Travis Decker - Manhunt /// Part 1 /// 850 | Forensic Files

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[Music] It's now been more than two weeks since Travis Decker disappeared. The father's
accused of kidnapping and killing his three young daughters you see here on your screen. And as the search for him
continues, we're hearing his voice for the first time. Your honor, I think it's important that these girls get the
opportunity to be with their dad. I also think that it's important for them to understand a little bit about the world.
That audio was recorded from a custody hearing in September of last year. Now, during that hearing, Decker was fighting
to keep custody of the girls on weekends. He also claimed he never did anything unsafe with them. Now,
yesterday, lawmakers, community members, and advocates gathered in Seattle to hold a moment of silence for Payton,
Olivia, and Evelyn, and called for stronger child safety laws and changes in how Amber alerts are issued. Kathy
Sherlock's seven-year-old daughter, Kaden, was murdered by her father during a court-ordered unsupervised parenting
visit seven years ago. And despite her efforts, an Amber Alert was not issued in her daughter's case. She since
created Cadence Law, a federal act to keep children safe from family violence. It's now in 10 states, but not here in
Washington. maybe if I was here to show up to the Olympia State Capital that maybe these little girls
would be here. My heart is broken for the Decker family. I send my love to Whitney and everyone involved. But mom,
I know what it's like to lose a child this way. I don't want any other mother to have to feel this suffering again.
Their calls for change come as the Kitatas County Sheriff's Office is urging people headed into the woods this
Father's Day weekend to be vigilant and alert to anything unusual, especially in
and around the Tiana Valley and Blue Pass. The Chalan County Sheriff's Office handed off the search for Decker to US
Border Patrol and US Marshals. Investigators advise anybody who sees Decker to call 911, but if you have
anything else to report, you can also call the number that you see on your screen right here. The United States
Marshall Service is offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading directly to Travis Decker's arrest. The
public, meantime, is invited to honor Payton, Oliv Evelyn, and Olivia at a memorial planned next Friday at Rocky
Reach Park in Wanachi. Organizers are encouraging everybody to wear pink, purple, and green because those were the
girls favorite colors. [Music] We are going out to Washington State to the city of Wan that aka the apple
capital of the world. This is a little more than 35,000 people. But factor in the total population of the very nearby
communities all-encompassing, we're talking well over 100,000 people. This is right on the Columbia River and right
next door to the Cascade Mountains. Lots of orchards and some really great wineries in this area as well. We will
start this week's true crime story kicking things off just a few weeks back. So, let's go back to Friday, May
30th, 2025 at approximately 9:30 p.m. We have 35year-old mother of three Whitney Decker, who arrived at the Wache
Police Department. The woman appeared to be very distraught and she had clearly been crying for some time, but had no
visible signs of having been attacked or injured in any manner. Once in the lobby
for the department building, she requested a patrol officer so she may file a civil complaint. Give me the gist
of your situation, ma'am. The officer asked the sobbing woman. She told the officer that her ex-husband, his name is
Travis Caleb Decker, was expected to return their three children to her at 8:00 p.m. that night, but had not done
so, and she cannot reach him via cell phone. And this was in violation of their agreed upon and court-ordered
parenting plan. All right, let's set the table here just a bit just so everyone will know what is going on. Whitney
Decker and Travis Decker at one time were married. They had three beautiful little girls together and then they
split and got a divorce. At the time that Whitney is filing this complaint, the two had been separated for several
years. Along with that divorce, they had a parenting plan in place. This is court
ordered, but sounds like the parents had some say so in this or at least some suggestions for the court on how that
this may work out the best for all involved with the three kids of course being of and should be of the utmost
concern for all parties. In September of last year 2024, a judge signed off and issued the current parenting plan under
which these two mom and dad, Whitney and Travis, were to operate. Under this judge issued plan, the mother Whitney
has full custody of the three girls. with dad Travis. He has a visitation that is allowed every other weekend with
specific hours of visitation set for Fridays between the hours of 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Saturdays from 11:00 a.m.
