You Can Run but You Can't Hide (39 page)
Read You Can Run but You Can't Hide Online
Authors: Duane Dog Chapman
Burnett wasn’t a good match. We spent the next several days in Los
Angeles more focused on whether or not we wanted to pursue Lus-
ter than on developing the reality show. What was brewing could
change the course for all of us. We decided to take our time, so we
could assess our options before committing to anyone.
We had already been down this road years ago when I sold rights
to my life story for movies that never panned out. I did not want to
make the same mistake in television.
C h a p t e r F o r t y - f o u r
We had gotten
a number of leads in the first few months of
searching for Luster. Most of them were a complete bust. We had
received a couple of e-mails from people claiming to see Luster in
Thailand, but we didn’t think much of it when they came in. One of
the e-mails said he went to a club called the Mona Lisa. Beth
checked the place out on the Web to see if such a spot even existed.
Sure enough, it was in Bangkok. Our general rule is never to follow
up on a lead unless there are two or more people to corroborate
the story.
Then one day, Beth called me in Denver to say she’d received a
phone call that sounded pretty legit. “This British guy named Mike
just called and swears he saw Andrew Luster in a brothel in Thai-
land called the Winchester Club, where men can get young girls for
thirty bucks an hour.”
Beth checked out their Web site, which was filled with page after
page of teenage girls. It was like looking at someone’s high school
yearbook. If he had gone to Bangkok, he was essentially free to do
whatever he pleased. He would have been right in his element.
Thailand made a lot of sense. It was one of four places we had sus-
pected Luster ran to. Other possibilities were Bali, France, and
Mexico. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but it appeared I finally
had my first real lead.
Mike also e-mailed us photos of Luster’s Gems, a jewelry store
Th e Th a i Tr a i l
239
owned by some Americans. It was a believable lead, although it
didn’t turn up any connection to Andrew Luster. Despite that, we
felt positive about having two separate stories that connected Lus-
ter to Thailand. I told Beth I wanted to go.
Between hunting Luster and trying to keep my businesses afloat
in Kona, Honolulu, and Denver, I had my hands pretty full. Beth
and I split our time between each location. We rarely saw each
other. The hunt for Luster was taking a huge toll, both financial
and emotional. I had to keep hunting other bounties to make enough
money to keep up the chase and take care of my family.
I flew back to Hawaii a few days later and followed up with
Mike myself. He sounded completely normal. I was feeling good
that he wasn’t some kind of kook. He told me about his trip to
Thailand and about the Winchester Club. He described the place as
more of a nightclub than a whorehouse. Mike and his buddy, Dave,
spotted a guy at the bar who resembled Luster, only he was heavier
than he looked on the news.
Hearing Mike’s description of a bulkier Luster made me think
back to a conversation I had with some of his friends who said he
had built up a lot of muscle before he fled. They said he’d gotten re-
ally ripped. I had even heard he had gotten pec implants. I asked
Mike how certain he was that the man they spotted in Thailand
was Luster.
“Eighty percent. We saw him a couple of times. I’m fairly cer-
tain it was him.”
I’ve never been the type of guy who moves on 80-percent hunches.
Tell me you’re 100-percent sure or not sure at all. There is no in
between. I needed more proof, more signs this was the place Luster
disappeared to.
I asked Mike, “Any chance you spoke to the guy?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact I did. He was definitely American. He
was nice but seemed a bit depressed. He was checking out a lady
friend who was with us.”
To determine if the guy Mike and Dave saw was really Luster, we
asked Mike if he would consider going back to Thailand. The plan
was to find the man, get a waitress at the Winchester Club to serve
him a drink from a brand-new clean glass, and then fly the glass
back to a crime lab to determine if the fingerprints were a match. I
would even pay for an armored car to pull up and transport the
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Yo u Ca n R u n , b u t Yo u Ca n ’ t H i d e
glass. If it came back positive, then Tim, Leland, Boris, and I would
fly to Thailand to grab Luster. On May 23, my FBI contact, Eric
Jensen, said I had to get a provisional arrest warrant to be ready. If
we succeeded, we’d have some of the most thrilling footage ever shot
for reality television, and I would finally prove to the world that I am
the greatest bounty hunter who ever lived. If it turned out to be a
dead end, no harm, no foul.
That weekend was the first time Beth and I had been together in
weeks. I missed her and the kids. We needed some quality time to-
gether. As I had done many times that winter, Beth and I took the
kids to a beach near our home to spend the day enjoying the sea
and sand. Sometimes I drove out there by myself to pray and ask
the Lord for His guidance. Today was about being with my family. I
was unloading the car when I noticed familiar footprints in the
sand. Once again, I felt my mother’s presence. I knew in my gut
that the footprints were hers. I almost passed out from the rush of
emotion.
I turned my head up to the sky and said, “Lord, I know my mom
is with you.”
And then I heard, “No, Duane, she walks with you. Look
straight out, my son. You will find what you are looking for.” I
cocked my head and stared straight out into the vast blue sea, won-
dering, hoping, praying that the Lord was sending me a message
about my mother. At the time, I had no way of knowing He was
pointing me toward Luster.
We weren’t able to work out the details of Mike’s trip until the
end of May. By the time we set everything up, he had some worries
about going through with it. He was engaged to be married. A sin-
gle mistake could be deadly. His fiancée didn’t think it was worth
the risk. Dave stepped up and said he would go.
When Dave arrived in Thailand, however, he discovered that the
United States Army was conducting a training maneuver in the
region called Operation Cobra Gold. One thousand U.S. soldiers
were all over Bangkok. If Luster had been in Thailand, there wasn’t
a chance he was hanging around during those exercises. Our plan
was spoiled. Dave came back empty-handed. The Thai trail had
grown ice-cold.
