Carole Baskins Diary

Schools call us all the time asking us to bring cubs for the kids to pet.  We don’t breed lion or tiger cubs so we will sometimes set up a temporary cage at the school in their gymnasium, and bring some of our bigger cats who are easy going.  Shere Khan and China Doll are always a big hit and while the cats are caged we are free to talk about the issues to the kids.

 

On this day we had decided the cage building and tearing down process would go faster if we used a lighter gauge hog ring.  The way you build the cage is to set up the panels, snap them with double sided horse snaps (like you would clip to a bridal), hog ring the panels together and remove the awkward looking snaps.  We’d done this a number of times and were pretty quick about it. 

 

The cats would be in their travel crates, wearing collars, so we could leash them up, walk them into the new temp cage, and then take off the leashes so they didn’t step on them or eat them. 

 

For some reason China Doll was feeling particularly frisky after being turned into the temporary cage.  She got so excited she was bounding against the walls with such force the hog rings were popping off and we were running around snapping the clips as fast as we could to keep her from destroying the entire cage. We had to call the event short and risk being tossed around like a rag doll to go in with her and re attach the leash. 

 

I waited until the gym was empty to try and remove her and Shere Khan from the cage and take them back to their crates in the van.

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. 1997-07-16 Jamie and I had Glamour Shots done for her birthday. 1997-07-26 Don wanted to take me to garage sales and I told him about my suspicion that he is using the clothes as a cheap lure for the raggedy prostitutes in San Jose. I told him that I had talked to someone, though I wouldn’t say whom, that had told me about his exploits. I told him that I did not want to believe what I had been told, but that to keep on taking down girls and baby clothing when I know that he is not selling it, can only convince me that he is up to no good. I noticed that he did not pack any girl’s or baby clothes for this trip. We didn’t argue and Don didn’t say much in his own defense, except that he “doesn’t sleep with prostitutes.” 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.

Don bought another plane; a Cherokee from Roy Dawson.  I have had mine up for sale and now Don wants to get back into flying.   He has been trying to exchange my Cardinal for a little experimental plane and we went to the airport to look at it.  I wouldn’t taxi in the flimsy little thing, but Don is so excited about the prospect of flying it all over Costa Rica, that he can’t be reasoned with.  I told him he could not exchange my Cardinal for an experimental anything.

Vokker called from Costa Rica 001 506 380-5785 and seemed surprised that I answered the phone. It was my line, the fax line.   He said he had called this number a few months back and left a message and Don had gone into fits that Vokker had called this number and had instructed him to never do that again.  Vokker said he was calling to let Don know that he had heard about Don putting a contract out on his head and that he was contacting the embassy so that if Don tried to re enter the country he would be arrested.  Vokker said that there are a lot of people who would jump at $1000.00 to kill a person.  I asked why he thought Don would want to kill him and he said he was holding one of Don’s cars as collateral for all the work he did for Don for which he was not repaid.

 

Vokker said that Don smuggled a male Ocelot with a microchip and that he has the number and witnesses that he had microchipped the cat himself to pass for a domestic cat that had been brought in supposedly with the same chip number.  The Margay, he said was missing two toes from her front left paw and he knew how it was done and where.  He claimed to have personally witnessed Don smuggling these cats on to the plane.  I asked how this was possible and he said all you have to do is slip a $50 in your passport and anything goes.

 

He claims to have copies of all of Don’s checks and receipts totaling some $500,000.00 that he said Don did not report as coming in to Costa Rica through customs.  Vokker said that he is the one who recommended that Don deposit it with the Helicopter Brothers and that he can verify how much they got from Don.  He said Don used to have him run ads in the Spanish paper down there looking for live in girls who must be young, slim and Tico and will send me a copy of his most recent ad from 6 weeks ago where Don started running them in English in the Tico Times so that he did not have to rely on Vokker.

 

I wonder who wrote them for Don?

