Better known as Dog the Bounty Hunter, Duane Chapman has found himself in all kinds of trouble on both sides of the law. From dropout biker to reality TV legend, this is how Duane became Dog.
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00:00Better known as Dog the Bounty Hunter, Dwayne Chapman has found himself in all kinds of
00:05trouble on both sides of the law.
00:07From dropout biker to reality TV legend, this is how Dwayne became Dog.
00:13Often discussing his deeply held religious beliefs on television while tracking down
00:17sometimes violent offenders, Chapman was exposed to both phenomena in a big way when he was
00:22very young.
00:24Raised in Denver in what he characterized as a typical, middle-of-the-road upbringing,
00:29Chapman was transfixed with his mother.
00:31He believed that she was of Native American descent, and he enjoyed tagging along with
00:35her on her summer preaching trips to Sister Jensen's Mission, a primarily Navajo Christian
00:41congregation in New Mexico.
00:43She'd preach while Chapman helped with a collection played in hymnals, and it instilled spirituality
00:48in the boy.
00:49In his autobiography, You Can Run, But You Can't Hide, he wrote,
00:53I wanted to grow up to be just like her, to live a righteous, good, honorable, God-fearing
00:58life.
00:59A lot of people say to me, Dog, why are you such a good bounty hunter?
01:02What makes the tracking?
01:04Why are you like that?
01:05And I say, because of my blood."
01:08Sadly, things were far less peaceful with Chapman's father, a physically abusive man
01:13he calls Flash.
01:15Remembering his father, Chapman wrote,
01:17As a young boy, I never knew that other kids didn't get hit by their dads.
01:22I thought it was a rite of passage to have my father knock me around.
01:26I simply didn't know anything different.
01:28I can't recall any long stretch of time in my young life when my dad didn't hit me."
01:34Flash also used boxing lessons purportedly as a way to make his son more resilient, but
01:39Chapman took the sessions as just another form of physical abuse, recalling he was supposed
01:44to, quote,
01:46Chapman made a move toward independence at the age of 13 by way of leaving his abusive
01:52household, quitting school, and joining a motorcycle gang in Colorado.
01:57While running with such a crowd over the next ten years, Chapman was arrested, charged,
02:02and convicted of robbery alone on 18 separate occasions.
02:06His worst offense, and the one that would send him to prison for a long-term sentence,
02:11was the result of a drug deal in Texas gone wrong.
02:14My brother's motorcycle gang members and I pulled up to a house.
02:18One of my brothers went in to score some pot."
02:21A man was shot during the encounter, and after Chapman took him to a hospital, he returned
02:26to the original scene of the crime and found another friend injured by gunfire.
02:31After their wounded comrade died in his sleep, Chapman and his fellow gang members were wanted
02:36men.
02:37Texas law at the time called for Chapman to be tried for first-degree murder, for which
02:41he was convicted and served 18 months in prison.
02:45Upon parole, he decided to move on from crime.
02:48He told The New York Times,
02:50"...I looked in the mirror to shave and heard my dad saying, burn your birth certificate.
02:54I wish you were never born.
02:56I said, I'm going to change and be the best at whatever I do in the world."
03:00"...and they let me out in 1979.
03:03I said, what I'm gonna be now is a dad."
03:08Just before he was imprisoned in the late 1970s, Chapman dated two women, LaFonda Sue
03:13Honeycutt and Debbie White.
03:15He'd later marry Honeycutt, and they'd have two children together.
03:19But after he went to prison in 1977, he never again saw White.
03:23Sadly, she died by suicide just before his release in 1979.
03:29About 20 years later, Chapman received a call from White's mother.
03:33Unbeknownst to him, White had been pregnant by Chapman.
03:36She gave birth and placed the baby, a boy, into the foster care system, from which he
03:41was later adopted into a permanent home.
03:44Chapman tracked down his now-adult son, Christopher, who at the time was in prison after being
03:49convicted of committing a hate crime.
03:52Chapman revealed in You Can Run But You Can't Hide,
03:55"...after all these years, I finally discovered I have another son and he's behind bars.
04:00It was more than I could bear.
04:02I knew what it felt like to be a young man who made foolish choices."
04:07Dwayne Chapman is best known for his steadfast devotion to his late wife, Beth, his co-star
04:12on Dog the Bounty Hunter.
04:14However, he'd been married a couple of times before that, during his pre-fame years.
