Dog’s Most Wanted caught up to the tragic final days of Beth Chapman‘s life in its first season finale. The WGN America series returned for its final episode of 2019 and featured Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter’ Chapman and the rest of the family opening up to the cameras on the day of the matriarch’s tragic death. Beth passed away at the age of 51 after a long battle with lung and throat cancer.
“Everything kind of feels like a dream right now. It’s not real yet,” Lyssa Chapman said at the start of the episode in interviews filmed on the day of Beth’s passing.
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“It’s about 6 a.m. in Hawaii… at five thirty-something, Beth gets up using every day to climb Cocoa Head mountain here… and today at that time Beth’s hike was the stairway to heaven,” Dog said as he held back tears.
The action then went back five days with Dog revealing Beth had been feeling sick, and a prescribed steroid pill made her feel worse.
“She was sitting down in the bathroom and all of a sudden she was like, ‘I can’t breathe’,” Dog told the camera. “She went straight back and I saw her eyes literally roll back in her head and she fell into my arms.”
“All I could think was “I have to breathe the life back in her because I told her I wasn’t going to let her die,” he added, before the episode aired daughter Cecily Chapman’s 911 call about the medical emergency.
“I just hear my dad yell, ‘everyone get out of the house. Cecily get here now.’ And… yeah, you kind of just know,” Cecily told cameras.
Dog then recalled how the doctors tried to help her breathe but she continued to struggle as they were transported to a nearby hospital. Cecily said through she grabbed clothes and her mother’s phone.
With the cancer growing across her chest, the doctors had to force a tube inside her throat with major force. Dog admitted it was difficult to see until she started breathing.
The family then gathered to discuss their options, knowing that if she woke up again she would be in pain for the rest of her life. The next day they announced the decision to take her off life support, she was supposed to go after an hour, but she made it for another day.
“They said to me, ‘Do you know how strong of a wife you’ve got?’ and I went ‘Duh!’” He said. “At 5:30 she said she’s starting to breathe slow. Then they called me right back and said ‘Dog, she stopped breathing. And I’m like, can I make it there in time? I’m 15 minutes away. ‘No.’ So 5:36, she was pronounced passed away.”
The episode also featured footage from the family’s memorial events for Beth in Hawaii and Colorado, along with another hunt lead by Dog to honor his late wife.
Dog’s Most Wanted has not been officially renewed for a second season on WGN America.
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Photo Credit: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images
