US cop points finger at Tiger King's Carole Baskin in cold-case mystery

A US sheriff has said that he is "extremely suspicious" of Tiger King star Carole Baskin over the mysterious disappearance of her second husband Don Lewis.

Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister told TMZ that he believes Lewis was killed for his fortune in a murder-for-hire plot.

He raised his suspicions about Baskin but refused to name her as a person of interest.

"I'm extremely suspicious but not just of her, of this whole circle here," Chronister said.

"I don't want to allude to the fact or insinuate that she's our person of interest we're focusing on. I'm not comfortable saying that yet."

"There's normally not one person that commits a homicide, it's always a couple of people," he added.

"This had to be extremely planned out, this had to be well thought out. There's someone else involved in this. There's someone who was paid to do it, there's someone who helped do it."

As part of his appearance on the upcoming TMZ special, Chronister appealed directly to anyone involved in the disappearance.

"I'm hoping that person wants to come and get this off their chest and help law enforcement do the right thing," he said.

"Every deal is on the table right now. Help us solve this case."

Baskin and Lewis were married in 1991 and had a rocky relationship until he went missing in August 1997.

He was declared legally dead in 2002 and left behind a multimillion-dollar fortune.

In the wildly popular Netflix series Tiger King: Murder Mayhem and Madness, flamboyant zoo owner Joe Exotic accuses Carole Baskin of killing Lewis.

Baskin has denied any involvement in Lewis' disappearance or death.

In January of this year, Exotic himself was sentenced to 22 years in jail for attempting to arrange Baskin's death in a murder-for-hire plot.

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission