Crime Wire Weekly 6/13/25 | U.S. Marshal’s Enact “RAM” to Hunt Travis Decker, Man Arrested After Tossing Raccoon In Bar (Preview) - Unspeakable: A True Crime Podcast By Kelly Jennings

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
In Texas, a Department of Justice worker is arrested for
allegedly slipping an abortion drug into his pregnant girlfriend's drink.
In Louisiana, a father faces murder charges after leaving his
one year old daughter in a hot car for nine
hours after a drinking binge. And in Kentucky, a man

(00:32):
is arrested for releasing a raccoon inside of a bar
after he was banned entry. These crime stories dominated the
headlines this week, and we have our comments on those
stories and more today on Crime Wire Weekly. I'm Jim Chapman.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
And I'm Kelly Jenny.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
And it is Father's Day weekend, So before we get started,
I want to wish all of my fellow dads a
very happy Father's.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Day, absolutely, and I want to wish my sweet husband
happy Father's Day. Thank you for being my boo boo duddy.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Oh lord, We're going to start off with not a
good father here in Louisiana. First, a Louisiana father was
charged with second degree murder after allegedly leaving his twenty
one month old daughter inside a hot car for more
than nine hours. Joseph Boatman, who is thirty two, of Hammon,

(01:29):
was arrested this past Sunday after the child died outside
a home. This was in Madisonville. Detect Us with the
Saint Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office Major Crimes Unit learned that
Boatman had strapped the toddler into her car seat inside
the vehicle after picking her up from a family member's residence.

(01:49):
This was shortly after two thirty a m. Sunday, which
was the first thing that kind of stood out to me.
That's a heck of a time to pick up your daughter.
After stripping the toddler into the car seat, Boatman goes
back inside the residents and he never returned to the vehicle.
It was also learned that prior to that, Boatman had

(02:10):
consumed multiple alcoholic beverages. Police said they responded to this
home shortly before noon on Sunday after a family member
located the girl unresponsive inside that vehicle. Temperatures in the
area around that time were above ninety degrees. The Saint
Tammany Pair of Sheriff for Randy Smith said, quote, this

(02:32):
is a devastating loss and no family ever wants to
face when a child is left in a vehicle, especially
on a day when the heat and index climbs to
over one hundred degrees, the outcome can turn deadly in
just a matter of minutes. This case involved compromised judgment
and the result was heartbreaking. Now, the website no Heatstroke

(02:55):
dot com actually tracks the deaths of children inside hot
cars in the United States, and it said this was
the fifth instance this year already, and we're early in
to summer. There's been in a case in New Mexico, California, Maryland,
and New Jersey. And the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

(03:17):
set on its website a child's body temperature rises three
to five times faster than an adults. When a child
is left in a vehicle, that child's temperature can quickly
rise and the situation can quickly become very dangerous. What
I would term a horrific statistic. In twenty twenty four,

(03:38):
thirty nine children died of heat strokes in vehicles. That
was up thirty five percent from twenty twenty three, So
one the wrong direction.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, that's terrible. I am not that animals anyway are
in comparison to human lives, but just yesterday, I'll let
my pups outside do use bathroom. They were outside, maybe
maybe twenty minutes. And when I came back, when my
little Frenchies was panting really hard and kind of struggling.
I mean, it was that hot, and that was not enclosed,
and that was on a patio with fans on, and
I brought her in and I had to lay her down,

(04:13):
and I got ice packs even to kind of cool
her down, which they're known, you know, for that type
of situation. But to think of how that child suffered
in that car, could not get out, that's something that
that's torturous. That's absolutely torturous. All right, Well, let's go
on to Texas Gym and the Justice Department worker was

(04:33):
charged with capital murder for allegedly slipping an abortion drug
into his pregnant girlfriend's drink without her consent, forcing her
to lose her baby. Justin Banta, which is a thirty
eight year old information technology staffer, was taken into custody
Friday following an incident that unfolded at a coffee shop
and I guess that's Terrant County. The victim reported that

(04:54):
her boyfriend intentionally added plan C, commonly known as the
abortion drug, to her drink in order to force her
to have an a abortion without her knowledge or consent.
Police said, and look, guys, I wasn't familiar with Plan C.
I'm not even gonna lie. So I had to look
this one up. And there is a difference between Plan
B and Plan C. Plan B is an emergency contraceptive
that prevents pregnancy, while Plan C is the one that's

