The world has been shocked by the news that Carole Baskin's 'dead' ex-husband is supposedly 'alive and well'.
Weirdly, no one really noticed until this week that the Tiger King star confirmed that Don Lewis isn't dead and he is reportedly living in Costa Rica.
In the summer of 1997, Lewis left his Florida home at 6am for an early morning delivery and was never seen again, being declared legally dead five years later.
Speaking on This Morning in November 2021, Carole said: "I don't know how it is that Homeland Security says he's alive and well in Costa Rica, but I'm glad to hear it."
The mystery of Don's disappearance played a key role in the popular Tiger King Netflix documentary - causing many viewers to believe it was part of a massive conspiracy and come up with a range of theories.
Carole 'murdered Don'
The most outlandish theory out there is that Carole killed her ex-husband - but there is nothing to back it.
There is no evidence Lewis was murdered, no arrests or charges were made, Carole wasn't named as a suspect and has always denied any involvement in Don's disappearance.
One person who is convinced this is true is Joe Exotic, who outrageously claimed she fed her ex-husband to the tigers to make sure no one would find the body.
He even wrote a truly terrible song called Here Kitty Kitty about the alleged crime, which had the lyrics: "Oh, here kitty kitty. Mama's got some treats for you."
Exotic is serving a 22-year prison sentence for animal abuse and hiring someone to murder Carole.
Another theory is that Don's body is hidden in the septic tank at her sanctuary.
Lewis' children have publicly theorised Carole fed Lewis to the tigers at the sanctuary - and have hit out at investigators for not running a DNA test on a meat grinder on the property.
However, the meat grinder was removed from the sanctuary weeks before Lewis' disappearance - and Carole said there would be human bones left as remains if the tigers had eaten Lewis.
Addressing this theory on This Morning, Phillip Schofield said: "His children from his first marriage think you killed him, minced him up and fed him to the tigers!"
Carole quickly responded: "I think maybe they should check with Homeland Security who seems to know where he is."
The tiger lover has always denied murdering her husband, calling them "totally outlandish", and spoken about the anguish of the accusations.
She told PEOPLE magazine: "Can you imagine having people think you killed your husband or wife and not being able to prove otherwise?
"Without a body, there is nothing I can do to clear my name."
Don ran off with the money
There has also been the suggestion that Don was planning to divorce Carole and fled to Costa Rica so she couldn't get his fortune.
In the Tiger King documentary, a former employee claims Don told him: "If I can pull this off it will be the slickest thing I ever did."
Carole said the last thing Don said to her was that he was leaving for Costa Rica where he was shipping cars.
Don's mechanic even claimed he had asked him to go with him.
During the This Morning interview, Carole told Phillip Schofield and Josie Gibson that she was told Don was alive in Costa Rica.
She said: "I'll tell what, one of the really exciting things that came out of Tiger King 2 is that they produced a letter from Homeland Security and it says that a special agent in charge with the FBI reached out to the Sheriff's Detective.
"Which means this had to have happened after 2002 because Homeland Security wasn't even around until 2002, and they said that my husband Don Lewis is alive and well in Costa Rica.
"And yet all of this hate has been made about me having something to do with his appearance when Homeland Security has known where he is since at least back then," Carole continued.
Mental illness
Speaking on Katie Piper's podcast, Carole explained Lewis' mindset at the time of his disappearance was "paranoid".
"One of the things that was most charming about Don was he was this charismatic daredevil and he was always doing crazy things," claimed Carole.
"But by 1997 it seemed like things he were getting crazier, things he was doing were crazier. He was someone who flew without a licence and crashed three planes.
"The psychiatrist diagnosed him as being bipolar and having altered mental status. He was getting extremely paranoid and at that time he filed the restraining order."
Asked if they had a happy marriage, Carole insisted she adored Don and they had been together from when she was 19.
"For 11 years he was the centre of my universe. He was crazy even at his best but it was part of what I loved about him," she added.
Don died in a plane crash
Don owned a fleet of small airplanes, so many believe he died on the flight to Costa Rica.
His van was also found abandoned at the airport.
The documentary said it is impossible to fly those types of planes that far non-stop and there were no flight records to prove he'd flown there.
However, Carole claimed he never flew legitimately because he'd lost his pilot's license, instead opting to fly below radar levels and refusing to log his flights so he wouldn't get caught.
During Louis Theroux's documentary in April 2021, before the Homeland Security revelation, Carole said she believes this is what happened.
She explained: "I think people will often ask me what you think happened to him. I had so many theories at the time.
"I think the thing that makes most sense is he crashed an experimental or ultralight out over the gulf. If it was anything else I think they would have found him by now."
Don was thrown out of a plane
Don's lawyer has controversially suggested that he was strangled and thrown from a plane - but it's not clear as to who would have the motive to do this.
Joseph Fritz said there is 'no question' that Don was murdered as he thinks he was too attached to his animals to abandon them.
"What would have lured him more than anything else is a good deal on an airplane," he said.
"So that's what I assume happened, that he got lured up to the Pilot Country Estates to look at an airplane."
Joseph added: "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."
Jeff Lowe is Don
The most out there theory is that fellow big cat owner Jeff Lowe is actually Don.
Lowe features heavily in Tiger King as Joe Exotic transferred ownership of his big cat zoo over to Jeff in 2016.
Ownership of the park was granted to Baskin following a ruling from federal judge Scott Palk, ordering Lowe to vacate the park and remove all animals.
In December of 2021, Lowe was permanently banned from exhibiting animals.
Some fans shared side by side pictures of the two of them and said there are striking similarities.
It's not clear why Jeff would pretend to be someone else if he was really Don, but as with most conspiracy theories this one doesn't make much sense.
Of course, Jeff quickly denied these claims.