04:19His first wedding came in 1972, to LaFonda Sue Honeycutt.
04:23The marriage suffered under the weight of Chapman's criminal activity and unfaithfulness,
04:28and Honeycutt served her estranged husband with divorce papers while he was incarcerated
04:33in Texas.
04:34Chapman wrote in his memoir,
04:35"...LaFonda had fallen in love with Jim Darnell, one of my best friends.
04:40I was heartbroken."
04:41Unattached and just out of prison in 1979, Chapman attended a motel biker party in Colorado,
04:47where he met and became infatuated with Ann Tingle.
04:52Following their intimate encounter, Tingle disclosed to the fully adult Chapman that
04:56she was 17.
04:59Chapman understood what they'd done to be a criminal act, and likely a parole violation
05:03that could send him back behind bars.
05:05Strictly to ensure that such a thing didn't happen, Chapman proposed marriage.
05:10He wrote in his memoir,
05:11"...I married her out of desperation, to keep my freedom."
05:14Nevertheless, that first liaison with Chapman resulted in a pregnancy.
05:20The baby, Zebediah, died not long after he was born in 1980, and the marriage was over
05:25soon after.
05:28Chapman was never the same after prison.
05:30Committing himself to a law-abiding lifestyle after he got out in 1979, he decided to join
05:35the other side of the law by going to work as a bounty hunter.
05:39According to Chapman, there were only two other full-time bounty hunters at the time,
05:43and he became the most high-profile of them because he went after FBI-level cases.
05:49Working these high-risk, highly paid assignments meant regular check-ins with an agent from
05:53the Federal Law Enforcement Bureau, as well as advanced training.
05:58Chapman's FBI contacts eventually set him up tracking down bail skippers out of Colorado.
06:03By the end of the 1980s, Chapman had caught more than a thousand fugitives, and he did
06:08it all with non-fatal weaponry.
06:10As a convicted felon, he wasn't legally permitted to own a firearm.
06:15Chapman began to earn accolades from influential figures in the 1990s.
06:19Motivational speaker and author Tony Robbins profiled Chapman in his 1991 book Awaken the
06:25Giant Within, which led to celebrity fans like Martin Sheen and Ozzy Osbourne.
06:30Crime writer Dominic Dunn then asked Chapman to participate in a project documenting the
06:35lives of bounty hunters.
06:37In 1995, Dwayne Chapman's mother died, and the death seriously upset the bounty hunter.
06:43He coped with his grief by spending the next 12 months misusing crack cocaine.
06:48After becoming addicted to the drug and considering preemptively removing his children from his
06:53care so they wouldn't be around for his substance abuse, he placed a phone call to Beth Smith.
06:59The pair had made a profound connection nine years earlier, but had since mostly lost touch.
07:04They met on the job.
07:06He'd served as her bail bondsman following her arrest for stealing a lemon from a store.
07:11He admitted that he'd been misusing crack cocaine, and Smith flew out to see him immediately.
07:16Smith helped Chapman clean up his house and find sobriety, and they began a romantic relationship
07:21before they went to work together as bounty hunters.
07:24They got married in 2006.
07:25I announce to you for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Dwayne Chapman.
07:32In a January 2003 trial in Ventura, California, Andrew Luster, an heir to the Max Factor cosmetics
07:40fortune, was found guilty on 80 counts, including sexual assault, drugs, and weapons charges.
07:46The verdict was delivered in absentia, meaning Luster wasn't there because he'd fled the
07:51U.S. during a trial pause after posting the $1 million bail.
07:55He'd soon become one of the most famous fugitives Dog the Bounty Hunter has caught.
08:00Chapman and his team located and apprehended Luster in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in June
08:052003.
08:07Luster was extradited to the U.S. to begin serving a prison sentence of more than 120
08:11years.
08:12Chapman went home, too, but he was considered a fugitive from the law in Mexico, where
08:16bounty hunting is legally the same thing as kidnapping.
08:19I was arrested for deprivation of liberty, which is a misdemeanor in Mexico.
08:25It wasn't until 2006 that he had to defend his actions in Mexico.
08:30He was arrested in Hawaii and charged with illegal detention and conspiracy.
08:35Chapman avoided extradition to Mexico, trial, and potential imprisonment when a judge dismissed
08:40the case after deciding the prosecutors waited too long to start the courtroom portion.
