Troy and Chele Pfost hid out on CBS’s “Hunted” in hopes of winning $250,000.
To avoid capture on the CBS show “Hunted,” pretend fugitives Troy and Chele Pfost of New Port Richey headed to the Withlacoochee State Forest. / CBS
By Valerie Kalfrin
Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, Feb. 22, 2017
To live off the grid for 18 days as pretend fugitives on the CBS series Hunted, Troy and Chele Pfost of New Port Richey chose what they knew best: camping.
But roughing it along the Withlacoochee River and in Withlacoochee State Forest turned out to be tougher than they anticipated one morning when they woke up facing the tail end of a tropical storm. “We were sitting in the river — dark water — holding on to an aluminum oar to fend off any curious gators, never mind the gator slide and gator directly in front of us, underneath cypress trees and lightning,” Chele recalled in an e-mail interview. “All I kept saying was, ‘What could possibly go wrong?’”
The two were one of nine pairs on the run as part of a competition for $250,000. Whoever avoids capture for 28 days wins the money.
Based on a similar show in the United Kingdom, Hunted debuted in January. It assembles a team of skilled law-enforcement veterans, including a former FBI agent, former Navy SEAL, former NSA cyber-intelligence specialist, and former CIA analyst to show viewers how real-life authorities track fugitives. The show airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m.
Each pair of mock fugitives receives a one-hour head start and just $500 in their bank account. They must stay within the 100,000-square-mile “hunting zone” within Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia, but they can travel anywhere and ask anyone for help.
The CBS show “Hunted” gave pretend fugitives Troy and Chele Pfost of New Port Richey their own mug shots. / CBS
The Pfosts, who own and operate Stampede Airsoft of New Port Richey, heard about the show through a business contact. Airsoft is a “game of honor” using realistic guns, pistols shooting small plastic pellets (BBs), and grenades in team-on-team battles of tactics and strategy, they said.
The two camped a lot growing up and also camp at every game they attend, so the prospect of hiding out for the prize money was intriguing. “It is what we do, how we play, and so totally our jam,” Chele Pfost said.
Troy, 43, a Dunedin native, and Chele, 40, who moved to Florida from Missouri as a child, never had any prior brushes with the law, although Troy has “street smarts,” his wife said. “I am a good girl and a people pleaser, and the thought of being a fugitive is haunting for me,” she noted.
They also thought the money could help their niece and three nephews “get a jump start, or should we say, a start in the right direction,” Chele Pfost said. “Since Troy lost his momma, we are the pin in the trailer trying to keep it all together. We would have loved to take them all to a cabin and enjoy each other’s company.”
The couple, who have been married 18 years, have no children. They didn’t prepare much ahead of time beyond making sure they agreed how they wanted to hide, paying all bills in advance, and prepping their 15-year-old pom-a-poo, Sniper, for the hand-off to Chele’s mother when it was time to flee.
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In a video segment introducing them for the show, Troy said they planned to ditch their phones, their car, and even his watch to avoid detection. He thought their biggest asset was that they were “quick thinkers.”
Lenny DePaul, a former commander with the US Marshals Service, said in the same segment that he didn’t think the two had the skillset to hide their tracks that well. He estimated they would last on the run about 14 days.
Being out in nature was breathtaking, Chele Pfost said. “We were so in tune with it all, and especially God. … I would say the most surprising part for us was how much we enjoyed being away from everything, being away from Facebook, phone, Internet, e-mail and responsibility.”
Yet even with their shared camping experience, trekking around the Florida swamplands in the heat of June (when the show was taped) grew “pretty miserable,” she added. “Troy went running looking for any source of water so we could filter [it to drink].”
Viewers saw the two “captured” after deciding to leave the wilderness for a friend’s house. The trackers had been monitoring the couple’s online friends and Facebook comments about their progress.
They were disappointed to be caught, but they walked away with some newfound knowledge about themselves. “Troy says he learned that he can live with a whole lot less than he thought he could,” Chele Pfost said. “I’d say the biggest lesson I learned was backseat quarterbacking shows is a whole lot easier than actually doing it. People always think they have it figured out, [but] the emotional side is a butt kicker!”
For now, they’re back to the daily grind. “Our desire to travel has not been quenched yet — and we came up with I think four different business ideas while we were out there!” Chele Pfost said. “Who knows?”
Hunted, Wednesdays, 8 p.m., CBS
Original link: http://www.cltampa.com/arts-entertainment/film-tv/article/20852599/new-port-richey-couple-winds-down-after-being-hunted