Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Tiger King: Ex-park employee spills horrors from inside Joe Exotic's zoo.

Transcript

Tiger King: Ex-park employee spills horrors from inside Joe Exotic's zoo. · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi guys, Nancy Grace here at Crime Stories. We work
0:03
Speaker 1: so hard every day to stay in touch with you
0:06
Speaker 1: and broadcast our program with the very latest crime and
0:10
Speaker 1: justice news. Crime Stories our friends at Sirius XM now
0:16
Speaker 1: making it even easier to get crime stories while so
0:19
Speaker 1: many of us are doing our part to stay home
0:22
Speaker 1: and stay safe. If you don't have a subscription to
0:25
Speaker 1: Serious XM, here's your chance to listen for free. That's
0:28
Speaker 1: right free. Just go to sirius XM dot com slash
0:33
Speaker 1: stream free Sirius XM dot com slash stream free go now.
0:41
Speaker 1: You can listen through your phone, your computer, your laptop,
0:45
Speaker 1: or any of your connected devices. Don't miss Crime Stories
0:49
Speaker 1: every weekday at high noon Eastern. It's on Sirius XM
0:54
Speaker 1: Channel one eleven, the Triumph Channel. Free listening runs till
0:58
Speaker 1: May fifteen. Sus XM, thank you for being our partner
1:09
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace joining me right now is
1:17
Speaker 1: a very special guest that worked for a really long
1:22
Speaker 1: time with Joe Exotic with me, Galien Eastwood, Miss Eastwood,
1:27
Speaker 1: thank you for being with us. Thank you for having
1:30
Speaker 1: me Nancy, Miss Eastwood, what prompted you to go work
1:34
Speaker 1: with Joe Exotic Well in nineteen ninety nine, late ninety nine,
1:40
Speaker 1: early two thousand, when the part first opened, they actually
1:42
Speaker 1: had a kitchen inside the gift shop that cooked for
1:48
Speaker 1: whatever guest would come through and some of the workers.
1:51
Speaker 1: And I had a friend that had worked in the kitchen,
1:54
Speaker 1: and she called me one night and she said, Hey,
1:56
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna have to quit this job. I
1:57
Speaker 1: got another job. Would you be interested. So I went
2:02
Speaker 1: up there the next day and I interviewed with with Joe,
2:05
Speaker 1: and he told me what my duties would be. And
2:08
Speaker 1: you know, it was a sanctuary that was taken in
2:13
Speaker 1: rescued and rehomed animals. I totally could get on board
2:18
Speaker 1: with that message and that and that purpose, and so
2:22
Speaker 1: I took the job. And then within a week of
2:25
Speaker 1: doing that, he put his mom in the kitchen cooking
2:28
Speaker 1: and had me out in the park helping with the
2:31
Speaker 1: animals and building cages and such. I stayed with him
2:37
Speaker 1: almost a full year that time. The money was not great,
2:40
Speaker 1: even though my love of the animals was great. I
2:42
Speaker 1: had kids to feed, so I had to go get
2:45
Speaker 1: a better paying job. But I stayed in touch with
2:47
Speaker 1: Joe throughout the years, and it even went back a
2:50
Speaker 1: few times to volunteer to donate items, and then in
2:53
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen when I went back, it was totally different.
2:58
Speaker 1: I mean, they were they were doing the mass spreading.
3:01
Speaker 1: There were cameras everywhere recording his every move, and you know,
3:05
Speaker 1: in my head, it didn't take me long being back
3:08
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen that I was still looking for Joe Shrivogel,
3:12
Speaker 1: who I had met in nineteen ninety nine and two thousand,
3:15
Speaker 1: as opposed to the Joe Exotic that I met in
3:19
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. So in my head, I kind of got
3:22
Speaker 1: it like they're two separate people. One I was okay with,
3:27
Speaker 1: even though he had his little quirks and stuff, but
3:29
Speaker 1: the other one, you know, I just can't get on
3:32
Speaker 1: board with anything that he turned into. You know, it
3:36
Speaker 1: does sound almost like two different people, but it wasn't.
3:40
Speaker 1: So you're saying Joe shri Vogel really cared about the animals,
3:47
Speaker 1: and then Joe Exotic was the exact opposite. I can't
3:51
Speaker 1: say that Joe Exotic didn't care about the animals. I
3:54
Speaker 1: think he cared about what the animals could do for him,
3:58
Speaker 1: the popularity and the notoriety and all the people coming
4:03
Speaker 1: to the park and listening to him, so he cared
4:07
Speaker 1: in the sense of what they could do for him.
4:10
Speaker 1: But in the beginning, Joe Shrivogel, I mean it was
4:14
Speaker 1: we would flip a coin on who would have to
4:16
Speaker 1: do an interview, Like he was totally in it for
4:20
Speaker 1: saving the animals, he was not breeding them. We were
4:23
Speaker 1: advocating against the cub petting and people being able to
4:28
Speaker 1: go take their income tax returns to exotic animal auction
4:32
Speaker 1: and just by whatever animal they thought was cute and cuddley,
4:37
Speaker 1: people that do not have the knowledge or the means
4:39
Speaker 1: to care for these animals. I mean, Joe was Shrivogel
4:43
Speaker 1: was actually advocating against that, and then somewhere it flipped
4:49
Speaker 1: and he became this, I'm standing up for all the
4:54
Speaker 1: animal owners. I'm the only one standing up for your rights.
4:57
Speaker 1: And I mean it was a shock to me. So yes,
5:01
Speaker 1: I think just in my head that I kind of
5:04
Speaker 1: had to just seem as two separate people. When you
5:08
Speaker 1: went back and you knew and you knew him over
5:11
Speaker 1: all these years, how did his persona change? What did
5:16
Speaker 1: you notice about the new Joe? Exotic? The word narcissistic,
5:21
Speaker 1: like full spectrum narcissism comes to mind. Everything was about him.
5:28
Speaker 1: I remember even one argument between he and I that
5:31
Speaker 1: he was I don't even remember what we were arguing about,
5:34
Speaker 1: but his parting statement to me was that people came
5:38
Speaker 1: to the zoo to see him, not the animals. I
5:43
Speaker 1: totally couldn't grasp that, because you know, if if I
5:47
Speaker 1: go to take my family to a zoo, we're going
5:49
Speaker 1: to see the animals. But he had to have complete
5:54
Speaker 1: and utter control. I mean, you did not make a
5:57
Speaker 1: move on that park without running it through him or
6:00
Speaker 1: him telling you what to do. And he wasn't. It
6:06
Speaker 1: didn't seem like he was like that. I don't remember
6:07
Speaker 1: him being like that when I first met him. Galb.
6:11
Speaker 1: How were the animals being treated for the most part,
6:16
Speaker 1: I mean, they were being fed. Well, we did have
6:19
Speaker 1: the Walmart truck, although it was kind of portrayed a
6:21
Speaker 1: little wacky in the documentary, it wasn't anything like that.
6:26
Speaker 1: You had your animal handlers that actually loved the animals,
6:29
Speaker 1: and they were taking good care. You know, we were
6:31
Speaker 1: cleaning cages, we were watching most aware. The abuse that
6:36
Speaker 1: I seen came in was with the whole mass breeding,
6:40
Speaker 1: you know, breeding these breeder pairs out these moms out
6:44
Speaker 1: and then immediately taking their babies by whatever means necessary
6:48
Speaker 1: where they had to poke proad the mom out separate
6:51
Speaker 1: her from her cubs to get the cubs. I did witness,
6:58
Speaker 1: not so much him actually the killing of two healthy wolves,
7:02
Speaker 1: but I had two wolves that I had taken care
7:04
Speaker 1: of that morning, and I was in the commissary doing
7:07
Speaker 1: diets and one of the other crew members came to
7:11
Speaker 1: me and said that Joe had just put down two
7:14
Speaker 1: wolves in the back of the park cages. And I
7:19
Speaker 1: immediately left what I was doing to go see what
7:21
Speaker 1: was going on, and I came up on them actually
7:24
Speaker 1: loading the carcasses into what we called the bone collector.
