Carole Baskins Diary

Too Purrfect - People Magazine Story About Don’s Disappearance

By Pam Lambert December 07, 1998 12:00 PM

 

Following a trail beneath the cypresses and water oaks shading her Florida wildlife refuge, Carole Lewis stops to coo over one of her babies—a 300-pound Siberian Bengal tiger named Auroara. Looking more than passably feline herself in a leopard-print blouse, Lewis mimics a throaty purr. The tiger playfully prances close to the 12-foot fence. It paws at her long blond locks. “Mommy loves you,” murmurs Lewis, 37. “Yes, I do.”

 

By Pam Lambert and Tim Roche in Tampa. https://people.com/archive/too-purrfect-vol-50-no-21/?fbclid=IwAR2Su2pEDp3BZ53Xz1kwCgCIwTJXlTK27Hmilhr-8VWEr-bAOZ0jy9HAQt0

I was out running errands at 5:30 tonight because Scott Lope and Cathy Mayeski were here to feed the cats on my route.  As I was headed home I noticed the sky was ablaze and, almost like a Candian Goose on internal radar for home, I turned for the causeway beach.  Drawn, like a hatchling turtle, to the ocean I discarded my sandals as my feet hit the ankle deep sand.  Always painfully aware of my surroundings, I summed up the people on the beach:  A young family, doing the only thing they could afford;  A couple in love, kissing and laughing; A woman deep in meditation who was fixated on the setting sun;  Further down were older couples and half a dozen tourists who were trying desperately to capture this sunset on film.

 

As I watched the mother gathering her brood back toward the station wagon I reminisced bringing my own small child here and realized that had been some 15 years ago.  I remember her being so excited about gathering shells and building those castles in the sand.  A tear wells up as I look back on her innocence.  I live 15 minutes from this fabulous place where the sand meets the sea and I haven’t been out of my car here in 15 years.  What was so important that I skipped this?

 

Where did my life go?

 

The beach has changed and where there once was a huge expanse of sand for miles, there is now a very narrow strip of sand that is broken for long portions by piles of rocks and a concrete sea wall that holds up the paved parking lot that has obviously been washed away by some brush with a hurricane.  So much of the beach, just like my youth is gone.  Most of the people on this beach tonight probably don’t even remember what a glorious sandy shore this once was.  No one here remembers how vibrant and enthusiastic about life I once was.

 

The sun looks surrealistic like something from the twisted mind of Dali.  It is far too big and far too orange to be a part of the darkening sky line.  The glow is so brilliant that even the gathering storm clouds are illuminated with colours that cannot be replicated on any earthly palette.  I am aglow, the tourists are glowing and it seems the whole world is a better place for a few moments.  The tourists and one young artist are clicking away their cameras at the setting sun.  They want to capture and remember this moment in time forever.

 

I’ve done it and I know that their attempts are futile.  This is too spiritual to capture on film.  You can enlarge the image to poster size, but you will never re create the feel of this precious moment in time.  Have they never tried and learned, or if I had a camera would I make another hopeless attempt at it?

 

As the ball of fire touches the steely blue water one would almost expect to hear the sizzle even this far away.  It sinks too quickly and seems to melt into glowing, fiery, lava gushing from it’s impact with the gulf of Mexico.   Momentarily I am frozen in my tracks, until the sun has disappeared  from sight.  Was I even breathing?  The roar of planes overhead and the endless drone of cars on the causeway was muted in this instance.

 

I am shocked back to reality by the slamming of car doors.  The beach goers have seen it and are off to what ever it is they do.  Only seven of us remain.   An elderly couple bask in the setting of the sun and the last days of their lives together.  The artist is still trying to photograph me candidly, but I am aware of him shadowing me and I can hear his shutter snapping every time I turn.  The meditating woman in the lawn chair is writing her take on this event and another elderly couple sit back to back as if they share nothing in common but the ride that brought them here.  Amongst the rocks are small dark crabs that act like roaches, scurrying to hide, as I walk near.

 

How much this reminds me of life.  Nearly everyone is born with the capacity to be the sun or to be a roach.  They can shine on all around them, providing warmth, illumination and inspiration.  They can do great thin

I don’t know what this letter was for, but it’s a good summary of 1998

 

Dear Fellow Christian,  I am a 37 year old member of the Church of Christ and have one 18 year old daughter, who lives on the property (40 acres) but not with me.  My husband has been missing since August 18, 1997 and is presumed dead.  We founded a wildlife sanctuary in 1992 dedicated to the care of over 200 animals, including 148 big cats.  I live and work on the refuge.

