Joe Exotic Was Planning ‘to Kill’ Carole Baskin Himself After Alleged Cancer Diagnosis, Reporter Says

An eyebrow-raising bucket list. Tiger King’s Joe Exotic was allegedly planning to take care of enemy Carole Baskin himself after his alleged cancer diagnosis, journalist Robert Moor exclusively reveals to In Touch. “He said, ‘If my doctor gives me two months to live, I’m going to Florida and I’m going to kill Carole Baskin,’” the reporter, who covered Joe Exotic’s story long before the documentary and the host of the podcast “Joe Exotic: Tiger King,” claims.

“[Joe] said, ‘I have an AR-15 set aside,’” Moor explains. “He said, ‘I never used to dream about seeing someone’s brains on a wall [until now].’”

At the time, Moor was doing some in-depth reporting on the Tiger King (real name: Joseph Maldonado-Passage) where he followed him for a week. While shadowing the big cat lover, Maldonado-Passage told the reporter he was dying of bone marrow cancer. Moor believes Maldonado-Passage lied about his diagnosis, as there doesn’t seem to be any proof confirming he was ill. Additionally, Moor took to Twitter on March 24 stating Maldanado-Passage had told “everyone” he was dying from prostate in addition to bone marrow cancer. “I later learned he just had an infected prostate, dehydration and a bad outbreak of herpes,” he wrote.

During his time observing Maldanado-Passage, Moor found himself at a dinner table where Maldanado-Passage made some shocking statements. “He described how he was going to mutilate her body and he was saying this at a Mexican restaurant at this big table of maybe 10 or 15 people. There was this rapper from Dallas, more like a hip-hop producer, and a bunch of people sitting at the table,” the journalist recalls. “I said, ‘Joe, (and I had my recorder out, I always had it running), this is on the record why are you saying this?’ And he said, ‘I don’t care, she just drove me to that point.’”

“That’s one of a couple of times that he told me he was willing to kill her,” Moor reveals, adding how the former presidential candidate’s delivery gave mixed signals to those who knew him best.  “It was kind of in this joking, like, over the top kind of way where you weren’t sure if he was just trying to shock you, because people would laugh,” Moor says. “He said stuff like that frequently and people would laugh. So I left there wondering if any of it was real because he had a TV crew with him all the time and he treated journalists just like another form of media, like an audience. So I was like, ‘Is he manipulating me? Is he joking? Is he just trying to get more attention?’ I couldn’t really tell.”

In September 2018, Maldanado-Passage was arrested for plotting to kill Baskin along with various other charges of animal abuse. He was found guilty of 21 counts, including 2 counts related to Baskin’s murder for hire plot, illegally breeding exotic animals and selling or attempting to sell tigers without a federal permit. In April 2019 he was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison on January 22.