7:30
Speaker 1: It was an Osteo college in Oklahoma City that would
7:33
Speaker 1: come down and pick up carcasses. I did witness them
7:36
Speaker 1: putting the two wolves into the pickup and him leaving
7:40
Speaker 1: with them. And like I said, I had tended to
7:44
Speaker 1: those wolves. I had cleaned their cages and fed on
7:46
Speaker 1: that morning. There was nothing wrong with them, no reason
7:50
Speaker 1: at all to put them down. But as far as
7:55
Speaker 1: the day to day care of the animal fly Galien,
7:59
Speaker 1: his answer was he needed to take those set of
8:03
Speaker 1: cages out, and he didn't have anywhere to put the wolves,
8:07
Speaker 1: so he killed the wolves to take the cages out
8:10
Speaker 1: to put in a gift shop. And from all pictures
8:13
Speaker 1: that I'm seeing of the park the way it stands today,
8:16
Speaker 1: the cages are still there. Would he make money off
8:19
Speaker 1: selling the dead carcasses. I never witnessed it. It was
8:24
Speaker 1: just a rumor that he did make money off of it,
8:27
Speaker 1: but I cannot give that to you firsthand. What about
8:31
Speaker 1: all the baby cubs that were born from the forced breeding?
8:36
Speaker 1: What happened to them? Oh, that's a very good question.
8:39
Speaker 1: That's the question people should be answering, as you know
8:45
Speaker 1: they're turning out. Joe even did one interview that he said,
8:48
Speaker 1: you know, he's doing forty to fifty cubs a year,
8:51
Speaker 1: and that being said, as long as he's been breeding,
8:55
Speaker 1: there should be over four hundred tigers at that facility.
8:59
Speaker 1: And the last USDA inventory sheet that I saw listed
9:05
Speaker 1: one hundred and six big cats, and that was from
9:08
Speaker 1: July of twenty nineteen. As a worker at the park,
9:15
Speaker 1: you're not always involved in where the cubs go. I mean,
9:19
Speaker 1: you know that this day, John Finley is transporting two
9:23
Speaker 1: cubs to this Walmart parking lot and meeting someone, but
9:27
Speaker 1: you wouldn't really know who he was meeting, or even
9:30
Speaker 1: Mark Thompson. He had several people that would actually do
9:34
Speaker 1: the transporting of the cubs, and then there were some
9:37
Speaker 1: that just as soon as they were pulled from their mom.
9:40
Speaker 1: You know, they're like any other baby, they can't regulate
9:44
Speaker 1: their body temperature. They're totally dependent. So if you don't
9:47
Speaker 1: care for them just properly, they die within the first
9:51
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. So you have a mom that has
9:55
Speaker 1: a litter of four, two of them may make it
9:58
Speaker 1: to the juvenile stage to you could actually do the
10:01
Speaker 1: cub petting with them. And then after the cub petting
10:04
Speaker 1: they you know, they're four months old. By this point,
10:07
Speaker 1: usually their whole purpose for being born born is complete.
10:12
Speaker 1: They're you know, they're not making money anymore, so they're
10:16
Speaker 1: shoved off into cages. You have other roadside facilities that
10:21
Speaker 1: are like the one Joe was running that will come
10:24
Speaker 1: and pick up the cubs. Could say they're low one
10:27
Speaker 1: tigers and they need tigers. There's a lot of a
10:30
Speaker 1: lot of switching and handling, and a lot of paperwork
10:33
Speaker 1: that doesn't get done or gets documented the wrong way
10:37
Speaker 1: just to cover where these tigers are going? Dane, Well,
10:42
Speaker 1: how much could you sell a baby tiger for? I
10:49
Speaker 1: never sold one, so but I know Joe, I mean,
10:52
Speaker 1: depending on the what it was. If it was a
10:55
Speaker 1: white tiger, you know, he would get more for it.
10:57
Speaker 1: Some of his hybrids, like his laggers, his loveligers, he
11:01
Speaker 1: would sell for more because they're fairly not a new species.
11:06
Speaker 1: But they're not, you know as well known. A couple
11:10
Speaker 1: of thousand dollars was what he would usually ask for
11:15
Speaker 1: one of his cubs. Gaylan, you mentioned the Netflix series.
11:21
Speaker 1: What did you make of it? I know you watched it,
11:23
Speaker 1: What did you think? I was very disappointed in how
11:31
Speaker 1: it was presented to me and the end result. You know,
11:34
Speaker 1: Eric Good presented it to me that it was going
11:36
Speaker 1: to expose the underbelly of the exotic animal world, and
11:40
Speaker 1: I don't feel like it did that. I feel like, yes,
11:42
Speaker 1: there might have been a hint of animals. I mean,
11:46
Speaker 1: you had to really read between the lines to get
11:48
Speaker 1: the animal message because it was so full of these crazy,
11:52
Speaker 1: larger than life characters that people are more focused on
11:58
Speaker 1: what they're actually seen on their screen that you know,
12:01
Speaker 1: Alan Glover is sitting in a bathtub taking a bath,
12:05
Speaker 1: doing an interview, or John Finley sitting there with his
12:07
Speaker 1: shirt off. People are more focused on that than the
12:13
Speaker 1: animal part. And I also some of the things that
12:16
Speaker 1: the documentary touched on, such as, you know, Joe singing.
12:20
Speaker 1: You have some people that watch that and still to
12:22
Speaker 1: this day believe that Joe was singing his own songs.
12:27
Speaker 1: I believe that the people that put it out could
12:30
Speaker 1: have at least done some type of disclaimer at the end, saying,
12:34
Speaker 1: you know, well, even though you've seen this, we have
12:37
Speaker 1: found this to not be true or that to not
12:40
Speaker 1: be true. But it's just like they just loaded it
12:42
Speaker 1: with all the sensationalism. They barely touched on anything and
12:46
Speaker 1: kind of left it open to the public just to
12:48
Speaker 1: fill in the blanks. Crime stories with Nancy Grace Dylan.
13:09
Speaker 1: When you were working at the gift shop or during
13:13
Speaker 1: any of your times when you would go back and
13:15
Speaker 1: help out, do you believe that credit card fraud was
13:20
Speaker 1: going on? Yes, ma'am, I know of one particular incident
13:25
Speaker 1: that that happened. There was a black leopard. His name
13:30
Speaker 1: was Mystic. He had been at the park for many,
13:33
Speaker 1: many years. He was actually a rescue from like two
13:38
Speaker 1: thousand when the park first opened and he had got
13:43
Speaker 1: a new sponsor, and part of the sponsorship, Joe would
13:46
Speaker 1: allow new sponsors to rename the animal. So this animal,
13:51
Speaker 1: I don't know why he got transferred, but there was
13:55
Speaker 1: a couple of people from Dade City, Florida, their last
13:59
Speaker 1: named Stearns, run another roadside scum zoo and they're in
14:03
Speaker 1: a lot of trouble. They had come up to pick
14:05
Speaker 1: up some tigers and at the very last moment, I,
14:09
Speaker 1: like I said, I wasn't there for the conversation of why.
