[birds and insects chirping]
[eerie instrumental music plays]
The story how we heard it was that Mark fell off a waterfall or Mark…
It was kind of strange.
[Dave] Mark being so fit and so agile,
that he would accidentally slip, hit his head, and go over these falls,
this always seemed, kind of, a little off.
I've never spoken to Bhagavan since then.
I've always wanted to,
but I never had the opportunity.
I, first of all, would like to ask him what happened.
None of us know what really happened that day.
I always loved that Buddhist saying,
"There are three things that cannot long stay hidden."
"The sun, the moon, and the truth."
[mysterious music plays]
[Dave] Something that's never been reconciled in my mind,
is the fact that he was the number two guy at this Buckingham Zoo.
So here obviously is Bhagavan,
doing his levitation thing, and then right here, that's Mark.
And Bhagavan couldn't even come out here to the funeral.
Why?
I mean that makes no sense at all.
[Dave] Take a day and come out here
and be with us.
You were with him for the last five years.
Why wouldn't you even come out and make an appearance?
[Dave] That's never been reconciled in my mind.
And it always amazed me that this letter from Mark,
it says, "Don't trust Bhagavan."
[music crescendos]
[footsteps]
[birds and insects chirping]
[cryptic instrumental music plays]
[David] And this is the study where I keep the secret archives.
So, this is where I have some more videos.
This one's got mold on it. [laughs]
So, this could actually have something.
[mechanical hum]
[David] I remember we set up a hidden camera in my living room.
We thought it would've been fun to videotape Mark.
We'll ask him some questions and see what he says.
Since he didn't know about it, we thought he'd be more himself
and just reveal all.
We will be shooting the Mealworm, he should be arriving in about 20 minutes.
Bhagavan called him Mealworm, that…
[chuckles] …was his nickname.
May the Mealworm live happily ever after.
May I never hear "Mealworm" again!
[men laughing]
He was a really nice guy and really jolly.
A happy person, really liked Bhagavan.
And I think came here for a better life.
I was jailbound, boy, I was…
I was getting ready for prison. There was no doubt.
They were gonna nab me any day.
[moody guitar music plays]
[Dave] Back in the late '70s,
Mark and Bhagavan were in the marijuana business.
Bhagavan was, like, the biggest pot dealer in the area at the time.
I mean, he told me stories where they had like
a room full of bags of weed and rooms full of money.
[Mark] Dude, I was living in a three-bedroom house,
with a pool and a Jacuzzi,
and having steak and lobster six or seven days out of the week
and just partying my ass--
Thousands of dollars in cash, right there in my hand, you know?
[Dave] Mark was actually going out in the middle of the night to meet planes
that would swoop down in the abandoned airfields out there
and drop out the bales of marijuana.
[Mark] Of course, I had an amazing collection of reefer.
Like 25 different types of weed that I would, you know--
Big buds like this long that weighed like a half ounce.
Because I'd buy pounds of it, you know,
and I'd just find the best-looking stuff and seal it up, you know? [laughs]
[Dave] One time, we met up at Bhagavan's house.
And when I met him, Mark said, "This is Bhagavan."
You know, "If you're not comfortable with that you can just call him Kevin."
That's where I first got to see one of his tigers.
You could just see these huge-ass teeth and like,
"Oh, my God." He said, "Just chill, he's okay."
[tiger growling]
[Betsy] It was always dangerous.
I always had a gun.
He was always afraid someone would come after me to get to him.
Because he was at the top, somebody wanted to knock him down.
[somber music plays]
[Betsy] Somebody broke in while I was at the store,
so, of course, we had to pack everything up and move.
[Betsy] Bhagavan decided we had to go to Virginia.
And, you know, back then,
I still did everything he said, I had no mind of my own.
[Dave] Things got kind of weird. I got a phone call from Mark
in the middle of the night, and he was so paranoid, so… [grunts]
I said, "What's the matter?" He goes, "I need to get out of town."
[Dave] "People are getting popped. I need you to help me pack up."
We got to the storage facility. He had a huge trash bag.
Probably eight, ten pounds of weed,
and he said, "Just take it, get whatever you can for it."
"Send me some money."
He went his way, I went my way.
And I don't know how much time passed, but he called me up,
and he said, "I'm fine, I'm in Virginia right now."
