Man accused of stabbing Tiger King ‘hitman’ detained in Beaufort County. Why?
Authorities extradited a man to Beaufort County six years after he was charged with stabbing Frank Allen Glover, the alleged hitman featured in Netflix’s “Tiger King” documentary.
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office in Florida arrested Bryan Rearick, 46, of Walkerton, Indiana, on Aug. 4 because of outstanding warrants in Beaufort County, including attempted murder.
Rearick, who used to live in Burton, was accused of stabbing Glover below his left arm on Jan. 20, 2015, during a dispute over money, according to reports from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
Rearick hired Glover to work for his landscaping business. Glover then confronted Rearick because he hadn’t been paid for a job. Rearick told deputies he owed Glover $65; Glover’s brother said he owed $200.
Glover, whose listed address is in Beaufort, next took a handyman job at a big cat zoo in Oklahoma, working for Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage, known as “Joe Exotic.”
Exotic was the subject of Netflix’s “Tiger King” documentary, which fascinated quarantine-bound Americans during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Glover testified in an April 2019 trial that Exotic offered him $3,000 to travel to Florida and kill an animal sanctuary founder, Carol Baskin, who criticized Exotic’s treatment of big cats.
Glover said he never tried to kill Baskin; he used the money to party instead.
Exotic offered another person $10,000 to kill Baskin, but this time, the person was an undercover FBI agent. Exotic was convicted by a jury in April 2019. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison, but the Associated Press reports a federal appeals court ruled the sentence was miscalculated. The case awaits a hearing for Exotic to be re-sentenced.
Recently, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office charged Glover with driving under the influence on Lady’s Island. A Sheriff’s report said Glover was pulled over for a faulty license plate light. A deputy said he smelled alcohol on Glover’s breath and asked him to step out of his car. He was “unsteady” and almost fell into traffic, the report said.
In the stabbing case against Rearick, the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office reopened the case once the agency learned Florida officials had him in custody, according to a Sheriff’s Office report.
Rearick also faces a 2017 charge of felony driving under the influence.
This story was originally published August 23, 2021 at 2:35 PM.