 

He said that Don uses his private line for these ads 231-1785 but Vokker has copies of the message tapes where the girls have responded describing themselves and what they would do. He said that he has receipts from paying the escort services so that someone would be waiting for Don when he arrived.  He said that Don is known all over the neighborhood as the dirty old man who trades second hand baby clothes to young poor mothers who cannot afford to take care of their children and Don has offered several of them free rent in exchange for their sexual services.

 

One girl, Iva age 22 with an 18 month old child is divorcing her husband who is a grocery clerk because Don has promised to bring her and her child back to live the good life in the US. Don has promised her a year lease, marked paid, for her affection.  Another girl, a friend of Vokkers is 26 with a 6 year old son Don has made the same offer to, but she doesn’t like Don because he lies and sleeps around.

 

Later today I received a call from Mary Hooper, Vokker’s girlfriend.  (305) 871-9026.  She said Don was always very kind to her and always telling her that she was beautiful and that if she would leave Vokker he would take care of her forever.  She was in the room the day that Don was on the phone telling me that he was going to divorce me and take half of the cats to Costa Rica.  She heard him screaming about  how he would choke me financially and poison all of our cats just to get even with me for having the junk hauled out of the yard.  This was on his last trip before this one.

 

Mary and Vokker moved in with Don in October and she said immediately she noticed that Don’s entire reason for coming to Costa Rica was spent looking for young girls to have sex with him.  She said it didn’t matter if anything else got done, every day that he was there, his first and foremost focus was on what new girl he could get into bed with.  She said it is common for him to “interview” 5 or 6 women a day by running ads for what would appear to be a

Peaches the Serval

Peaches Serval DOB 4/18/94 arrived 6/27/1997

 

Peaches will be moving to the tour path soon, so I thought she would be a good one for you to get to know.

 

Peaches the serval was from a facility in OK called Oakhill Wildlife Center.  It was owned by John Aynes who bred exotic cats for accredited zoos, roadside zoos and private collectors.  Most of the Pallas Cats, Clouded Leopards and many of the Cheetahs that are in zoos and private hands are there because of this prolific breeder.  Our Pallas Cats came from there when they had contracted an illness that would have spread quickly through John's facility because of his tight quarters and shared walls.

 

Peaches was used as a breeder and came to us when she was no longer needed for that purpose.  With limited space for the big money makers, like the other cats mentioned above and red pandas and other endangered wildlife he bred, the servals were discarded.  Others from there that came at the same time were Alphie Serval and Daisy Serval.

 

John dropped off the radar about 6 years ago and emailed me just the other day.  He was building an aviary for a few birds and wanted to know where we get our hog rings.  He said that he had pretty much moved to London and didn't have time for the cats.  He said he had sent them all to zoos and only had a few birds for the past 5 or 6 years.  His voice seemed full of regret, and I can only hope that it was for all of the breeding he did in the 1990's that has resulted in so many of these cats living generation after generation in cages.

 

This was actually written in 2010 to the volunteers, but placed here as it was the day Peaches arrived.  This photo is me holding Little Feather Bobcat around that same time era.

Psychiatric evaluation today and Don didn’t sleep a wink all night.  He says it was Sandy Wittkopp’s cooking that kept him up, but he’s been eating her cooking for years and last night was no better, nor worse than usual.  His vitals all proved in perfect condition, with the exception of a hernia developing, but we knew that.  Dr. Blasini seemed at an absolute loss as to why Don came to him for a mental health problem, and he referred Don to Dr. West, upstairs, who was not there, so we saw Dr. Russell.  The psychiatrist seemed to view this more as a therapy session but he was helpful in explaining how it was nearly impossible to make an accurate assessment of a persons mental condition and said outright that he did not know enough about business matters to know if Don was making sound judgments or not in that department.  He suggested that Don come back a couple more times and take a few verbal tests.

 

Don admitted that his memory is going and about the money he gave the Costa Rican mafia, with no security.  He detailed his research as to the safety of this investment by saying that he talked to 7 Americans who had put their money with the Helicopter Brothers and they had said that they get their payments every month and that was all the convincing he needed.  As for the deal with Wendell Williams and Sheldon Wind, Esq., Don just said that he was a little slow in getting the security agreements that he needed, and even admitted that it was a year or more after he gave them the money that we were finally able to get them to sign anything.  In his own words Don said that Wendell Williams is a snake and will always be on the lookout for a way to get the better of someone.

