Cote’s Septic Tank Receipt & Fill Dirt

This is written from the future around 6/26/2020 when I saw these receipts being posted online to suggest that Judy Watson’s septic tank could have been open at the time of Don’s disappearance. From what I can find, the first person to ever start the rumor about Don being buried in or under the septic tanks was started by Judy Watson after she was fired around 8/1/2000. It was such a ridiculous claim, I never bothered to research it and always thought her mobile home and tank were already installed at the time of her taking over Jayla Cougar’s care which was May 1997. After Judy’s interview with Ripper Jack he produced the following receipts that seem to coincide with the permit pulled for the mobile home installation on 8/4/1997.

Ripper Jack makes the assertion that because the trucking bill was dated 8/14/1997 that the tank could have been open when Don goes missing on Aug. 18. It’s possible, and others have asked why I didn’t check to see if Don fell in and drowned. Obviously, we would have looked if that could have possibly been the case, but nearly 23 years later, I have to rely on online sources that say the entire month of August only had 8.39 inches of rain, so even if all of it fell before the 18th, we would have seen a body in less than 9 inches of water, IF the site was open.

I think it’s more likely that Judy got the permit on 8/4/1997 to bring in the mobile home and also started the septic tank process on 8/5/1997 by paying Cote’s Septic $2700.00

Then there would be the sand needed for the drain field which could have been what this Wingate receipt was for:

Judy Watson says the initial installation was red tagged by the county because it was too deep and that more fill dirt had to be brought in. I don’t recall it, but this receipt from J & J Trucking was presented to try and prove that it was delivered 8/14/1997.

That could be the case, or it could be that she was just paying the delivery fee for the dirt she bought on 8/6/1997. In the Ripper Jack videos they try desperately to move the time of the septic tank installation as close to the time of Don’s disappearance as possible. I think it was Judy Watson who then says that my father did the extra work to the tank to bring it up to code, which is ridiculous. There’s no way Cote’s Septic was going to let us meddle with their construction project or their reputation with the county. It’s possible that her story is correct about it being red tagged and elevated, but it would have been done by Cote’s who was the licensed contractor.

Someday if someone wants to put up the money to replace the tank and drain field, the Sheriff’s office can come watch the whole process, but I’m not letting some armchair detective use this as a filming opportunity to continue their baseless accusations. Even when they find that all of the animal exploiters who have run with this story were lying they will have to find some way to deflect attention to some other equally outlandish lie in order to save face.

At the time of this writing Jim Moore has already debunked the nonsense about the meat grinder saying that he was the primary food prep person for the sanctuary from 1995 until he left in 2000. During that time he never saw a commercial meat grinder and only saw the small counter mount one that I have described. He said the only person who ever used it was Don during a period of time when he was trying to grind up a donated truckload of breaded chicken patties from a Wendy’s delivery that had a freezer failure. That coincides with my belief that the same grinder had been used prior to Jim’s arrival in 1995 for the Mazuri diet trial, because he never witnessed that process and if he was feeding every night, he couldn’t have missed it. Jim also debunked the septic tank story and Anne McQueen’s story about the timeline of Don’s disappearance.

On Sunday August 17, 1997 Jim said it had been a quiet day and he and a volunteer (I think her name was Jamey) were taking photos of the cats. Don was running around and busy filling his truck with stuff that was going to Costa Rica. Jim remembered there being dirt bikes and all kinds of stuff already packed. He said Don was in a great mood and had dollar signs flashing in his eyes at the prospects of all the money he was going to make in Costa Rica off his truck load of stuff. He said a man rode in on a motorcycle that Don wanted to see about buying and Don bought it. As it was starting to get late, Don asked if Jim would be willing to drive the guy back to St. Pete about 45 minutes away. Jamie and I would have been at church. Jim agreed and said by the time he returned from the trip it was after dark, which would mean he would have last seen Don around 6 pm or so.

Jim said things about me that were hurtful and wrong, but I don’t think he did it out of mean spiritedness. He just obviously did not understand some of the other things that were going on and because I don’t confide in people, I think he thought that I must have thought more highly of other volunteers, since I wasn’t telling him everything that was going on. He seems to have believed that I was closer to others because he said that I told him “the fate of the sanctuary” was in their hands.

I can see how he could have felt hurt if he thought that because I had depended on him so heavily to help make sure the cats were fed every day. I’m not sure those were my exact words, but he was referring to Susan Aronoff and Doug Edwards. He was saying it in the context of wondering aloud why those two would have been witnesses on our documents, but it’s just because they were the ones who were usually in the house. People doing cat care were usually in the yard. It made perfect sense to use the clean hands of who ever was nearby.

What Jim couldn’t have known about my statement was that I meant it was because Doug was doing tours, which the other volunteers detested, and that brought in revenue. Susan Aronoff was in the apparel business and was helping me get good prices on tee shirts and other items we could sell in the gift shop to our tour guests. It was a time when I was being strangled financially because of Anne McQueen and Don’s family trying to take over our real estate business. I had to find ways for the sanctuary to become self sustaining.

There has always been a rift between volunteers who do cat care, like Jim, and volunteers who do things that promote our ability to fund our mission, or who do advocacy so that our mission can be completed. Each group always seems to think that I love the other group more and that I must be much closer to them, since they don’t perceive themselves as being in my “inner circle”. I don’t have an “inner circle” because I don’t sit around and shoot the breeze with people. I’ve never figured out how to make it clear that it takes all of us, using all of our best talents, to end the abuse of big cats and to save them in the wild. Nearly 3 decades after saving that first bobcat, I still sense these same issues.