Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given (2010) (22 page)

“I’ve been there, boy. I know what you’re going through. It’s a lame excuse to say you ‘can’t’ do something when you have your health and a family that loves you no matter what. It’s lazy behavior, for sure, but you’re not handicapped by anything other than yourself. This is your wake-up call. You either answer it now or pay for it later and for the rest of your life. You’re being given another shot at things, but only if you take the risk to make the right decision. The choice is yours. What’s it going to be, brotha?”

As we approached the jailhouse, I could tell he was scared and feeling sick from coming down off the drugs. “Remember this feeling, son. Hold on to it so you never find yourself here again,” I said.

As the outer steel door slammed shut and the young man was no longer in my sight, all I could do was hope and pray he heard the calling. The second I’ve got them in the backseat, they’re no longer a fugitive, jump, or the poor bastard who thought he’d be the hero to
outrun the Dog—they’re my children. I just want what’s best for them. I’m the “fix it” guy. My true calling is to inspire those who don’t believe in themselves that they are worthy of a second, third, fourth, or even fifth chance in life. I want to give them the hope and inspiration that it is never too late to turn things around.

Kiliohu Williams

T
here’s a famous saying, “The difference between a wise man and a fool is a wise man learns his lessons from other people’s mistakes and a fool only learns from his own.” One of my goals in writing this book is to help you avoid living as a fool by listening to someone who used to be one. I’ve been there, done that. There’s not much I haven’t been through over the years that hasn’t made me stronger, smarter, and wiser.

Thankfully, my life has gotten progressively better every year since I went to prison in Huntsville. I still have pitfalls and stumbles, but despite all I have been through, I am a really happy and fortunate man. I am grateful for my family, career, friends, and last but certainly not least, I am most appreciative for the opportunity I have that allows me to reach so many other people. I am humbled by how many fans we have. Looking back, there have been some trying times. I find comfort in knowing the Lord has a plan and that He would never give me more than I could handle. Even so, he has laid a load on my back over the years. Whenever things aren’t going my way, I take that as a sign that it is time to make a change.

Perhaps you’ve been wondering about your own life—you know, like whether or not it’s time to make some important personal decisions to help you live at your very best. Maybe you’ve been thinking about
moving, changing jobs, getting out of a bad relationship, or quitting drugs. These decisions are never easy, but they’re worth the pain to get to the next level of freedom in your life where you can thrive, grow, and become a healthier, happier person.

As parents, we have to show our children love and patience and provide clear boundaries on what is acceptable and what is not. Beth and I have an abundance of overflowing forgiveness in our hearts when it comes to our children. The Bible says that if you bring children up in the ways of the Lord, they will never depart thereof. I once heard a story about a defiant young boy who refused to listen to his mother’s pleas to follow the Lord. His mother was dying in the hospital when she begged her son to be with the Lord so she could go in peace. She uttered that wish with her last dying breath. She never saw her son grow up to become Billy Graham.

The Bible doesn’t promise we will see the final plan, but it assures us it exists. I’ve spent numerous nights dreaming of my life twenty years from now and beyond. I’ve seen my son Tucker standing over my grave crying and saying he is sorry for the mistakes he made. Someday I hope he comes to realize that what he did was wrong, that what he did hurt me almost as much as dying. Even if he doesn’t come around before I’m six feet under, I have forgiven him in my heart. I want him to know I still love him. In fact, I was finally able to say those words to him on his birthday this year. A police officer inside the prison allowed me to say three important words to my son over the phone.

“I love you.” I said. I passed the phone away before I could hear Tucker respond. I didn’t need to hear him. I only wanted him to know that he is loved.

When our children fall off their path, they’re still our children—our babies. You have to forgive them and hope they do better.

