Crime Weekly - S3 Ep310: Crime Weekly News: Manhunt For Travis Decker After Three Daughters Found Dead

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

Travis Decker, a former U.S. Army Ranger, is accused of murdering his three daughters, Paityn, Evelyn, and Olivia, during a court-ordered visitation in Washington state. After failing to return the gi...rls to their mother, their bodies were found at Rock Island Campground, with evidence pointing to suffocation. Decker, now facing multiple charges including murder and kidnapping, remains on the run. We're coming to CrimeCon Denver! Use our code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your tickets! https://www.crimecon.com/CC25 Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. https://www.OneSkin.co - Use code CWN for 15% off!

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 MUSIC Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Lavassar. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. We have a sad one. This week it's making national headlines as it should. Three little girls left for a weekend visit with their father and never came home. The search for Travis Decker, a former Army Ranger with elite survival training, has become a statewide manhunt. Authorities warn he's dangerous, potentially armed, and capable of surviving off the grid for weeks.
Starting point is 00:00:41 But long before this turned into a national manhunt, there were warning signs, a bitter custody dispute, a man unraveling, and a court system that failed to intervene. By the time the alarm bells rang, it was already too late and this unfortunately is not the first time we've heard of a case like this and everyone's been DMing us about it, tagging us in it. There was a video that I reposted on Twitter of the three beautiful young girls who had their lives taken by the scumbag monster. I reposted the article originally when it first came out. And so this is a combination of a bolo, you know, a be on the lookout for this guy.
Starting point is 00:01:18 We want him brought to justice as quickly as possible, although I don't know if that's going to happen and we'll get into that in a couple minutes. But Stephanie, what are your initial thoughts? Well, I just posted a video about this case over the weekend. So I'm pretty well versed in it and up to date. I obviously he's he's on the loose. No one knows where he is. But let me give you a few details of the case. The three little girls that we're talking about are five-year-old Olivia Decker, eight-year-old Evelyn Decker, and nine-year-old Peyton Decker.
Starting point is 00:01:52 And all three attended Lincoln Elementary School in the Wenatchee School District, which is in Washington State. So what seems to have happened here is Travis and his wife Whitney had gone through a divorce a few years prior. He had visitation with the girls. So he would have a weekend of visitation with the girls where he would pick them up on Friday night and bring them back Sunday night. But then he became homeless. So he initially had an apartment after the divorce or as the divorce was going through, and then he was homeless for a little bit
Starting point is 00:02:25 after this apartment, and he ended up living at the armory because he was part of the National Guard. And his wife Whitney at that time brought the case back to family court and said, I want this parenting plan modified because my husband or my ex-husband does not have a place to live, and I don't feel comfortable with my three little girls staying at the armory where there's you
Starting point is 00:02:48 know military men, transients, people who just kind of stay there temporarily, they're surrounded by strange men, I don't feel safe. Additionally there were claims of neglect where Whitney said that her little girls would call her or FaceTime her and they were crying because their father was nowhere to be found and they were playing with like some workout equipment and one of the little girls was injured and hurt and she said just in general the the three girls were showing emotional disruption whenever they would talk to their father on the phone or have or come back from visits
Starting point is 00:03:18 with him and be you know very emotionally unregulated which wasn't like them. So the judge did go ahead and modify the parenting plan, basically saying that Travis could continue to see his children, but no more overnights until he had a stable place to live. But there were also issues with Travis's mental state because he had served during Afghanistan. When he joined the army, he went to Afghanistan for a little while. He saw active duty. He came back with CPTSD. He was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder right around the time the marriage was ending. And although Whitney continued telling the court
Starting point is 00:03:56 and even law enforcement when the girls went missing that there had been no issues of domestic violence or abuse during their marriage, she did also tell a neighbor that there were issues with domestic abuse and that Travis had beat her. And this neighbor saw Travis with a bruised face one time and Whitney with a broken arm that she was wearing in a sling. So it is possible that there was domestic abuse and I talked about this in my video. I think that there probably was, but Whitney most likely never thought that it would translate to their children.
Starting point is 00:04:30 And she didn't want to say something in the court system that would prevent Travis from being able to continue seeing his children. And I think she worried that if she talked about incidences of domestic violence, that that might complicate things. Oh yeah? Yeah. As it should. Right. But I really genuinely think that if there was, because this neighbor has no reason to lie,
Starting point is 00:04:48 it seems that he and Whitney were pretty close, that she was texting him when her daughters went missing. This neighbor knew the girls, he knew Whitney, he knew Travis. He commented on how Travis' mental state and even physical appearance was deteriorating over the years. He looked like a completely different person,
Starting point is 00:05:03 he wasn't doing well. So I think that's what happened is she probably, maybe it was only a few times or a handful of times, and she genuinely thought, I don't think that he would ever hurt our children. And when Travis did not bring them home Friday night, he was supposed to bring them home at eight, and when it was like nine o'clock and then 9.30,
Starting point is 00:05:20 Whitney called the police. And the Wenatchee police, they did want to put out an Amber Alert, but the Washington State Patrol declined it, saying that this case did not meet Amber Alert criteria. They did not believe that the girls were in imminent danger. They said, you know, custody issues like this happen all the time where the kids
Starting point is 00:05:38 aren't brought back on time. And if we put out an Amber Alert every time that happened, you know, we'd be putting them out constantly, people would be burnt out from them. But with Travis's military history, his history of mental illness, his history of being homeless and obviously deteriorating, he wasn't doing well,