14:13
Speaker 1: But this black leopard he was put into a medium
14:16
Speaker 1: sized kennel cage that he couldn't even turn around in,
14:21
Speaker 1: loaded in the back of a truck, and shipped to
14:25
Speaker 1: Florida with the Sterns. A couple of months after that,
14:30
Speaker 1: or maybe a month or two after that, I actually
14:33
Speaker 1: had some issues with my back and began. Joe moved
14:36
Speaker 1: me to the gift shop so I wouldn't have to
14:38
Speaker 1: do any heavy lifting. And part of our job of
14:41
Speaker 1: working the front desk was we were to build the
14:45
Speaker 1: credit cards monthly for the sponsorships. We had a list
14:49
Speaker 1: and we would just go through there and build them
14:53
Speaker 1: and you know, it would say tiger or whatever species,
14:56
Speaker 1: and then it would give the name, and then it
14:58
Speaker 1: would give the amount and the credit card number. And
15:01
Speaker 1: I was going through billing and not really thinking because
15:03
Speaker 1: I wasn't real familiar with every name of every animal
15:06
Speaker 1: on the park. But Mystic I knew, and when I
15:11
Speaker 1: got to him, I would not build a credit card
15:17
Speaker 1: because I knew Mystic was no longer at our facility.
15:21
Speaker 1: And I approached Joe about it, and I said, well,
15:23
Speaker 1: don't you think we should you send this guy a
15:27
Speaker 1: letter and let him know that Mystic has been rehomed,
15:31
Speaker 1: but we have other animals. Would he like to sponsor
15:34
Speaker 1: another animal or possibly just end his sponsorship? And Joe
15:38
Speaker 1: told me he said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know,
15:41
Speaker 1: type it up, and type it up. So I typed
15:42
Speaker 1: up a letter and I left it on his desk,
15:45
Speaker 1: and the next morning, when I went in to take
15:49
Speaker 1: out his trash in the office, I found the letter
15:51
Speaker 1: crumpled up in the trash can. And then when I
15:55
Speaker 1: left the park at the end of October twenty fourteen,
16:00
Speaker 1: this gentleman was still being billed for sponsorship of an
16:04
Speaker 1: animal that was no longer at the park. I wonder
16:07
Speaker 1: if that happened with other animals as well. That just
16:09
Speaker 1: happens to be the one you know of because you
16:12
Speaker 1: knew mystic, Yes you know, and just thinking, I'm sure
16:18
Speaker 1: all that money because he's getting money for sponsorships, as
16:24
Speaker 1: you said, where people have regular billing on their credit
16:28
Speaker 1: card to support an animal. He's selling baby tiger cubs
16:33
Speaker 1: for thousands of dollars each people pay when they come there.
16:38
Speaker 1: He's got the gift shop going. What did he do
16:42
Speaker 1: with all that money? Because the Netflix series was clear
16:46
Speaker 1: that the animals were not getting fed enough. Right, Well,
16:50
Speaker 1: you have to understand that Joe had all his flashy clothes,
16:54
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of money going there. He had
16:57
Speaker 1: a full studio, they bought drones. He was paying at
17:01
Speaker 1: one point in twenty fourteen, I think the studio crew
17:04
Speaker 1: was actually like five to six people, and they had
17:08
Speaker 1: some pretty good equipment, and they had drones to do
17:11
Speaker 1: all his other stuff. He was paying for his country
17:14
Speaker 1: music songs. Someone else was singing them and writing them,
17:17
Speaker 1: and he was paying for those. I don't know how
17:20
Speaker 1: much he paid for him. He just didn't sing them.
17:25
Speaker 1: Yes ma'am, okay, yes ma'am. And then you know you
17:30
Speaker 1: had his husband's He provided them with everything they needed, clothing, drugs, tattoos, guns,
17:45
Speaker 1: you know what have you. So, Yes, a large portion
17:48
Speaker 1: of the money being made was going to support their lifestyle.
17:54
Speaker 1: Well didn't the husband's work not outside the park, and
17:59
Speaker 1: they didn't get a paycheck like John. Yes, he worked
18:04
Speaker 1: in the park. He helped feed he did do transporting
18:09
Speaker 1: animals for Joe, but he didn't receive a weekly paycheck
18:14
Speaker 1: like the rest of the animal handlers. Travis, No, he
18:17
Speaker 1: didn't work. He kept the house clean for the most part.
18:22
Speaker 1: He did. If there was some cubs in the house,
18:24
Speaker 1: he would, you take care of the cubs and stuff
18:27
Speaker 1: like that. And occasionally if we needed extra muscle to
18:30
Speaker 1: build a new tiger house or whatever. But Travis, you
18:33
Speaker 1: didn't really he wasn't really out on the park every
18:36
Speaker 1: day working. Hi guys, Nancy Grace, here at a time
18:49
Speaker 1: when we are all pulling together to fight coronavirus COVID nineteen,
18:54
Speaker 1: I have something for you, an all free e chapter
19:00
Speaker 1: on coronavirus crimes and how to fight them. Don't be
19:06
Speaker 1: a coronavirus crime victim. From door to door, seals of
19:11
Speaker 1: fake cures and tests vaccines that's not real, to robocalls
19:18
Speaker 1: that are trying to scam you, to fake ads, to
19:22
Speaker 1: fishing you online, to fake cures that are being sold
19:28
Speaker 1: on the internet and on infomercials. Right now, you've got
19:33
Speaker 1: to arm yourself against these crimes. Please download or free
19:38
Speaker 1: e chapter Coronavirus Crimes. Don't be a victim. Go to
19:43
Speaker 1: crime online dot com. You'll see it there. Hit the
19:46
Speaker 1: link and download it for free. Arm yourself against criminals
19:52
Speaker 1: and scam artists, cons that will not only take advantage
19:57
Speaker 1: of you, but take advantage of you, your parents, your grandparents,
20:02
Speaker 1: and people you love at a time. Well, we are
20:05
Speaker 1: all fighting the virus. I hope you go to crime
20:10
Speaker 1: online dot com and download this. It's been highly researched
20:15
Speaker 1: and presented for you for free. Goodbye, friend, keep the
20:21
Speaker 1: faith crime stories with me. It's he grace Daylyn. Did
20:32
Speaker 1: you ever hear Exotic talking about how much he hated
20:36
Speaker 1: Carol Baskin every day every day? Yes, that was why
20:42
Speaker 1: was he so obsessed with her? He's like that with
20:48
Speaker 1: pretty much anyone that doesn't agree with what he agrees with.
20:55
Speaker 1: Kind of that narcissistic personality coming out again. That if
20:59
Speaker 1: you're not my side, then you're against me. And you know,
21:04
Speaker 1: when I started back in twenty fourteen, that's every day,
21:07
Speaker 1: multiple times a day, I heard about that Carol Baskin.
21:10
Speaker 1: That Carol Baskin. So you know, I decided when not
21:13
Speaker 1: to go home and google and I actually pulled up
21:16
Speaker 1: the lawsuit and the story behind it. And you know,
21:20
Speaker 1: on Joe's part of the Carol Basking story, I'm not
21:25
Speaker 1: a Basking supporter. I don't. I don't know her well
21:28
Speaker 1: enough to say yes or no about anything about her.