"Do you remember Bhagavan-- Kevin Antle? He's putting me up out here."
"I just need to lay low."
"I'm working at a zoo, Buckingham Zoological Park."
[cryptic music plays]
[Dave] I said, "Oh, that sounds cool."
He goes, "Yeah, I can tell you more about it later, I can't talk right now."
"Okay."
So, from then on, he was working down there at the zoo close to Yogaville.
[mysterious instrumental music plays]
[Ruth Vargas] Yogaville saved my life.
I left home very young.
So I was on my own and an emancipated teenager from 16.
[Ruth] The New York City modeling scene was full of drugs and debauchery.
A couple of the models I worked with died, so, I decided I wanted the spiritual life.
I told my friends and family. They were very upset.
"What are you doing? That's crazy, they're a cult."
That's the first word they said, everyone said that.
And I said, "Fine, but I don't really want that New York City fast-paced insanity."
[Ruth] I started working a little bit at Buckingham Zoological Park with Mark.
He was a very nice guy. He had that whole lumberjack thing.
[Dave] Part of Mark's transformation
was to follow the teachings of this Swami Sachidananda.
…to know yourself.
[Dave] His name was changed to Mitra. M-I-T-R-A.
Thank you very much.
[Mark] By the way, I'm Mitra. Hi!
[man laughing]
Okay. That's me. Hi!
[Mark] To anybody who will talk to my folks, I'm Mark. [laughs]
But if they ever do find out, it's a stage name.
[Mark] They would not grasp this guru thing.
[cryptic music plays]
Mitra was this really attractive guy
and he had this loving personality about him, he was very gregarious.
[Steven] Had this big smile, was always laughing and joking,
and he was kind of the fun at the zoo.
You would fall in love with that kind of a character very easily,
because he was so likable, you know,
and it was a stark contrast between him and Bhagavan.
[birds chirping]
[presenter] He's one of the most unusual people you'll ever meet.
He makes his living training wild animals for movies and television commercials.
If there were ever a real life Beast Master, this guy is it.
Pearlies. Pearlies!
[adventurous instrumental music plays]
[lions growling]
[Becky] "Dear Becky,
could this really be a letter from 'The Wild Man of Virginia?'"
"Does he even have all his body parts still attached?"
"Well, I'm happy to say yes to the above questions."
"We've been busy filming for a television series we are making."
"I ride a zebra in an open field for the episode titled 'Wild Horses.'"
"It will take months, maybe years to finish the first 28 episodes."
"Did you like the picture?"
"Nothing like taking a Jacuzzi with a couple of kitties."
"Love, Mark."
[Becky] He loved those animals.
He was really passionate about it.
You know, here's this guy that trains tigers,
and works with animals and it was…
I mean, it was really cool.
[presenter] This guy works for a popular oil company that sports the slogan,
"Put a tiger in your tank."
Bubbles played a baby for the McDonald's corporation.
Yum, yum.
Kevin Antle. Bhagavan. Doc.
Uh, I've known him for 30 years.
Met him in Buckingham, Virginia,
when he was trying to be a tiger guy
and I was doing animals in films and commercials.
[Karl] He had a commercial job and he needed extra hands
and Mark Topping, who's there with me, he was a good trainer,
he was Bhagavan's number one guy.
He also was eager to learn. I showed him a few things.
[Ruth] Karl was pretty good with his animals,
in terms of training them. Definitely better than Bhagavan.
[Karl] Bhagavan did not value experience or knowledge.
He just was so sure of his way, his technique.
What do I know, I'm just, you know, the Black guy from Compton.
I don't know nothing.
Okay.
[muffled yelling]
[Karl] Doc Antle is just a spoiled rich kid.
[bear growls]
[Doc] I came from a highly successful family.
I could have had far more money than I'm ever going to make
off of hanging out with my beloved animals.
[Betsy] He grew up in a wealthy family.
They were the ones that grew all the lettuce in the entire United States.
[guitar music plays]
[Radha] Bhagavan had a trust fund that was supporting him very comfortably.
And then I believe he just, kind of stumbled into realizing
that the animals could be lucrative.
[presenter] At the ripe old age of 21, he received his PhD in zoology
from the British College of Natural Science.
All of the time, people say they think they're going to meet Dr. Antle, PhD.
