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00:00:37
[Music] Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, thanks
00:01:14
for listening. I'm your host Nick and with me is a man doing this show today because his car won't start. Here is the
00:01:21
captain. Somebody told me you have to put some gas in it. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for
00:01:26
listening. Thanks for telling a friend. This week we are drinking Tower Station India Pale Ale by the good folks over at
00:01:37
Mother Road Brewing Company. This is from the great city of Flagstaff, Arizona. This is an unfiltered IPA with
00:01:45
aromomas of tangerine and pineapple. They used pillzner and pale malts and you get a nice grapefruit peel and pine
00:01:53
finish. ABV 7.3% garage grade four and 3/4 bottle caps out of five. Let's give some thanks and praise to our good
00:02:02
friends who helped us fill up the old garage fridge for this week's shows. First up, a shout out to Patricia
00:02:09
Fesperman from Asheville. And a big we like your jib goes out to Denise and Celeste, Texas. Next up, captain, we
00:02:16
have a cheers to Caitlyn Wiltzy from Milford, New York. And last, but certainly not least, we have a
00:02:23
doublefisted cheers that goes out to the Pacific Coast to Rich and Marissa and Newberg, Oregon. Everybody we just
00:02:32
mentioned, they went to true crimegar.com, clicked on the pint class, donated to this week's beer fund, and
00:02:37
for that we thank you. Yeah, BW. Are you in? Be a run. For everything true crime,
00:02:43
check out true crimegar.com. While you're there, sign up on the mailing list. And Colonel, that's enough of the
00:02:48
bees. All right, everybody, gather around. Grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime.
00:02:58
[Music] It's now been more than two weeks since Travis Decker disappeared. The father's
00:03:36
accused of kidnapping and killing his three young daughters you see here on your screen. And as the search for him
00:03:42
continues, we're hearing his voice for the first time. Your honor, I think it's important that these girls get the
00:03:50
opportunity to be with their dad. I also think that it's important for them to understand a little bit about the world.
00:04:00
That audio was recorded from a custody hearing in September of last year. Now, during that hearing, Decker was fighting
00:04:06
to keep custody of the girls on weekends. He also claimed he never did anything unsafe with them. Now,
00:04:12
yesterday, lawmakers, community members, and advocates gathered in Seattle to hold a moment of silence for Payton,
00:04:19
Olivia, and Evelyn, and called for stronger child safety laws and changes in how Amber alerts are issued. Kathy
00:04:27
Sherlock's seven-year-old daughter, Kaden, was murdered by her father during a court-ordered unsupervised parenting
00:04:34
visit seven years ago. And despite her efforts, an Amber Alert was not issued in her daughter's case. She since
00:04:41
created Cadence Law, a federal act to keep children safe from family violence. It's now in 10 states, but not here in
00:04:49
Washington. maybe if I was here to show up to the Olympia State Capital that maybe these little girls
00:04:58
would be here. My heart is broken for the Decker family. I send my love to Whitney and everyone involved. But mom,
00:05:05
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.
00:05:11
Their calls for change come as the Kitatas County Sheriff's Office is urging people headed into the woods this
00:05:17
Father's Day weekend to be vigilant and alert to anything unusual, especially in
00:05:23
and around the Tiana Valley and Blue Pass. The Chalan County Sheriff's Office handed off the search for Decker to US
00:05:30
Border Patrol and US Marshals. Investigators advise anybody who sees Decker to call 911, but if you have
00:05:38
anything else to report, you can also call the number that you see on your screen right here. The United States
00:05:43
Marshall Service is offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading directly to Travis Decker's arrest. The
00:05:53
public, meantime, is invited to honor Payton, Oliv Evelyn, and Olivia at a memorial planned next Friday at Rocky
00:06:00
Reach Park in Wanachi. Organizers are encouraging everybody to wear pink, purple, and green because those were the
00:06:07
girls favorite colors. [Music] We are going out to Washington State to the city of Wan that aka the apple
00:06:30
capital of the world. This is a little more than 35,000 people. But factor in the total population of the very nearby
00:06:40
communities all-encompassing, we're talking well over 100,000 people. This is right on the Columbia River and right
00:06:50
next door to the Cascade Mountains. Lots of orchards and some really great wineries in this area as well. We will
00:06:59
start this week's true crime story kicking things off just a few weeks back. So, let's go back to Friday, May
00:07:07
30th, 2025 at approximately 9:30 p.m. We have 35year-old mother of three Whitney Decker, who arrived at the Wache
00:07:20
Police Department. The woman appeared to be very distraught and she had clearly been crying for some time, but had no
00:07:27
visible signs of having been attacked or injured in any manner. Once in the lobby
00:07:32
for the department building, she requested a patrol officer so she may file a civil complaint. Give me the gist
00:07:40
of your situation, ma'am. The officer asked the sobbing woman. She told the officer that her ex-husband, his name is
00:07:48
Travis Caleb Decker, was expected to return their three children to her at 8:00 p.m. that night, but had not done
00:07:57
so, and she cannot reach him via cell phone. And this was in violation of their agreed upon and court-ordered
00:08:05
parenting plan. All right, let's set the table here just a bit just so everyone will know what is going on. Whitney
00:08:14
Decker and Travis Decker at one time were married. They had three beautiful little girls together and then they
00:08:21
split and got a divorce. At the time that Whitney is filing this complaint, the two had been separated for several
00:08:29
years. Along with that divorce, they had a parenting plan in place. This is court
00:08:36
ordered, but sounds like the parents had some say so in this or at least some suggestions for the court on how that
00:08:43
this may work out the best for all involved with the three kids of course being of and should be of the utmost
00:08:52
concern for all parties. In September of last year 2024, a judge signed off and issued the current parenting plan under
00:09:02
which these two mom and dad, Whitney and Travis, were to operate. Under this judge issued plan, the mother Whitney
00:09:12
has full custody of the three girls. with dad Travis. He has a visitation that is allowed every other weekend with
00:09:21
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.
