love with him at first sight,” said Carole Lewis, who met him at 19.

They carried on an affair for years before his 1990 divorce, she said.

Jack and Carole married in 1991 .^[5][8] Jack had four children – three daughters and one son – that he left with Gladys when they split.^[8]

Shortly after they married, the couple started Wildlife on Easy Street, a center for exotic cats set on 40 acres of tall pines, high grass and flowering bushes at the end of a dirt road at their home in Citrus Park, Florida.^[5]

On June 12, 1997, two months before he went missing, Lewis filed for a protection order out of fear.

Jack told a Hillsborough Circuit judge that his wife, Carole Baskin, had hidden his gun and threatened to kill him, but the judge denied the request for protection. ^[1]

In the days before Lewis was gone, he was busy making business plans.

He bought a plane ticket to Costa Rica, where Lewis owned a 200-acre park. He was loading equipment on a truck destined for Miami.^[6]

On 18 August, 1997, Jack went missing and has never been seen again.

On the morning millionaire Jack Donald Lewis disappeared, he was wearing a $1 T-shirt from Kmart and blue jeans bought at a yard sale. He left behind an 8-year old Dodge van with a broken window and battered grill.^[5]

In 2002, after Jack still wasn’t found, he was declared dead and his body has never been found.

The now cold case was turned over to detective Chris Fox of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department.

^[1][8]

When acting on a tip on January 19, 2006, detective Chris Fox paid a visit to Susan Aronoff, former staff member of Wildlife on Easy Street, now known as Big Cat Rescue. Her name was one of two names appearing on Jack Lewis' will and power of attorney as witnesses to his signature. During the interview, Susan admitted to detective Chris Fox that she never saw Jack sign either document, both which were drawn up by Carole herself and appeared only after Jack disappeared.^[1]

Detective Fox believed Susan, but the statute of limitation had by that time run out for charges of forgery and perjury and he acknowledged that Susan and Carole couldn't be prosecuted for these crimes.

In an email to a third party, Susan Aronoff wrote, "When he disappeared and his kids were contesting the will I got a phone call from Carole to go to court.

Carole had me backed against a wall at the time and out of fear of her I signed a statement swearing it to be my signature even though it wasn't."^[1]

Joe "Exotic" Schreibvogel has made extreme claims publicly that Carole killed Jack and either buried his body under a septic tank, or fed her husband to tigers. He even created a music video for Hey Kitty Kitty where a lookalike Carole feeds a butchered body to tigers, with the lyrics documenting his twisted version of the story. He is currently incarcerated for 22 years for attempting to hire someone to kill her. ^[8]

In March 2020, Netflix released a documentary called Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness that depicts the story of Lewis. After the hype of the documentary, the case was reopened. Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister told CNN that the show has generated a lot of new interest in the case. His office is receiving about six tips a day, he said:

In a video news conference Chronister told reporters that he has assigned a detective supervisor to chase down any new leads generated from the show.

So far, none of the tips have been credible, he said.

He also posted a new call for information on his personal Twitter account.^[9]

Chronister said the case was extremely convoluted and that everyone involved had theories about what happened to Lewis.

He said investigators have never found enough probable cause to charge anyone with a crime - or even to determine that a crime had been committed.

At the time, they did not have GPS or mobile phones that might have helped locate Lewis, Chronister said.

Investigators have entered DNA samples from Lewis' relatives into law enforcement databases in hopes of finding a match, he said.^[9]