HONOLULU -- Beth Chapman, who co-starred with her husband on the Dog the Bounty Hunter reality TV show and later spoke out against bail-change measures as leader of a national bail agents' organization, has died.
Chapman died early Wednesday at Queen's Medical Center after an almost two-year battle with cancer, Mona Wood-Sword, a family spokesman, said in a statement. She was 51.
Chapman was diagnosed with throat cancer in September 2017 after having a nagging cough checked out. A tumor was removed, and she was declared cancer-free. But in November 2018, she was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer.
"This is the time she would wake up to go hike Koko Head mountain," her husband, Duane "Dog" Chapman, posted on Twitter early Wednesday. "Only today, she hiked the stairway to heaven. We all love you, Beth. See you on the other side."
On Friday, Beth Chapman had difficulty breathing and passed out momentarily, Wood-Sword said. She was taken to a hospital, and doctors put her in a medically induced coma to spare her pain while treating her, the spokesman said.
Born Alice Elizabeth Smith in Denver, Chapman had lived in Honolulu since 1989.
She boasted of being the youngest ever to receive a bail license in Colorado, at 29. That record was beaten by her step-daughter Lyssa Chapman, who became licensed at age 19, she said.
Beth Chapman was later elected president of the Professional Bail Agents of the United States and opposed some bail changes nationwide, such as eliminating the cash bail system, saying it would put the public at risk.
In 2006, she and Duane Chapman, the self-proclaimed world's best bounty hunter, married during a sunset ceremony at a Big Island resort after being together for 16 years.
The wedding took place a day after the death of Duane Chapman's 23-year-old daughter, Barbara Katy Chapman, who was killed in a car accident near her home in Fairbanks, Alaska, Wood-Sword recalled. The couple decided to go forward with the wedding to celebrate her life.
The wedding was featured in an episode of the A&E series Dog the Bounty Hunter, which followed the duo's exploits in apprehending people who have avoided arrest warrants.
Dog the Bounty Hunter was canceled in 2012. They later starred in Country Music Television's Dog & Beth: On the Hunt.
There are 12 children between the couple, 15 grand-children and one great-grandchild, Wood-Sword said.
Metro on 06/27/2019