What Happened to Dog the Bounty Hunter – 2024 Updates

Duane Chapman, better known as Dog the Bounty Hunter, recently made headlines for his involvement lobbying against reforming the cash bail system in Idaho. The bail agent has been the face of bail enforcement infrastructure in the United States. However, his show with his wife ended this past winter. With his recent involvement in politics in mind, what’s next for Chapman?

Duane Chapman’s Criminal Past

Duane Chapman had a convoluted route to becoming a bail agent. Born in Denver, Colorado on February 2, 1953, Chapman was the oldest of four children, born to a mother who was a Christian minister. Not much is known about Chapman’s early life, but in 1976, he was convicted by the State of Texas of first-degree murder, and sentenced to five years in a state prison. According to case reports, Chapman claimed to have been sitting in his car when his friend shot and killed an alleged pimp while discussing buying cannabis.

While Chapman was serving his sentence, his first wife LaFonda filed for divorce and married his best friend. Chapman did field work for the prison, in addition to serving as the warden’s barber. When an inmate was attempting to escape, Chapman tackled him, which prevented the escapee from being shot at by guards. This, in addition to Chapman’s overall good behavior, led to him being paroled after only 18 months. Inspired by his tackle, Chapman decided to pursue becoming a bounty hunter once released.

Over the next few decades, Duane Chapman slowly built a reputation as a skilled bounty hunter, working in Colorado. He rekindled a relationship with his two sons from his marriage to LaFonda, eventually getting the elder, Leland, to work with him as a bail agent. Chapman married twice more, once in 1979 leading to three children, and again in 1992, leading to another three children.

Chapman met Alice Beth Barmore in 1986 when she was 19. Their relationship was tumultuous for a long while. Both of them married and divorced, other people. In 1995, they finally entered a long-term monogamous relationship, eventually leading to marriage. Beth ran a bail bonds office, so when their relationship became serious, they combined their businesses. Between them, they have an extensive family. Leland, Duane Lee II, and Lyssa all joined the family business when they were old enough.

Dog the Bounty Hunter

On June 18, 2003, Duane “Dog” Chapman became an overnight celebrity when he captured Andrew Luster. Luster was convicted on 86 charges of assault and rape. His crimes were so great that he was tried and convicted in absentia, without even being present for the trial. Chapman caught up with the fugitive in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. He was working with what he called his “hunt team”: son Leland Chapman, and long-time colleague and friend Tim Chapman, who isn’t related to the rest of the Chapmans.

While returning to California from Mexico, to turn Luster over to federal marshals, Chapman, his hunt team, and Luster were all arrested by Mexican law enforcement and placed into custody. Once they confirmed Luster’s authority, they delivered him themselves to California, to face his 125-year sentence. However, bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico, so the three American bounty hunters were all charged with “deprivation of liberty,” essentially kidnapping Luster.

Initially, the team members were denied bail, but Beth brought media attention to the story, and the Mexican authorities set a bail, which was then paid. Under the advisement of their attorney, the team fled from Mexico. This made them international fugitives, bringing even more public attention toward Chapman and his business.

In the wake of Luster’s arrest, A&E debuted a new series, Take This Job. The pilot episode, highly rated in part due to news about Luster, followed Duane Chapman and his wife across multiple “hunts” and arrests, including him wrestling with a 350-pound cocaine dealer. The episode was massively successful and led to A&E working with the Chapmans for a full show.

Dog the Bounty Hunter, which premiered on August 31, 2004, was everything a good reality show could want to be. Episodes usually focused on Dog and his hunt team chasing their fugitive and a tense arrest. Then, the last ten minutes focused on Dog giving an inspirational monologue to the person he’s arrested, what he called “collars.” Finally, the episode would close with Dog being with his family.

The show ran for eight seasons, though like most reality shows, it faced its share of controversy. Days before the statute of limitations on their kidnapping charges would expire, Duane Chapman, his son Leland and colleague Tim Chapman were arrested in Honolulu by US Marshals, on behalf of the Mexican government. The morning after their arrest, Chapman made an appearance in a media-packed courtroom to receive his bail sentence. The three were given ankle monitors and paid a collective $500,000 bail.

Chapman’s lawyers worked through the rest of 2006 to fight extradition. An open letter sent by 29 Congressmen to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requested she deny his extradition. Mexican courts continued to argue for their right to try the three men, and public attention in the US delayed any action. The Hawai’ian State Representatives even passed a resolution requesting the Mexican President drop the extradition charges. In August 2007, the charges were finally dropped by the Mexican court system, as the statute of limitations had expired. That November, the US judicial system canceled the extradition request.