 

I have a full time housekeeper who I love dearly and who has been my right arm for many years now.  She does all of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, errands and takes care of the primates.  My daughter, Jamie,  is 18, going on 40, and she graduated 2 years early as Valedictorian of her school.  She doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, never did drugs, goes to church on occasion and she works from sun up to sun down for me at the refuge. She has lived in her own home on the site here since she was 13 and does all of her own cooking, cleaning and has a perfect driving record.  She is very accomplished as a photographer and has won several contests, been published in books of art, and had her own exhibit for six months in the Courthouse. I am very blessed.

 

I own my own business and have worked at growing it since 1984.  I make my living in buying delinquent mortgages, foreclosing them and then re selling the properties in a buy here, pay here manner.  I buy a lot of tax deed properties as well.  I am a mortgage broker, but never broker other’s money.  It makes me sleepless worrying about protecting another’s interest.  My father and one other employee does all of the maintenance.  My mother keeps the books and pays the bills.  My father has worked for me since 1996 and my mother has been with me a year now.  They are great at what they do and I couldn’t ask for anyone more loyal.  For the Animals, Carole

 

I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/

 

I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet. 

 

You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile!

Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile

 

You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org

 

Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue

 

Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only.

I Broke Up with Richard Martin

I’m writing this from the future.  8/2/2020 to be exact, and I just got off an hour long call with Richard Martin.  I found his website online and the only photo I have for him was the one associated with the website, so I called and emailed until I reached him.  I’m video recording my diary entries and just came to August 1998 when I met him and wanted to know if he’d be okay with me talking about our love life online, or if he’d prefer I give him a code name.  He said I could use his real name and that he didn’t need to vet the entries because he’d only ever loved two people in his life, and I was one of them.   He recounted so many memories and then told me about our break up.

 

I’d apparently never recorded what happened, so I was glad to hear him tell me his recollection of it.  He said I sent him a fax saying I’d just lost a tiger (he had to be wrong on what kind of cat, because that didn’t happen) and I gave him an ultimatum.  Sell his derelict properties and get rid of his drunken work crew and that he shouldn’t call me again until he did. Richard had a mixed bag of properties.  Some were great and others took all of the time, all of the profit and caused all of his stress because they were in such bad areas.  His crew were taking full advantage of it and I was doing, with one maintenance man, far more with my own properties than he was able to do with six or so of the leeches in his life.

 

He said at the time he was heartbroken, but knew there was no point in calling me again because he wasn’t willing to get rid of the slum lord parcels nor the drunks.  Now, 22 years later, he says he’s divested himself of most of the slums, but kept the drunks.  He said we met after the fax and talked all night at Denny’s at the corner of Sheldon and Hillsborough.  He said we kissed, held each other and talked until dawn, but neither of us would relent on our position and that was the end.

 

I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/

 

I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet. 

 

You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile!

Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile

 

You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org

 

Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue

 

Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only.

Today was such a typical day.  I woke up at Richard Martin’s mother’s house and drove him to work at 7:30 a.m.  I made my face while I read the classified  and finished up the paperwork I had taken to his mother’s last night.  Richard Martin cooked breakfast and I drew up some ads for him, reviewed a contract for him and listened to Donna (his ex-secretary who hangs out in the office all day) tell me all about how her arm got sucked up into the drive through shuttle at Walgreen’s.  If I were that stupid, I sure wouldn’t brag about it.

 

Richard Martin had a hearing to go to at 10:30 and I left for home.  Entering Easy Street, Don’s van stops in front of me and it’s Jon telling me that someone let the lemur out of his utility room and they found blood all over Shatia’s mouth and her cage, but no remains.

 

He’s taking Shatia the Canada Lynx to the vet, only he doesn’t know who she is, only that she’s a Lynx.  I send him on, fearing that it is Shatia and that her cardio myopathy has resulted in a bursting heart.  I go back to her pen and discover that it is her on the way to the vet and  I look the cage over myself for traces of the lemur.  I go inside to call the vet and tell her it is Shatia and remind her of her heart condition only to find out that Jon has left the cat there in a carrier and no squeeze cage or net so the vet can’t sedate the cat.

 

She is foaming blood from the mouth and the vet says it is probably her heart and asks me to send the squeeze cage and net up to her so she can examine the cat without causing enough stress to kill her.  I send Jon back up with the needed supplies.  I go looking for Dad and Kenny Farr who repeat the whole thing over to me and give me more details.