(05:16):
used to terminate and exist in pregnancy. So I wanted
to explain that if you weren't familiar either. In addition
to a capital murder charge from the Texas Rangers, Banta
was booked on one count of tampering with physical evidence.
The victim told investigators that she and Banta were in
a romantic relationship in September of twenty twenty four when
she discovered that she was pregnant. Now this is a

(05:36):
police quote. The victim informed Banta of the pregnancy, who
proposed to cover the cost of an abortion and suggested
they order the Plan C online. The victim informed Banta
of her desire to keep the baby. Police added on
October seventeenth, twenty twenty four, when the victim was approximately
six weeks pregnant, she went for a sonogram, where she
learned that the baby had a strong heartbeat, displayed good

(05:58):
vital signs and was said to be healthy by her doctor.
The woman said that she then met with Banta at
a coffee shop later that day, and Banta gave her
a drink he purchased prior to her arrival. Security camera
footage showed she consumed the entire beverage. The next day,
the victims stated she began to suffer from extreme fatigue
and heavy bleeding, prompting her to visit the emergency room.

(06:19):
The victim reported she lost her baby on October the nineteenth,
which she believed was a result of the drugs Banta
had previously placed in her drink at the coffee shop
without her permission, and that was from the Parker County
Sheriff's Office. Police said they interviewed Banta and collected his
cell phone as evidence. During the interview, Bana admitted to
buying the abortion pills on his phone and said he
knew investigators wanted to talk to him about the woman's miscarriage.

(06:43):
Sheriff's investigators believed Banta, who works at the IT department
of the US Department of Justice, later accessed the phone
remotely and performed a reset. Thereby deleting crucial evidence related
to the case. Banta was released from Parker County Jail
on Friday after posting a five hundred thousand dollars bond
with a capital murder charge and a twenty thousand dollars
bond for the evidence tampering charge.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
I'll tell you what, one of the most horrific stories
that I've ever come across is that one right there
as you're read it. That is absolutely disgusting. He basically
killed he did, he committed feet aside. This lady apparently
wanted to have this child and he slips her a
pill to kill the child. Absolutely disgusting.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
But you know there's a case of this. There's a
famous forensic files if anybody here watches them, and I
really I should do an episode on this one. But
I believe it was in Canada that there was a doctor,
his name was Maynard something, and he had a wife
and was messing around with this other woman who got pregnant,
and then they caught she the same thing happened. He

(07:50):
slipped her the pill. Okay, he's a doctor. Well, she
told police. Police didn't believe her, and so she ended
up setting up her own camera in a little firefighter
like figurine, and he came over again and caught him
on camera slipping another pill. It's called cidatech which is
used to soften the cervix, and that he did the

(08:10):
exact same thing. So not unheard of, but definitely devious
and completely and totally uncalled for. All.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Right, now, last week we told you about a breaking
news story. It was regarding the man hunt for a
father in Washington State. He was wanted from the murder
of his three children, and we're going to give you
an update on that manhunt. So, as of this recording,
Travis Decker is still evating capture, but his days may

(08:41):
be numbered. The US Marshall Service is activated its Elite
Rapidly Advanced Manhunt program. Its acronym is RAM, and this
program is in an urgent search for Travis Decker. The
RAM program is designed to expedite the capture of violent

(09:02):
fugitives through real time intelligence, coordination and rapid deployment of
specialized teams. So at this point, more than one hundred
officers from federal, state, and local agencies are actively involved
in this man hunt. And these tactics include aerial surveillance.
They have tracking dogs and backcountry patrols, and Marshall Services

(09:27):
actually offering a twenty thousand dollars reward for information directly
related to Deckers arrest. Now. The US Marshall's continued involvement
comes as the Sheriff's office confirmed that they have assumed
the role of the lead investigative agency in these girls' killings,
and a clarification issued Wednesday, the department shared that the

(09:52):
when that chat this is a tough one to say,
when a chatty, let me see the police department, when
natchi Police Department is no longer the lead agency in
the killings. And if y'all want to crucify me on Facebook,
have at it, baby, I've got big shoulders. The shift
in jurisdiction comes as the investigation continues to focus on

(10:16):
rugged wilderness areas within the county where Decker was last seen.
And that's a lot of the problem with locating this
guy is the terrain is just treacherous. This is Washington State,
very mountainous type area, and so there's a lot of
hiding spots. Quite frankly, on Tuesday, June tenth, authorities announced