00:09:30
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
00:09:38
the court. So I have to go when when you have a court document like this, you cannot say 100% that every word, every
00:09:51
period, everything in this document is 100% factual. But you will get more facts in a court
00:10:00
document than you will in any online article out there. So, this is I feel very strongly about the information that
00:10:09
was that I was able to review in this affidavit. I will say this though, Captain, before we march on any further,
00:10:16
I have seen other documentation that seems just as legit that says that the visitation on Sundays was only
00:10:24
allowable between the hours of 9:00 a.m. to 700 p.m. Now, note the cuto off time
00:10:30
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
00:10:40
in September of last year. So, every other weekend for Travis's time with his daughters and that does include a Friday
00:10:47
option with the visitation times following during the time windows provided by the court. And this has to
00:10:54
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
00:11:01
of the Wan that Valley area. This court order also specifies that he has no overnight privileges. So on this Friday
00:11:09
night, May 30th, the kids, and this is the three daughters, little girls that we are talking about, they were to be
00:11:15
returned by 8:00 p.m. that night, no later. Now, this has not happened. So, this is why mom, mother Whitney is at
00:11:23
the police department because the kids have not been returned and she cannot get in touch with her ex-husband. Yeah.
00:11:30
One of the things that are difficult in uh custody cases is every state is different. So, you don't know what
00:11:38
process they went through. Did they have to get a guardian adidum involved? But somebody has found him to be unfit to
00:11:46
have his daughters stay with him overnight. that there has to be a reason. Now, Travis Decker is 32 years
00:11:53
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
00:12:04
2014. I think because of his his service to this country, you can applaud somebody for that. But there was there
00:12:13
was concerns by his ex-wife Whitney. I know she had petitioned the court. Now again, these custody battles, they could
00:12:22
go on for years and and if you have a guardian adlidum, there could be multiple visitations and interviews and
00:12:29
and it's a very long process. But the process continues until they're of 18 years of age where they can then make
00:12:37
their own decisions. But she had some concerns because she thought he was mentally unstable with um you know
00:12:44
possibly borderline personality disorder or possibly PTSD from his service. The girls names and their ages are Payton
00:12:56
who is nine, Evelyn who is eight, and Olivia who is five. if their father Travis did not return them at the
00:13:03
scheduled time that evening and therefore Whitney is now talking with the police trying to resolve the
00:13:09
situation. Whitney stated that Travis picked up the three daughters from her home right around 5:00 p.m. that night.
00:13:16
When he didn't return with the daughters by 8:00 p.m., she started calling his phone. She tried to reach him several
00:13:23
times. She reported that when she called Travis's cell phone, the call, all these
00:13:29
calls are going straight to voicemail. Typically an indicator that the phone is either a shut off or b without service
00:13:38
at that time. But Whitney's concerns do not end there. She also reported that Travis has been experiencing some
00:13:46
problems lately. And this is to echo some of what the captain has already presented. Whitney is saying that Travis
00:13:55
is having some mental health issues. She said he didn't have a stable residence and he is basically homeless at this
00:14:03
time, but had been staying on and off at motel and campgrounds. Because of his lack of a place to live,
00:14:11
she didn't have any real great idea about where to start looking for the girls. So, if Travis does not answer his
00:14:20
phone or for some reason cannot answer his phone, the only real viable options here is that Mama Whitney is driving
00:14:30
around aimlessly looking for them and or getting the police and other people involved. All right. So, this is not
00:14:37
good. But as a parent, look, it's still early on and you're hoping that there is
00:14:43
some kind of mixup or that some non-threatening event has slowed them down from getting home. But then you
00:14:49
have no, this is where this is where my mind and heart would be racing. You have
00:14:55
no zero, no communication, thus signaling that there is very likely something very, very wrong. Travis has
00:15:03
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
00:15:12
concern here. We should also mention here, Captain, that Whitney told the officer that this was not typical.