to 7:00 p.m. and then Sundays from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. I will say this is from an affidavit that was filed with
the court. So I have to go when when you have a court document like this, you cannot say 100% that every word, every
period, everything in this document is 100% factual. But you will get more facts in a court
document than you will in any online article out there. So, this is I feel very strongly about the information that
was that I was able to review in this affidavit. I will say this though, Captain, before we march on any further,
I have seen other documentation that seems just as legit that says that the visitation on Sundays was only
allowable between the hours of 9:00 a.m. to 700 p.m. Now, note the cuto off time
for all three of those days. There's no overnight stays for the girls that are set out by this plan that a judge issued
in September of last year. So, every other weekend for Travis's time with his daughters and that does include a Friday
option with the visitation times following during the time windows provided by the court. And this has to
be local. This is not, you know, he has to keep the kids in the local area. Travis is not to take the kids outside
of the Wan that Valley area. This court order also specifies that he has no overnight privileges. So on this Friday
night, May 30th, the kids, and this is the three daughters, little girls that we are talking about, they were to be
returned by 8:00 p.m. that night, no later. Now, this has not happened. So, this is why mom, mother Whitney is at
the police department because the kids have not been returned and she cannot get in touch with her ex-husband. Yeah.
One of the things that are difficult in uh custody cases is every state is different. So, you don't know what
process they went through. Did they have to get a guardian adidum involved? But somebody has found him to be unfit to
have his daughters stay with him overnight. that there has to be a reason. Now, Travis Decker is 32 years
old at the time. He's a former US Army infantry man. He served from uh 2013 to 2021. He was deployed to Afghanistan in
2014. I think because of his his service to this country, you can applaud somebody for that. But there was there
was concerns by his ex-wife Whitney. I know she had petitioned the court. Now again, these custody battles, they could
go on for years and and if you have a guardian adlidum, there could be multiple visitations and interviews and
and it's a very long process. But the process continues until they're of 18 years of age where they can then make
their own decisions. But she had some concerns because she thought he was mentally unstable with um you know
possibly borderline personality disorder or possibly PTSD from his service. The girls names and their ages are Payton
who is nine, Evelyn who is eight, and Olivia who is five. if their father Travis did not return them at the
scheduled time that evening and therefore Whitney is now talking with the police trying to resolve the
situation. Whitney stated that Travis picked up the three daughters from her home right around 5:00 p.m. that night.
When he didn't return with the daughters by 8:00 p.m., she started calling his phone. She tried to reach him several
times. She reported that when she called Travis's cell phone, the call, all these
calls are going straight to voicemail. Typically an indicator that the phone is either a shut off or b without service
at that time. But Whitney's concerns do not end there. She also reported that Travis has been experiencing some
problems lately. And this is to echo some of what the captain has already presented. Whitney is saying that Travis
is having some mental health issues. She said he didn't have a stable residence and he is basically homeless at this
time, but had been staying on and off at motel and campgrounds. Because of his lack of a place to live,
she didn't have any real great idea about where to start looking for the girls. So, if Travis does not answer his
phone or for some reason cannot answer his phone, the only real viable options here is that Mama Whitney is driving
around aimlessly looking for them and or getting the police and other people involved. All right. So, this is not
good. But as a parent, look, it's still early on and you're hoping that there is
some kind of mixup or that some non-threatening event has slowed them down from getting home. But then you
have no, this is where this is where my mind and heart would be racing. You have
no zero, no communication, thus signaling that there is very likely something very, very wrong. Travis has
not called me. try. I can't get a hold of him. I th this I know it's early on, but I understand her her level of
concern here. We should also mention here, Captain, that Whitney told the officer that this was not typical.
Travis has never done this before. He has always returned the girls on time. So, this is seems to be out of character
or at least out of character per their arrangement thus far. Do we have any idea of how long he's been without a
home? That's a good question. And it's been reported several different ways going to some of the court documents and
documents that have been filed by different law enforcement agencies in this case. It appears that this was an
ongoing situation. and it wasn't wasn't very recent and may have been going on as long as the latter part of last year
of 2024. Now, I don't have I do want to be clear here to the listeners that I don't have a great idea of exactly
when he was without a stable residence or consistent residence. That would be concerning. I mean, you were married to
somebody. they spent time serving this country. He doesn't have a place to stay. I mean, even if you There's a lot
of people that get married and it doesn't work out, but they don't hate the person. They don't want to see them
suffer. They don't want to see the individual without a home. Especially when you have children with this person.
I mean, you may you it's easy to cut ties when you don't have ties, right? And and the the ties that bind are these
three children. whether your heart has a space for this man or not. Yes, it appears that that she does have concern
for him even without the children being involved. It does he does have regular work though. He has a job. I know that.