21:31
Speaker 1: But just on Joe's part of the story, he brought
21:36
Speaker 1: every bit of that on himself. He walked around saying
21:41
Speaker 1: how obsessed she was with him, when all the woman
21:45
Speaker 1: started out doing in the beginning was writing letters two
21:49
Speaker 1: malls to advocate against something that she did not believe
21:53
Speaker 1: in a normal response, if Joe truly believed that he
21:59
Speaker 1: was doing this for educational purposes, and he was educating
22:03
Speaker 1: the public about the plight of the tiger and trying
22:06
Speaker 1: to save the species, why would he not start his
22:11
Speaker 1: own letter writing campaign. He had the followers, you know,
22:14
Speaker 1: he could say no, this is what we're doing, this
22:17
Speaker 1: is our message, but he didn't. He immediately changed the
22:22
Speaker 1: name of his road show to where people would confuse
22:24
Speaker 1: it would and use the logos so people would confuse
22:28
Speaker 1: him with Carol Baskin, And then he started this online
22:31
Speaker 1: slaughter of videos and stuff, you know, to try to
22:36
Speaker 1: shut her down or at least get people to think
22:39
Speaker 1: she's a hypocrite. So I don't other than just her
22:46
Speaker 1: going against him and shutting it basically dipping in his
22:50
Speaker 1: money making pot. I don't know why he hated her
22:54
Speaker 1: so much. Did you ever hear him talking about wanting
22:57
Speaker 1: her dead? I personally never heard him say the words
23:04
Speaker 1: she's got to die. I heard him say some very
23:07
Speaker 1: extreme things about her. I was there just that somebody
23:14
Speaker 1: should go down there and mess with her. He never
23:17
Speaker 1: But I don't know that Joe would say something like
23:19
Speaker 1: that in front of me, because you know, I just
23:24
Speaker 1: I was good about putting him in his place. I
23:26
Speaker 1: would call him on his bullcrap, and I was never
23:31
Speaker 1: approached by anybody during that twenty fourteen time period that said, hey,
23:35
Speaker 1: you know, Joe just offered for me to go kill
23:38
Speaker 1: the woman or what have you. I never got that.
23:43
Speaker 1: I don't put it past him. Believe me, I've heard
23:45
Speaker 1: the videos and stuff I just think he was in
23:48
Speaker 1: this spot his show where he shoots the head off
23:52
Speaker 1: the Carol basking dummy says I want her head in
23:55
Speaker 1: a jar, yes man, But that was after roll the
24:00
Speaker 1: bitch into the ocean. That's pretty Yes, that's pretty harsh, yes, ma'am,
24:07
Speaker 1: it is. And but that was after I was already
24:10
Speaker 1: out of the park. Those some of those videos came up.
24:13
Speaker 1: Like like I said, I just feel like he was
24:15
Speaker 1: in a and I'm totally not taking up for him,
24:17
Speaker 1: believe me, I'm not. But he was in a spiral.
24:20
Speaker 1: So you know, it started out about you know, we're
24:23
Speaker 1: gonna do this coffee right infringement, and then it was
24:25
Speaker 1: like I'm going to start making videos and then I'm
24:28
Speaker 1: gonna start going down there and getting pictures of her
24:31
Speaker 1: facility and making her facility look bad, and then I'm
24:35
Speaker 1: going to start with the threats. So you know, it
24:37
Speaker 1: was like a spiral. It wasn't like he just woke
24:40
Speaker 1: up one day and it popped in his head that
24:42
Speaker 1: he was going to kill her. When you heard that
24:44
Speaker 1: he was accused of hiring not one, but two hit
24:47
Speaker 1: men to kill Carol Baskin, what did you think I
24:52
Speaker 1: was not surprised at all. I had Actually, when I
24:56
Speaker 1: walked away from the park, I had been trying to
25:00
Speaker 1: get Joe shut down. When I left. It was my
25:04
Speaker 1: parting words to him that I would see him shut
25:06
Speaker 1: down or I would see him in jail. So before
25:11
Speaker 1: he was actually arrested, I knew the investigation was going on,
25:17
Speaker 1: and so it wasn't a big surprise to me. It
25:21
Speaker 1: really was investigation, the one into animal mistreatment, or the
25:26
Speaker 1: one where he won a Carol Basking killed, the investigation
25:31
Speaker 1: into the murder for hire. How did you know about it?
25:35
Speaker 1: Just through different We have a whole group that we
25:38
Speaker 1: keep a very close eye. Well until Joe went to jail,
25:41
Speaker 1: we kept a very close eye on him, and it
25:44
Speaker 1: wasn't anything. You know, You've got Jeff Low and James
25:49
Speaker 1: garrettson before Joe was ever arrested, they were posting things
25:53
Speaker 1: on Facebook. So just by trying to keep up with
25:57
Speaker 1: the story, we learned a lot of what was going on.
26:03
Speaker 1: What did they post on Facebook? I don't really remember.
26:07
Speaker 1: They would post some little something about, oh yeah, i'll
26:11
Speaker 1: talk to the Feds today, Joe, you really messed up,
26:15
Speaker 1: And then the next minute, if you didn't get it
26:16
Speaker 1: screenshoted it would be back down. But they were really
26:20
Speaker 1: before he was actually ever arrested. They were kind of
26:24
Speaker 1: throwing things out on Facebook two. So you were not
26:28
Speaker 1: surprised when you found out about the plot to kill her, No, ma'am,
26:34
Speaker 1: not at all, because I had watched him spiral for,
26:36
Speaker 1: you know, for years. So why am I trying to
26:40
Speaker 1: get him show down? The cup breeding and the different
26:44
Speaker 1: things that I saw that. Uh you know, he was
26:47
Speaker 1: still when when guests were coming through, he was he
26:51
Speaker 1: was still trying to say that it was a sanctuary,
26:58
Speaker 1: and he was still trying to take donation. And like
27:03
Speaker 1: I said, you know the Joe Strabo, Joe Exotic. Uh
27:07
Speaker 1: I don't like Joe Exotic. I don't I don't approve
27:09
Speaker 1: of what he did. Uh I don't approve of how
27:13
Speaker 1: the animals were under his care, you know, the mass
27:17
Speaker 1: breeding and stuff like that. So you know, I contacted
27:20
Speaker 1: the RS because he at one time he was a
27:22
Speaker 1: BABO one C three and uh I contacted Garden County
27:27
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Department and tried to tell them about the drug
27:30
Speaker 1: use in Joe's house and stuff. It just seemed like
27:33
Speaker 1: nobody everybody wanted to turn, you know, turn turn the
27:37
Speaker 1: other direction and not really do anything about it. I
27:41
Speaker 1: wonder why that I would have no clue about. So
27:47
Speaker 1: you guys parted on bad terms, yes, ma'am. But he
27:52
Speaker 1: did about two years after well, now let's see about
27:55
Speaker 1: two thousand into two thousand and sixteen, first part of
27:57
Speaker 1: twenty and seventeen. I actually ran into him in town
28:01
Speaker 1: and he did get me to come try to work
28:03
Speaker 1: at his restaurant for him, even though I had already
28:06
Speaker 1: told him that I wanted to see him in jail
28:09
Speaker 1: or shut down. Galen, What about the treatment of the animals?
28:16
Speaker 1: Exactly was it? What did you witness? They got you
28:20
Speaker 1: so upset you wanted to close them down? There was
28:23
Speaker 1: one incident, you know, all this cub petting. If you
28:27
Speaker 1: listen to any of these people that are running these
28:30
Speaker 1: tiger mills, they will all tell you the same thing.
28:34
Speaker 1: The reason why they pull the babies is because you know,
28:37
Speaker 1: the mom doesn't make milk, or the mom rejects them,
28:41
Speaker 1: or the dad will attack them. And you know, I
28:46
Speaker 1: allowed myself to maybe not believe that, but I allowed
28:50
Speaker 1: myself to participate in that. Not the first few months
28:54
Speaker 1: of twenty fourteen, not really knowing any better. But a
28:59
Speaker 1: couple of months after I had been there, there were
29:01
Speaker 1: some cubs that had been born, and actually we didn't
29:05
Speaker 1: know about it until their eyes were open, and they
29:09
Speaker 1: were already starting to push up on their front feet
29:12
Speaker 1: and they were making noise if you tried to go
29:15
Speaker 1: to touch them and stuff. So these cubs had to
29:17
Speaker 1: be two to three weeks old, you know. So in
29:20
Speaker 1: my head, I'm thinking, okay, well, everything that Joe has
29:22
Speaker 1: been telling the handlers and the guests, you know, in
29:27
Speaker 1: this case, is not true. I mean, these cubs are
29:30
Speaker 1: fat and healthy looking, and Mom's been doing a good job.
