In April of 2018, a planned meeting in a grocery store parking lot in Moore, Oklahoma, set the stage for a tragic and brutal series of events that would end the life of 21-year-old Jarron Keonte Moreland. Moreland, a Black male, and his friend, Alize Ramon Smith, also 21, had arranged to sell a firearm through Craigslist. Their intended buyers were two brothers, 22-year-old Kevin Garcia-Boettler and his 16-year-old brother, Brett Boettler.
The transaction took a fatal turn when Moreland
and Smith entered the back of the Boettler brothers' van. According to the suspects' account to the police, they heard the sound of a gun being cocked, which prompted Brett Boettler to open fire, killing both Moreland and Smith inside the vehicle. The aftermath of the shooting escalated in horror as the Boettler brothers sought help to conceal the crime.
Following the shooting, the brothers drove the van containing the bodies of Moreland and Smith to a different location. There, they met with their mother's boyfriend, 43-year-old Johnny Shane Barker. Barker assisted the brothers in the gruesome task of dismembering the victims' bodies. In an attempt to hide all evidence, they stripped the clothing from Moreland and Smith and burned the garments. To ensure the remains would not be found, they chained the dismembered bodies to cinder blocks and submerged them in a nearby pond in Oklahoma City. The victims' bodies were discovered four days after they were reported missing.
The investigation led police to the suspects, and they were subsequently arrested. Brett Boettler, the alleged shooter, was charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, unlawful removal of a dead body, desecration of a human corpse, and possessing a firearm after a delinquent adjudication. His brother, Kevin Garcia-Boettler, faced charges of being an accessory after the fact and unlawful removal of a dead body. Johnny Shane Barker was charged with accessory after the fact, unlawful removal of a dead body, and desecration of a human corpse. The mother of the Boettler brothers, 40-year-old Crystal Rachelle Boettler, was also implicated and charged with being an accessory after the fact.
