'Dog' Chapman used wrong to do right

Published: Monday, March 10, 2008

AMARILLO - Duane Chapman was just a skinny kid when he lived in Pampa in the 1970s. Now he's cable television's "Dog the Bounty Hunter" and rounds up bail-jumping criminals on the A&E Network.

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Henry Bargas
Henry Bargas
Duane Chapman in a police photo in 1976.

Chapman, who operates a bail bond business in Hawaii, styles himself a man once on the wrong side of the law who became a Christian family man, bail bondsman and bounty hunter who puts the bad guys away. His persona is larger-than-life and expressive, rough around the edges but golden at heart.

Chapman moved to Pampa after he married his first wife, LaFonda Sue Honeycutt, in 1972. His time there, especially the hazy events of one crucial evening, set much of the stage for what came after.

"I'd like to say I became a man in Texas," Chapman said, "and always and forever carry that Texas star in my heart and always and forever I will make Texas proud."

Charged with murder

Chapman was involved in the Sept. 15, 1976, homicide of alleged pimp and drug dealer Jerry Oliver in Pampa. Chapman, 23 at the time, and three others were charged with acting together to kill Oliver.

Court records indicate the quartet went to Oliver's house because they heard he had marijuana. But an argument broke out and Donald Wayne Kuykendall, wielding a sawed-off shotgun, shot Oliver.

Charlie Love retired from the Pampa Police Department in 2001 and currently works for the Roberts County Sheriff's Office. He was one of the first officers to arrive after Oliver was shot at his 1072 Prairie Drive home. Love took Oliver's dying statement as he lay bleeding inside the modest one-story home. Oliver gave Love names. Officers pieced together the rest.

The next day, officer Randy Stubblefield arrested Chapman. Stubblefield and another officer, Preston Bailey, waited in the alley behind Chapman's home at 501 Roberta St. as two officers approached the front door. Chapman barreled out the back door and Stubblefield tackled him.

The other suspects, Ruben Garza, Cheryl Fisher and Kuykendall, were arrested the same day.

During the trial, Kuykendall testified the shooting was accidental and occurred while he and Oliver struggled.

Judge Grainger McIlhaney handed Kuykendall a 10-year sentence. Garza was given a 10-year probated sentence. Fisher pleaded guilty and was a witness for the state. She received eight years probation.

Chapman, who had two previous convictions, was sentenced to five years in prison. He began serving his time on Aug. 18, 1977 and was paroled Jan. 31, 1979. His parole was terminated on December 20, 1980.

Keeping in touch

Stubblefield, who later was elected Gray County Sheriff, heard from Chapman in the 1990s.

"One day when I was sheriff, I got a phone call and it was Chapman," Stubblefield said. "(He) told me he was doing the bounty hunter work, and he was gonna do a story about his life and he wanted to come to the old Gray County jail where he was incarcerated so he could get some get some pictures.

"I told him we had built a new jail and the old jail (was) abandoned and had been scrapped out. So he never did come to Pampa."

Harold Comer, the former district attorney who prosecuted the group, recalled Chapman as "just a skinny kid."

Comer said Chapman was "kind of a self-centered young man" and active in his defense. The late Bill Kolius of Amarillo defended him.

Comer said the four's motive for attacking Oliver was inconsequential.

"I can just see them sitting in that car, and I think it started when Garza said I'm gonna kill him,'" Comer said. "I call it a melody of murder. They just orchestrated this out of this ego and machoism.

"The more I thought about it and read over the record, I doubt if any of these defendants, these kids, had they been acting alone, would have taken a shotgun and killed this victim (Oliver)," he added. "But acting together and feeding off each other's ego and machoism or whatever you want to call it, did some planning."

Years later, Comer got a telephone call from Chapman.

"I just want to let you know I'm doing better," Chapman told him.

"I said, What are you doing?' and he said, I'm a bounty hunter,'" Comer said. "He just wanted me to know that he was following gainful employment and not involved in crime."

Chapman says he wanted Comer to know his life had turned out well.

"I was very ashamed of what happened in Pampa, Texas, and he (Comer) was a very decent guy," Chapman said. "I wanted to call before he left office and say I wasn't all rotten to the core."

Most of the people Chapman knew in Pampa have died, he said. He mostly kept in touch with the late Sheriff Rufe Jordan.

"I know it sounds strange to say, he was like a stepfather to me," Chapman said.

In fact, he said, Comer and Jordan told him that he could do something better with his life.

Turning her life around

For Fisher, the events of Sept. 15, 1976, were life-changing. She went from a church-going 17-year-old to an adult defendant accused of a serious crime.

Before Oliver's death, Fisher had never had so much as a traffic ticket. She did, however, have a ton of attitude and smoked pot. Her family's wild child, she said.

Fisher was 16 when she met Chapman at Caldwell's Drive-In, a teen hangout. Chapman would drive over on his motorcycle, sit and visit. It was a year and a half before she knew he was a married man.

"He was a skinny little kid," Fisher said.

Chapman, Garza and Kuykendall were in Fisher's car when they went to Oliver's house. She didn't expect a quick trip to steal drugs to turn deadly.

"I thought we were gonna go over there and take what pot Jerry Oliver had and leave," she said.

Fisher served five years probation and then turned her life around. She earned a general equivalency diploma and her probation officer petitioned Judge McIlhaney to drop her conviction so she could go to nursing school.

"The next thing I knew, I had a paper that said the indictment had been dropped," Fisher said. "I owe those two people my life."

Fisher, a nurse for 25 years, still lives in Pampa and has heard from Chapman sporadically over the years. He's called her twice about a book, and she ran into him coming out the door of the local newspaper office about 10 years ago.

Chapman told her he was living in Colorado, had a bail bond business and was trying to set up a book and movie deal and asked her if she wanted to be involved.

"I'm still trying to live it down here in Pampa and you moved off, and now you're wanting to write a movie to talk about it," she recalled telling him.

Of the four involved in Oliver's death, Chapman said he and Fisher had become successful. He said today neither would have been convicted because they were in the car's backseat when Kuykendall shot Oliver.

But something had happen to stop his criminal activity, Chapman said.

"And believe me, Huntsville did," he said.

Not quite turned around

Stubblefield and Fisher don't have confidence in Chapman's born-again Christianity, which plays a role in his television show.

"Duane Chapman found Jesus on the Gray County jail house floor," Fisher said. "He wanted people to think that happened during his arrest. He came out cussing and acting just like he did before."

Chapman brought his wife and two children to see Fisher while she was in jail. She said he told her he'd found Jesus and he'd be around to help with anything she needed.

"Then I watch the show and see this family group saying their family prayers," she said. "Then they do their bounty hunting and just curse like the gutter rats they're picking up.

"What infuriates me is the way he's manipulated the things that have happened to him in his past to make him into this person he is now."

Part of Chapman's persona is reformation and he believes the life he has led since Oliver's death reflects that. Chapman said he has gone 30 years without a felony conviction.

"No other ex-con has been as successful as I have, legally," he said. "I can't even remember being a criminal. I was a moral criminal, and finally the good morality took over."

The racial slur that got Chapman in trouble with A&E didn't surprise Fisher.

Chapman's well-publicized derogatory telephone rant about Monique Shinnery, his son Tucker Chapman's girlfriend, led A&E to suspend production of his show Nov. 2.

On Nov. 1, Chapman issued a public statement apologizing for his "regrettable use of very inappropriate language."

On Feb. 19, A&E announced "Dog the Bounty Hunter" would return to production.

Filming started March 3 in Hawaii, but Chapman doesn't know when episodes might air.