(10:37):
they were zeroing in on the Army veteran, so apparently Monday,
June ninth, the agency received a tip from a group
of hikers and they said they saw a man who
appeared kind of evasive when they saw him, look like
he didn't want to be seen. He looked very unprepared
for hiking, if you will, and he was near what's

(10:59):
known as Ingles Creek in the Valley High areas, and
it was very late at night. As you can imagine
a lot of these escapes, they move at night because
of obvious reasons. I'm going to quote here the Sheriff's office.
They said they recently received a tip from a hiking
party who stated they spotted a loane hiker who appeared

(11:20):
to be ill prepared for trail in weather conditions and
appeared to be avoiding others. Authorities subsequently acted on that
tip and they did spot a lone off trail hiker
from a helicopter. He was near lake and he ran
from that site when the helicopter passed. Search teams were
able to establish a trail and they deployed canines, several

(11:43):
canines throughout the area that led them to Ingles Creek,
which he probably jumped in the creek and got the
scent off of him right. The wooded area is located
approximately thirty miles from what's known as Rock Island Campground,
and that is the boy where the bodies of Decker's
three daughters, Peyton nine, Evelyn eight, and Olivia five were

(12:06):
found on June second. So, as we reported to you
on last Friday's episodes, these bodies were found three days
after they did not return to their mother following a
court approved visit with Decker, and authorities have noted that
Decker is a former Army infantryman and he has survival skills.

(12:26):
He may have used his rugged survival skilled tactics to
evade capture. Authorities previously described him as dangerous, warning residents
not to approach him and describing him as armed. Quote,
this is someone with military training who's lived off the
grid before. We're dealing with a highly capable survivalist who

(12:49):
may be using the terrain to his advantage. That from
the Sheriff Mike Morrison. So kJ with all this technology
these days, how does anyone stay on the run this long?

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Well? Hell ask New Orleans because they still looking for
those two cut out of the jail. You know, I
this is not like the movies. This is not where
you know, you just go up in a helicopter or
shoot some heat flear and oh look there's somebody moving.
It's way more complicated than that. And also where do
you even start to search in that area? Lots of manpower,
lots of time. The dogs can get a scent, and

(13:26):
then that scent like you know, he hits the waterway, well,
then the scent is cut. So even if he picks
up on the other side, that again is another whole
you know, bag of worms when they get over there
and then they have to pick up on a scent
and try to go. And dogs aren't infalluable. There is
a valuability rate where they're not always going to be perfect.
People aren't perfect, and so this is really going to

(13:46):
have to come down to sightings, I think, and locating
that area, making it smaller, trying to, let you know,
making it smaller and smaller until they finally can get him.
But if he's been living in that area off the grid,
then he knows it well yeah, and that's probably one
of the issues, the bigger issues, i'd say.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
And it complicates things a lot that you know, as
I said, the terrain is not. I mean, this guy
ain't hiding in the middle of a bat room. You know,
an urban area where you know all your side streets
and it's really easy to spot somebody. I mean, he's
picture being in the middle of just nothingness, and that's

(14:25):
where he's at. So you're right. I mean, it's gonna
come down to someone actually spotting. And the frustrating thing
is they soil. Yeah, the head and the helicopter had
a beat on him and he slipped through their cracks.
And I'm sure no one's more frustrating than the police
are right now that uh, there was a good shot
at him, But look, you can't stay out there forever.
You're gonna run out of food eventually.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
He seems to be so mentally ill at this point
based on everything that I've read, and even the mom
before this happened, or when the kids were still missing,
was saying, you know, he was a good dad his kids,
He was involved until he broke and so I'm not
convinced this will end very well.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah, I'm not either. This will probably be one of
those shootout situations.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
If I'm guessing either that or he you know, maybe
he'll just go until he can't anymore because he's.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
Just well not after what he did. Square.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, I mean, I'm not pressed either way. All right,
Let's move on to Arkansas. Grant Harden, an escaped Arkansas
inmate known as the Devil in the Ozarks, has been
taken into custody. The Izard County Sheriff's office this past Friday.
Said Harden is a convicted murderer and rapist, and he
was reported missing from prison on May twenty fifth. Harden