00:15:19
Travis has never done this before. He has always returned the girls on time. So, this is seems to be out of character
00:15:29
or at least out of character per their arrangement thus far. Do we have any idea of how long he's been without a
00:15:36
home? That's a good question. And it's been reported several different ways going to some of the court documents and
00:15:45
documents that have been filed by different law enforcement agencies in this case. It appears that this was an
00:15:52
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
00:16:01
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
00:16:11
when he was without a stable residence or consistent residence. That would be concerning. I mean, you were married to
00:16:20
somebody. they spent time serving this country. He doesn't have a place to stay. I mean, even if you There's a lot
00:16:28
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
00:16:33
suffer. They don't want to see the individual without a home. Especially when you have children with this person.
00:16:40
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
00:16:48
three children. whether your heart has a space for this man or not. Yes, it appears that that she does have concern
00:16:56
for him even without the children being involved. It does he does have regular work though. He has a job. I know that.
00:17:04
Now, is it is it seasonal? I can't say. I don't know exactly what he was doing for
00:17:10
a living during the time that they've been split up, but the reports are all consistent that he was working. So,
00:17:19
let's go back to the police station here on that Friday night. We have Wan that police officer. This is Corporal
00:17:25
Gonzalez. Corporal Gonzalez has the information. Took the report from Whitney. Now, this this is your first
00:17:32
thing, right? A a woman comes in distraught. She's crying. You very quickly have to sort out, is this lady
00:17:39
just some rando person in here that's crazy reporting something that's not even real or or do I need to jump into
00:17:50
action right away? So, the very first thing you can do is you call the cell phone number that she provides to you
00:17:56
that she says belongs to Travis. So, Corporal Gonzalez calls Travis's cell phone. As Whitney said, the phone goes
00:18:03
straight to voicemail. The outgoing message on the phone, it is a message identifying the phone as Travis's. So,
00:18:13
very likely a message that says something of the nature of, you know, you've reached Travis or you've reached
00:18:17
Travis Decker's phone. Please leave a message or I'm not available at this time. The officer immediately can
00:18:24
identify that the number that she says that belongs to her ex-husband, Travis Decker. The outgoing message confirms
00:18:30
that from an investigator standpoint, this is pretty easy stuff, right? You now know that this missing person's
00:18:37
report is very likely legit. So, missing person's report times three or times four if you wish, if you want to include
00:18:44
Travis in that, but the three you are concerned about due to the ages most are the are the children. But due to their
00:18:51
ages, most likely you if you're going to find them, you're going to find them together. Most likely you're going to
00:18:56
find them with their father unless something terrible has happened. So you're looking for Travis. That's your
00:19:04
first move as an investigator. And what do we always want, Captain? We want that
00:19:09
breadcrumb trail. When you don't have a crime scene, which we don't have one here, where you going to find that first
00:19:16
little piece of the breadcrumb trail, that first breadcrumb to start your trail to where you need to go? Simple
00:19:21
digital footprint and or paper trail. We have identified his phone. So, we've got
00:19:28
perhaps the best lead on a digital footprint, especially given the circumstances that Whitney has described
00:19:35
with Travis's living situation. His phone is likely what he is using most. Like most of us, but due to his
00:19:43
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,
00:19:50
but I feel confident saying this is his primary device. So digital identified. We will start to
00:19:58
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
00:20:04
on that Friday evening. What was he driving? Whitney told the officer that Travis drives a white pickup truck, but
00:20:12
she was unsure of the make and model. Now, a quick records check. Identify Travis's vehicle to be a white
00:20:21
2017 GMC Sierra. It's Washington plate D20165C. Now, we know his truck and plate
00:20:32
information. And again, we've said it a million times, it's easier to find a vehicle than it is to find a person.