08:45I want you to wish that Mexico forgives us."
08:49The final season of Dog the Bounty Hunter aired on A&E in 2012, and in 2019, WGN America
08:57announced a revival series called Dogs Most Wanted.
09:00Set to focus on the relationship between Duane and Beth, the show instead became partly an
09:05emotional and subdued documentary series about a life-ending medical process.
09:12Just before filming could start, Beth was diagnosed with throat cancer, a condition
09:16that would turn out to be terminal.
09:18Speaking to The New York Times, the series' showrunner said Beth insisted on filming anyway.
09:24Dogs Most Wanted depicted Beth undertaking anti-cancer procedures, losing weight and
09:29hair, and a helpless Duane trying to cope with and understand his wife's condition.
09:34In June 2019, after uttering some final loving words to her husband, Beth fell into a coma
09:40and was then taken off of life support and died.
09:43She was 51 years old.
09:45Speaking with Entertainment Tonight, Duane recalled some of their last moments together.
09:50She called him into a bathroom and demanded he look at her.
09:53She said,
09:54"'Please let me go.'"
09:57Following Beth's death, Chapman had a medical crisis in September 2019.
10:03Hospitalized in Colorado after complaining of chest pains and breathing difficulty, Chapman
10:07refused substantial treatment, going so far as to shove an orderly when they tried to
10:12stop him from leaving.
10:14Just after the incident, Chapman said his health had improved a little, telling Fox
10:1831,
10:19"'It feels much better now.
10:21And I'm going through some psychological things right now, too, so that doesn't help.
10:25I think, basically, I had a broken heart.'"
10:28Talk show host and physician Dr. Oz convinced Chapman to let him provide a medical assessment.
10:34He diagnosed his friend with a pulmonary embolism, a blockage of the arteries that
10:38lead to the lungs.
10:40Chapman thinks it was caused by his overuse of blood-thickening testosterone supplements.
10:45He was also diagnosed with gout and had noticed suicidal ideation after his wife died.
10:52Chapman subsequently promised to seek help for his various medical issues, lose weight,
10:56and smoke less.
10:58Just a few years after losing Beth and enduring his health scare, Chapman found love again
11:03in Francie Frayne.
11:05Frayne had similarly dealt with the death of a spouse from cancer and helped him overcome
11:09his profound sense of loss.
11:11As Chapman wrote on Instagram in April 2020,
11:14"'I scream and cry, Beth, where are you?
11:18Why did you leave me?
11:19Then I look up and see you, Francie, and the pain turns to a smile.'"
11:24Chapman and Frayne got married in September 2021, but not everyone in the family was there.
11:30Chapman's daughters, Cecily and Bonnie, weren't in attendance because they hadn't received
11:34invites.
11:35According to a post Bonnie wrote on Facebook, Frayne said she wasn't welcome because she'd
11:40taken part in Black Lives Matter protests and didn't speak up for her father when he
11:45publicly uttered racial slurs.
11:47"'I'm disappointed in you, and my mom would be too, and you know it.'"
11:53Both during and after his run of popular cable TV reality shows, Chapman has made some hostile,
12:00ugly, and ill-advised public statements.
12:02In 2007, Chapman's son, Tucker, delivered to the National Enquirer a taped phone conversation
12:08he'd had with his father regarding a woman he was seeing.
12:12The bounty hunter used a racial epithet in reference to her six times.
12:16For his part, Dwayne admitted to frequently using the N-word in private conversations.
12:21"'I thought I had a pass in the black tribe to use it, kinda like Eminem.'"
12:26In response, Dog the Bounty Hunter's network, A&E, temporarily took the show out of circulation
12:32and paused production.
12:34Following the hiring of influencer and transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney as a brand ambassador
12:39for Bud Light Beer in 2023, Chapman unleashed some violent and hateful rhetoric.
12:46Speaking with religious broadcaster Sherelle Barrera, Chapman misgendered and made some
12:51threatening remarks toward Mulvaney, saying,
12:54"...get that punk down, rebuke Satan out of him, and just give him a couple black eyes."
13:00If you or anyone you know has experienced a hate crime, contact the relevant resources
13:05below.
13:06The Victim Connect hotline by phone at 1-855-4-VICTIM or by chat for more information or assistance
13:14in locating services to help.
13:16If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.
13:21For more stories, visit nyseagrant.org