 

Don said that he felt like I wanted complete control of our checkbook so that I could waste money on the animals, and that was the reason I was insisting that he be evaluated.  He said that even though we have been business partners since 1984 that I only accounted for 10 percent of his income until we were married.  I did not see the point in arguing with him on paid time, but on the way home I asked him if he really believed that statement and he said he meant it.

 

I asked him who he thought was responsible for making the other 90 percent of that income and to my absolute astonishment, he said “Pam did it all”.  I reminded him that all Pam Enriquez ever did (besides take him to the cleaners) was to hand him copies of the public records her mother found and then they would drive around all day together looking at properties.  I was the one who did the title searches, researched the documents at the finance companies, discovered the pitfalls and warned him.  I was the one who then would prepare the transfer papers, prepare and file the lawsuits to clear title, represent his interests in court, attend the final sales and hearings and then deliver the merchantable titles to him.

 

All of this I did at no cost to him for years.  His response was that finding the deal was the most important part and I told him it didn’t matter how good a deal you find, if you can’t do anything with it because of a bad title, then it will never make you money.  He just began repeating himself, so I dropped it.  No sense getting him worked up.

 

I asked Don to explain to Dr. Russell why he left Sundari, the six month old leopard  in the parking lot with the windows down on the van and at first he said he just had to run under the carport and that he didn’t take his eyes off the van but then I reminded him that he was all the way around on the other side of the house and wandering off further when Judy came running up and told me that she had Troy catch Sundari as she was coming out the window and that he was sitting with her until someone came after the cat.   Then his story changed to saying that he was only going to be away a few minutes and Sundari was in the back of the van and he didn’t think she would try to get out.

 

I mentioned the incident with Elsa the Bobca

Note from the future.  July 24, 2020 someone sends me a yearbook photo of Jim and I confirm it’s him, but didn’t think the article could be based on the small stature of the guy I remember being so much larger.

 

 

Nonetheless, I googled his name and Marquette and murder and found this story that does sound like the Jim Jones I left home with.  If so, he wasn’t just AWOL from the army; he was an escapee from Ft. Leavenworth for killing a man over drugs.

 

 

2014 Sun Sentinel article:  Escaped killer lived quiet life in Deerfield for decades before capture.

 

A quiet Deerfield Beach neighborhood of pastel, single-story bungalows and well-sculpted lawns might seem an incongruous hideout for an escaped killer.

 

Yet that's where James Robert Jones — an Army private who was convicted of stabbing a fellow soldier four decades ago and then escaped the notorious Fort Leavenworth prison — carved out a new life in suburban South Florida, federal officials said.

 

Even his wife, Susan, was unaware her husband was a man with blood on his hands.

 

"She had no idea" her husband was living under a stolen identity, next-door neighbor Tammy Smith said. "I talked to her. She's extremely distraught."

 

Jones, who went by the name Bruce Keith, was captured Thursday morning at the Pompano Beach air-conditioning business where he worked, said Inspector Barry Golden with the U.S. Marshals Service.

 

"The first words out of his mouth were, 'I knew this was going to catch up to me one day,'" Golden said.

 

Jones, who appears much older than his age of 59, was being held without bond in Broward County Jail on Saturday, awaiting transfer to Army authorities. He still has 20 years left to serve on his sentence for premeditated murder and aggravated assault.

 

Jones, from Ontario, Calif., was 20 and stationed at Fort Dix, N.J., when on the night of April 28, 1974, Lonnie Eaton and Thomas White, two Army privates returning to the base after drinking at a nearby bar, were savagely attacked.

 

White said one man approached them, asking if they had marijuana for sale. When they said they didn't, two other men armed with knives or straight razors leaped from the bushes and attacked the two soldiers, the Trenton Evening News reported at the time.