00:20:38
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
00:20:44
flock cameras. We talked about flock cameras quite a bit in our killing for chaos episodes. That's the Nikita Cassap
00:20:53
case out of Waka, Wisconsin. Nailed it. Teenager Nikita is accused of killing his parents in order
00:21:02
to fund some bizarre halfbaked plan to overthrow the US government. Those episodes are 839 and 8:40 on your garage
00:21:11
radio dial. You know, I love the technology, Captain. I love the technology that's helping us catch
00:21:17
criminals on helping us locate people and save people. So, it's the eye in the sky time. Captain, shout out to Alan
00:21:24
Parsons. A quick aside here, flocks are automatic license plate reader cameras. They are somewhat common, especially in
00:21:32
more populated areas. Data, this is how we find people. This is how we catch criminals. the physical evidence. Data
00:21:40
can become physical evidence, which is very important in all of these cases. So, we're going to go to the flock
00:21:45
cameras. Flock cameras capture images of vehicle license plates and other details
00:21:51
such as make, model, and color. And in and in some of the more advanced sophisticated types, they can detect
00:21:57
noises and sounds. These images and data are stored and can be accessed by law enforcement to help
00:22:05
investigate crimes, locate stolen vehicles or wanted individuals. Flock Safety provides this technology to
00:22:12
various entities including but not limited to police departments. The law enforcement folks got hits in the Nikita
00:22:20
Cassap manhunt and boom goes the dynamite. We get a hit here as well on Travis Decker's truck. Boom. Officer
00:22:28
Gonzalez is checking all of the right boxes. So checks Travis's Travis Decker's vehicle registration through
00:22:37
flock safety and gets a hit. The vehicle/plate last registered an automatic read on the Wachi Bridge. So
00:22:47
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
00:22:54
make it out there one day, God willing. But for the locals, you will know that this is right at North Wan that Avenue
00:23:03
and Horse Lake Road. Okay. So, this location and the timestamp gives us some information and possibly some clues. So,
00:23:12
this was from 5:41 p.m. Friday evening. So, this has got to be shortly after picking up the kids.
00:23:19
The officers reviewing this believe that this is an indicator that Travis may be heading to
00:23:26
a motel, hotel or campground or Holiday Inn in the North End. So WPD will start checking with hotels
00:23:36
in the city as well as a place called Confluent State Park. They're checking to see if Travis and or his truck are
00:23:45
registered or listed at any one of these. The short of it is unfortunately no. We get no hits on locating Travis as
00:23:56
being at any of these establishments or at the Confluence State Park. We do have
00:24:02
a situation too that after they take this report and after they're able to confirm the authenticity of some of the
00:24:08
statements given by the mother, they did contact the Wachi Police Department. They did contact the missing person's
00:24:17
unit. And while they agreed that there should be concern and that the girl should be
00:24:25
considered missing and possibly endangered there, they decided not to issue an Amber Alert. And this is always
00:24:33
a sticky situation because people get in a big uproar about, well, why wasn't there an Amber Alert issued? Especially
00:24:41
when you can look in the rear view mirror, objects are closer than they than they are, and and you go with
00:24:49
hindsight, the powers of hindsight, you say, "Well, why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do everything you possibly
00:24:54
can do?" Well, there there are specific parameters for issuing an Amber Alert, and that does vary by jurisdiction.
00:25:03
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
00:25:10
parameters to for issuing this report or this alert I should say, but again it does vary depending on the state and or
00:25:19
jurisdiction within that state. Now I get that people get in an uproar but I've also been sitting with people and
00:25:26
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
00:25:33
popping up right out of bed, right? You're popping up. What's going on? Every time I hear it at 3 in the
00:25:38
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
00:25:45
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
00:25:52
that that when Amber alerts are not issued. If it were up to me, Captain, we would issue them more often. But that
00:25:59
also takes away from the level of concern by the masses if if you're getting hit with these things with a
00:26:06
high frequency. Yeah. But a couple things when you have the wife and her story checks out and I know there's a
00:26:13
lot of because the police get called about a lot of custody issues and there could be a situation where the
00:26:21
ex-husband is supposed to have the kids all weekend but they made other arrangements.
00:26:26
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
00:26:35
supposed to have them all weekend. But that's not the case. The case is this guy does not have privileges to have his
00:26:41
daughters overnight. He is not known to not return the kids on time. So he's known to be somewhat responsible, but
00:26:53
also PTSD, also maybe some other mental instabilities. So these kids then could be in danger just in general. Yeah.