29:34
Speaker 1: And Joe pulled them anyway. And when I ask him why,
29:37
Speaker 1: he said, well, we just pulled them all. And that
29:41
Speaker 1: was truly when, you know, I quit having anything to
29:46
Speaker 1: do with Joe as little as possible. I still wanted
29:49
Speaker 1: to be there to take care of the animals because
29:50
Speaker 1: I know I knew that by me doing their diets
29:53
Speaker 1: and cleaning their cages, I knew that they were getting
29:56
Speaker 1: good care. And I love animals, and I thought I
30:00
Speaker 1: was not even enough to think that I could still
30:02
Speaker 1: be there and be there for the animals and not
30:04
Speaker 1: participate in the stuff that I didn't agree with. And
30:08
Speaker 1: then you know when I went it wasn't any one thing.
30:12
Speaker 1: You know, when I went in the gift shop and
30:13
Speaker 1: I found out Joe was, you know, still billing people
30:16
Speaker 1: for sponsorship, I mean that was just out and out
30:19
Speaker 1: fraud and I won't be a part of that. And
30:23
Speaker 1: then his fake illnesses, him trying to uh, you know,
30:27
Speaker 1: putting on Facebook that hinting that he had cancer and
30:31
Speaker 1: he was dying, and I mean it just was too much.
30:35
Speaker 1: It was a hole. I didn't know about that. What
30:38
Speaker 1: happened well, shortly after a him and John split up
30:43
Speaker 1: in July, he started this that he couldn't. He started
30:48
Speaker 1: vomiting all the time, and he had a camera in
30:50
Speaker 1: his space to record every minute of sickness that there was.
30:58
Speaker 1: He was basically making himself sick. Well, in September, I
31:04
Speaker 1: think he got a diagnosis he either had an inflamed
31:07
Speaker 1: prostate or an enlarged prostate, and he chose to have surgery.
31:12
Speaker 1: And he went and had the surgery end of September
31:15
Speaker 1: of twenty fourteen, first part of October twenty fourteen. And
31:21
Speaker 1: it was simple, just go in there and remove the prostate.
31:24
Speaker 1: It was not cancerous. But then he takes to wanting
31:30
Speaker 1: people to come up and cook him food and come
31:32
Speaker 1: clean his house and give him money for this and
31:35
Speaker 1: money for that, because you know, he starts claiming that
31:38
Speaker 1: he has cancer, or he has some other rare disease,
31:41
Speaker 1: or the doctors can't figure out what was wrong with him. Well,
31:45
Speaker 1: on one trip to the hospital, I actually drew the
31:48
Speaker 1: short stick and was the one that had to drive
31:50
Speaker 1: him to the hospital, and I sat right there and
31:53
Speaker 1: heard his surgeon say that no, he does it was
31:56
Speaker 1: not his prostate was not removed for cancer. And then
32:00
Speaker 1: in another incidence, I seen a letter from a doctor
32:05
Speaker 1: of his that he had been saying that was basically
32:08
Speaker 1: terminating his association with Joe. It would you know it
32:13
Speaker 1: kind of in a nutshell. It read, we've performed every
32:17
Speaker 1: test on you, we can't find anything wrong, and perhaps
32:20
Speaker 1: you should seek mental health help. So you think that
32:27
Speaker 1: he was using the surgery, which was not about cancer,
32:32
Speaker 1: in order to get people to donate money. I think
32:36
Speaker 1: in the beginning he was using it as a way
32:38
Speaker 1: to try to get John back, because he pulled a
32:40
Speaker 1: lot of tricks and stuff trying to get John to
32:43
Speaker 1: come back to him and then when he got attention
32:46
Speaker 1: from it and people started donating money and some of
32:51
Speaker 1: his I don't know if I can say this, but
32:54
Speaker 1: he had a group of women that would come to
32:56
Speaker 1: the park and they would donate their time to get
32:58
Speaker 1: to play with the the cubs and the animals and stuff.
33:03
Speaker 1: And Joe had dubbed them fag hags. Well, they just
33:07
Speaker 1: flought to the park and started cooking for him and
33:10
Speaker 1: cleaning his house. So I think because of the tension
33:14
Speaker 1: he was a getting, he just went ahead and went
33:16
Speaker 1: with it. Time stories with Nancy Grace. When you say
33:39
Speaker 1: he pulled a lot of different kind of tricks to
33:41
Speaker 1: get his husband back, what kind of tricks? Okay, maybe
33:47
Speaker 1: trick was the wrong word. There was one conversation that
33:51
Speaker 1: I just heard Joe's part of the conversation, and it
33:53
Speaker 1: was like within the first week that John was gone,
33:56
Speaker 1: and Joe was on the phone and he was saying,
33:58
Speaker 1: I guess he was leaving a boy smell, And he said,
34:01
Speaker 1: if you don't contact me by seven o'clock tonight, I'm
34:04
Speaker 1: gonna start killing your animals and getting rid of all
34:07
Speaker 1: your animals, which there were some, there were reptiles, some
34:10
Speaker 1: of their pets, that they had at the house. The
34:13
Speaker 1: dogs were John Finley's. There was a set of monkeys,
34:18
Speaker 1: Capuchin monkeys that were John Finley's. So, you know, I
34:23
Speaker 1: heard Joe say this, and I didn't live at the park,
34:25
Speaker 1: so at closing I went home. I come back the
34:28
Speaker 1: next morning at nine o'clock and we have the We
34:31
Speaker 1: had morning meetings every morning at nine o'clock. And you know,
34:35
Speaker 1: after hearing Joe tell John that he would kill his
34:38
Speaker 1: animals and get rid of them, at the very end
34:41
Speaker 1: of the morning meeting, he looked at Eric and Easton,
34:45
Speaker 1: who were on cat crew, and he said, oh, by
34:46
Speaker 1: the way, I've got dead dogs in my yard that
34:49
Speaker 1: need to be buried. He had shot John Finley's dogs
34:52
Speaker 1: or put them down. I don't know if he shot them.
34:55
Speaker 1: I didn't go down there to look at the bodies,
34:58
Speaker 1: but he had gotten rid of dogs. Galen. How would
35:03
Speaker 1: he get the babies away from the moms. There was
35:07
Speaker 1: multiple different ways. In the big pens, the mom and
35:11
Speaker 1: the babies would be in the house and the big pens,
35:13
Speaker 1: and every large pen has a smaller pen inside it
35:16
Speaker 1: that's called a lockdown cage. Most of the time you
35:20
Speaker 1: would try to get the mom into the lockdown to cage,
35:23
Speaker 1: because if you could get her in there, that meant
35:26
Speaker 1: you didn't have to dart, or you could just lock
35:27
Speaker 1: the door and she couldn't get back to the cubs.
35:33
Speaker 1: In some instances they would have to poke and proud.
35:37
Speaker 1: I did witness them using fire extinguishers one time to
35:41
Speaker 1: smoke basically smoke the mom out of the house away
35:44
Speaker 1: from the baby, you know, because it's it's a mom's
35:46
Speaker 1: instinct to stay with her young when they're firstborn. So
35:50
Speaker 1: you know, you got sticks, you got him furn guns
35:53
Speaker 1: up in the air for the noise. If they could
35:56
Speaker 1: get the mom out of the house with the babies,
36:01
Speaker 1: but they couldn't get her in the lockdown pen, you know,
36:03
Speaker 1: they would they would dart her to put her to
36:06
Speaker 1: sleep so that you could go in there and get
36:09
Speaker 1: the cubs. I know on the documentary they showed the
36:12
Speaker 1: baby being pulled by the stick out of the house
36:16
Speaker 1: as the mom. I never witnessed that. I only witnessed
36:20
Speaker 1: them actually separating the mom from the cubs and then
36:23
Speaker 1: going in and taking the cubs. What would the mom do?
