Millionaire's double life stuns family, community
While their wives drove Rolls-Royces and moved among Tampa's elite, Douglas Cone and Donald Carlson always seemed busy with business.
Carlson was also frequently away from home — an absence his family attributed to a sensitive government job that required him to travel for long stretches.
But those business trips masked a shocking secret: Douglas Cone was Donald Carlson. Cone lived a secret double life for nearly 30 years, raising two affluent families in lavish homes 20 miles apart — one with his wife of 52 years and the other with a former employee.
By all accounts, Jean Ann Cone never suspected her husband was using an alias to carry on a relationship with Hillary Carlson, 18 years her junior. He fathered three children with his wife and two with Carlson.
The double life unraveled this spring only after Jean Ann Cone died at 75 and Cone married Hillary Carlson two weeks later. Friends said they learned of his new marriage in Sumter County, about an hour north of Tampa, when the local newspaper printed a listing of local marriages.