C h a p t e r F o r t y - f i v e
Despite not knowing
if Thailand would be where I
caught Luster, I kept getting a gut feeling that I was getting closer.
Your gut never lies. When you learn to tune into your inner voice,
you will have the answers to all of life’s problems. The Lord gives
you all the information you need. Something told me it was time to
reach out to Luster’s mother. I wanted Liz Luster to know I was
closing in on her son. Every chance I got, I put the word out.
Liz was agitated by the mere sound of my voice. I thought,
Good.
“You have no legal right to call and harass me.” She was grow-
ing angrier by the second.
“You’re right. I’m not calling you to harass you. I just wanted to
give you a courtesy call to let you know I will be getting your
son soon. I can do it my way, or you can help by bringing Andrew
to me.”
“You don’t have the guts to go where my son is hiding.” She was
as smug as her kid. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Toward
the end of the call, Liz gave me her own warning.
“If I were you, I’d start thinking about your own safety instead
of spending all of this time searching for my son.”
I read into that threat. What she was really saying was that her
son was someplace where money could buy his freedom. That pretty
much ruled out most of Europe, but it left Mexico, Latin America,
and Asia wide open.
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Yo u Ca n R u n , b u t Yo u Ca n ’ t H i d e
Before we hung up, I tried to appeal to the parent in Liz. I told
her I have twelve kids of my own. I know what it feels like to have
one of them in trouble. Two of my kids have done hard time. I
thought I could tap into her sensitive maternal side.
Her response was cruel and very much unexpected. “You should
have been neutered.”
I didn’t want to extend the conversation beyond that. But I needed
to let Liz Luster know I was not her enemy. I told her I thought An-
drew caught a bad break. I thought his legal defense team did a hor-
rible job. I suggested how he might seek restitution once he was back
in custody. She wasn’t much interested in my advice about the legal
system, although she did loosen up a bit. She wasn’t unlike any
mother who has watched her child suffer. She had to believe her son
was innocent, even if she knew in her gut he was not.
Time was running out. Luster’s million-dollar bail would be for-
feited by mid-July. It was time to turn up the heat.
On June 9, Rita Cosby called and asked if she could have me on
her show to talk about Luster.
She only asked me one question: “Are you getting close?”
“Close enough.” I had to make her believe I was hot on Luster’s
trail. I agreed to be on the show that night.
At the end of the interview, Rita asked me if I had anything I
wanted to say to Luster. I did.
“Fe, fi, fo, fum. Look out Luster, here I come!” I didn’t plan on
saying this, it just flew out of my mouth.
She laughed and asked one last question. “How long until you
get him, Dog?”
“One week. I’ll have him in a week, Rita.” Why did I just say that?
I think she was caught as much off guard hearing that as I was
saying it. Rita, obviously a little taken aback, said, “Well, good,
then. We all look forward to seeing you here again next week!”
Beth was waiting for me off camera. She had a strange look on
her face. She looked like a deer in headlights. “Wow! Why did you
say that? You promised Rita a week, Duane. Are you crazy? The en-
tire world is watching you, and you proclaim you’ll have Luster in
seven days? You better get him, because if you don’t your reputa-
tion will be ruined and no one will ever believe a word you say.”
“I don’t know why I blurted out ‘a week.’ The Lord just told
me to.”
O n e L a s t Wa r n i n g
243
Beth replied, “Well, I hope you and the Lord have a plan, be-
cause they’re counting the days and your career is riding on it.” My
mouth has gotten me into trouble plenty of times in my life, but this
time, my words had put my life and livelihood on the line. I went
home that night and prayed. I prayed as hard as I ever have.
“Lord, please show me where Luster is. I need to know. I hope
You can hear me, Lord. I’m out on a limb. I need You now more
than ever.”
C h a p t e r F o r t y - s i x
Immediately following the
Rita Cosby interview, Beth
flew to Denver to check on business while I flew back to Hawaii to
be with the kids. I rarely answer my phone, especially when I don’t
recognize the number. A few days after getting back to Hawaii, for
whatever reason, I answered a call that changed everything.
“Is this Dog the Bounty Hunter?” I could hear a trembling
young man’s voice on the other end.
“Who’s this?” I wasn’t sure if it was a fan, a client, or someone
just looking to talk to the Dog.
“I think I saw the guy you’re looking for in Mexico. My girlfriend
and I saw him at a resort near Puerto Vallarta. He told me his name
was David Carrera, but I’m positive it was Andrew Luster.”
I’d heard this so many times, I almost hung up.
“We even got a couple of pictures of him.” He said he saw me
on Rita Cosby and noticed that the picture of Luster looked just
like the guy he met in Mexico.
OK, now this kid had my attention. He had pictures. That was
the first time someone was stepping forward with potentially hard
evidence that they’d seen Luster.
“They’re not great pictures. Carrera didn’t want me to take
them. Every time I tried, he spun his body away. I only got him from
the back and the side of his head.” I asked him to e-mail his photos
so we could examine them up close.
Th e D o g C o m e t h
245
I asked my source about his background. He said he was a col-
lege student and he and his girlfriend were in Mexico to surf. He
had no reason to mess with me. My gut told me this kid was for
real. We continued to talk for quite a while. He stayed at a tiny
resort an hour and a half north of Puerto Vallarta called Costa
Custodio. It was owned by two Americans named Min and Mona.
One afternoon, they met another American by the pool who told