(15:42):
was taken into custody by county authorities just a short
distance from the North Central Unit in Calico Rock. The
Arkansas Department of Corrections said Harden managed to escape by
impersonating a law enforcement official. He passed off as one.
In dress manner caused the corrections officer operating a secure
game to open the gate and allow inmate Harden to

(16:03):
walk away from the North Central Unit. Board of Corrections
member Benny Magnus said Harden was captured about a mile
from the unit in the woods with the help of
specialized border patrol units. Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Arkansas
can be relieved that he has caught thanks to the
great work of local, state and federal law enforcement Arkansas
can breathe a sigh of relief and I can confirm

(16:23):
that violent criminal Grant Harden is back in custody. Sanders said,
I'm grateful for all law enforcement who contributed to his
capture and give special thanks to the Trump administration and
Secretary Christinoum, who sent a team from Border Patrol that
was instrumental in tracking and apprehending Harden. A twenty twenty
three television documentary titled titled Devil and the Ozarks drew

(16:44):
national attention to Harden. Harden had been serving a thirty
year sentence for murder in the fatal shooting a fifty
nine year old James Appleton, for which he was arrested
in twenty seventeen, and he was also serving a fifty
year sentence for raping an Arkansas elementary school teacher in
nineteen ninety seven. What do you think?

Speaker 1 (17:01):
I think that it's pretty good that we actually have
one that got caught after covering one still on the
loose and look grand Harden stone cold murderer, period and rapist.
But I mean, this guy will kill you as quick
as a look at you. What made him so dangerous
on the run. Keep in mind, he's a former chief

(17:23):
of police. He knows how law enforcement works, and so
it made him difficult to catch. To start with, the
way that he escaped, total black eye for the state
of Arkansas. I mean, you put on a freaking uniform
and walk right up the front door. You didn't jump
a gate, someone opened it for you. And this is

(17:44):
a very high profile inmate. This is not This is
not somebody that was arrested for jaywalking. This is a
guy that was a chief of police. He dominated the
Arkansas headlines. You think we're here in Louisiana, it would
be equivalent to Derek Todd Lee being let out of jail.

(18:06):
I mean, how the hell he got out? Yeah, And
I'm crazy.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
I'm curious about this too, because I mean, we have
what's called out of area in prisons and jails. I mean,
there's an area you're allowed to be in. And it
seems like not only was he out of area number one,
number two where you got that uniform from. There's going
to be more to this. There's gonna be more.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
Well it was, from what I understand, it was homemade.
He made it.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, but but officer uniforms in no way shape or
form will resemble what an inmate wears. So how he
got anything that would even resemble an officer? Where did
that come from? Because all inmates, for example, at Angola,
your inmates are going to be in like the chambray
blue top or a white T shirt and jeans, or

(18:50):
they may be in they have clubs out there. They
might be in a club T shirt or something like that.
But they're not going to be in a button down,
blue starched with a patch uniform. It's nowhere near the same.
And so I am curious to know how was he
in that area? I mean, it sounds like he walked
out into a sally port? Is that what it was?
Operating a secure gate to open the gate to all out? Yeah,

(19:11):
so let him out? What that either completely and totally
inept employees. And another thing is based on my experience
in jails, because there's so many employees and sometimes they're
so large, they'll have employee boards up on the up
on the wall and they'll have pictures with names of
employees and you can kind of validate. So this was
absolute lapse in security and they better have a talking

(19:35):
to with those employees.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, yeah, that I agree, And I'm sure some policy
is going to change and some heads are going to
roll over that situation. We're glad to see grain Harden
back behind bars. Look, I research and cover a lot
of crime, and when I came across this, I'm like,
the links people will go to over a divorce is

(20:00):
just amazing. Wait till you hear this an Alabama Cara practor.
He is accused of attempting to kill his wife by
lacing her pills with lad and he is insisting he
was also a victim of being poisoned, So let me
tell you about it.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
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Speaker 1 (20:20):
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Speaker 2 (20:28):
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Speaker 1 (20:31):
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Crime Wire Weekly 6/13/25 | U.S. Marshal’s Enact “RAM” to Hunt Travis Decker, Man Arrested After Tossing Raccoon In Bar (Preview)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Crime Wire Weekly 6/13/25 | U.S. Marshal’s Enact “RAM” to Hunt Travis Decker, Man Arrested After Tossing Raccoon In Bar (Preview)