 

White, 22, survived several stab wounds. Eaton, 18, a medical specialist about to be deployed to Germany, died. He left a wife, Zandra, the News said.

 

Jones was convicted of murder in 1974 and sentenced to 23 years in military prison. Three years later, he somehow escaped the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Details of the escape were not available.

 

"We don't have access to that; it's 30 years past," Golden said. "It must have been something elaborate, because he got away and he disappeared.

 

"He was basically off the radar," Golden said. "He probably assumed someone else's identity."

 

Investigators later determined Jones obtained a Florida driver's license in 1981 in the name of Bruce Walter Keith. He gave the same address as his current one in The Cove neighborhood of Deerfield Beach. Keith, Golden said, "was one of his friends."

 

During his nearly 37 years of freedom, Jones stayed clear of trouble. "This guy really lived a normal life," Golden said. "He had not been arrested, apparently, because if he had been arrested on any felony his fingerprints would have gone into the system."

 

The trail remained cold until January, when the Army asked the Marshals Service for help in finding Jones. Investigators interviewed Jones' family member and friends. "There was something mentioned about Florida," Golden said.

 

Marshals focused on the Sunshine State. They used computers to compare jail mugshots of Jones with those in a database of Florida driver's license photos, and came up with a match for Bruce Walter Keith.

 

Investigators staked out Jones' home and followed him to a Pompano Beach air-conditioning business, where they detained him. He spoke about the law catching up to him.

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. 1997-06-14 Don went to the Tampa Machinery Auction and brought home some guy who didn’t have any place to stay the night before. I have never known Don to pick up strangers, and now not only does he pick them up, but he brings them home with him. They left for the sale early this morning. Don said that Davie Blaisedale was at the sale and had told Don that he had yelled to him several times in passing, but Don couldn’t hear him. Which begs the question; how did he know Davie (his former business partner, from D&D Auto) had called out to him? 1997-06-15 Out of the blue Don is loving and attentive and really keeps me on edge never knowing who he is going to be from moment to moment. When he is loving he makes me feel as if I am the only woman in the world. 1997-06-16 Don brought Wendell Williams out to the house and gave him 30 days to remove whatever he wanted of his junk and then told me I could have the rest hauled off, once the 30 days expired. Don also said he would have Kenny Farr drag all of Don’s mess out of the llama field. Too bad he never keeps his word. 1997-06-17 Don’s been wheeling and dealing and bought two more servals named Arizona 2 and Dakota 2 (he just sold 3 because he said we have too many). He also bought a 14 year old Ocelot named Tabitha and is bringing an 8 year old Ocelot named Sabrina home for breeding loan. I spent the day building cages and shuffling cats to accommodate his new acquisitions. 1997-06-19 Don called and asked that someone feed his cats if he wasn’t home by 6:00 pm, so Jamie did. Don got home around 9:30 and said he won 100.00 at the auction and wanted to split it with whoever had fed his cats. Even when he heard it was Jamie, he still cheerfully handed over $50.00. This is truly out of character for him. 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.

This $100,000 check was Don’s loan to the Costa Rican mafia.

 

Don’s first day back from Costa Rica, he wakes up and while he’s brushing his teeth he calmly tells me that he is going to tear down the Caracal pens to prove that he was in control. He was angry that I had the trash hauled off and had been mad that I had replaced the ant infested den boxes in the Caracals’ pen before he left, so he said in retaliation that he was going to tear down the cages.  I tried to reason with him that there was no where for the Caracals to go and to tear down their pen would be counter productive.

 

After a while I realized that he could not be reasoned with and told him that his actions have been so bizarre that I would have him “Baker Acted” if he did not go of his own accord to be tested.  He said “If you do that, you will live only long enough to regret it!”  He said he would poison ALL of the cats with antifreeze.  I asked why he would inflict such a painful death on an innocent animal and he said it would be worth it to him, just to see me suffer.  I told him to get off the property, and not come back.  I told him that if he did not go, I would have him arrested.  I told him that he could not come back until he had been tested for Alzheimer’s disease and if it proved that he was sane, and just evil, then he could have his divorce, but if the tests concluded that he was ill, then I would take care of him until he died.