No matter how bad you think things are in your life, know this: There is
always
someone else out there who has it worse than you do. You can’t sit around and make excuses for not implementing changes once you know there are options. We have a young man who works for us named Justin. He was my personal assistant for a couple of years and
has looked after Gary Boy since the first season of
Dog the Bounty Hunter.
Our family grew very fond of Justin. He wasn’t just an employee, he had become a member of our family. I even referred to him as my nephew. We even invited him to be on a couple of episodes of the show during our first season on the air. After a while, Justin’s ego grew a little bigger than his role. He began acting pretty cocky with all of us and was getting a little too big for his britches.

One day, Beth found a burn hole from one of Justin’s cigarettes in one of the cup holders in her car. When Beth went off on him, Justin decided to fight back by very aggressively mouthing off.

Mouthing off to Beth is
never
a good idea.

Justin started calling Beth all sorts of names before storming off and punching a wall right in front of Leland. As a trained boxer, Leland knows better than to show his temper by hitting a wall, so he confronted Justin. He told him how immature and destructive Justin’s behavior was, reminding him that Beth had told him not to smoke in her car countless times. When Beth came outside and saw Justin’s swollen broken hand, she essentially told him he was no longer useful to us on bounty hunts. She explained that he wouldn’t be able to drive a car, make a fist, or grab his can of Mace on a hunt until he was fully healed. He hurt himself, which meant he was off the show.

Leland drove Justin to the hospital to get his hand fixed. We thought he’d get it set in a cast and hopefully be on the road to recovery so he could quickly rejoin the team. Several hours later, Beth noticed that Justin still hadn’t come back from the hospital. She began calling around to find him, but none of the hospitals had had a patient with his name come through their doors. Finally, the last place Beth called told her Justin had checked himself out hours ago. They had given him some pain pills and let him go without any other medical attention to his hand.

We didn’t see Justin again for quite some time and didn’t hear from him for weeks, and then months. This was devastating to Gary Boy because Justin had become his confidant, friend, swimming partner, surfing pal, and all-around buddy. We called Justin’s mom, Moon, who had
worked for our family for years but wasn’t employed by us at the time. We asked if she had heard from him, but she said she hadn’t. We all knew Justin had done something really dumb—he relapsed back into his old life of getting high and hanging out with the wrong friends who were enabling him further by encouraging him to do more drugs. The second the hospital gave him the dope, he was back to his old addict ways.

Many addicts slip back into their addictions after something happens in their lives that causes them to take painkillers. They get that old familiar feeling again and slip right back. I’ve seen it a thousand times. And that’s exactly what happened with Justin.

It turns out he went to visit some relatives in upstate New York. Unfortunately, those relatives weren’t the stable influence on Justin that Beth and I had been. They were enabling Justin’s habit. Worse yet, they began filling up his head with stories of how he should have been getting paid a lot more money to be on my show. They told him our ratings would plummet without him and the show would inevitably fail if we didn’t bring him back for season two, because he was the “real star” of the show.

If enough people start telling you something, even if it isn’t true, chances are you’re eventually going to believe whatever it is they’re saying. So Justin bought into their rhetoric—hook, line, and sinker. He started playing the money game with our producers. When they asked him where he thought the show could take him professionally, he said he wanted to do BVD underwear commercials, become a model, or become a singer.

Wrong answer.

You see, when the producers asked each of us the same question, Leland, Duane Lee, Beth, and I all answered exactly the same way. If the television show went away tomorrow, we’d all still be writing bail, bounty hunting, catching fugitives, and keeping our family business alive. We don’t want to be models or actors or pursue any other claim to fame. We are bounty hunters.

The producers decided not to bring Justin back to the show. His
family and their bad advice had basically talked him out of the greatest opportunity this young man had ever had. He wasn’t getting paid a lot of money—hell, none of us were back then—but at least he belonged to something. He was successful and blew it all over greed, jealousy, and what other people thought he should be doing.

We let him come visit us on occasion, but it was difficult for all of us because we could physically see he was having a hard time letting go. He had been on the show, had built a fan base, and suddenly it was all gone.