Now, is it is it seasonal? I can't say. I don't know exactly what he was doing for
a living during the time that they've been split up, but the reports are all consistent that he was working. So,
let's go back to the police station here on that Friday night. We have Wan that police officer. This is Corporal
Gonzalez. Corporal Gonzalez has the information. Took the report from Whitney. Now, this this is your first
thing, right? A a woman comes in distraught. She's crying. You very quickly have to sort out, is this lady
just some rando person in here that's crazy reporting something that's not even real or or do I need to jump into
action right away? So, the very first thing you can do is you call the cell phone number that she provides to you
that she says belongs to Travis. So, Corporal Gonzalez calls Travis's cell phone. As Whitney said, the phone goes
straight to voicemail. The outgoing message on the phone, it is a message identifying the phone as Travis's. So,
very likely a message that says something of the nature of, you know, you've reached Travis or you've reached
Travis Decker's phone. Please leave a message or I'm not available at this time. The officer immediately can
identify that the number that she says that belongs to her ex-husband, Travis Decker. The outgoing message confirms
that from an investigator standpoint, this is pretty easy stuff, right? You now know that this missing person's
report is very likely legit. So, missing person's report times three or times four if you wish, if you want to include
Travis in that, but the three you are concerned about due to the ages most are the are the children. But due to their
ages, most likely you if you're going to find them, you're going to find them together. Most likely you're going to
find them with their father unless something terrible has happened. So you're looking for Travis. That's your
first move as an investigator. And what do we always want, Captain? We want that
breadcrumb trail. When you don't have a crime scene, which we don't have one here, where you going to find that first
little piece of the breadcrumb trail, that first breadcrumb to start your trail to where you need to go? Simple
digital footprint and or paper trail. We have identified his phone. So, we've got
perhaps the best lead on a digital footprint, especially given the circumstances that Whitney has described
with Travis's living situation. His phone is likely what he is using most. Like most of us, but due to his
situation, it's not a big leap to say this may be his only device that he was using at the time. Can't say for sure,
but I feel confident saying this is his primary device. So digital identified. We will start to
follow. Now let's see if we can get a paper trail going here. What do we know from her story? He picked the girls up
on that Friday evening. What was he driving? Whitney told the officer that Travis drives a white pickup truck, but
she was unsure of the make and model. Now, a quick records check. Identify Travis's vehicle to be a white
2017 GMC Sierra. It's Washington plate D20165C. Now, we know his truck and plate
information. And again, we've said it a million times, it's easier to find a vehicle than it is to find a person.
Easier to find a phone than to find a person as well. Using this, what's going to be our next method? Let's go to the
flock cameras. We talked about flock cameras quite a bit in our killing for chaos episodes. That's the Nikita Cassap
case out of Waka, Wisconsin. Nailed it. Teenager Nikita is accused of killing his parents in order
to fund some bizarre halfbaked plan to overthrow the US government. Those episodes are 839 and 8:40 on your garage
radio dial. You know, I love the technology, Captain. I love the technology that's helping us catch
criminals on helping us locate people and save people. So, it's the eye in the sky time. Captain, shout out to Alan
Parsons. A quick aside here, flocks are automatic license plate reader cameras. They are somewhat common, especially in
more populated areas. Data, this is how we find people. This is how we catch criminals. the physical evidence. Data
can become physical evidence, which is very important in all of these cases. So, we're going to go to the flock
cameras. Flock cameras capture images of vehicle license plates and other details
such as make, model, and color. And in and in some of the more advanced sophisticated types, they can detect
noises and sounds. These images and data are stored and can be accessed by law enforcement to help
investigate crimes, locate stolen vehicles or wanted individuals. Flock Safety provides this technology to
various entities including but not limited to police departments. The law enforcement folks got hits in the Nikita
Cassap manhunt and boom goes the dynamite. We get a hit here as well on Travis Decker's truck. Boom. Officer
Gonzalez is checking all of the right boxes. So checks Travis's Travis Decker's vehicle registration through
flock safety and gets a hit. The vehicle/plate last registered an automatic read on the Wachi Bridge. So
for locals, I've never been to the great state of Washington. I've wanted to go there for quite some time now. Going to
make it out there one day, God willing. But for the locals, you will know that this is right at North Wan that Avenue
and Horse Lake Road. Okay. So, this location and the timestamp gives us some information and possibly some clues. So,
this was from 5:41 p.m. Friday evening. So, this has got to be shortly after picking up the kids.
