A pair of mid-tier Columbus-area YouTubers caught some additional attention from Ohio’s DNR by filming their not-so-legal “hunting adventures” over a five years period, and are now set to pay the price for it.
Instead of YouTube plaques, William Bethel, 28, and Justin Booth, 23, who ran a channel called Creek Kings Outdoors, were handed a plethora of charges after a joint investigation by both the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife and Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks caught them filming their illegal exploits inside Three Creeks Metro Park. Between 2019 and 2024, officials alleged that the pair killed a number of deer inside the Park’s boundaries, as well as a few others taken on nearby private property. While the boys originally claimed the deer came from neighboring Kentucky, a bit of police work (read: video evidence uploaded to YouTube) soon revealed those animals never left the Buckeye State.
The case started in February 2024 when a park visitor found trail cameras and tree stands deep in Three Creeks Metro Park, just after deer season ended. Park ranger supervisor Stephan Brook eventually got in touch with Ohio wildlife officer Mark Williams, and together, they seized the abandoned equipment and waited to see if the pair would return to the same spot the following season. They did.
Creek Kings bust | Ohio DNR
As the investigation began to blossom well beyond locating the initial stands, Officer Williams was soon able to determine that every deer featured on the Creek Kings channel was killed or possessed illegally in some way, shape or form. Adding insult to injury, Williams and his team was also able to prove that neither man had any records of completing hunter education, and Bethel (who went by Zach on the channel), had taken multiple deer before he ever obtained a license or deer permit.
Given that the channel mixed hunting videos with fishing content, product reviews, and sponsorships, this case was framed by Ohio DNR officers as something of a modern version of wildlife commercialization in which the product being sold was not meat, but the image of successful hunting.
After over a year of piecing together the timeline using evidence, Bethel and Booth were charged in September of 2025. As was reported by the Ohio DNR on Friday, just eight months later, our camera-wielding criminals have since each pleaded guilty to 20 counts. Those charges included hunting deer without a permit, hunting in closed season, hunting without permission, criminal trespass, possessing untagged deer parts, possessing illegally taken deer, and failing to properly check deer. Additional counts covered taking more than one antlered deer in a license year and obstructing official business.
For their actions, Bethel and Booth were ordered to pay a combined $29,219 in restitution. When it was all said and done, complete with fines, fees, and court costs included, the total financial penalty reached over $37,000. Each of the two men also was hit with a nine-day jail sentence to be served during the 2026-27 hunting season, with an additional 531 days suspended. Both were placed on five years of reporting probation, barred from Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks properties for the duration of that probation, and stripped of hunting, fishing, and trapping privileges for five years.
“The resolution of this case would not have been possible without the joint efforts of the Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks, the Ohio State Highway Patrol Computer Crimes Unit, and the assistant prosecutors of the Franklin County and City of Columbus prosecutors’ offices assigned to the Franklin County Environmental Court,” the release read. “The ODNR Division of Wildlife offers its heartfelt gratitude to the men and women of these agencies for their hard work, patience, and unwavering commitment to justice.”
