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Father, Travis Decker, reportedly voiced concerns about the possibility of imprisonment just a few days before he allegedly took the lives of his three daughters, as revealed by recently released audio recordings.
Decker, who is currently a fugitive, was allegedly involved in a car collision with another motorist in Wenatchee, Washington, on May 27, merely three days ahead of a scheduled custody visit.
His daughters, Paityn, Evelyn, and Olivia, were discovered deceased down an embankment near the Rock Island Campground, approximately two hours from Seattle, on June 2. Authorities are seeking Decker in connection with their deaths.
It has been almost two months since the Decker girls’ deaths and the 32-year-old remains a wanted man.
Decker is said to have crashed into a driver while waiting at a stop light, and Wenatchee cops have released video of his interaction with an officer.
The father, who didn’t have insurance, said he was “in transit” after being asked where he was living, according to the police footage shared by the NBC affiliate KING-TV.
Decker was warned he would likely receive a ticket for driving without insurance, but he expressed fears about if he would be arrested.
“I’m not going to jail tonight?” he asked the officer.
“Oh, no no, you won’t be going to jail. That’s an infraction.
“That’s not a criminal offense.”
Decker then asked if he would be arrested if he was caught driving without a license.
“That depends,” the officer replied.
Decker then said he was curious, claiming he didn’t know about the law.
He reportedly had to be told by the driver he wouldn’t be going to jail.
In the video, Decker seemed to be fidgeting and he was seen leaning on his truck.
At certain times, it looked as if he was bored based on his body language and posture.
“I could tell he was not in his full senses,” the driver told the NBC affiliate KING-TV.
Timeline of the missing Decker girls
Paityn, 9; Evelyn, 8; and Olivia Decker, 5, were found dead at a campground after they were last seen on a custody visit to their dad.
Below is a timeline of events:
May 29: Cell phone activity shows that the girls’ dad, Travis Decker, drove to the Rock Island Campground and left.
May 30: 5 pm – Travis Decker picks the three girls up from their mom, Whitney Decker.
8 pm – Travis Decker is supposed to return the girls but doesn’t. Whitney Decker calls him and it goes to voicemail.
9:45 pm – Whitney Decker calls the Wenatchee Police Department to report her daughters missing.
Travis Decker’s truck is seen driving westbound on Highway 2.
Washington State Patrol is contacted for an Amber Alert but said the situation didn’t match their criteria.
May 31 : WPD issues an Endangered Missing Persons Alert.
June 2: 3:45 pm – Travis Decker’s truck is found empty at Rock Island Campground with two bloody handprints and items inside.
5 pm – Cops search the area and find the bodies of the three girls.
June 3: 9:30 am – Cops notify the public that they are still searching for Decker.
2 pm – WPD tells the public that the three girls were found dead and that Travis Decker is still on the loose.
June 8: Federal authorities take over search efforts.
June 9: Autopsy results confirm three girls were murdered by suffocation.
June 13: An affidavit revealed Whitney described Travis as having “recent mental health concerns.”
“She provided the examples of randomly leaving or waking her up by screaming at her in the middle of the night,” it read.
“She also said near the end of the marriage he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder that she believes he currently does not take medications for.”
June 17: New audio of Travis in court fighting for custody of his daughters is released.
“I understand that my current position when I’m by myself isn’t ideal, but my daughters aren’t a part of that,” he said in September 2024.
“I only get to see them over the weekends and camping is something that the four of us have done since the three of them were in diapers.”
June 20: Memorial is held where Whitney speaks publicly about girls for first time.
July 5: A family spotted a man believed to be Travis Decker in the Sawtooth National Forest in Idaho.
July 9: US Marshals call off the search in Sawtooth National Forest after locating and questioning the man believed to be Travis Decker and confirming it isn’t him.
The driver Decker crashed into was not injured.
Decker collected his girls from his ex-wife Whitney’s home on May 30 at around 5pm.
He was supposed to return them to their mom three hours later, but failed to do so.
The girls were reported missing by the mom before being found at the rural campground.
Cops launched the search for Decker after his girls’ bodies and his truck were found
There was blood on the truck’s tailgate.
Chelan County police believe the blood matches Decker’s DNA profile.
This allowed cops to rule they didn’t suspect any other individuals were involved in the Decker girls’ deaths.
Medical examiners ruled the Decker girls died by asphyxiation after they were found with plastic bags over their heads.
More than $6 million has been spent in the search for Decker.
Whitney said she hopes Decker would be found either dead or alive.
“It’s very, very important to her so that she can have peace,” her attorney Arianna Cozart told NewsNation.
Cozart then revealed Whitney didn’t have a preference.
I’m not going to jail tonight?”
Travis Decker to cops
“I think that she knows that if he is found alive, he’ll never be able to answer the questions that she might have to a point where it would give her peace,” she added.
“I think that her main focus is just that he’s found one way or the other.”
Decker and Whitney split around 2022, according to her lawyer, and he reportedly tried to rekindle his marriage.
In a petition, she claimed he tried to reconcile their marriage – just one week before the girls’ deaths.
Decker, a former military man, served in Afghanistan for four months in 2014 and Whitney claimed he would sometimes wake up in the night and scream, according to court documents seen by the ABC affiliate KFSN-TV.
In the legal papers, she claimed he was diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder.
And, she recalled how she received a call from one of Decker’s work colleagues, who was concerned about his mental health.
The colleague feared Decker was “on the brink.”
Decker was said to have counseling sessions with a Georgia pastor but had suddenly canceled the calls – around one month before his daughters were found dead.
And, Decker’s brother, TJ, also discussed the struggles he was having after leaving the military.
“It’s not just your day; this is my identity as well. When you get out of the military and take off that uniform, you lose your identity,” he told NPR’s KUOW.
MENTAL HEALTH FEARS
TJ recalled how his relationship with Decker used to be more positive.
“Before that, we were bulls****ing, talking on the phone all the time,” he said.
A raft of law enforcement teams have been involved in the search for Decker.
The US Coast Guard at Air Station Astoria are now cooperating with the Washington State Patrol SWAT team.
Investigators have even combed locations around 500 miles from where the Decker girls were found dead.
A tip-off saw cops investigate an area of Idaho’s Sawtooth National Forest, but it didn’t lead to an arrest or a discovery.
And a tent was found one mile from where the Decker girls remains were found.
It was initially thought the tent, which cops said was haphazardly erected, belonged to Decker but further investigation ruled out any link.