The officers reviewing this believe that this is an indicator that Travis may be heading to
a motel, hotel or campground or Holiday Inn in the North End. So WPD will start checking with hotels
in the city as well as a place called Confluent State Park. They're checking to see if Travis and or his truck are
registered or listed at any one of these. The short of it is unfortunately no. We get no hits on locating Travis as
being at any of these establishments or at the Confluence State Park. We do have
a situation too that after they take this report and after they're able to confirm the authenticity of some of the
statements given by the mother, they did contact the Wachi Police Department. They did contact the missing person's
unit. And while they agreed that there should be concern and that the girl should be
considered missing and possibly endangered there, they decided not to issue an Amber Alert. And this is always
a sticky situation because people get in a big uproar about, well, why wasn't there an Amber Alert issued? Especially
when you can look in the rear view mirror, objects are closer than they than they are, and and you go with
hindsight, the powers of hindsight, you say, "Well, why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do everything you possibly
can do?" Well, there there are specific parameters for issuing an Amber Alert, and that does vary by jurisdiction.
We've gone through I don't want to go through the list again. There's a there's a pretty general list of of the
parameters to for issuing this report or this alert I should say, but again it does vary depending on the state and or
jurisdiction within that state. Now I get that people get in an uproar but I've also been sitting with people and
an Amber alert goes off on their phones. You know that loud man, you get one of those things at 3 in the morning, you're
popping up right out of bed, right? You're popping up. What's going on? Every time I hear it at 3 in the
morning, I assume there's some kind of tornado hitting the area. But I've I've sat with people who could who could give
a [ __ ] They turn they just disregard it right away. So, I don't know if these are the same people that are up in arms
that that when Amber alerts are not issued. If it were up to me, Captain, we would issue them more often. But that
also takes away from the level of concern by the masses if if you're getting hit with these things with a
high frequency. Yeah. But a couple things when you have the wife and her story checks out and I know there's a
lot of because the police get called about a lot of custody issues and there could be a situation where the
ex-husband is supposed to have the kids all weekend but they made other arrangements.
Somehow the ex gets mad at at the the other ex so he doesn't return the kids but he legally doesn't have to cuz he's
supposed to have them all weekend. But that's not the case. The case is this guy does not have privileges to have his
daughters overnight. He is not known to not return the kids on time. So he's known to be somewhat responsible, but
also PTSD, also maybe some other mental instabilities. So these kids then could be in danger just in general. Yeah.
Yeah. Or they could be in danger from their own father because he possibly has these mental issues. Yeah. And and I
won't circle around this for too long because I don't have a great opinion on this matter. Um you know, we've again it
goes back to what is the criteria. So, in some of the cases we've reviewed where you and I thought that an Amber
Alert should have gone out, they they didn't send one out because in some jurisdictions, you need like suspect
information, right? You need right description. You need a vehicle information. If it's some kid that was
pulled off the street, snatched off the street, they want vehicle information. In other jurisdictions, you don't need
the suspect description or vehicle description. here. Obviously, if you want to say that
the the ex-husband should be a suspect, at least it's it's very easy to say that
he is the one responsible for returning them and has not done so. You clearly have his information. So, that's not the
hiccup here. Apparently, here the hiccup was that when they reviewed this with the missing person's unit with So, and
this is a different outfit, too. the missing person's unit that they contacted, the Wanache Police
Department, they contacted the state police because I'm guessing that in Washington, it's the state police that
would issue the Amber Alert. And in many states, it is the state that the state police that do this. So, the state
police, from my understanding, not trying to throw anybody or any particular outfit under the bus, from my
understanding, it was the state police that said, "Well, we don't we don't want to issue one because we don't have
obvious and clear evidence that suggests that they are in danger." But it's weird
because at the same time you have the information coming out that they are they're immediately listed as missing
with possible endangerment. And I don't know, there's there's no great way to I love that we have the Amber
Alert system and I would never go back from not having it, but it like many other things we do is still flawed and
there's still room for improvement. And I and I hope that that each state will review this and continue to improve on
the Amber Alert. Now, we do need to point out here that by Saturday morning, Travis has still not returned the three
girls home to their mother. There has been zero communication from him. No one can reach him. No one can locate him or
the children. We have no additional hits on his truck at that time. One of the kids had an event scheduled for that
morning. She was not back in time for this event. The situation is getting more dire with every passing hour.