They meet me and they are taken aback, they say,
"A hippie doctor. How did-- Who is this?"
That happens a lot.
[Radha] To my knowledge, he's not a doctor.
When he was in China, he paid somebody to write "doctor" on some certificate.
And, frankly, I would never let him stick a needle in me. [laughs]
He was never an actual doctor.
He wanted to be one, but he didn't have patience for school.
So he just says he is.
I'm a doctor, right, on one side. I'm "Doc" because I'm an MD.
And so I got a whole-- I've gone through and done a lot of autopsies,
I've been through a lot of bodies, seen a lot of sickness.
One of the challenges with Bhagavan Antle is that he doesn't tell the truth often.
And so it's very hard to separate the fact from fiction.
[drums roll]
[Steven] Everything that I know about Bhagavan's past came from Mitra,
because Mitra was the only one that would talk to me about it.
No one else would discuss Bhagavan in any sort of way.
It was through him that I began to learn about Bhagavan's nefarious past,
that Bhagavan was involved in some deals which
weren't aboveboard, shall we say.
[rattling, hissing]
[Karl] I really do know of some factual, real shit
that happened with him over the years.
There was a period of time in the '80s when Bhagavan and I traveled to Venezuela
on a commercial for South American television.
[Karl] And it became apparent that there was a bonus bumper crop
of cocaine available.
And I'm like, why do we care about an abundance of cocaine?
He was like, "We can get a truckload sent to Florida, to my friend Mario."
[cryptic music plays]
[Karl] I was like, "I don't know Mario, don't wanna know Mario."
"This is not what I signed up for."
"I'm not about to be involved in drug smuggling."
[Karl] But he saw how good my tiger was, that it would do all kinds of tricks.
You know, be a nice tiger.
And so he said, "Come on down to Virginia. You can stay in my house."
"We've got a lot of work in New York, but…"
"You got to eat vegetables and, you know, you're gonna…"
And my attitude was like, "Dude, I'm going to Wendy's and getting a cheeseburger."
-[Karl speaks indistinctly] -[tiger growls]
[Mark] Not eat meat?
You've gotta be fucking crazy. I will not stop eating meat.
And then, all of a sudden, boom, I'm not eating meat.
[Sumati] Mitra wanted to learn to train animals.
I don't think he realized how hard Bhagavan is on his employees and interns.
I kind of felt a little bit bad because I was, like, the traveling mistress,
which meant that, often times, Mitra would be driving the car
and Bhagavan and I would be having sex in the back,
which couldn't have been comfortable for him at all. [laughs]
It was incredibly awkward for me because I was a pretty modest person,
and kind of shy, and so it was very awkward.
[Sumati] But Mitra was very sweet and super funny.
I adored him, I thought he was really cool.
Mitra always had an interesting relationship with Bhagavan, where…
it wasn't quite as… Lord Bhagavan, over Mitra.
There was a-- It was a little bit closer together
than any of the other relationships that I've seen with interns.
[Dave] In this letter, "I'm number two."
"Assistant director and manager of this establishment."
"Bhagavan has offered a new condition of my contract in the future."
"Owning and receiving one to two and a half percent interest
for the next 10 years."
"Could add up to big bucks or could all fall apart tomorrow."
"That's the gamble, you take, right?" Yeah.
Go way down the hill, Mitra.
-[Doc speaks indistinctly] -[tiger growling]
Put the chain on her, Mitra. Put a chain on the cat.
She's ruined for the day, and getting ruined for life.
When you would come into the fold
Bhagavan would go about a process of breaking your spirit.
He's going to tear you down to the lowest level he can get you,
and then you're going to be reborn.
[fireworks whistling]
[Steven] When I got the job in Korea, Bhagavan made this big deal about my hair.
I had very thin, horrible hair.
I had this horrible mullet that I apologize for in advance,
but it was the thing back then.
He showed up in Korea and said, "We're gonna get you hair extensions."
So he found this Korean lady to come in, and I swear to you it was almost hot glue,
and she was taking these long hair extensions and she was gluing them,
and while she was gluing them into my head, she was burning my scalp.
And I was going, "Ow!" [laughs]
And the next thing you knew,
I had this big, bushy mane that looked horrible.
On stage, when I was dancing around and doing my thing,
and I would sweat and heat up, my head would get hot,
it would melt the extensions and I would spin my hair
and you'd see this long strand of hair fly out to the audience.
