Carole Ann Baskin is an American animal rights activist and CEO of Big Cat Rescue, a non-profit animal sanctuary based near Tampa, Florida. She has attracted the attention of local, national and international media outlets to the plight of captive big cats.

Jack Donald Lewis was an American missing person who disappeared on the morning of August 18, 1997, after leaving his home in Tampa, Florida. The investigation into his disappearance has stretched from Lewis's Wildlife on Easy Street sanctuary in Tampa, co-owned with his second wife Carole Baskin, to land owned by Lewis in Costa Rica. No evidence has surfaced that Lewis was the victim of a crime, but friends, family, and investigators believe it is unlikely that he disappeared by choice because he had been executing business plans that were left unfinished. Lewis left behind over US$5 million in assets. He was declared legally dead in 2002 on the fifth anniversary of his disappearance.