 

They have fixed the place in the fence where the Tiger had climbed over and nearly out the day before.  Richard Martin calls to gloat saying someone has offered him 12,000 for a building I thought he would be lucky to get 4k for.  He wants me to pay up the $100.00 I bet him.   I told him I’d pay it when he had the money in hand.  He asked if I was having a good day and I broke down crying over Shatia.  I’ve had her for five years and raised her from just a few days of age.  I always knew this day would come.

 

The computer has crashed taking with it all of my cat’s health records for the past six years.  I call around for help and am told it will run me $100.00 per hour, so I decide to fix it myself.  Weirdly enough, the first thing I did (reinstall the program itself) worked and I was able to save all of the information I thought was lost.

 

A reporter calls and says a story he is doing about me makes me sounds a really bad and he asked if I could rebut the claims by Don’s kids and Anne McQueen that I fed Don to the Tigers and that I ground him up in the Butcher Boy.  That’s ridiculous because the throat of the grinder is about the size of a half dollar, if that.  I tell him the cats would have killed Don, but that they wouldn’t have eaten him, because they’re fussy, like that.  Not a great answer, but I am sick of stupid people.

 

 

This isn’t the original meat grinder, because I never took a photo of it, but it is the same shape and size.

 

I search for the lemur and then check on the serval who decided to give himself a stroke over having new bobcat neighbors yesterday.  He was shaking so bad a day later that I had locked him in the house so he couldn’t see another cat.  I coaxed him into eating for the first time in two days and felt better about his condition.

 

I’ve just gotten Nirvana through her illness that nearly took her life a week ago.  Susan Aronoff calls, elated that she got the job with Richard Martin and she talks forever.  I get off the phone with her and my attorney calls and can’t get anyone to show up for depositions.  He says the kids have changed their mind again and now they want to finish the deal we agreed to but they want accountings for all quarters since Doug Stalley never has gotten any of the

I have tried for several weeks to help Richard sell his South St. Pete properties.  He is ridiculous in his expectation of their values and can’t explain, nor can any of his staff explain, what a Lease Option is.  I have had him put my mother’s phone number instead in order to make sure that someone intelligent is answering the ads.  I think she stands a much better chance of selling them  even at his stupid prices.

 

Nirvana has spent the last two nights at the Vet with a uterine infection.  I miss her and worry about her all the time.  The baby Bearcat is doing great.  Jamie is such a wonderful mom to the cubs.  Jamie has taken over the office and has things more caught up to date than they have been in months.  She is very good on the phone with people and will be WildLife on Easy Street’s saving grace.  She is leaving for a show in New York next Tues.

 

I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/

 

I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet. 

 

You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile!

Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile

 

You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org

 

Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue

 

Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only.

At least once a day someone will tell me how lucky I am to get to work with big cats.  I’m writing this at 9:30 PM in a restaurant because if I were at home there would be too many interruptions to write.  It’s late because it’s ALWAYS this late before I get fed.  I eat out because I am too easily called away from the stove and there’s not a room in my house that I don’t have to fight a Bobcat, Caracal, Cougar or Fishing Cat for my food.

 

When I get home I’ll check on the youngsters, the sick, the injured and the recovering before showering.  Taking a bath in a room that’s always temporary quarters for some big cat, is, in and of itself, a challenge.

 

I’ll work at the computer until midnight because these are the precious few hours I’m not bombarded by employees, volunteers, guests and a couple dozen people calling long distance to “talk cats”.  When I can’t focus on the screen any more, I’ll shake the kitty litter out of my sheets, find a pillow the Bobcat hasn’t been eating his raw chicken on, and turn off the lights.

 

Cats, being the nocturnal beasts they are, will now come to life.  The rest of the night Catera will be jumping from the cat tree to the bed and back like a 15 pound ping pong ball.  He gets extra points for landing on my face.  Every toy and any left over dinner he has will end up on the bed before dawn.  Fetch is his favourite game and he’s learned that if “mom’s” too tired to throw jingle bell mouse, she’s never too tired to throw the gizzards he drops on my face.

 

Eventually day break will send him off to sweet dreams, but now the pager’s buzzing, the phones are ringing, the faxes are spitting papers all over the floor, someone’s pounding on my bedroom door wanting to know if I’ve seen so and so and another glorious day is begun.

