According to WJLA on April 28, four white people were charged with the murder and dismemberment two black men in Moor, Oklahoma.
KFOR news reports that friends and family of Ramon Smith and Jarron Moreland reported the 21-year-old black men missing on April 14. Four days later on April 18, police found their bodies, dismembered and mutilated, in a pond. According to the Atlanta Black Star, that same day, the police arrested four people with a suspected connection to the crime: 22-year-old Kevin Garcia-Boettler, his younger brother, 16-year-old Brett Boettler, the boys’ mother Crystal Boettler and 43-year-old Shane Barker.
KSN reports that Kevin Garcia-Boettler has been charged with accessory to murder, desecration of a corpse and unlawful removal of a body; he has been jailed on a $3 million bond. Brett Boettler faces charges of first degree and second degree murder, desecration of a corpse and unlawful removal of a body; he has been jailed on a $5 million bond. Crystal Boettler has been charged with accessory to murder; her boyfriend Shane Barker is facing charges of accessory to murder, desecration of a corpse and unlawful removal of a body.
The two victims of the crime are black and the charged perpetrators are white; despite this fact, KSN reports that prosecutor of the case, Greg Mashburn, stated, “We definitely explored that, and the evidence absolutely shows that this was not racially motivated,” and does not plan to seek hate-related charges against the criminals.”
According to WJLA, the court records state that on April 14, Garcia-Boettler drove his brother to meet with Smith and Moreland for a gun sale arranged through Craiglist. Smith and Moreland got out of their car and into the backseat of the Boettlers’ van. “When [Moreland and Smith] entered the vehicle, the white men said they heard a gun being racked,” said Sgt. Jeremy Lewis of the Moore Police Department. “So one of them [Brett Boettler] fired four rounds.”
KFOR reports that authorities say after murdering the two men in their van, the Boettler brothers called their mother, who told them to drive to her boyfriend’s residence. The brothers and Barker removed the bodies from the van, covered them with tarps and chained cinder blocks to them. The brothers and Barker then drove to a pond where they dropped the bodies.
The news of this horrific crime has captured the attention of the national media. As more information becomes available, the American public will surely pay close attention to the details of the murders.