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Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling your friends. Cheers to you, Colonel. Yeah, cheers to you, Captain. Thanks to
all of you listeners that tune in each and every week, joining us here in the garage. It is straight up our pleasure
to have you here with us each and every week. Now, our timeline where we left off before the beer break was up to
about Saturday afternoon. Now, I do want to circle back to this court order. Okay, we have a court order here,
Captain. And this is how it is going to go. All right, Travis failed to return the girls by the Friday, May 30th, 8:00
p.m. Cutoff. Then moving our timeline forward, he failed to return the girls by the by Saturday, May 31st, 7:00 p.m.
deadline. And then again for a third time, Sunday, June 1st. And now this report states that the cut off for that
would be 5:00 p.m. The mandatory return time was 5:00 p.m. on Sundays. This brings us to Monday, June 2nd. here,
Captain. At 9:00 a.m., Travis Decker did not show up for his job, did not show up
to work. Police are now speaking with Travis's boss. The boss noted some mental health concerns. Not specific,
but kind of backing up what Mother Whitney was telling the police. And then we have all weekend long, the phone is
going straight to voicemail. And then this is true for Monday morning as well. And thus we get a probable cause arrest
warrant requested and granted by Judge Robert Jordan for the arrest of Travis Decker for three counts of custodial
interference in the first degree. But like I was saying, these custody issues, they they get difficult because not
everybody that is involved in a custody battle or custody issue, are they always
honest with the court system. So you have somebody in Whitney's situation saying, "Hey, look, for the most part,
he's responsible, but I can't trust him to have the girls overnight, or I think there's some mental issues that I think
he needs to address." and then maybe the c custody situation can change or the c
custody schedule can change. But these courts hear so many lies that you have to go through every claim and there has
to be a checks and balance system and and that doesn't serve the people that are trying to be honest with the court
system. Well, and I do want to point out here too as well, Captain, that this situation, the way that I understand it,
between Travis Decker and his ex-wife Whitney Decker, this is not a Betty Brick, Daniel Brick type split up
custody battle situation where you have mom or dad calling the police once a week with allegations and trying to get
the kids and all that. that it wasn't this super volatile, highly, you know, incredibly messy situation. It was it
seemed to be it seemed to be going along pretty swimmingly up until this point. Now, again, there are concerns with
Travis from several parties, but it seems to be the the the court issued parenting plans seem to be working out
right now later that day. So, we're at Monday morning here, but later that day, we get some very some very sad news.
This is just before 4 p.m. on Monday, June 2nd in Chellain County. We have a deputy finds locates Travis Decker's
truck. So, finds the truck unoccupied in the area of Rock Island campground in Levvenworth, Washington. This is off of
Icicle Road. This is approximately 50 minutes 50 minutes drive from where the girls live. Now I want to be very clear
that's very approximate. This is this area is quite complicated to look at and to
convey from a storyteller's perspective. Now, I want to go to the affidavit for this next bit of information directly
from the affidavit because there's a lot of reports out there and this is a this
is a story that is catching a lot of eyeballs, a lot of earballs all around the nation. And when there's a rush to
report, you got to be concerned about the reporting. I've seen a lot of great reporting on on this case, but there's
also some stuff that you have to sift through because there is speculation, especially with the early reports coming
out. Not criticizing because when you come to the garage, you get a heavy dose of speculation. Yeah. But look, that's
it's a it's a simple problem that we have. People trying to be first as opposed to trying to be right. Yeah.
Let's be right, not first. Captain and I are striving to improve every day ourselves. All right. Yeah, we're trying
to be right and last. Right and last and buried in the garage. Okay, this is directly from the affidavit. So, this is
directly from law enforcement. law enforcement personnel from the Chellain County Sheriff's Office and Wan that
Police Department along helicop along with helicopter support from Homeland Security Investigations converged into
the area the area that we just mentioned that Rock Island campground off of Icicle Road. Think of what the first
part of this affidavit says. The sheriff's office, the police department. Now, the sheriff's office makes sense
because they're going to have better resources than the Wanache Police Department, but the Wanache Police
Department is the one that took the initial report from the mother, but we also get helicopter support from
Homeland Security Investigations. So, they're not taking this lightly, and there's lots of persons and a lot of
resources being pulled in very quickly to try to locate these three girls. The report states that approximately 75 to
100 yards beyond where the vehicle where Travis Decker's truck was located, this
is down a small embankment, the sheriff's office deputies located the bodies of three schoolaged children. And
the affidavit goes on to state, "Due to the current current safety concerns and the scene preservation, the bodies have
yet to be approached, but there are some clear signs of levidity. Each have plastic bags over their head or a
plastic bag over the head. based on the totality of the circumstances, including
the proximity to the vehicle and visible attire of the bodies, which is consistent with the clothing the
children were wearing when they were transferred from Whitney to Travis for visitation.