36:28
Speaker 1: Most of the time, she would get very you know,
36:31
Speaker 1: I mean, momssmama bears. We get kind of protective, you know.
36:35
Speaker 1: I mean she would hit the fence at m she would,
36:40
Speaker 1: you know, do everything to try to protect her young.
36:43
Speaker 1: But you know when you're being poked and prodded and
36:46
Speaker 1: come out from And it wasn't just like Joe like
36:48
Speaker 1: he would have the whole crew down there participating in this.
36:52
Speaker 1: And if you smoked that house with the fire extinguisher,
36:54
Speaker 1: she's got to come outside to get air. So there
36:58
Speaker 1: wasn't a whole lot the mom could do. It's just
37:01
Speaker 1: hard for me to believe, and I know you're telling
37:03
Speaker 1: me the truth that other people would take part of it,
37:09
Speaker 1: poking and hitting the mom, using the fire extinguisher on her,
37:16
Speaker 1: dart gunning her and then take the baby away. Everybody
37:23
Speaker 1: took part of it. Why why would everybody join in?
37:28
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people. I know myself and
37:31
Speaker 1: I did not do the poking and the parting. I
37:34
Speaker 1: mean I stood back and I witnessed it, but I
37:36
Speaker 1: could not bring myself to do it. I just I couldn't.
37:41
Speaker 1: But in a way I had fooled myself into still
37:46
Speaker 1: thinking that this park was a good thing in hole
37:50
Speaker 1: that know, the cub petting and the way they treated
37:53
Speaker 1: the moms to get the babies. No, that was horrible,
37:57
Speaker 1: but the cud petting was a necessary to feed the animals.
38:03
Speaker 1: It's really hard to describe what mindset you get into
38:07
Speaker 1: and what you fool yourself into. Even when you've got
38:11
Speaker 1: the red flags in your head saying ding ding ding,
38:14
Speaker 1: you know this isn't right, and then you try to
38:18
Speaker 1: you try to justify it until it comes to the
38:24
Speaker 1: point that you just can't justify it anymore. And there
38:27
Speaker 1: there are some people that work there that have never
38:29
Speaker 1: come to the justification. Me. It took me about, you know,
38:33
Speaker 1: eight months, and it wasn't eight whole months. A lot
38:38
Speaker 1: of it. I was ready to go within the first
38:40
Speaker 1: two months when I realized what was happening, But I
38:42
Speaker 1: was so involved with the animals that I fooled myself
38:47
Speaker 1: into believing, you know, like I said before, that I
38:50
Speaker 1: could still take care of the animals and not participate
38:54
Speaker 1: in the bad stuff. We'll see that charming Jalen that
39:00
Speaker 1: people were kind of under his spell. Believe it or not,
39:04
Speaker 1: he is. I mean, you really can't tell it from
39:06
Speaker 1: from the docuseries, but Joe has this charismatic thing quality
39:13
Speaker 1: about him that I mean, either when you meet him,
39:17
Speaker 1: you fall in love with him, or you know, just
39:21
Speaker 1: really like him he's a likable guy, or you just
39:24
Speaker 1: instantly hate him. There's usually not any in between with him.
39:28
Speaker 1: And he has this uncanny ability to meet someone and
39:34
Speaker 1: read them within seconds and kind of if you have
39:39
Speaker 1: a weak spot, he knows exactly how to use that
39:44
Speaker 1: in his favor to get what he wants from you.
39:48
Speaker 1: I mean, it's uncanny, canny, and it's indescribable, you know, Kaylynn.
39:54
Speaker 1: He said that he was set up. He's filed by
39:58
Speaker 1: the ninety four million dollar Ish lawsuit against the government
40:03
Speaker 1: and others, saying that he was entrapped, he was tricked,
40:09
Speaker 1: that he would never have ordered hits. I don't think
40:12
Speaker 1: there's a real defense to anything he did to the animals.
40:17
Speaker 1: But what do you make of his claim that he
40:19
Speaker 1: was picked on because he is gay. I think that's
40:25
Speaker 1: so much crap. I don't Number one, I don't think
40:29
Speaker 1: he was picked on at all. And number two, I
40:33
Speaker 1: have listened to him for you know, the past six years,
40:39
Speaker 1: try to turn everything about Oh, it's because i'm gay,
40:42
Speaker 1: it's because i'm gay. No, it's because you're not a
40:44
Speaker 1: decent human being, I mean, plain and simple. The whole
40:50
Speaker 1: free Joe exotic he was set up is just I mean,
40:53
Speaker 1: it's crap to me. I don't know. Maybe I just
40:57
Speaker 1: don't understand the definition of being set up. But if
41:00
Speaker 1: you're a willing participant, if they have you on tape
41:04
Speaker 1: with an undercover agent orchestrating a hit, I don't know
41:10
Speaker 1: how that's a setup. I don't get it. You know,
41:15
Speaker 1: I just saw that his pink sequin shirt was selling
41:22
Speaker 1: for about seven hundred dollars. That's a heck of a
41:27
Speaker 1: lifestyle when you've got one shirt that can be sold
41:32
Speaker 1: for seven hundred dollars. You mentioned his lifestyle, that all
41:36
Speaker 1: that money was going into supporting him and his husband's lifestyle.
41:40
Speaker 1: What did you mean by that, other than hiring somebody
41:42
Speaker 1: to film you twenty four seven, three sixty five for
41:45
Speaker 1: a reality show? I mean, what lifestyle. I'm very curious
41:49
Speaker 1: about his lifestyle. I don't mean about being gay. I
41:53
Speaker 1: don't care about that. I mean the money. Where's the
41:56
Speaker 1: money going, what's he doing? How's he living? They did?
42:01
Speaker 1: They did do trips, you know. They they took skydiving trips,
42:05
Speaker 1: They took trips down to Florida, and and turned Carol
42:09
Speaker 1: Baskin's facility. And I don't know what all they did
42:11
Speaker 1: when they were in Florida. Um, you know, they had
42:16
Speaker 1: be hicles, I mean pretty much anything that they wanted
42:20
Speaker 1: they had access to. And if if he didn't have
42:26
Speaker 1: his trucks, I mean they all had brand new trucks
42:30
Speaker 1: that they went and financed and were paying for. They
42:34
Speaker 1: were always financing someone else's name, but he would make
42:38
Speaker 1: the payments on it. John Finley, I think he brecked
42:43
Speaker 1: a couple, so he was getting getting pick up trucks
42:46
Speaker 1: quite often there for a while. And they bought more animals,
42:50
Speaker 1: and you know, like I said, the drugs, the tattoos,
42:53
Speaker 1: the clothing. When John left, uh, Joe was Joe was
43:00
Speaker 1: bent on his reality show had to be about him
43:06
Speaker 1: and his two husbands. So when John left, he didn't
43:10
Speaker 1: have the third husband anymore. So he an ex boyfriend.
43:16
Speaker 1: He paid this ex boyfriend to come down to the park.
43:22
Speaker 1: He paid like three months worth of the boy's phone bills.
43:25
Speaker 1: He was back behind on his phone bills. He made
43:27
Speaker 1: up his car payments, He got his moms. Joe got
43:32
Speaker 1: his mom's credit card and went and spent five hundred
43:35
Speaker 1: dollars on a tattoo and some clothing for this guy.
43:41
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just did you say his third husband? Well,
43:45
Speaker 1: he had. The reality show was supposed to be about
43:47
Speaker 1: three husbands, so when John left, there was only two
43:52
Speaker 1: of them. There was Joe and another Sorry I misspoke.
