Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given - Duane Dog Chapman [27]
Tucker was sentenced to twenty years in jail, a stiff sentence for the crime he committed. He served four years in an Oklahoma state prison before being paroled. When he was released in 2006, he came to Hawaii to live with Beth and me.
Prison had changed Tucker, but as his dad, I always chose to see my little boy inside the angry young man who stood in front of me. Growing up, I wanted to give him every shot I could at making something of his life. Instead of teaching him how to box like the other boys, I put him in front of a computer. I tried to keep him away from violence because I thought that would deter him from using drugs. It didn’t work out that way. I tried to overcompensate for his circumstances, and much like his mother, I became more of a friend than parent.
There’s a great danger in being a friend to your children. For me, it ultimately cost me the most precious gift of all—one of my kids. Just before marrying Beth, I was faced with one of the hardest decisions I have ever made. As difficult as it was for me to accept, my daughter Barbara Katie, who was living in Alaska with her mother, had gotten in a lot of trouble with drugs. Every time she called home for a little money, I sent it. It was always the same excuse—that she had lost her glasses. After the third call in a month, it finally occurred to me that I was being incredibly naïve. At last I asked, “Are you on drugs?”
“Oh no, Daddy.” And like a fool, I believed her. I kept sending a hundred dollars via Western Union every couple of weeks, under different names so Beth wouldn’t find out. It probably didn’t matter though, because Beth no doubt knew what I was doing anyway.
Beth could see how serious Barbara Katie’s problems had gotten. She insisted that I send her to rehab, but Barbara Katie didn’t want to go. She worried that she’d always be known as “that girl who had a drug problem.” Beth pleaded with me to send her anyway, but I still couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Beth even suggested we go up to Alaska and bring her to Hawaii. But I couldn’t do that, either. I knew if I brought Barbara Katie back to Hawaii, she and Baby Lyssa would reconnect, which I feared would have horrible consequences. I had spent an enormous amount of time straightening out Baby Lyssa and getting her off drugs when she came to live with me a few years earlier. I was terrified that Barbara Katie would somehow influence Baby Lyssa to go back to using.
Barbara Katie had sent her young son Travis to live with us while she tried to get her life worked out. Our agreement was that I’d take Travis so she could go to rehab. I wanted her to go to Betty Ford or Promises, but she didn’t want to leave home. She wanted to stay in Alaska. A week after she supposedly checked in to a local facility, I got a call from Barbara Katie saying that she was all better. But I knew she was lying and that she had never gotten the help she needed. Miracles happen, but no one gets clean in a week.
Each of my kids has a special place in my heart, but Barbara Katie was my oldest girl. She shared the same sensitivity I have, meaning she’d cry over anything! My mom was the only person I felt I could let my guard down in front of whenever I needed to decompress. We’d cry together for hours until I felt better. After Mom died, Barbara Katie became my crying pal. The night Dog the Bounty Hunter debuted on A&E, I was overcome with emotion. The first person I called was my daughter. As soon as she answered, we both lost it. Barbara Katie kept saying how proud she was and how much she hoped to someday be a part of the show. I promised her it would happen because she was family.
“Your dream came true, Daddy.” She was so proud of me. Of all my memories from that first night on television, those are the words I will never forget. We were so close, and that’s why it was extremely difficult to see her messed up on drugs.
Barbara Katie desperately