I would sit in my dressing room
and I would cry, and cry.
[somber melodic music plays]
[Radha] There was a certain aspect to the relationship
between Bhagavan and the apprentices, where Bhagavan was very domineering.
When I said, "Drop it," that's what matters.
[Doc] It doesn't matter what you think, it matters what I think is happening.
I was always worried about Mark because he abused him so badly.
Yeah, Mark was the nicest man I've pretty much ever met.
He never complained about anything.
He did exactly what he needed to do, and he was always kind.
[Radha] Mark was really, kind of funny and charming.
Although I feel that he…
wasn't really allowed to be that way,
either around me or around Bhagavan.
Well, when I first got there, you know,
they were definitely treating me like a human being.
But, eventually, I was living in this little cubicle.
I remember talking to him one night about his trailer.
He said, "It's so cold in there."
[Dave] Mark had a hybrid wolf named Nimbus Ned.
And Nimbus Ned slept with him at night, and that's what kept him warm.
[Ruth] It was atrocious conditions.
Bhagavan convinced them all that all they needed was rice and beans.
[Ruth] Mitra was hungry all the time,
but he worked so hard.
He worked seven days a week, 365 days for as many years as I was there.
He would have to work very long hours. He'd talk about that.
After a while, I just realized that, you know, wild animal training
really isn't what I wanna do all my life.
Mark was trying to get out,
probably because he wanted to get away from that grasp.
He wanted some reality, he wanted some freedom.
[Mark] This is to the new future.
To the future, yes.
-My new future. [laughs] -Your new future, right.
Can I make it to Arizona…
[Mark laughs]
…safely, with very few problems.
[men chuckling]
[Becky] "Dear Becky, well, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year."
"I didn't have to write that because I'll be in town,
Phoenix/Scottsdale, for a few days before Christmas."
"I leave Christmas Day for a magic show in Reno for the 26th until January 1st."
"Then I fly back to Virginia."
And that was…
the last time that I saw him.
[eerie instrumental music plays]
[Karl] Doc Antle said, "I got a magic show for you."
"I'm gonna send Mitra, and you're gonna go to Reno to do this show."
[Karl] And Mark was telling me how he wanted to get out,
that he was distrustful of Bhagavan.
He told me Bhagavan owed him money and it came from the dope deal.
But… he was owed money.
At this point, I didn't want to be involved,
'cause it's not my scene.
[Karl] It struck me as odd that five months later,
Mark Topping slips and falls on a waterfall and dies.
[somber instrumental music plays]
[Karl] I heard for years that Bhagavan was responsible
for Mark Topping losing his life.
[Betsy] A lot of people thought that Bhagavan
had something to do with Mark dying.
Everybody thought that.
[interviewer] Why would he have wanted to kill Mark?
For the same reason he hates that I'm out here.
'Cause he knew his secrets.
[cryptic instrumental music plays]
[Steven] In my mind,
it goes back to the money that was owed to Mitra.
[insects chirping]
[Steven] One time I caught Bhagavan late at night
outside working on a tiger trailer,
which was very unusual and I was curious what was going on,
so I went out there, and he didn't hear me come out.
As I walked up to him, he was by himself, and he was ripping open this big brick,
this giant brick of plastic trash bags and duct tape,
and when he ripped it open,
it was filled with cash.
[Steven] He grabbed a screwdriver and he grabbed me by the throat,
and he shoved me up against the building, he stuck that screwdriver up in my throat,
and he told me, "If you ever mention this again,
you'll never see another sunrise."
[Steven] Bhagavan owed Mitra tens of thousands of dollars,
and Mitra was very angry that he had not been paid this money.
It was a very strained relationship.
[Betsy] I know that he left for a while.
When I saw that Mark was back again I was like,
"Oh no, you got away. Why did you come back?"
He just went like this, you know?
[elephant snorting, grunting]
[Becky] The animals were a really cool part of his life,
but he was trying to make it more a part of his life, where he could have a life.
And I think that's what he was doing here on his last visit.
He was actively pursuing employment out here.
And then he was gone and he never did get to come back.
I remember crying about that, like, he was gonna come back,
and he never did get to come back.