43:56
Speaker 1: You know I love my husband, Gailien, but I don't
43:58
Speaker 1: want another one. One is enough exactly. So the premise
44:03
Speaker 1: of the reality show is about three husbands. I thought
44:08
Speaker 1: the premise was supposed to have been about the animals
44:11
Speaker 1: his reality show. His reality show. The way he put
44:18
Speaker 1: it to me over and over again was that it
44:21
Speaker 1: was going to be about a gay zookeeper that had
44:25
Speaker 1: two husbands, that they were in this three way marriage,
44:29
Speaker 1: which at the time wasn't even gay marriage was not
44:33
Speaker 1: legal in Oklahoma, so you know, they had had the
44:36
Speaker 1: union ceremony, but they were not legally married. But the
44:40
Speaker 1: reality show was he was going to be in the forefront,
44:44
Speaker 1: His husbands were going to be in the forefront. The
44:47
Speaker 1: animals were just going to be an afterthought. You know,
44:50
Speaker 1: I'm curious why Joe Exotic thought, and maybe he wasn't
44:54
Speaker 1: wrong that people would want to see a reality show
44:58
Speaker 1: about him. I have no clue. I mean, I really don't.
45:04
Speaker 1: I mean I set back every day and watch how
45:09
Speaker 1: people are reacting to this, and I guess from actually
45:12
Speaker 1: living it for a while that you just can't go
45:16
Speaker 1: back and unsee what you've already seen and try to
45:18
Speaker 1: get like a clean perspective on it. So who knows.
45:22
Speaker 1: I mean, Joe really did have this mentality that he
45:26
Speaker 1: was all that, that everybody wanted to be him because
45:30
Speaker 1: he had this huge animal facility and case in point,
45:34
Speaker 1: as far as I mean, some of the reaction from
45:38
Speaker 1: the American public has really shocked me. We have a
45:42
Speaker 1: Facebook page and I spend most of my day deleting
45:47
Speaker 1: people off of there that just want to come on there,
45:50
Speaker 1: and that's all they want to do is support this
45:53
Speaker 1: movement to free Joe and say, try to argue with
45:57
Speaker 1: me about what a nice person he is because they
45:59
Speaker 1: watch something on TV, you know, so it's it's really
46:03
Speaker 1: been it's been something. Well, then let me ask you this, Galen.
46:10
Speaker 1: What people see on TV was that the real Joe exotic?
46:21
Speaker 1: He was large in some ways, it was It's really
46:24
Speaker 1: hard to explain Joe because like he's every person sees
46:31
Speaker 1: something different Inny like you could take every bit of
46:35
Speaker 1: the staff from twenty and fourteen and they could probably
46:38
Speaker 1: tell you different views of how I see him. And
46:42
Speaker 1: that's just part of the I guess. I guess you
46:45
Speaker 1: would call it an enigma, that is Joe exotic. There's
46:49
Speaker 1: no way to sit down and just describe him. So
46:54
Speaker 1: some people watching the watching the documentary are going to say, well, gosh,
47:00
Speaker 1: I feel sorry for him, and he was just really
47:02
Speaker 1: railroaded and this, that and the other, and they're going
47:04
Speaker 1: to get on this whole support Joe thing. And then
47:07
Speaker 1: other people are like, you know, this man is a lunatic.
47:10
Speaker 1: I mean, he he will do where do you stand.
47:20
Speaker 1: I think that when you have someone that is, like
47:24
Speaker 1: we discussed, as charismatic as Joe and can immediately work
47:32
Speaker 1: you on your weaknesses, and I think it just makes
47:40
Speaker 1: for a dangerous individual when he has it in his
47:42
Speaker 1: head that he's this king or this god and he's
47:45
Speaker 1: above the law, and he's he's created his altar reality,
47:49
Speaker 1: and you know he is. I think in that one
47:52
Speaker 1: interview he said judge, jury and executioner in his own
47:56
Speaker 1: world that I think that makes for a very dangerous individual.
48:02
Speaker 1: I think he's exactly where he thinking, actually thought he
48:05
Speaker 1: was a king. I believe so. I believe he had
48:10
Speaker 1: so complete control over that park, and just walking into
48:15
Speaker 1: that park was like walking out of regular society into
48:20
Speaker 1: this little crazy world that you know, he created, his
48:25
Speaker 1: own little world. Do you think he could have personally
48:29
Speaker 1: killed Carol Baskin? Would he have done that? I never
48:35
Speaker 1: really at the park, I mean, I don't. I don't
48:39
Speaker 1: think Joe would do his own dirty work, so to speak.
48:43
Speaker 1: He you know, that's just like because now he can
48:45
Speaker 1: sit back like he's screaming now that you know he
48:49
Speaker 1: was set up, or he didn't transport the Cubs John
48:53
Speaker 1: Finley and so and so transported. I think Joe is
48:59
Speaker 1: not going to dirty himself because then he wouldn't be
49:02
Speaker 1: able to blame it on anyone else. Do you think,
49:06
Speaker 1: as opposed to doing it with his own hands, he
49:09
Speaker 1: would have hired somebody, because that's sure what the tape
49:11
Speaker 1: recording sounded like. I believe, yes, I believe that he
49:16
Speaker 1: was very capable of hiring someone. If you could say
49:21
Speaker 1: anything to Exotic right now, what would you say. I
49:27
Speaker 1: have nothing to say to Joe Exotic. I don't know
49:30
Speaker 1: Joe Exotic. I don't the little glimpse I got to
49:33
Speaker 1: him in twenty fourteen, and what I've watched go down
49:36
Speaker 1: since then, there's nothing for me to say. Well, I
49:41
Speaker 1: know you may be speechless, but your actions said it
49:45
Speaker 1: all to me. You left, you left for a lot
49:50
Speaker 1: of different reasons. Do you think that justice was served.
49:57
Speaker 1: I don't know about some to justice being served, honestly.
50:03
Speaker 1: You know, he had seventeen wildlife charges and he only
50:07
Speaker 1: got four years for seventeen wildlife charges. He shot five tigers.
50:15
Speaker 1: He didn't even get a year for each tiger that
50:18
Speaker 1: he shot. So I would have been very much okay
50:23
Speaker 1: with a pet he'd gotten more time, But I'm okay
50:27
Speaker 1: with twenty two years. Kaalen. Did you have any idea
50:32
Speaker 1: that there were many many animal carcasses buried on that property,
50:40
Speaker 1: not just those five, but many other carcasses. I was
50:46
Speaker 1: aware of domestic animals such as like cattle and horses
50:54
Speaker 1: that were brought to the park to be fed out
50:58
Speaker 1: to the tigers. Yes. At one point the zoo was
51:03
Speaker 1: considered a rendering facility, which basically means that you can
51:08
Speaker 1: bury the bones on the property. You have to do
51:11
Speaker 1: it within regulations. It has to be you know, so
51:13
Speaker 1: many feet deep and stuff like that. But I mean, yeah,
51:17
Speaker 1: I was aware. I don't know exactly. You know, it
51:21
Speaker 1: hasn't come out how many of the exotic animals were
51:27
Speaker 1: actually buried there or not to my knowledge, other than
51:30
Speaker 1: like the five that he got the charges for. It
51:35
Speaker 1: wouldn't surprise me at all if they went out there
51:40
Speaker 1: and dug up and they found a lot. I know,
51:44
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen, most generally, when he was putting an
51:51
Speaker 1: animal down, the carcass were taking taken by the bone collector,
51:56
Speaker 1: so we we didn't do a whole lot of burying
51:59
Speaker 1: the carcasses of the cats. If there was any cat
52:01
Speaker 1: that was the bet came and deemed it that it
52:03
Speaker 1: had renal failure and you know, a legitimate reason that
52:06
Speaker 1: it had to be put down, then yes, the cats,
52:10
Speaker 1: the carcasses were shipped off to this college museum whatever
52:15
Speaker 1: it is. But did he get money for that that?