00:27:05
Yeah. Or they could be in danger from their own father because he possibly has these mental issues. Yeah. And and I
00:27:14
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
00:27:22
goes back to what is the criteria. So, in some of the cases we've reviewed where you and I thought that an Amber
00:27:29
Alert should have gone out, they they didn't send one out because in some jurisdictions, you need like suspect
00:27:36
information, right? You need right description. You need a vehicle information. If it's some kid that was
00:27:43
pulled off the street, snatched off the street, they want vehicle information. In other jurisdictions, you don't need
00:27:50
the suspect description or vehicle description. here. Obviously, if you want to say that
00:27:57
the the ex-husband should be a suspect, at least it's it's very easy to say that
00:28:03
he is the one responsible for returning them and has not done so. You clearly have his information. So, that's not the
00:28:10
hiccup here. Apparently, here the hiccup was that when they reviewed this with the missing person's unit with So, and
00:28:19
this is a different outfit, too. the missing person's unit that they contacted, the Wanache Police
00:28:24
Department, they contacted the state police because I'm guessing that in Washington, it's the state police that
00:28:31
would issue the Amber Alert. And in many states, it is the state that the state police that do this. So, the state
00:28:39
police, from my understanding, not trying to throw anybody or any particular outfit under the bus, from my
00:28:46
understanding, it was the state police that said, "Well, we don't we don't want to issue one because we don't have
00:28:54
obvious and clear evidence that suggests that they are in danger." But it's weird
00:29:00
because at the same time you have the information coming out that they are they're immediately listed as missing
00:29:08
with possible endangerment. And I don't know, there's there's no great way to I love that we have the Amber
00:29:19
Alert system and I would never go back from not having it, but it like many other things we do is still flawed and
00:29:28
there's still room for improvement. And I and I hope that that each state will review this and continue to improve on
00:29:36
the Amber Alert. Now, we do need to point out here that by Saturday morning, Travis has still not returned the three
00:29:43
girls home to their mother. There has been zero communication from him. No one can reach him. No one can locate him or
00:29:52
the children. We have no additional hits on his truck at that time. One of the kids had an event scheduled for that
00:30:00
morning. She was not back in time for this event. The situation is getting more dire with every passing hour.
00:30:14
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simplysafe.com/g. There's no safe like Simplysafe. [Music] All right, we are back. Cheers, mates.
00:33:31
Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling your friends. Cheers to you, Colonel. Yeah, cheers to you, Captain. Thanks to
00:33:38
all of you listeners that tune in each and every week, joining us here in the garage. It is straight up our pleasure
00:33:45
to have you here with us each and every week. Now, our timeline where we left off before the beer break was up to
00:33:53
about Saturday afternoon. Now, I do want to circle back to this court order. Okay, we have a court order here,
00:34:00
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
00:34:10
p.m. Cutoff. Then moving our timeline forward, he failed to return the girls by the by Saturday, May 31st, 7:00 p.m.
00:34:19
deadline. And then again for a third time, Sunday, June 1st. And now this report states that the cut off for that
00:34:30
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,
00:34:37
Captain. At 9:00 a.m., Travis Decker did not show up for his job, did not show up
00:34:42
to work. Police are now speaking with Travis's boss. The boss noted some mental health concerns. Not specific,
00:34:50
but kind of backing up what Mother Whitney was telling the police. And then we have all weekend long, the phone is
00:34:58
going straight to voicemail. And then this is true for Monday morning as well. And thus we get a probable cause arrest
00:35:07
warrant requested and granted by Judge Robert Jordan for the arrest of Travis Decker for three counts of custodial
00:35:19
interference in the first degree. But like I was saying, these custody issues, they they get difficult because not
00:35:26
everybody that is involved in a custody battle or custody issue, are they always
00:35:33
honest with the court system. So you have somebody in Whitney's situation saying, "Hey, look, for the most part,
00:35:41
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
00:35:47
he needs to address." and then maybe the c custody situation can change or the c
00:35:54
custody schedule can change. But these courts hear so many lies that you have to go through every claim and there has
00:36:03
to be a checks and balance system and and that doesn't serve the people that are trying to be honest with the court
00:36:11
system. Well, and I do want to point out here too as well, Captain, that this situation, the way that I understand it,
00:36:18
between Travis Decker and his ex-wife Whitney Decker, this is not a Betty Brick, Daniel Brick type split up
00:36:29
custody battle situation where you have mom or dad calling the police once a week with allegations and trying to get
00:36:37
the kids and all that. that it wasn't this super volatile, highly, you know, incredibly messy situation. It was it
00:36:46
seemed to be it seemed to be going along pretty swimmingly up until this point. Now, again, there are concerns with
00:36:54
Travis from several parties, but it seems to be the the the court issued parenting plans seem to be working out
00:37:04
right now later that day. So, we're at Monday morning here, but later that day, we get some very some very sad news.
00:37:14
This is just before 4 p.m. on Monday, June 2nd in Chellain County. We have a deputy finds locates Travis Decker's
00:37:24
truck. So, finds the truck unoccupied in the area of Rock Island campground in Levvenworth, Washington. This is off of
00:37:33
Icicle Road. This is approximately 50 minutes 50 minutes drive from where the girls live. Now I want to be very clear
00:37:42
that's very approximate. This is this area is quite complicated to look at and to
00:37:51
convey from a storyteller's perspective. Now, I want to go to the affidavit for this next bit of information directly
00:37:59
from the affidavit because there's a lot of reports out there and this is a this
00:38:04
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
00:38:12
report, you got to be concerned about the reporting. I've seen a lot of great reporting on on this case, but there's
00:38:18
also some stuff that you have to sift through because there is speculation, especially with the early reports coming
00:38:24
out. Not criticizing because when you come to the garage, you get a heavy dose of speculation. Yeah. But look, that's
00:38:30
it's a it's a simple problem that we have. People trying to be first as opposed to trying to be right. Yeah.