 

A typical day consists of a never ending parade of people through my home.  All the visitors want to meet the person responsible for this “wonderful establishment”.  All the employees want to complain about the volunteers being lazy and all the volunteers want to tell me how they’d run things.  Through it all, I’m filing answers to complaints against me by the government and warding off lawsuits from every dead beat who thought a cat bite would make a great retirement.  I try to actually get a little business done as well.

 

I always awake with the intent of eating breakfast, but I’ll be putting out fires until 1:00 or 2:00 PM.  My body will signal that it’s going to crash if I don’t drop everything and refuel.  I usually eat lunch while I’m driving to the court house, the feed store or the Vet’s office.  The greatest day of my life was the day my daughter was able to drive herself.

 

I’ll come racing home just in time to start preparing the cats’ evening meal.  Even with six of us working at it, this is still a two hour ordeal.  While normal people have had dinner and are settling down in front of the T.V. for the evening, I am up to my elbows in dead animal parts that are so cold I lose all feeling in my hands within a few minutes after the burning sensation ceases.  While the cats are happily munching away it’s a good time to treat wounds, give vaccines and treat for fleas.  When I’m out of light, I’ll quit taking care of the cats for the day.

 

Filthy, smelly and exhausted I ignore the strange looks from the people I encounter in the diner and slump down at this table and reflect over how lucky I am.

 

I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/

 

I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that oth

Richard Martin and I went to New Orleans Thursday via a gambling junket.  It is a pretty neat package and very inexpensive.  For $99.00 we each got a round trip ticket to Biloxi Mississippi, two nights in a very nice hotel.  Also included is transportation to and from the hotel Casino Magic and the airport, and meal tickets for their fabulous buffets for three meals.  Any time you are in the casino you are waited on hand and foot with complimentary drinks ( I wonder why) and Bay St. Louis is only an hour’s drive from New Orleans.  We rented a Dodge Stratus for $20.00 per day and drove to New Orleans on Friday.

 

We drove around the streets and I admired all of the French iron work decorating the battered balconies of the overcrowded upstairs housing.  It looked like something from a movie set.  It is hard to believe people can live so closely crowded together and under such poor conditions.

 

Parking was just non existent as were things like plants and flowers.  The trees were much like our grandfather oaks here with their gnarled and twisted branches.  The drive from Bay Saint Louis to New Orleans was worth making the whole trip for.  An hour of driving along pristine beaches complete with sand dunes and sea oats on the south side and beautiful homes of every sort of design, but mostly the Victorian I love so much on the north side.

 

The weather was the kind you would custom order and yet only two people were taking advantage of a nice brisk walk on that entire length of beach.  The shrimp and oyster boats were lined up on the horizon and the sun was like diamonds on the lapping tide.  There were numerous docks, some leading far out into the Gulf, but most were deserted except for the occasional fisherman.  This is the sort of place I could pull off the road and run as far as I could run, gulping in the salty sea air;  running until all I could do is walk and then I would walk until I could walk no more.  What greater reward then but to flop down in the sugar white sand and take in the beauty all around me until the moon would rise up over the water and the stars would pierce through the black velvet sky?

 

Richard Martin wanted to go shopping at Goodwill and Hudson’s (a little discount store) and as always we argued over dressing to look like every other yuppie or showing some sense of individualism.  Fortunately we were able to carry this argument further than before and Richard Martin said that he recognized that he is argumentative and that he really enjoys a battle of wits, provided “it reaches some sort of resolution.”

 

I take that to mean, as long as I always tell him he is right and he gets the feeling that he won.  He claims that he could be wrong, but I really find that to be no more than lip service based upon past discussions.  I do enjoy arguing and don’t take his approach as hard as I did initially.  I admitted to him that I will argue just for fun as long as I am not stressing him out, but that I am not inclined to believe that all issues will have a resolution as many things are just a matter of personal opinion.

 

We talked about the heavy stuff that we often do whenever we are alone together.  I told him that I believe I am the best thing that will ever happen to him, but if he isn’t capable of recognizing that and seizing the opportunity, then perhaps he is not the best thing that has ever happened to me.  He said that he wanted to be cautious because he wants to be sure before jumping into a relationship that could really hurt him.  He said that because he chose to be with me this weekend, his relationship with Zena was pretty much over with.

