You Can Run but You Can't Hide (38 page)

Conviction on eighty-six counts was enough to get Luster 124 years

in jail. He was sentenced in absentia.

By the time he was convicted, Luster had been missing for more

than a month. That was plenty of time for him to undergo cosmetic

surgery to change his appearance. He was savvy enough and rich

enough to find a way to get a new passport. He could be thousands

of miles away or living right under my nose. There was no way to

know for sure.

C h a p t e r F o r t y - t w o

PREY

We built a
pretty complete profile of Luster. Beth created a

Web site where people could follow our progress and send in possi-

ble information on his whereabouts. The site was flooded, mostly

with false leads.

“Dear Dog. I saw Andrew Luster today on the bus

while riding to work here in Honolulu.”

“I just saw Luster on the North Shore.”

“Luster was praying in my church today.”

We ran down a few leads that felt genuine, but they were all dead

ends. Then I got an idea about how to get Luster’s cell phone num-

ber. Luster looked like the kind of guy who worked out, so I de-

cided to call a few gyms around the Los Angles area to see if I could

get it. The first gym I called, I spoke to a guy who was very helpful.

I told him who I was and why I was calling.

“I know you from TV!” He couldn’t have been nicer. He put me

on hold, came back a few minutes later, and said, “You’ll never be-

lieve this. He does work out at one of our gyms. I have his informa-

tion right here.” Blam. I got his phone number.

I immediately called and left him a message.

“Andrew Stuart Luster, this is Dog Chapman. I know you’ve

seen me on TV. I’m going to get you, Luster, you freak.” I wasn’t

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Yo u Ca n R u n , b u t Yo u Ca n ’ t H i d e

positive it was his voice, so I didn’t leave a long message. I did leave

my cell number just in case he decided to call me back.

I kept leaving messages until his voice mail was full. That way, I

was sure he’d hear me loud and clear. I called back the next day to

see if his voice mail was able to accept messages. It was clear. So I

did it all again, every day until that number was disconnected.

Meanwhile, I called his cell phone company and said, “Hi, this

is Andrew Stuart Luster, and my kids are in Hawaii. They’ve got my

damn cell phone, and I think they’re calling all over the world. I’m

at a motel, and I was wondering if you could send me a copy of the

bill.” Sure enough, they faxed it to me. I had all of Luster’s personal

information before the cops had time to subpoena his records.

Once I got his phone bill, I could see numbers he called or re-

ceived calls from on a regular basis. I began to call each one. His

friends were eager to talk. They all belonged to what they called the

Bachelor Boys Club. I was working six or seven of these kids’ num-

bers. Most of them were children of famous people or were celebri-

ties themselves.

One of the guys I talked to a lot was a man named Wesley, who

was the son of Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennille, aka the Captain

and Tennille. One buddy told me about another friend of theirs

named Lance, who would turn out to be the weak link in the

group. He was vulnerable, because he was mourning the death

of his former lover, who was murdered by his wife. Wesley said

the wife shot her husband because she found out about the affair.

He also said Lance kept the dead man’s ashes on his fireplace

mantel.

Wesley explained that this friend worked for Ron Popeil, the guy

you see on TV selling Veg-O-Matics and rotisseries. He said that

Popeil had a big yacht that sailed from California to Mexico all the

time, and that Lance may have snuck Luster onto the boat and hid

him for the entire trip south. Popeil had no idea Lance had done

this. If he found out, Lance would lose his job.

The first time I called Lance, he talked to me for an hour. He

spent most of that time mocking me, making fun of me. He

pointed out that he was different from the other guys. He didn’t

drink or party. He said he was too smart to fall for my cheap tactics

and trickery.

“You’re not going to get me like you did the other guys.”

P r e y

233

“Oh yeah? Why is that, Lance? How do you know I ‘got’ them?

Do you have something to hide?” I was being kind of rough on the

guy. I could tell he was getting upset. He wasn’t as strong as the oth-

ers. He was much softer, not as arrogant. My goal was to keep them

on the phone for as long as they would talk. For whatever reason,

talking to me made them feel important. I carefully brought up

subjects I knew would yield more and more insight and informa-

tion on Luster.

I flew back to L.A. in early March to pursue Brett, Lance, and

some other leads. The minute I landed, I called Lance and said, “I

gotcha.”

“Oh, yeah? What have you got?”

“I got you, brother.
Yo u
know it and I know it.”

Again, Lance asked, “Well, what have you got?”

“My education may only be seventh grade, but I got you, homey.

I know you have that famous actor’s ashes above your fireplace.”

This guy was talking bull to me for a month. All of a sudden he

was out of things to say.

“Now, Lance, I need something from you, son. I need a clue. I

need to know where Luster is. Are you going to help me?”

“You goddamned motherfucker.” I could hear the panic setting

in. He’d successfully hidden his relationship with his lover from the

world. He knew I could blow his secret with one call to the press.

He was about to sing like Mariah Carey.

All Lance said was, “He speaks fluent Mexican.”

Mexican. He didn’t say Spanish. He said Mexican.

“Now, Lance. Don’t disrespect me. I already told you Luster’s

momma told me he speaks fluent Spanish. Are you messing with

me?—’cause you don’t want to do that.”

“Well, then, I guess that means he could be in Spain or Portu-

gal . . .” He was as sarcastic as he was acerbic.

If Lance was telling me the truth, he was pointing me toward

Mexico. I wasn’t convinced his story was valid. Later that night, I

heard Lance split town. I have never spoken to him again.

I was getting closer and closer. Luster knew it too. He’d warned

his friends not to talk to me, because one day they were as loose-

lipped as a nickel whore and the next as tight as a virgin.