00:38:38
Let's be right, not first. Captain and I are striving to improve every day ourselves. All right. Yeah, we're trying
00:38:45
to be right and last. Right and last and buried in the garage. Okay, this is directly from the affidavit. So, this is
00:38:53
directly from law enforcement. law enforcement personnel from the Chellain County Sheriff's Office and Wan that
00:39:01
Police Department along helicop along with helicopter support from Homeland Security Investigations converged into
00:39:09
the area the area that we just mentioned that Rock Island campground off of Icicle Road. Think of what the first
00:39:18
part of this affidavit says. The sheriff's office, the police department. Now, the sheriff's office makes sense
00:39:26
because they're going to have better resources than the Wanache Police Department, but the Wanache Police
00:39:31
Department is the one that took the initial report from the mother, but we also get helicopter support from
00:39:38
Homeland Security Investigations. So, they're not taking this lightly, and there's lots of persons and a lot of
00:39:45
resources being pulled in very quickly to try to locate these three girls. The report states that approximately 75 to
00:39:53
100 yards beyond where the vehicle where Travis Decker's truck was located, this
00:40:00
is down a small embankment, the sheriff's office deputies located the bodies of three schoolaged children. And
00:40:10
the affidavit goes on to state, "Due to the current current safety concerns and the scene preservation, the bodies have
00:40:17
yet to be approached, but there are some clear signs of levidity. Each have plastic bags over their head or a
00:40:25
plastic bag over the head. based on the totality of the circumstances, including
00:40:31
the proximity to the vehicle and visible attire of the bodies, which is consistent with the clothing the
00:40:36
children were wearing when they were transferred from Whitney to Travis for visitation.
00:40:45
Look, from what they're saying is from afar, we're not approaching the the these victims because they they're
00:40:52
obviously have passed by this time, right? and and we're limiting the they probably sent
00:40:59
personnel. My guess would be one person in there to uh confirm this because in case they could be helped or could be
00:41:07
saved, you got to send somebody in there. But you're sending limited personnel in there, whether it be one,
00:41:12
two, or three persons, I wouldn't send any more than three because you don't want to contaminate this area. And we've
00:41:18
already talked about on many cases, especially Deli, Amy Mahalavik, and several other cases, the complications
00:41:25
with an outdoor crime scene. This is now an outdoor crime scene. This is a public
00:41:29
area. This is nature. Mother nature's always in control. We're just the weak little small people that live uh by
00:41:36
under her rule. Well, if you're law enforcement, don't you think you have to be concerned? Like you said, we we found
00:41:41
his truck, but then a distance away from the truck, we see this tent. From our vantage point, we can see uh some items
00:41:50
or some clothing that's connected to a child and that's the same clothing that was described to law enforcement. But
00:41:59
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
00:42:07
in some ways this is good for law enforcement because all the stuff should be contained with inside that tent. But
00:42:13
I would think that you'd have to have some concern as law enforcement of this guy served in the military for quite a
00:42:19
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
00:42:28
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
00:42:34
of. You nailed it. That that's got to be a concern. and and just you say perched,
00:42:40
that's spoton because from that vantage point, he would have an advantage over any of the officers if he were elevated
00:42:48
above them. And given the description of where the bodies were found, it it it's
00:42:53
down a hill or down into this ravine area. And you have to applaud law enforcement
00:43:02
officers that were willing to take that chance to see if any of these victims possibly were not dead yet and that
00:43:10
maybe that they could help. You have to applaud them for taking that risk. Yeah.