Look, from what they're saying is from afar, we're not approaching the the these victims because they they're
obviously have passed by this time, right? and and we're limiting the they probably sent
personnel. My guess would be one person in there to uh confirm this because in case they could be helped or could be
saved, you got to send somebody in there. But you're sending limited personnel in there, whether it be one,
two, or three persons, I wouldn't send any more than three because you don't want to contaminate this area. And we've
already talked about on many cases, especially Deli, Amy Mahalavik, and several other cases, the complications
with an outdoor crime scene. This is now an outdoor crime scene. This is a public
area. This is nature. Mother nature's always in control. We're just the weak little small people that live uh by
under her rule. Well, if you're law enforcement, don't you think you have to be concerned? Like you said, we we found
his truck, but then a distance away from the truck, we see this tent. From our vantage point, we can see uh some items
or some clothing that's connected to a child and that's the same clothing that was described to law enforcement. But
one you have to be worried like you said about contaminating the scene. It's a it's a indoor it's an outdoor case, but
in some ways this is good for law enforcement because all the stuff should be contained with inside that tent. But
I would think that you'd have to have some concern as law enforcement of this guy served in the military for quite a
long time. Where is he at? We don't see him in the truck. We from our vantage point, we don't see him in the tent, but
we don't know if he's perched somewhere and waiting for people to show up. And we don't know what this guy's capable
of. You nailed it. That that's got to be a concern. and and just you say perched,
that's spoton because from that vantage point, he would have an advantage over any of the officers if he were elevated
above them. And given the description of where the bodies were found, it it it's
down a hill or down into this ravine area. And you have to applaud law enforcement
officers that were willing to take that chance to see if any of these victims possibly were not dead yet and that
maybe that they could help. You have to applaud them for taking that risk. Yeah.
And the the concern here too is is obvious, right? They they know based off of everything that they're seeing that
the three kids they were looking for, unfortunately, they believe they found them. They found them in a in a way that
that nobody wanted to find them. But per for the purpose of this document, this document is being filed and requested to
be granted at 9:00 a.m. the following morning. So, this is less than 24 hours after the discovery of the truck and
these three bodies. So, you have to be factual when you are asking for a judge to sign off on something and they're
just simply giving them the facts as they understand them at the time of this filing. So, they're going to do their
due diligence later to confirm, which would probably be taking place that night and early in the morning on June
3rd to confirm that the three victims are who they think they are. And unfortunately, they it turns out to be
just that. Now, what is the purpose of this filing? Well, they're they're filing another arrest
warrant. They're seeking another arrest warrant for Travis Decker upon finding the truck and the bodies because they're
they're now seeking a murder, a triple homicide arrest warrant as opposed to the
child custody interference warrant that they already had from Monday morning. It
It's so It's so sad to think Travis Decker serves this country, goes to war. Anybody that wants to protect my
freedoms is a is a hero. Something happened. Something snaps. something's not right mentally or
I keep telling people the more we do the show the more I realize there's just evil in this world and there's good and
sometimes it doesn't seem like the the good is winning out you have three daughters n 9 years old 8 years old and
5 years old and we find them zip tied and suffocated with bags on their head this is this is uh you can't imagine and
what the hell is going on in this guy's head. Yeah, there's nothing about this story that is good at
all. And it's and it's one of those, man, that's the tight rope that I was walking all week long looking into this
because like you said, somebody that protects our freedom, somebody that serves the country, somebody that goes
overseas and and does something that none of us really truly want to have to do, defend our lives, defend our
countries, defend our families, but would do when called upon. But it's also one of those things, man. It's hero
status is earned, but it can be taken away. Yeah, you can lose hero status. And and I will say that the one thing
that I found to be compelling and to be insightful was the sheriff of Chellane County who says this is sheriff
I believe his name is Michael Morrison and he said that we went through the definition of a soldier multiple times
in our coverage hate Americanmade when we got to Timothy McVey. And one of the parts of being a US
soldier, an American soldier in in any branch of our military is to serve with honor. And the sheriff points out,
Sheriff Mike Morrison points out that nothing that this man is accused of is honorable in any form or fashion. And so
he has a hard time referring to him as a soldier because he thinks he, as he stated, it completely takes away from
what all of those other soldiers have done for our country and for each and every one of us. And I can't even begin
to imagine what Whitney is feeling through all this. I mean purely this is simply innocent innocent lives that
didn't need to be lost. We talk regularly. We regularly cover senseless murders and senseless
killings. This goes beyond the definition of that. This is incomprehensible. So, continuing on in the affidavit here,
Captain, it says, uh, Decker's Travis Decker's location is currently unknown, and there is currently a coordinated
effort to search the immediate area, if not further, for him. So, the scene we have can be searched around the vehicle
along the way to where the children were located. Officers/deputes located zip ties and plastic bags strewn
throughout the area. The tailgate of the pickup truck also has what appears to be
two handprints of blood. Yeah. On them. The truck has personal items to include.