52:20
Speaker 1: I don't know, I really I was not. I never
52:25
Speaker 1: seen any paperwork on it when I was in the
52:27
Speaker 1: gifts shop, But I don't know. I've been told Jess,
52:33
Speaker 1: but that's purely speculation and rumor. Galen, you have stated
52:39
Speaker 1: that what we saw in the Netflix series was just
52:42
Speaker 1: the tip of the underbelly of the exotic animal world.
52:50
Speaker 1: Why did you say that it's still going on. You've
52:55
Speaker 1: got the Jeff Lowe, who you know, is one minute
53:00
Speaker 1: he's saying that he set Joe up and the next
53:02
Speaker 1: minute he's saying, no, that he just helped the Feds.
53:05
Speaker 1: He's still down there. And when he would Oklahoma mass
53:08
Speaker 1: breeding these cubs. I saw last night a video on
53:12
Speaker 1: TikTok that his little baby girls sitting in the floor
53:17
Speaker 1: and they're putting two brand new cubs barely got their
53:20
Speaker 1: eyes open right in front over if it had not
53:23
Speaker 1: been for the coronavirus and our COVID nineteen locked down
53:28
Speaker 1: on our county in the state of Oklahoma. You know,
53:32
Speaker 1: he actually stayed open for business after he was deemed unessential,
53:39
Speaker 1: and we called the Sheriff's department to go ahead and
53:42
Speaker 1: have him shut down because there was so many people
53:44
Speaker 1: flocking to this facility to pay to meet him, to
53:50
Speaker 1: play with the tigers. And the thing I really don't
53:53
Speaker 1: get is these places you have, you know, Jeff low
53:57
Speaker 1: with the greater whin he would you have Dads City
54:00
Speaker 1: the Sterns, which they're in a lot of trouble. So
54:03
Speaker 1: and you've got Tim Stark Wildlife in Need. You know,
54:06
Speaker 1: there's so many of these places and the people they
54:10
Speaker 1: just look at it as the place they can go
54:12
Speaker 1: take a picture with a cub. They don't stop and
54:14
Speaker 1: think that these are tiger meals. If I ask you
54:17
Speaker 1: about a puppy meal, you're not okay with it. Well,
54:21
Speaker 1: any cub petting facility that has baby cubs or baby
54:26
Speaker 1: animals available for you to interact with, and you pay
54:31
Speaker 1: to interact with, they're breeding these for that purpose. They
54:35
Speaker 1: are a tiger meal or a sloth meal or a
54:38
Speaker 1: lean bottle line. It's still going on and nothing has changed.
54:44
Speaker 1: And I'm curious about if he was illegally selling these
54:47
Speaker 1: baby tigers to other dealers and fraud and you know,
54:53
Speaker 1: lying on the papers who bought the tigers, who took
54:58
Speaker 1: them illegally. They weren't supposed to that either. And I
55:00
Speaker 1: hadn't heard a word about that prosecution. I gotta want
55:03
Speaker 1: to ask you one more thing, Helian. The way he
55:07
Speaker 1: carried on in the Netflix documentary, did he always dress
55:12
Speaker 1: up like that every single day? It was like a
55:14
Speaker 1: dress up party? You know? It kind of wasn't And
55:18
Speaker 1: that's interesting because I had had a conversation. I didn't
55:21
Speaker 1: really notice that that much about him, like in the
55:24
Speaker 1: beginning when I first met him and stuff, and then
55:28
Speaker 1: he was very good at show. But I sat down
55:31
Speaker 1: and I talked to his sister. She and I become
55:34
Speaker 1: quite close and become really really good friends through this,
55:36
Speaker 1: because you know, we kind of we kind of can relate.
55:39
Speaker 1: I can't go talk to my other friends because they
55:42
Speaker 1: don't know what the heck I'm talking about, because a
55:44
Speaker 1: lot of times there's no way to describe it. But
55:46
Speaker 1: she said that, you know, yes, even past the point
55:50
Speaker 1: most of us grow out of playing dress up and
55:53
Speaker 1: pretending to be somebody that were not that. Joe went
55:56
Speaker 1: past that point, and I honestly did not see it
56:00
Speaker 1: until twenty fourteen. I mean, you know, the whole, the
56:03
Speaker 1: whole singing thing. Let's put that in perspective. He had
56:07
Speaker 1: headshot pictures made. He had CMT Country Recording artists put
56:14
Speaker 1: on the bottom of these pictures, which he's never been
56:16
Speaker 1: on CMT, but he had it put on these pictures.
56:20
Speaker 1: There was one song that was performed by I believe
56:24
Speaker 1: Christina Aguilera and a great big world called Say Something
56:28
Speaker 1: and Joe lip sync this and did a video of
56:31
Speaker 1: when one of his chimps passed away, and he swore
56:36
Speaker 1: that that was his song. They were playing it on CMT,
56:40
Speaker 1: Well they were, but it wasn't his version. They were
56:42
Speaker 1: playing on CMT CMT it was someone else's. But I mean,
56:46
Speaker 1: that's just how far he was willing to go into
56:50
Speaker 1: his make Christina Aguilera's song was his The Great Big World,
56:56
Speaker 1: And Christina Aguilera say something, Yes, he told guest of
57:00
Speaker 1: the part that that was his song. Okay, I'm sure
57:06
Speaker 1: Christina Aguilera will want to hear about that. But I'm
57:10
Speaker 1: just wondering if he acted like this all the time,
57:13
Speaker 1: even you know, a day in, day out, or if
57:15
Speaker 1: it was all just for the camera. But he had
57:19
Speaker 1: a camera on him day in and day out, I
57:22
Speaker 1: mean twenty four seven. A lot of times he would
57:26
Speaker 1: call them. He would be down to his house watching
57:28
Speaker 1: TV and he'd have some brainstorm and he would call
57:31
Speaker 1: the studio people and have them come to his house
57:33
Speaker 1: and immediately start recording or start at five o'clock in
57:37
Speaker 1: the morning by waking him up. And I mean he
57:39
Speaker 1: literally had a camera in the bathroom while he was vomiting.
57:44
Speaker 1: He wanted it filmed, so he had a camera. Even Galen,
57:49
Speaker 1: I'm just a JD. I'm not an MD with a
57:52
Speaker 1: psychiatry degree, so I can't figure that one out. But
57:55
Speaker 1: I tell you what, I know this. I think you
57:58
Speaker 1: did the right thing the day you turned your back
58:00
Speaker 1: and walked away from a cesspool. And it hurts me
58:06
Speaker 1: to know that it's still going on, not just there
58:09
Speaker 1: but all over the country. Right now, I am and
58:12
Speaker 1: I'd like to think that all of this will make
58:14
Speaker 1: a change, but I don't know. That's what I'm hoping.
58:17
Speaker 1: That's my whole purpose. I have been so nervous about
58:21
Speaker 1: this interview and stuff, but I cannot get my message
58:25
Speaker 1: out there if I refused to talk about it. And
58:28
Speaker 1: I have so much regret for the part that I
58:31
Speaker 1: took in it that I just felt like that I
58:34
Speaker 1: have to set the record straight. I have to get
58:37
Speaker 1: this message out there. Whether people believe it or listen
58:40
Speaker 1: to it or not, that's on them. But at least
58:42
Speaker 1: I tried, and you know what, that's what matters. You
58:46
Speaker 1: may not win, but at least you tried. You went
58:48
Speaker 1: down swinging this Eastwood, thank you for being with us.
58:53
Speaker 1: You