Dog the Bounty Hunter came to Bradenton to preach and witnessed an arrest
It seems that Duane Lee Chapman, also known as Dog the Bounty Hunter, can’t get away from his day job.
Dog and his new wife, Francie, were in Bradenton this past weekend to preach at a local church, when crime came calling.
They were meeting their hosts, Ralph and Joanne Hoehne, co-pastors of The Source Church, for brunch at Crager’s Family Restaurant, 7218 N. Tamiami Trail, when the Hoehnes received a call from their son that their truck had been stolen.
At almost that same moment, Ralph Hoehne spotted his truck pulling into the parking lot of a property his family owns across the street.
Hoehne walked across the street and confronted the driver, asking what he was doing with his vehicle, he said in a YouTube video posted to the church website.
“I said, ‘Who are you? You need to sit down and wait for the police. You can explain it to them’,” Hohne said.
“He hit me in the face,” Hohne said, adding that the suspect attempted to flee on foot.
The suspect was arrested a short time later when deputies arrived from the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies were surprised to see Dog the Bounty Hunter on the scene and asked whether it was really Dog or a lookalike, Joanne Hoehne said. “It’s Dog the Bounty Hunter, Bradenton edition,” she said.
Chapman talked briefly about the incident to the congregation of The Source Church, 1200 Glory Way Blvd., meeting at Christian Retreat in East Manatee.
Story begins at the 50 minute mark in the video:
“It’s kind of unbelievable, but believable,” Chapman said.
Or as Ralph Hoehne put it: “You can’t make these stories up.”
Travis Palmer, a Bradenton resident who was a roadie for many years with celebrities like B.B. King, David Copperfield, Johnny Cash and George Jones, and has been featured on “American Pickers,” was one of those who got to meet Duane and Francie Chapman on Sunday.
“I spent a few minutes with him. I think Dog is the only famous person that I hadn’t met,” Palmer said.
Chapman is no stranger to preaching in Bradenton, having visited several times previously. His late wife, Beth Chapman, preached at The Source Church about one month before her death from cancer in 2019.
The incident report was still being processed by the Manatee Sheriff’s Office on Monday. Sheriff’s spokeman Randy Warren confirmed one person was arrested after attempting to flee from deputies. Dog the Bounty Hunter is not mentioned in the report.
This story was originally published August 8, 2022 at 2:57 PM.