So, like you pointed out, tent find some items in the tent. They find some of these items strewn about the area, but
we're also going to have the inside of the truck that's going to contain some personal items as well. And the the
items that they chose to list here for the purpose of this document were blankets, car seats, food, miscellaneous
items, a wallet, and they state that the wallet was found on the center console.
I'm not seeing it. Um, and we'll continue on here, but the I've seen several reports that his cell phone was
found inside the truck. Yeah, seems like he he has taken off, but how much how much did he take off with? I
mean, you would probably have to assume because he was a soldier that he owns firearms. So, did he take off in the
woods with a backpack with a bunch of supplies and guns or that that I I think that becomes a a difficult thing for law
enforcement is what his his motivation for taking off. And somebody could be listening to this and going, "Captain,
are you stupid? He just killed his children. That's his motivation for taking off." But I'd say it's not that
simple because his motivation for taking off could be to take his own life. It might not necessarily just be like, I'm
running to freedom. Yeah. Right. His motivation could be to get to a a certain location and to take his own
life. Or again, if you're law enforcement, is he trying to flee or is he trying to have a standoff somewhere?
Well, and there's some psychology in there, too, that is above my pay grade. But when we reviewed, hey, I pay you
good money to be a doctor. Yeah. The captain pays me weekly. Very weekly. Um, the a buck 75. We reviewed in short, we
kind of did a short version of the Bradford Bishop case. a man who's never been located who murdered his entire
family and left them up in the Smoky Mountains where they were later recovered. And we've never reviewed the
John Liss case uh which is famous for being solved by the good people over at America's Most Wanted. When I say
solved, they their programming led to the to locating John List who killed his mother and uh I believe it was his
mother and his entire family. Bishop did about pretty much the same thing. Killed
his mother and or her mother and the rest of the family. Now when I say there's some psychology involved there,
persons that were interviewed to review those case that are doctors have stated that that the thought is okay this man
husband father sets out to do this plan of leaving his family or killing his family and then leaving because he
killed them. But it's without without crawling inside the ear and up into the brain of this demented person. There's
no way to know what was the first goal. What was the first seed? What was the idea here? That I'm going to leave them
and because I'm leaving them, I'm going to eliminate them or I'm eliminating them and then I have to leave uh for my
own preservation. Let me know if you agree with this. all week. My feelings on this case, it it feels the same as
like Chris Watts or even Scott Peterson in the sense of like you could have you could just bowed
out, you know? You could have just said, "I don't want to be a dad. I I And List
and Bishop could have done the exact same thing." Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it's this feeling of like, okay,
like in the Chris Watts case, okay, you got a girlfriend, fine. whatever. Let your child be born and if
you're just not involved in their life, if you disappear, so what? You know, it doesn't make any sense.
And so your solution is to to kill your children. It It's beyond bizarre. Yeah. You don't have to
tell me. I'm a child of the 80s and the 90s and and you know it was few and far between but and not to make light of it
but there were a couple couple kids I knew, a couple friends I had that it was the
old cliche dad left one day to go out and pick up a pack of cigarettes and he never came
home. Yeah. you know, and then sometimes in the 70s and 80s, you you find out that the father lived
like three blocks over and the the kids never knew. But hey, had another family the entire time. Say what you will, but
that's on the low totem pole of pieces of [ __ ] I mean, you want to be king of pieces of [ __ ] you know? Yeah. That's a
dingleberry compared to a full giant turd here. And the Yeah. So, with Peterson, that guy angers me to
no end because he is he's a walking uh 5 foot 10 lie. His whole life is a lie. Everything about him is a lie. He's
he's a facade. He's he's he's hollow inside. There's no soul, no guts, no no nothing. He doesn't care anything about
anybody. Uh he he didn't want to have kids. Never wanted to have kids, I believe. never really wanted to be tied
down in a marriage and that's why he did his despicable acts. And Chris Watts, I
don't know, I don't know if he never wanted to have kids. I think that he probably did because he had several of
them and was in this marriage for a considerable time compared to Peterson. But he's a monster because he just I I I
wiped out my family for a a secret love interest. And then with with bishop and list, you have two completely different
scenarios where I think I think that it is more in line with this scenario because Travis doesn't seem to have or
doesn't appear to have he doesn't need to eliminate any family member because he's having some secret relationship.