Then Luster started e-mailing me. He didn’t identify himself as

Andrew Luster. But I knew who it was.

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Yo u Ca n R u n , b u t Yo u Ca n ’ t H i d e

I taunted him in e-mail exchanges that went something like this:

“What’s the deal with those rocks that Luster took?”

“What rocks?”

“That means you know something because you read the same

article I did.”

“Oh you mean his pre-Columbian art collection. . . . He bought

this piece in Spain, that piece in Bogota. . . .”

“You seem to know an awful lot, which tells me he bought these

pieces with you. Tell me more.”

“They’re Indian artifacts and they’re worth a lot of money.”

To this day, I don’t know why he took the rocks or where they’re

at. They weren’t worth a thing if they weren’t together as a set. I

thought he took them to trade, but I knew a friend of his had the

third rock of the set, so the two Luster carried were essentially worth-

less.

One thing I knew from the e-mail dialogue was this guy had a

lot of answers. He was obviously Luster or someone who spoke to

Luster on a regular basis. One day I received an e-mail from a “Mr.

X” that read, “You think your biker attitude will catch Luster? He

will be gone by the time you land.”

Land. Hmm. That meant Luster was someplace I had to fly to.

Luster began sending e-mails all the time that were puzzles. He

thought he was the Riddler from
Batman
. He was trying to be clever.

He was so arrogant, thinking he would show this old bounty hunter

he was the greatest fugitive I ever hunted. Then I got an e-mail from

“surferintheknow” saying, “You’ll never chase anyone in your life

like Luster.” He was bragging about himself in the third person. He

also was making it clear he knew I was chasing him by making the

surfer and Hawaii connection.

C h a p t e r F o r t y - t h r e e

WHEELING AND

DEALING

Martin Sheen once
predicted I would someday have my

own television show. At the time, my focus was on public speaking,

working with Tony Robbins, and bounty hunting. I had no delusion

about what my true calling was in life, although I had always

dreamed that I would become famous. I even practiced my auto-

graph when I was a young boy.

Vin Di Bona, creator of
America’s Funniest Home Videos,
as

well as many other hugely successful television shows and made-

for-TV movies, was the first producer to really understand me. He

is the nicest, sweetest, most generous man on the planet. He tried to

sell a show based on bounty hunting but Hollywood wasn’t ready.

At the time, I still didn’t have that one big capture to make me a

household name. Studios and networks were skeptical, unsure that

my brand and style would connect with mainstream audiences.

Shortly after the
Los Angeles Times
did an article about me, I

got a phone call from Mark Burnett, creator of
Survivor
and
The

Apprentice.
He is the most successful reality television producer in

the business. I also received a call from Howard Schultz of Light-

hearted Entertainment, who had a hit show,
Extreme Makeover
.

When Beth and I got to L.A., we met with Howard Schultz first.

He got our vision from the very start. We told him we wanted our

show to be true reality, which meant unscripted and shot exactly the

way our bounties go down. The action had to be genuine for the

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Yo u Ca n R u n , b u t Yo u Ca n ’ t H i d e

show to work. We told him we were thinking of going after Andrew

Luster and offered him the opportunity to follow us with cameras

for the duration of the hunt as a quasi-audition. In exchange for

giving him those rights, we wanted him to fund the hunt from be-

ginning to end. We knew it would be valuable footage. Schultz is a

very smart man. He saw the opportunity too.

“What do you mean by ‘fund’?” Schultz looked dubious, won-

dering just how much money we were looking for.

Beth shot back, “Whatever it takes until we bring that prick to

justice.”

I wanted to explain it in my own words. “Look, Howard, if I

have to fund this hunt for six months, I will spend all the money

I have, buying plane tickets and chasing leads. I’m not a rich man. I

won’t be able to feed my children.”

I could see that Howard was trying to process how much this all

translated into for him.

Beth jumped in again, saying, “Howard, one thing you ought to

know is that Duane doesn’t move unless he’s sure. He won’t leave

his office until he is absolutely positive he’s got his guy.”

Howard still didn’t seem convinced. He told us he wanted to

think about it for a couple of days.

The next night, Beth and I met with Mark Burnett. He invited

us to his big, fancy, expensive home in Malibu. I was blown away

by how spectacular his house was.
I
wanted to live like this, only I

wanted to be on an island three thousand miles due west from the

beach where I was standing. I remember Burnett’s assistant kept

asking him, “Did you tell them yet? Did you tell them the good

news yet?” He was acting like an excited schoolboy. I thought they

were going to offer us the use of his house to film the show! I had no

idea what all the fuss was about, and Burnett hadn’t let us in on

anything yet.

When Burnett explained
his
vision for my reality show, it was

a mix of scripted dialogue and re-created crime scenes, much like

Cold Case
. He didn’t want to capture anything live. His idea of re-

ality was to reenact scenes of me chasing and capturing criminals—

like
America’s Most Wanted
. That wasn’t exactly what I had in

mind. In fact, it was totally the opposite.

Burnett continued making his pitch, telling me he was the “king

of reality television” and everything he touched turned to gold. He

W h e e l i n g a n d D e a l i n g

237

showed zero interest in the Luster story, so I knew he wouldn’t be a

potential financial backer. Even though I knew Burnett was success-

ful in the reality genre, he and I just didn’t see eye-to-eye. In my gut,

I felt his interests would take precedence over both mine and those

of the show. I left thinking he wanted me to feel lucky he found

us—not the other way around.

Beth and I had a lot of thinking and praying to do. We really

weren’t sure Schultz was the right guy for us, but we definitely knew