Dog the Bounty Hunter star Duane “Dog” Chapman’s son Leland Chapman was hospitalized in Alabama Tuesday afternoon after being injured during a manhunt. The manhunt marked Chapman’s first since his wife, Beth Chapman passed away from cancer at the age of 51 on June 26.
According to sources who spoke to The Blast, the hospitalization occurred after Leland and his father embarked on a hunt for Edward Morales in Adams County, Colorado on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 9. Morales had been charged with domestic violence and had pleaded guilty to harassment in June. A warrant had been issued for his arrest on June 24 after he failed to appear at a hearing.
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Leland and his father allegedly managed to track Morales down and “pounced” on the suspect to make the arrest, with Leland among the first on the scene. At some point during the struggle, Leland reportedly tore his ACL and was transported to the hospital by ambulance.
“The guy fought like hell,” one of the outlet’s sources said, adding that despite the injury, Leland managed to subdue Morales and take him into custody, the suspect being booked into the Adams County Jail later that day.
Leland will reportedly have surgery next week to fix the injury, meaning that he will be on crutches when he attends Beth’s memorial service in Colorado on Saturday, July 13.
Beth passed away Wednesday, June 26 at the age of 51 at the Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu, where she had been in a medically-induced coma four days before. She had been fighting throat cancer and in the spring of 2019 revealed she was not undergoing chemotherapy treatments.
In the wake of her death, her family has held a number of memorials, with the Saturday service set to take place at he Heritage Christian Center (14401 E. Exposition Avenue, Aurora, Colorado 80012) from 2-4 p.m. local time. For fans unable to attend in person, the ceremony will be live streamed from WGNAmerica.com and https://www.facebook.com/DogWGNA/.
The Chapmans had risen to fame thanks to their bounty hunting series Dog the Bounty Hunter, on which Leland, along with Chapman’s first child with La fonda Sue Honeycutte, Duane Lee Chapman II, and his daughter, Lyssa Chapman, who he had with ex-wife Lyssa Rae Brittain, also starred. The family worked together with Dog and Beth as bail bondsmen and bounty hunters during the A&E series Dog the Bounty Hunter, which ran for eight seasons.
The family is set to appear in the new WGN series Dog’s Most Wanted, a 10-part series that will follow Chapman and Beth as they hunt down criminals who appear on the FBI, U.S. Marshals and States’ Most Wanted Fugitives lists. An arrest that Leland made in March will reportedly be featured on the series.