[grim music plays]
[Sumati] In May of 1989,
Bhagavan was talking to a computer store
where I was working as the PR and marketing person,
and he had made an arrangement with the owner to shoot a commercial.
[announcer] On The Com Connecting Point has tamed the computer jungle,
bringing you a full line of Apple computers.
[Sumati] I had been avoiding Bhagavan from the minute I left him.
-And so I avoided the whole commercial. -[lion roars]
[Sumati] But at the end of the day, before they all left,
Mitra Topping was there and he asked me out on a date.
And I was happy to go on a date with him,
'cause I thought he was really handsome, and very sweet, and very cute, and funny,
and I was really looking forward to it.
But before I left the parking lot, I was in my car
and Bhagavan came to my car and confronted me.
And he said, "I'm leaving Radha."
"And I want to marry you."
So, he again, for the second time, asked me if I would marry him.
But nothing had changed, as far as I could tell,
you know, he was still the same person that he was when we were together.
So it was-- I said, "No, thank you. I'm not interested."
And I don't think I would have told him.
But Mitra Topping may have had to tell him that he was gonna go on a date with me,
because he needed permission to be away from the compound.
[Sumati] And… very, very tragically,
in the morning before our date, he went hiking
at Crabtree Falls and he fell and--
off of Crabtree Falls and died.
The day that we were supposed to go on a date.
[birds chirping]
[somber music plays]
[Dave] Normally, in this kind of a case, you would get notified by the authorities.
I got a call from Bhagavan.
He said, "Your brother's been in a very terrible accident."
I remember falling,
just falling down to the ground, sitting there on the ground,
and my wife at the time said, "What's the matter?"
I said, "Mark is dead."
It was Bhagavan, he said, and that he said
"Tell your parents that I was there, that I was with him."
[Becky] It sounds odd to me that he was the one
that notified the family and not the authorities,
but it was just fishy the whole way around.
[cryptic music plays]
[male voice] Always wondered why he was up there by himself,
because there was nobody at the top of those falls who came down,
"Hey, that's my friend," or anything like that.
It was Memorial weekend of 1989, and…
we were-- me and my wife were both off of work,
so we thought-- we'd heard about Crabtree Falls.
We hadn't been in Virginia a year yet.
So we decided to go up there and have a walk up,
and I was a little nervous going up
because I saw all these signs about how dangerous it was,
and all of the people that had been killed by climbing around on rocks.
I was 12 years old at the time.
It was a pretty moderate-- pretty moderate to steep hike up there.
It took quite a while, probably over an hour to hike to the top.
[Ty] And this woman walked up to me and said, "Did you see that boy fall?"
I said "No,"
and she said, "Oh, he has to be dead, he hit awful hard."
My wife, she starts looking out over the water towards the fall,
and she saw a boot sticking up behind a rock.
I took the binoculars, it was definitely a boot,
so I ran up the mountainside,
and I got level with the boot.
I looked over and I did see a body behind a rock on the other side.
[Ty] When I got out there his head was under the water.
I needed to get it up so he could breathe,
so I put one hand behind his neck, in case his neck was broke,
then I put my hand under his head to lift it up,
but that's when I realized there were no skull back there.
I knew he was dead, but I just couldn't get myself to leave.
One of the biggest things I remember, at some point you picked his wallet up,
I could tell he had pictures in there, and I started leafing through them,
and there was a photo of him with a tiger in a swimming pool.
[Vanessa] And that always stuck out to me.
[Ty] I felt an attachment to the boy.
I don't know why.
I guess just spending all that time on the bank,
keeping people away from him was…
You develop some sort of attachment, I guess.
You feel like you're protecting him even though he's not alive anymore.
[somber instrumental music plays]
[Ty] I felt like I was there all afternoon,
because it took forever for rescue to get up there.
[birds chirping]
And when they did, I stood around longer, waiting to be questioned.
I says, "I'm the one who found the body, is there anything you need from me?"
"What's your name?" I think all he took was my name.
I don't even think he took my address.
But no questions and that's always bothered me because…
How did they know he wasn't pushed?
[Vanessa] There were other hikers at the top of the falls.
No one else had witnessed this other than this one woman.
I don't know if she witnessed the whole thing,
if she caught a glimpse and thought she saw somebody fall from the top.
-Yeah, there was only that one person. -Just the one, yeah.