 

Don asked what it was about him that made me think he was sick.  He said he was sincere, so I sat down with him and showed him all of the symptoms and pointed out his similarities.  He finally agreed to go be tested and I called all day, but no one ever returned my call about having him evaluated.   The next day, he said he had Anne McQueen check with our insurance carrier and she had found a doctor for him to go to.  He said he wanted to go to the doctor she found first and if that doctor said there was nothing wrong with him, then he would agree to go to the doctor I had been referred to by the Tampa Bay Alzheimer’s Chapter.  I asked if the doctor that Anne McQueen had chosen was a specialist and Don said that he was a “head doctor” but he didn’t know who or where or when his appointment was.

 

Note from the future:  5/24/2020 Howie found a Blue Cross Blue Shield receipt for Don’s MRI dated 6/23/1997 and some blood tests that had been run on 6/20/1997 which was the day of his doctor’s appointments for a psychiatric evaluation.  On 6/3/2020 I found the prescription from the doctor for Don to get an MRI at St. Joseph’s Hospital and on both the prescription slip and the patient worksheet he lists the diagnosis at Bipolar Disorder and Altered mental status.  All these years later, when I had not been able to find these documents, I thought that maybe I had turned over the originals to the police.  Turns out I must have given them only copies.  I also found where St. Joseph’s several years later returned part of the money paid saying they had over charged us. 

 

Through a chain of events I discover that the day of those doctor visits and blood tests were the day I thought Don had filed for a restraining order when I first heard about it on 9/9/1997.  I don’t think I ever had a copy of the order.  It had just been sprung on me by Anne McQueen who was using it to try and have herself appointed conservator of our business, rather than me.  Today, when Howie found the receipt, I searched my diary and found that I thought 6/20/1997 was the date of the restraining order, but when I searched online it was dated 6/12/1997 and recorded on 6/16/1997.  I’m still searching for why I was told or thought it was the 20th, but for now, here are the copies.   

 

Regardless of my misunderstanding of the date, June 12, 1997 is the day that Don filled out the restraining order and it makes sense, given what was transpiring on this same day according to my diary entry.

Apparently Wendell Williams called Don in Costa Rica and  told him that I was giving away all of his “best junk”.  Don called here and told Kenny Farr to block all the driveways with the junk trailers and to disable all of our heavy equipment so that I could not clean the yard.  Kenny Farr told Don that Wendell Williams had lied and the specific items Don was most upset over, (a well point system that hadn’t run in over a year and a radiator) were here all safe and sound, but Don wouldn’t hardly let him speak he was so irate.

 

He got me on the phone, patched through his office and said that he was turning the cats loose, that he was throwing me out, that he was moving out, that he would choke me financially so I had to do things “his way”, that he would let the mortgage on this property default, that he was going to mess up all of the cleaning I had done by bringing in more loads of junk and piling them in the front yard…  on and on he raved.  I tried to assure him that none of his “good junk” would be gone when he got here, that we were just storing it safely for him in these trailers.

 

He said he didn’t want it stored he wanted everything left just like it was, which is what got the County Code officers after me in the first place.  Rather than argue with him in his condition, I told him that I couldn’t hear and then hung up.

 

Wendell Williams came riding in the back of a pick up truck full of junk and said it was all his.  I asked if he had somewhere to store it and he said he did, so I told the drivers to take it to wherever Wendell Williams told them.  Naturally, Wendell Williams chose to dump it on one of my other properties.  I told Wendell Williams that I knew he was doing his best to get Don to leave me so that Don would be easy prey for Wendell, and I let him know that I would not allow him to take advantage of Don no matter how much trouble he caused me.  Wendell Williams called the cops and told them that Don had agreed to let Wendell Williams store all his stuff here and that I had given it away without his permission, but when I explained the situation to them, they told Wendell Williams to leave.