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'Tiger King 2' To Explore The Seedy History of Carole Baskin's Missing Husband

"He told me he was in danger," a man said in a new clip from the second season of the highly anticipated docu-series about the disappearance of Don Lewis. "He said it was over money. He had some problems with some people in the U.S. They were really bad men. I asked, 'Bad men?' He said, 'Very, very bad… They will kill you.'"

By Jill Sederstrom
Tiger King 2 Netflix

The enduring mystery of what happened to Carole Baskin’s missing husband, Don Lewis, will once again take center stage in “Tiger King 2”—but this time documentary filmmakers will delve deeper into the “very bad” men Lewis surrounded himself with before he disappeared in 1997.

Men from Lewis’ past—along with Baskin’s ex-boyfriend Alan Schreier—provide new insights into Lewis’ life before he mysteriously disappeared from the couple’s Florida property, according to a new clip obtained by  EW from the second season of the highly-anticipated Netflix docuseries.

According to one man, interviewed for the series, Lewis had looked “worried” during several of his last trips.

"He told me he was in danger," the unidentified man said in Spanish. "He said it was over money. He had some problems with some people in the U.S. They were really bad men. I asked, 'Bad men?' He said, 'Very, very bad… They will kill you.'"

Lewis disappeared on Aug. 18, 1997.

Baskin would later tell authorities that the night before her husband disappeared, he told her he was planning to wake up early to go to Costa Rica to transport cars.

But Lewis, who was declared legally dead in 2002, was never seen again and the theories about what happened to the wealthy exotic cat sanctuary owner have inc;everything from the idea that Lewis disappeared as part of an insurance scam to the even more outlandish theory peddled by imprisoned former zoo owner Joe Exotic that Baskin killed her husband and fed him to her big cats—a claim she has vehemently denied.

Baskin’s ex-boyfriend Alan Schreier weighs in on the mystery in the new clip from “Tiger King 2,” which streams on Netflix on Nov. 17, telling filmmakers that Carole told him her husband had “hung around with a lot of unscrupulous type of people” and theorizing that someone he owed money to may have “caught up with him.”

Schreier also seemed to imply that the relationship between Baskin and Lewis had not been easy. 

“He did horrible stuff to Carole,” Schreier said.

But, another unidentified man in the clip described Lewis as a “good man.”

“After all, whatever Don liked to do, I believe he was a good man, but by the end, he made a mess,” the man said.

Baskin herself refuted rumors to Oxygen.com last year that Lewis had been planning to divorce her before he disappeared and instead suggested that Lewis’ mental state had been deteriorating.

“We were not heading for divorce,” she said. “Don was suffering mentally and I was desperately trying to get him help.”

She described him as having trouble with his short-term memory and said he had been hoarding vehicles and junk before he disappeared.

Baskin has continued to maintain that she had nothing to do with her husband's disappearance.

Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department patrol sergeant Greg Thomas classified the case to Oxygen.com last year as “a missing person” case.

“It’s not a homicide because he’s missing,” he said at the time. “We have no knowledge of where he’s at or a body or anything.”

Thomas said authorities had received tips that Lewis had been spotted alive in Costa Rica years after he was reported missing. The department flew detectives down to search for him, but they were unable to find any sign of the missing man.

Baskin and her current husband Howard tried to stop the release of the second season of the series by filing a lawsuit for breach of contract against Royal Goode Productions and Netflix. They alleged in the suit that the filmmakers had originally presented the project to Baskin as an animal welfare documentary.

The couple's request for a temporary restraining order to stop the release was denied.

In response to the lawsuit, Netflix said Baskin had “no claim at all,” EW reports.

The official trailer for “Tiger King 2” has promised that viewers “haven’t quite seen it all” and promises to reveal new details about the lives of Joe Exotic—who provides his commentary from behind bars—Baskin and others involved in the world of big cats.

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