00:43:16
And the the concern here too is is obvious, right? They they know based off of everything that they're seeing that
00:43:25
the three kids they were looking for, unfortunately, they believe they found them. They found them in a in a way that
00:43:31
that nobody wanted to find them. But per for the purpose of this document, this document is being filed and requested to
00:43:42
be granted at 9:00 a.m. the following morning. So, this is less than 24 hours after the discovery of the truck and
00:43:49
these three bodies. So, you have to be factual when you are asking for a judge to sign off on something and they're
00:43:58
just simply giving them the facts as they understand them at the time of this filing. So, they're going to do their
00:44:04
due diligence later to confirm, which would probably be taking place that night and early in the morning on June
00:44:11
3rd to confirm that the three victims are who they think they are. And unfortunately, they it turns out to be
00:44:21
just that. Now, what is the purpose of this filing? Well, they're they're filing another arrest
00:44:29
warrant. They're seeking another arrest warrant for Travis Decker upon finding the truck and the bodies because they're
00:44:38
they're now seeking a murder, a triple homicide arrest warrant as opposed to the
00:44:47
child custody interference warrant that they already had from Monday morning. It
00:44:53
It's so It's so sad to think Travis Decker serves this country, goes to war. Anybody that wants to protect my
00:45:03
freedoms is a is a hero. Something happened. Something snaps. something's not right mentally or
00:45:14
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
00:45:20
sometimes it doesn't seem like the the good is winning out you have three daughters n 9 years old 8 years old and
00:45:28
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
00:45:40
what the hell is going on in this guy's head. Yeah, there's nothing about this story that is good at
00:45:47
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
00:45:54
because like you said, somebody that protects our freedom, somebody that serves the country, somebody that goes
00:45:59
overseas and and does something that none of us really truly want to have to do, defend our lives, defend our
00:46:06
countries, defend our families, but would do when called upon. But it's also one of those things, man. It's hero
00:46:13
status is earned, but it can be taken away. Yeah, you can lose hero status. And and I will say that the one thing
00:46:20
that I found to be compelling and to be insightful was the sheriff of Chellane County who says this is sheriff
00:46:35
I believe his name is Michael Morrison and he said that we went through the definition of a soldier multiple times
00:46:46
in our coverage hate Americanmade when we got to Timothy McVey. And one of the parts of being a US
00:46:55
soldier, an American soldier in in any branch of our military is to serve with honor. And the sheriff points out,
00:47:05
Sheriff Mike Morrison points out that nothing that this man is accused of is honorable in any form or fashion. And so
00:47:13
he has a hard time referring to him as a soldier because he thinks he, as he stated, it completely takes away from
00:47:23
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
00:47:30
to imagine what Whitney is feeling through all this. I mean purely this is simply innocent innocent lives that
00:47:42
didn't need to be lost. We talk regularly. We regularly cover senseless murders and senseless
00:47:49
killings. This goes beyond the definition of that. This is incomprehensible. So, continuing on in the affidavit here,
00:48:00
Captain, it says, uh, Decker's Travis Decker's location is currently unknown, and there is currently a coordinated
00:48:07
effort to search the immediate area, if not further, for him. So, the scene we have can be searched around the vehicle
00:48:17
along the way to where the children were located. Officers/deputes located zip ties and plastic bags strewn
00:48:25
throughout the area. The tailgate of the pickup truck also has what appears to be
00:48:32
two handprints of blood. Yeah. On them. The truck has personal items to include.
00:48:39
So, like you pointed out, tent find some items in the tent. They find some of these items strewn about the area, but
00:48:46
we're also going to have the inside of the truck that's going to contain some personal items as well. And the the
00:48:53
items that they chose to list here for the purpose of this document were blankets, car seats, food, miscellaneous
00:49:01
items, a wallet, and they state that the wallet was found on the center console.
00:49:08
I'm not seeing it. Um, and we'll continue on here, but the I've seen several reports that his cell phone was
00:49:16
found inside the truck. Yeah, seems like he he has taken off, but how much how much did he take off with? I
00:49:26
mean, you would probably have to assume because he was a soldier that he owns firearms. So, did he take off in the
00:49:36
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
00:49:44
enforcement is what his his motivation for taking off. And somebody could be listening to this and going, "Captain,
00:49:52
are you stupid? He just killed his children. That's his motivation for taking off." But I'd say it's not that
00:49:59
simple because his motivation for taking off could be to take his own life. It might not necessarily just be like, I'm
00:50:06
running to freedom. Yeah. Right. His motivation could be to get to a a certain location and to take his own
00:50:14
life. Or again, if you're law enforcement, is he trying to flee or is he trying to have a standoff somewhere?
00:50:21
Well, and there's some psychology in there, too, that is above my pay grade. But when we reviewed, hey, I pay you
00:50:30
good money to be a doctor. Yeah. The captain pays me weekly. Very weekly. Um, the a buck 75. We reviewed in short, we
00:50:40
kind of did a short version of the Bradford Bishop case. a man who's never been located who murdered his entire
00:50:48
family and left them up in the Smoky Mountains where they were later recovered. And we've never reviewed the
00:50:54
John Liss case uh which is famous for being solved by the good people over at America's Most Wanted. When I say
00:51:03
solved, they their programming led to the to locating John List who killed his mother and uh I believe it was his
00:51:13
mother and his entire family. Bishop did about pretty much the same thing. Killed
00:51:18
his mother and or her mother and the rest of the family. Now when I say there's some psychology involved there,
00:51:25
persons that were interviewed to review those case that are doctors have stated that that the thought is okay this man
00:51:36
husband father sets out to do this plan of leaving his family or killing his family and then leaving because he
00:51:44
killed them. But it's without without crawling inside the ear and up into the brain of this demented person. There's
00:51:53
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
00:52:01
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
00:52:11
own preservation. Let me know if you agree with this. all week. My feelings on this case, it it feels the same as
00:52:19
like Chris Watts or even Scott Peterson in the sense of like you could have you could just bowed
00:52:29
out, you know? You could have just said, "I don't want to be a dad. I I And List
00:52:34
and Bishop could have done the exact same thing." Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it's this feeling of like, okay,
00:52:40
like in the Chris Watts case, okay, you got a girlfriend, fine. whatever. Let your child be born and if
00:52:47
you're just not involved in their life, if you disappear, so what? You know, it doesn't make any sense.
