The family attorney for Carole Baskin’s missing husband says there is no way the story Baskin told of her husband’s disappearance matches up with what a recent tipster came forward with.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Trish Farr-Payne, whose then-husband Kenny Farr was a handyman for Baskin and Don Lewis, told “48 Hours Suspicion” that Farr “threatened to put me in a grinder,” saying, “If you try to leave me again, I’m gonna put you in the grinder, like I did Don.’”
“I thought he was tellin’ the truth,” Farr-Payne commented.
Farr-Payne alleged that around the time of Lewis’ disappearance, Farr arrived home in the middle of the night with Lewis’ van. She said the van contained guns that her husband said belonged to Lewis. Farr reportedly said Baskin had told him to hold onto Lewis’ guns.
Farr-Payne alleged that before Lewis’ reported disappearance, her husband told her, “Don’s gone. And — I don’t want you talkin’ about him. If anybody calls, you don’t say anything about Don.”
John Phillips, the Don Lewis family lawyer, told Nancy Grace on a recent “Crime Stories” episode that Baskin claimed she saw her husband the day after Farr claimed Lewis had disappeared.
“If you believe this story, Kenny says Don’s gone, he’s disappeared, but Carol says she saw him the next day, and so that’s impossible,” Phillips explained. “Those two facts cannot exist in the same container of space.”
“There’s no question in my mind she [Farr-Payne] believes what she’s saying,” Phillip added.
Despite claims made by Farr-Payne and “Tiger King” breakout star Joe Exotic, Hillsborough County police have said Baskin is not a suspect in her ex-husband’s ongoing disappearance.
Lewis vanished after he went allegedly to the Pilot Country Airport in Springhill, Florida, on August 18, 1997. Police found his keys, briefcase, and luggage left behind in his white 1989 Dodge van, parked at the airport. Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said there is no money trail and Lewis’ two passports to Costa Rica were not flagged.
“His house manager there hadn’t seen him in six months,” Chronister previously told Nancy Grace. “His security guards that worked on the property hadn’t seen him in six months. Some of the business associates he had, hadn’t seen him in six months. We’re not operating under the theory that he went to Costa Rica.”
After Lewis’ disappearance, Farr reportedly continued to work for Baskin.
Baskin denied Farr-Payne’s claims in a statement she issued earlier this month, according to The Wrap.
“If she really feared for her life, and that of her children, wouldn’t she have called the police if she thought her husband had Don Lewis’s body locked in a freezer on her porch?” Baskin said.
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[Feature Photo: Don Lewis/Handout]