Eventually, we had to distance ourselves from Justin because he was continuously making bad choices. I heard that he had moved to the Big Island and begun partying all the time. He was doing drugs and excessively drinking night after night. Although it hurt my heart to hear he had fallen so far off his path, I didn’t give it much mind because even though I still loved him, he was no longer any of our business. He was on an uncontrollable downward spiral that would eventually bring this young man to his knees—literally.

Three years had gone by since we spoke to Justin or his mother. One night in 2008, Justin’s grandfather called to say his grandson had been in a pretty bad drunk driving accident. His car flipped over several times before he was thrown from it. Because he was driving late at night on a road that isn’t well traveled or well lit, he lay on the side of the road for a long time before coming to. The grandfather said he was being airlifted to Honolulu and asked if Beth and I would go to the hospital to make sure they didn’t cut off his grandson’s legs.

Shortly thereafter, Justin’s mother, Moon, called crying and screaming for her son’s safety. Although we hadn’t spoken to her in some time, it didn’t matter. We were family, and family comes together in times of need. Beth immediately bought Moon a plane ticket to fly from Denver to Honolulu so she could be with her son and see him through this tragic situation.

When we got to the hospital, Justin told me the last thing he remembered from that fateful night was jamming to some music and dancing in his seat. The next thing he recalled was waking up, hearing
the sound of croaking coqui frogs all around him, and then being put on a stretcher and placed in a helicopter that was airlifting him to the nearest hospital.

When Justin was in high school, he’d become well known because he had a sixty-four-inch vertical leap in basketball. He was the shining star of the Hilo High School basketball team. He was in every state championship and always made the all-star team. He was a terrifically funny kid, always making everyone laugh. He was Moon’s pride and joy because he was her child who had the potential to go the furthest in his life. Sadly, it had all been wiped out in that one night. He suffered massive damage to his legs. His ankle was severed from the bone and the rest of his leg. They had to reattach his foot and leg below the knee. His face had been severely cut, with stitches going all across his eyelid. He was lucky to still have his eye, as it had almost been pulled from its socket. His hand was also very badly damaged.

We begged Moon to leave Justin with us in Hawaii while he recuperated, but he chose to go back to Denver to be with his family. Beth instinctively knew Denver would end tragically for Justin. Unfortunately, she was right. He slipped into a depression and began using drugs as a mode of escape. This time he wasn’t just overindulging in painkillers—he was smoking crack too. The drugs were dumping all sorts of impurities and toxic chemicals into his body, which wasn’t helping his healing process. In fact, it was poisoning his body, causing infection after infection, until he finally developed a huge hole in his ankle that went straight down to the bone. The wounds were green and full of puss.

One day, Moon went over to Justin’s house and smelled a really awful odor when she walked into his bedroom. When she ripped the blanket back off his body, Justin’s leg was completely black. Moon knew what that smell was because she had taken care of Beth’s father several years ago when he became ill. Beth’s dad had developed gangrene twice. The first time, the doctors had to cut off his pinky toe, and the second time it was his big toe. Eventually, her father died from the infections. Moon instantly and quickly realized that Justin had a big problem. He had developed a bad case of gangrene.

After several weeks in the hospital and doses of various antibiotics, doctors told him they’d have to amputate his leg below his knee. The news was devastating to all of us. Justin was a really handsome, tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed boy who had his entire future ahead of him. Since the accident, he had completely lost his smile, his boisterous laugh. As he lay in his hospital bed thinking about all of this, it was clear that Justin knew his whole life had been changed by choosing to get behind the wheel after drinking and the bad choices he’d made that led him there. It was a difficult realization that those choices had sent him spiraling into unbelievable negativity that would be extremely challenging to come back from.

When Justin got out of the hospital he moved in with this girl who was still living at home with her parents. Everyone was using Justin as the trash guy—they made him take out the garbage, do the dishes, run a few errands here and there, but nobody made him go out and get a real job. He started using his leg as an excuse to avoid having to face reality. He’d say things like “I can’t work because of my leg.” And for a while, everyone bought into it, placating him and pretending he was incapable of doing much more than he was doing because of his prosthetic leg.