Leland Chapman is giving his social media followers a rare glimpse at life with 8-year-old daughter Leiah after a tough couple of months for the Dog the Bounty Hunter family. Sharing photos with the little girl and wife Jamie Pilar Chapman on Instagram, the bounty hunter kept things simple in the caption, simply adding a red heart emoji.
In another, he and his daughter pose for a smiley selfie, which he left without a caption, letting their loving expressions speak for themselves.
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It’s been a difficult few months for the Chapmans, who lost matriarch Beth Chapman at the age of 51 in June amid her battle with cancer. Not long after, Leland suffered a torn ACL while arresting suspect Edward Morales, adding onto a knee injury from which he was still healing.
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“I was just getting that healed. Just came out of rehab and everything, so I’m trying to take it easy…I’m trying not to get in no fights and not running,” Leland told Entertainment Tonight after being hospitalized. “Two minutes before we get [to the manhunt location] they say the guy is gonna run, so we pull up on the guy. I get out of the car. I walked right to the side. I see him. He’s running, so I call the runner to try to go catch him, but he slipped and fell.”
Cutting Morales off with a car, Leland explained, “When I pulled in, he made eye contact with me, and I was seeing that this guy is running at slow speed, my speed, you know what I mean? ‘Cause he was tired himself. I got out of the car and I was hobbling along and he slammed the gate right in my face.”
Kicking open the gate, Leland knew something bad had happened within his own body: “When I went to kick the gate, it kind of flexed and then it completely severed off my Achilles tendon. So it broke. Snapped it right in half. When I put my foot down, I kind of felt like it was asleep. I felt like I was walking on sand.”
Firing one shot with the taser, Leland was able to take Morales down, after which he was booked in jail after failing to appear in court on a domestic violence charge.
Photo credit: Angela Weiss/Getty Images for Electus