Another controversy hit Duane half-way through season 4 after an audiotape was released where Duane Chapman repeatedly used a racial slur while on the phone with his son Tucker. Tucker sold the tape, and the controversy led to Duane Chapman going on CNN’s Larry King Live to make an apology. Roy Innis, the chairperson on the Congress of Racial Equality, was one of the first people to contact A&E about the tape, requesting the show be canceled. However, Innis met with Duane, and after multiple extended conversations, publicly stated that he wanted the show back on the air.

Duane, himself, has done beyond his burden to make amends for the incident. He brought it up in interviews, without prompting, more than a year after the fact, to say that he should not be allowed to forget about the issue. Dog the Bounty Hunter continued to be popular after the hiatus, and when Chapman released his autobiography, You Can Run but You Can’t Hide, it was ranked #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list.

Season 6 of the show brought on a fresh controversy, where Chapman alleged he had been shot at with a handgun while attempting to arrest Hoang Nguyen in Colorado Springs. Nguyen was eventually captured several hours after the incident, and charged with attempted murder for it. However, the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence and conflicting statements coming from Duane and the rest of his team. Later, Nguyen would file a suit of his own against Chapman and his hunt team for damaging his reputation and shooting him with pepper-spray pellets. Records for the case are closed but haven’t been updated since November 2011.

Dog and Beth: On the Hunt

By the eighth season of the show, tensions which had been building for years finally became too much for some of Chapman’s team. Leeland and Duane Lee Chapman both quit the show suddenly, severing ties in an episode which aired in early 2012. The show was also facing a suit from fellow bounty hunter Bobby Brown, who felt he had not been paid what he was due or that A&E had lived up to their contract.

As Dog the Bounty Hunter was ending, the Country Music Television (CMT) channel announced they were going to debut Dog and Beth: On the Hunt. The show wouldn’t have many of the family members that had worked with the couple on Dog the Bounty Hunter, and also had a slightly different format. Dog, Beth, their son Leland and his son Dakota would fly from their headquarters in Hawai’i to bail agent offices across America. There, they’d help train the bail agents, and teach the offices how to modernize their procedure.

In the finale of Season 3, which aired August 22, 2015, Dakota had a falling out with his father Leland, who subsequently moved to Alabama. This led to Duane and Beth leaving CMT, taking with them the production rights of Dog and Beth: On the Hunt. This had the effect of canceling the show, though CMT may not have agreed with the decision.

What is Dog the Bounty Hunter Doing Now in 2024?

According to a recent tweet, Chapman is currently in Moab, Utah, investigating the murders of Kyle Schultz and Crystal Turner at the request of the Kylen family. The newlyweds—who had loved camping and the outdoors—and had been married for four months and been going missing on August 14, 2021. They were later found shot dead in a camping van in the eastern part of Moab on August 18, 2021. For those who have any information regarding the case, you can text or call Chapman and his team at 833-TELL-DOG.

In September 2021, he also became involved in the manhunt for Brian Laundrie after his fiancé Gabby Petito was found killed at the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping area in Wyoming. He paid a visit to the couple’s home, whom they had shared with Laundrie’s parents and started searching the areas where they frequented. The search ultimately came to a stop after Laundrie’s skeletal remains were found on October 20, 2021.

On television, he has made several guest appearances in The Dr. Oz Show, Entertainment Tonight, Fox and Friends, Watters’ World, Hunter’s Creed, and Fox News Primetime over the past year.

He also appeared as one of the contestants in the seventh season of the reality competition series, The Masked Singer. The first episode titled, ‘Masks Back – The Good, The Bad & The Cuddly – Round 1’ aired on March 9, 2020. In it, he played the role of ‘the Armadillo’. He ultimately made it through to the sixth episode (‘The Double Mask OFf-Round 2 Finals’) before being eliminated from the competition. It was during that same episode that audiences found out that he was the one behind the Armadillo mask.

He was also supposed to have a new series, Dog Unleashed in 2021, however it was canceled shortly before airing on the streaming service Unleashed. Allegedly, the decision was made after Chapman made racist and homophobic outbursts on the show. Not only that, but he also used a taser illegally during a shoot, which was a breach against his contractual agreement with Unleashed Entertainment. Chapman, however, denied these accusations. Nevertheless, the production company has chosen to end the production on the unaired show permanently. They’ve also removed all mention of Chapman on their official website. Given that, it’s probably fair to say that the show won’t be airing anytime soon.

Outside of TV, he also has a podcast called ‘Beyond the Bounty’. The final episode (there are eleven in total), “Sentinel Roundtable: ‘Leveling up’” aired on October 4, 2021. You can listen to all of the episodes for free on the Apple Store.

For those who’d like to stay up to date with the Dog the bounty hunter, you can follow him on social media. He’s active on Twitter (@DogBountyHunter) where he has over 743K followers and on Instagram (@duanedogchapman) where he has over 712K followers. Chapman has also opened up ‘The Dog Shop’, where you can purchase your own DOG merchandise such as hats, mugs, and shirts. You can find it here.