00:52:57
And so your solution is to to kill your children. It It's beyond bizarre. Yeah. You don't have to
00:53:05
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
00:53:12
but there were a couple couple kids I knew, a couple friends I had that it was the
00:53:19
old cliche dad left one day to go out and pick up a pack of cigarettes and he never came
00:53:25
home. Yeah. you know, and then sometimes in the 70s and 80s, you you find out that the father lived
00:53:33
like three blocks over and the the kids never knew. But hey, had another family the entire time. Say what you will, but
00:53:41
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
00:53:49
dingleberry compared to a full giant turd here. And the Yeah. So, with Peterson, that guy angers me to
00:53:57
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
00:54:06
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
00:54:15
anybody. Uh he he didn't want to have kids. Never wanted to have kids, I believe. never really wanted to be tied
00:54:24
down in a marriage and that's why he did his despicable acts. And Chris Watts, I
00:54:29
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
00:54:35
them and was in this marriage for a considerable time compared to Peterson. But he's a monster because he just I I I
00:54:45
wiped out my family for a a secret love interest. And then with with bishop and list, you have two completely different
00:54:53
scenarios where I think I think that it is more in line with this scenario because Travis doesn't seem to have or
00:55:04
doesn't appear to have he doesn't need to eliminate any family member because he's having some secret relationship.
00:55:11
He's not in a marriage anymore. And with List and with Bishop, they their lives were failing. Their lives were failing.
00:55:20
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
00:55:30
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
00:55:37
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
00:55:45
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
00:55:51
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
00:56:01
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
00:56:08
psychology out of it and let's take the psych the potential psychosis out of it and all all of these situations that we
00:56:15
just discussed. And it's it's the most incredible incredibly selfish act that I've ever seen ever heard of in in my
00:56:26
entire life. Yeah. And I it'd be interesting to know was was Travis uh Decker the type of
00:56:35
individual that kept on trying to get a second chance or was I've not heard any statements about that. But you just
00:56:44
wonder if that maybe is part of the motivation that he couldn't ever put Humpty Dumpty back together again and
00:56:50
this is his is the result or the solution to his problems that he created in his mentally unstable head because
00:57:02
whether or not he's been diagnosed with anything, you have to be mentally unstable to kill your 9year-old, your
00:57:09
eight-year-old, and your 5-year-old daughter. That's that's it's I was watching this thing the other day and
00:57:16
they're talking about, you know, there there's no crime in history that has been known as like a sacrifice or ritual
00:57:23
or whatever, you know, this whole satanic panic. But if if these things aren't evil by nature, then I don't know
00:57:30
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
00:57:36
to do give a description with just one simple word. I'll continue on this affidavit here. It says, "During the
00:57:43
search of the area, an abandoned camp was located nearby with signs of recent activity. The camp
00:57:50
consists of a fire pit, tent, cooler, and within a short walk from where the vehicle and bodies were located. Let's
00:57:57
let's go to the the cell phone record information that is listed here. It says that Travis Deckard's cell phone
00:58:04
information showed that he likely traveled to the area." So to this specific area where
00:58:11
his truck and the bodies were found that he had traveled there on Thursday, May 29th in the evening. So that was
00:58:21
approximately, let's say, 24 hours before he picked up his children. He traveled to this area. Now, we do know
00:58:27
that he's staying. He may have just been simply staying there. This may not have
00:58:32
been to scout it out or to or to pre-plan anything, but his cell phone information says that
00:58:40
he was there or his phone was there the previous evening. And it also says that he returned
00:58:47
to that location Friday morning. The document continues, "Under the totality of the situation, it appears that Travis
00:58:54
Decker drove through the area the night prior and returned the next day with the
00:58:58
children. Preliminary examination suggests the likely cause of death was affixiation.
00:59:05
Their wrist, their children wrists were also zip tied or showed signs of being zip tied. They were also positively
00:59:14
identified. So, we now know that they were very quickly identified as as the victims that they we thought they were.
00:59:21
And it states that this is probable cause to arrest Travis Caleb Decker for three counts of murder in the first
00:59:31
degree and three counts of kidnapping in the first degree. [Music] If you'd like to support True Crime
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01:00:04
then, be good, be kind, and don't litter. [Music]