Dog the Bounty Hunter Gets a Leash

ByABC News via logo
August 8, 2006, 9:41 AM

Aug. 8, 2006 — -- Duane "Dog" Chapman, the country's best-known bounty hunter, has finally been collared.

The star of A&E's hit reality show "Dog the Bounty Hunter" and his longtime partner-in-crime-busting, Beth Smith, were married in Hawaii on May 20.

Unfortunately, death cast a shadow over the wedding.

Chapman's 23-year-old daughter, Barbara, was killed in a car accident in Fairbanks, Alaska, the night before the wedding.

The couple went on with the ceremony and dedicated it to her. The wedding will be shown in tonight's episode.

Chapman, who grew up in Denver, was a tough kid who dropped out of school in ninth grade to join a motorcycle gang.

Chapman, who became known as "Dog," was arrested 18 times on charges of armed robbery, and in 1977, he was sentenced to five years of hard labor. He served two of those years before being paroled in 1979.

Not long after, he became a bounty hunter, tracking down and capturing fugitives from the law.

His biggest score was catching Max Factor cosmetics heir Andrew Luster in 2003.

Chapman and Smith have been tracking fugitives for 16 years, but that's not all. Their relationship blossomed into love, and they had two children together.

She couldn't get him to say, "I do," though.

Finally, he agreed to marry her, saying he was "'cuffed and shackled anyway."

"I raised most of his children, and, you know, it has been a long road," Smith said today on "Good Morning America." "But I think he wanted to make sure I was not after his money."