She just said, "Did you see that boy fall?"
[interviewer 1] So the authorities never questioned you?
No.
In fact, I kept watching local news about the accident at Crabtree Falls.
There was nothing.
Been wondering my whole life,
why there wasn't more of an investigation.
[grim instrumental music plays]
[Dave] The last picture of Mark was taken on the day that he passed away.
He's there, and there's a guy standing behind him.
Paul Lewis told me last year, before I moved out of Buckingham,
that he was with Mitra um, the day that he died.
Paul Lewis was a local guy, a real nice guy.
Rode motorcycles with him, and they had rode up there that day.
[beeping]
Okay, we have started this recording for Paul Lewis.
[phone ringing]
-[male voice] Hey David. -Hey Paul, how you doing?
-[Paul] Doing good. -Good, good.
I'm thrilled to be able to talk to you,
because I don't think we've ever spoken before.
[Dave] That Memorial Day weekend, you guys took a motorcycle trip.
Who came up with the idea to go out to Crabtree?
[Paul] I'm not sure,
but it could have been me, because I liked it a lot.
Back then it was pretty popular, but still there wasn't a lot of people.
There's a sign there that says, "20 people, or whatever, have fallen."
"Don't be the 21st," or something like that.
David, that sign that you're talking about,
I read to the group aloud as we walked towards that sign.
I knew the sign, I knew what it said.
-[Dave] Wow. -It was, like, giving them fair warning.
"This place is dangerous."
Wow.
[somber music plays]
[sighs] Jeez.
[Paul] Your brother was extremely brave.
-[Dave] Yeah. -[Paul] He was extremely strong.
Your brother saw these people rappelling down the mountain.
And they had all the gear that you need to rappel.
I believe he was trying to show off.
-Yeah. -[Paul] And he climbed a tree
and jumped over to the falls.
And he was so confident,
he thought he could get a fingerhold and climb up the mountain.
And those rocks were so old, sloping downward, they'd been worn smooth.
He didn't have anything to hold on to, and that's why he fell off.
You actually… um, were there
when he took that death-defying leap.
[Paul] I didn't see him take the leap. Somebody else did.
That always plagued me…
How could Mark ever--
How could this ever happen to him because he was… he was not stupid.
[Paul] We were all very sad.
I mean, it was really hard for us to understand why it happened.
It was-- just didn't make sense.
Yeah, and the last thing that Mark ate was a can of peaches.
Mm-hm.
[Dave chuckles]
[Paul] I watched him eat that can of peaches.
[Dave laughs]
-I'll be darned. -[Paul] You know, they were vegetarians.
I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.
[Paul] Yes, you're welcome.
Yeah, I'm sorry for your loss, David, I really am.
[gentle music plays]
[Dave] I felt good that I could actually talk to this guy
who spent the last day with my brother.
Mark loved peaches. When Paul told me,
it was like, "That's so Mark."
[cameraman] Something that you want right here.
[Mark] Yeah! That looks almost delicious.
Hey, first time I'm on my video. Oh boy!
[Dave] I'm very happy that I had a chance to get some idea of what the day was like.
Mark did what he did, and he died,
and we're suffering with his loss.
[Dave] My brother has a brick in here somewhere.
[Dave] There it is.
[sighs] Right there.
[emotionally] I miss him.
[sniffles, gasps]
[sobbing]
[Dave] It does bring a bit of closure but…
what happens to Bhagavan as a result of
the other atrocities that people have talked about that he has done?
Let's just hope justice prevails.
[indistinct voices]
[Steven] For a period of time, life just went on for Bhagavan.
You know, at the zoo, it just kept going.
I never saw any emotion from him in that respect.
Once again, it was a constant stream of young girls coming in and out.
Bhagavan would groom one girl, after another girl,
and then one more.
They're all afraid to say anything because their parents are still there.
Their families are still part of the ashram.
[Ruth] I do not believe that anyone who has a predilection
for 12, 13, 14-year-old virginal girls ever changes.
I wondered why Swami Satchidananda would allow him to be a part of our community,
because people were asked to leave.
But eventually someone broke the silence.
[lion growling]
That's a good boy.
[moody guitar music plays]
[Earl Wood] He knew that we were after him.