He's not in a marriage anymore. And with List and with Bishop, they their lives were failing. Their lives were failing.
And Travis's life is failing. He's he's flawed and he's a failed man. I if he's got ailments, I apologize, but but I I'm
not going to apologize for what he did. He's still despicable. And so that I think it's more in line with Bishop and
with List. And there is again some psychology of well I'm going to hit the reset button and it's better for you all
that I get rid of you before before I do hit the reset button because I can't because I can't save you because I can't
take care of you because I didn't do my duty to you as a father as as a husband as a protector as a provider then I'm
going to hit the reset button. You guys won't be included. I think that really truly there's a lot more. Let's take the
psychology out of it and let's take the psych the potential psychosis out of it and all all of these situations that we
just discussed. And it's it's the most incredible incredibly selfish act that I've ever seen ever heard of in in my
entire life. Yeah. And I it'd be interesting to know was was Travis uh Decker the type of
individual that kept on trying to get a second chance or was I've not heard any statements about that. But you just
wonder if that maybe is part of the motivation that he couldn't ever put Humpty Dumpty back together again and
this is his is the result or the solution to his problems that he created in his mentally unstable head because
whether or not he's been diagnosed with anything, you have to be mentally unstable to kill your 9year-old, your
eight-year-old, and your 5-year-old daughter. That's that's it's I was watching this thing the other day and
they're talking about, you know, there there's no crime in history that has been known as like a sacrifice or ritual
or whatever, you know, this whole satanic panic. But if if these things aren't evil by nature, then I don't know
what they are. No. Yeah. There's no other way to describe them, especially if you're if you're forced to into a box
to do give a description with just one simple word. I'll continue on this affidavit here. It says, "During the
search of the area, an abandoned camp was located nearby with signs of recent activity. The camp
consists of a fire pit, tent, cooler, and within a short walk from where the vehicle and bodies were located. Let's
let's go to the the cell phone record information that is listed here. It says that Travis Deckard's cell phone
information showed that he likely traveled to the area." So to this specific area where
his truck and the bodies were found that he had traveled there on Thursday, May 29th in the evening. So that was
approximately, let's say, 24 hours before he picked up his children. He traveled to this area. Now, we do know
that he's staying. He may have just been simply staying there. This may not have
been to scout it out or to or to pre-plan anything, but his cell phone information says that
he was there or his phone was there the previous evening. And it also says that he returned
to that location Friday morning. The document continues, "Under the totality of the situation, it appears that Travis
Decker drove through the area the night prior and returned the next day with the
children. Preliminary examination suggests the likely cause of death was affixiation.
Their wrist, their children wrists were also zip tied or showed signs of being zip tied. They were also positively
identified. So, we now know that they were very quickly identified as as the victims that they we thought they were.
And it states that this is probable cause to arrest Travis Caleb Decker for three counts of murder in the first
degree and three counts of kidnapping in the first degree. [Music] If you'd like to support True Crime
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garage 2025 for 25% off. That code should work for the next uh 2 weeks or so. Stick around for part two. And until
then, be good, be kind, and don't litter. [Music]

Travis Decker - Manhunt /// Part 1 /// 850

Part 1 of 2

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Washington state - 32 year old Travis Decker is believed to be on the run and may have made his way into Canada. The 32 year old former military father is accused of kidnapping and murdering his three young daughters. Decker had limited visitation rights to see his three daughters every other weekend. On Friday, May 30th he never returned them to their mother and home. Travis Decker is described as 5 foot 8 inches tall with black hair and brown eyes. He has several tattoos and at the time he had a ponytail and facial hair. He may be armed and is considered to be extremely dangerous. Do not approach Travis Decker, call 911.

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Brief Summary

Travis Decker is accused of kidnapping and killing his three daughters, leading to a tragic investigation and community outcry.

Key points

Travis Decker's Disappearance. Travis Decker is missing, and his father is accused of kidnapping his daughters.
Calls for Child Safety Laws. Community members gather to demand stronger child safety laws after a tragic loss.
Whitney Decker's Distress. Whitney Decker reports her ex-husband has not returned their children as scheduled.
Amber Alert Controversy. The decision not to issue an Amber Alert raises questions about the criteria used.
Tragic Discovery. Authorities locate the bodies of three missing children, leading to a murder investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

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Host Nick welcomes listeners.

1:21WatchJun 17, 2025

Tension

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