 

I don’t believe it, but I didn’t tell him so.  He’ll prove me right or wrong.  When we got back to the room there was a message from the desk saying “Meir Lansky will take care of this” and a message on the phone that sounded like a woman impersonating a male gangster saying”  Meir Lansky will get you for this”.  I thought the person was saying Myra an

Richard Martin got me a copy of the Multiple Listing Service diskette so that I can do comparable searches without so much hassle.  The last week has been very full and last night, I fell asleep on him for the first time.  He was upset about how his sister was treating him and needed to talk, and I tried my best to stay with him, but kept fading out.  He thinks she hates him and that she thinks he abused his relationship with his mother by making her work for him and then firing her after she lost close to half a million dollars in poor management of some convenience stores he started.

 

She is apparently very wealthy by marriage and looks down on Richard Martin because of his failure at marriage, his involvement with a stolen boat and the condition of his office and his staff, according to Richard Martin.  I suggested that she is the little sister who could never be as popular, nor as successful as her big brother and that her hostilities are merely a defense mechanism for dealing with her own failures to ever accomplish anything for herself.  I hope I am right.  I would hate to find out that she is right and that Richard Martin took advantage of his mother and treated her poorly.  She has been diagnosed with cancer and is already so frail that I fear I won’t get to know her well enough in time to learn what their relationship was.  I believe that mother and son relationship is vital to a man’s perception of himself and how he relates to women from then on.

 

Richard Martin has asked that I personally do a presentation for Tom Butler’s rotary club, because his ex-wife, Susan is its president.  I took Jamie, Daniel Capiro, Fleetwood Cougar and Windstar Bobcat and did a 30 minute slide show and petting forum.  I had seen Susan the day she signed the release when I paid off Richard Martin’s alimony, but I did not know if she had seen me.  She welcomed me as if she did not know who I was and was cordial throughout.  She is an animal lover and asked me some difficult questions about the dangers these animals face in captivity, but her questions did not seem aggressive toward me.  I found her likable and motivated to do good in her community and wondered where it all went wrong between her and Richard Martin.

 

I would like to speak with her in another place at another time to find out what she can tell me about their situation, so that he and I do not fall into that same quicksand that sucked the life out of their marriage.  Richard Martin keeps saying they couldn’t communicate and that she was unreasonable in her opinions.  I’ll bet he has said at least two dozen times, “If I said the sky was blue, she would still argue that it was green.”  My fear is, and I’ve told him, that he believes that no matter what he says, he is right and anyone who differs with him is wrong.

 

This is the way our conversations usually go.  If I agree we are okay.  If I disagree, he becomes hateful, accusatory, and will continue to badger me into agreeing with him just to bring his tirade to an end.  Then he’s mad, because he knows I still don’t agree and that I have only conceded to shut him up.  He keeps saying he doesn’t want me to just agree with him, he wants me to actually believe the same way he does.

 

While I understand this desire to share common beliefs, I don’t know that it is entirely feasible.  I wonder if this was the cause of the lack of communication between he and Susan.  Did she learn after a while to keep her opinions to herself so as not to incite him to rage?  Or did she retreat into silence once she accidentally ventured out onto a shelf of opinionism?  As always, I believe that I can take a bad situation and turn it into good.  I pray for strength and guidance.

 

I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates thi

Photo circa June 1998. We do not display photos of people touching cats after 2004. Windstar had been a surprise birth to Windsong Bobcat and a hybrid father on 5/11/98. First generation hybrids are supposed to be sterile, so we hadn’t worried about neutering him until Windstar happened. Last night Richard Martin, Jamie, Daniel Capiro and I went to the Matchbox 20 concert at the Ice Palace. Richard Martin gassed up his limo, stocked it with piazza, colas and wine and we headed off for the concert. A few miles from our destination, the limo stalled and died. Richard Martin called AAA and I called a cab. The kids and I went to the show, leaving Richard Martin behind to deal with the car. An hour later he arrived and we went in. We were probably the oldest people in the place, but Richard Martin made a point of making sure everyone danced, and had fun. That is hard enough for Jamie as she is so straight laced that it would be beyond her to ever feel the music. I remember Jamie always telling me that all her life she has wanted to go to a concert and hold up a lighter, like her generation is so famous for, just to say she did it. Richard Martin loaned her his lighter. After the show Richard Martin was able to get them both souvenir jackets for half price because he knew the girl behind the counter. We went out for cokes, Richard Martin for gin and then back to the office. The kids went home and Richard Martin and I spent the night together. I've been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views. If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story. The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/ I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story. My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet. You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile! Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only.