Our department received information from a law enforcement agency in California
to verify if, number one, Mr. Antle was in fact there,
and number two, if he was,
were there any underage females with him at the time?
And I was handed a warrant
for his arrest.
[tense guitar music plays]
[Earl] His house has a great big fence with a big chain around it,
so there's no way we can get in.
Nobody was there, but when I left, I spotted a vehicle,
the only one, coming at me.
So, I slow down and as we came into each other,
he dropped his head and hid.
Then I knew it was him.
So immediately I made a u-turn, cut my emergency overhead light on.
He ran.
[siren wails]
[Earl] That's the last time I saw his brake lights come on.
He had already gone back to his house and left the car
with the door wide open and just-- He was gone.
It was an abandoned vehicle.
[Earl] I was aggravated.
But immediately I went out and I started looking for him.
I search for about, maybe, an hour and a half,
because normally I don't let people get away.
It's just not going to happen.
Went home, came back the next day, the car's still there, door's still open.
[music climaxes]
[birds chirp]
[Earl] Day three, car was still there with the door open.
Fourth day, I went by there and the vehicle was gone.
So, I went up and I blew the siren again. Nothin', nobody.
[birds and insects chirping]
[Todd] But after a while, Doc abandoned the zoo down here.
I've read that he had all kind of charges.
State Police had, like, an all-points bulletin out for him,
saying he was gonna try to leave. But he must have got away.
[cryptic instrumental music plays]
[Todd] USDA came a bunch of times 'cause they heard he'd abandoned the zoo.
They said it had snowed 20 days before. They knew nobody had been here for 20 days
'cause there were no footprints in the snow.
[Todd] It was animals that he left behind, and I think just moldy hay for them.
This whole thing was enclosed, so they're just roaming inside.
[birds chirp]
[Steven] I got a call from someone in Buckingham
that Bhagavan had left some animals on the property
and they were trying to find him.
The next time I saw him was in Tennessee.
[cryptic guitar music plays]
[Steven] He had found some money, which he used to call a honeypot.
He was able to get some investment
and he was building the first iteration of what eventually would become
the compound that he now has in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
[speaking indistinctly]
[interviewer 2] Why won't you even talk about that part of your life?
I already explained it, you wanna shut the camera off
I'll explain it to you again, for the eighth fucking time.
My story is the story of conservation.
My story is not the story of my lifestyle growing up.
You keep asking questions that may, in fact, give the bad guys opportunities
to punch holes in a story to create drama that's untrue,
but it still creates drama.
[dramatic music plays]
[Ruth] Bhagavan is an egocentric narcissist
who really believes that he is one of the tigers.
He's the main tiger at his zoo, and he's very far from it.
[lion growls]
[Doc] Lions kill each other in the wild, they are always looking
to take over the pride.
The big males have harems that they keep.
You put it in such a delicate way, "Take over the pride."
-"Take over." -[both laughing]
And to keep that harem intact, they have to fight to the death.
Males come in and say, "I'd like to have your girls."
And they say, "Well, let's fight about it."
And whichever lion wins gets the girls.
He struck me as the Harvey Weinstein of the animal training business.
Higher up. Raise your arms up.
I think he's gonna have to face the music on his predator behavior.
[meowing, purring]
[Radha] He's left a trail of suffering behind him.
[Sumati] I hope the truth about the way he's been treating people
over time will be known,
and that the victims and the survivors will be empowered.
[music builds]
[Steven] The universe is a perfect accounting system.
It's like a beautiful symphony of mathematics.
And no debt will ever go unpaid.
Tonight, the Myrtle Beach Safari is at the center of a multi-state investigation.
Breaking news: An indictment on this Tiger King star.
[reporter] This week Bhagavan "Doc" Antle was indicted in Virginia
on animal cruelty and wildlife trafficking charges.
[Brittany Peet] I don't know what Doc's expiration date is,
but given all of the accusations, I hope that it will be soon.
I categorically deny any act or conduct that could be considered animal cruelty.
[music builds]
[Diane] You know, I think karma is a strange thing.
In my life when there have been wrongs done to me and I've thought,
"I'm gonna get revenge, I'm going to fix this person."
Every time I've left it to God to take care of,
the result has been far greater, and more creative,
and more intriguing than I could ever have done on my own.
So I think perhaps what's happening now
is really karma.
[music crescendos]
[tense music plays]