Starting point is 00:05:57 I think that it should have raised a red flag and the Washington State Patrol should have given the go ahead to put out an amber alert because these three little girls were found, but they were not found alive. All three of their bodies were discovered around 5 p.m. Monday, June 2nd. They were found close to Travis Decker's white 2017 GMC Sierra truck near the Rock Island campground, which is near Leavenworth, about three hours east of Seattle. They were confirmed to be dead and their wrists were zip-tied and their heads were covered with plastic bags. And so their cause of death
Starting point is 00:06:37 was obviously asphyxiation. Now the crime scene itself had other interesting things. So according to the police, there were multiple zip ties and plastic bags sort of strewn around Travis' vehicle. They also found two bloody handprints on the tailgate of his vehicle. And there was a nearby campground within walking distance that showed signs of recent activity. There was a tent and a cooler and like a campfire, but Travis Decker was nowhere to be found and he still is nowhere to be found. And because of his extensive military history, he had specialized training. So the police believe that this man could live off the grid for an extended period of time. Not only that, this appeared to be
Starting point is 00:07:24 premeditated because his cell phone coordinates put him at that same exact campground in the location where his daughters were found the day before he picked them up and took them away from their mother's house. So he obviously visited this area and law enforcement believes
Starting point is 00:07:36 that he could have brought supplies there so that he knew after he had done what he had done, he could grab his supplies and sort of disappear. I was even thinking he could have brought some sort of vehicle there, maybe like an off-road vehicle. He had time to prepare and he had time to sort of set up his getaway. Now the question is, in a lot of these cases where a parent kills a child, and there's statistics I talked about in my video, they will often take their own lives. And there's bloody handprints found on the back of Travis's car.
Starting point is 00:08:07 So I was wondering if that's possible that he may have done something to himself and then walked into the woods to die. But there has been a pretty major manhunt here. They can't find any trace of him. And new information has showed that he was doing Google searches. And just in the days before he killed his children,
Starting point is 00:08:27 and there's gonna be people out there who are like, oh, there's no proof he could be another victim, there's no evidence that he killed his children. I 100% believe that he is responsible for this. I don't know, like this whole devil's advocate thing is getting a little old when we have three little girls who are dead, but he searched in the days leading up to this, how does a person move to Canada?
Starting point is 00:08:45 How to relocate to Canada and jobs in Canada? And if anybody knows the area, Washington State's very close to the Canadian border. If he took off, it's very likely that he may already be in Canada and not able to be found or brought back, or he may be on his way there. I don't know how he's gonna cross.
Starting point is 00:09:04 The Canadian border's pretty to cross the Canadian borders. Pretty strict with a lot of people. Right now. Yeah. But I but I know that you can probably just if you find the right spot, you can probably just walk into Canada, right? If you're able to like be a part of it. Exactly. But he's got survival skills. So yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:19 And maybe he put the bloody handprints there to like throw people off. I don't know. The type of military experience he has, he was in leadership programs. He also would have very, you know, he would have training on how to be strategic, right? He's in Afghanistan. He's in an active war zone. He's still doing things. He would have the ability to be like, how can I throw people off my trail, which is what you would have to do in the military anyways. So I was wondering today, because I've been thinking about this case every day. Was it a red herring? Like, is he trying to throw people off, make people think he's dead?
Starting point is 00:09:51 I don't know. But what's your take on it? I have a few things I want to discuss. Let's take our only break and then we'll be right back. I want to take a moment to talk to you about something I've added to my skincare within the last year. One Skin. If you're like me, you're probably already thinking about summer and how it can affect
Starting point is 00:10:12 your skin. The sun can really take a toll, especially if you're using products like Retinol that can make your skin more vulnerable to UV rays. But here's the thing, I have found a better alternative, and that's OneSkin's OS-1 face moisturizer. The OS-1 face works by boosting collagen production in a way that's actually similar to retinol, but without the risk of the sun sensitivity. And unlike retinol, it doesn't disrupt your skin barrier, it actually strengthens it.
Starting point is 00:10:40 That means that your skin is going to get more resilient to things like sun, heat and pollution. Plus, it's all thanks to OneSkin's patented OS-1 peptide, which is significantly proven to reverse skin's biological age. That's right, OneSkin reverses aging at the cellular level. Now, I have been using OneSkin for a little while, and I'm genuinely impressed. I use it on my face, I've noticed a smoother, stronger texture. I love that it's not irritating to my skin. My skin's very sensitive, so anything can break it out or give me a rash, and the results just keep getting better.
Starting point is 00:11:14 Plus, it's helping my skin look more youthful, which is something I think we all want, no matter who you are. I also do wanna give a shout out to the One Skin OS One Eye Cream. I always talk about this every single episode because it is probably my favorite skincare product. It works so, so well. I love it. I can't believe how supple my under eyes look. Just hydrated and supple and tighter and I love it.
Starting point is 00:11:39 I think it's the best eye cream I've ever used. I'm on a subscription for it now. I love it. So we suggest that you check OneSkin out and Derek is going to tell you how for yourself. And your skin looks amazing today, Stephanie. Thank you so much. Your skin looks like you could use some OneSkin. Wow, wow, I take it all back. I take it all back.
Starting point is 00:11:57 Guys, we've said it before. OneSkin is the world's first skin longevity company. By focusing on the cellular aspects of aging, OneSkin keeps your skin looking and acting younger for longer. For a limited cellular aspects of aging, OneSkin keeps your skin looking and acting younger for longer. For a limited time, you can try OneSkin with 15% off using code CWN at Oneskin.co. That's 15% off at Oneskin.co with code CWN and after you purchase they're going to ask you where you heard about them.
Starting point is 00:12:21 Please support our show by letting them know that we sent you. Give your skin the scientifically proven gentle care it deserves with One Skin. All right, we're back from break. So first off, let's go back to the decision not to put out the umbrella alert. In hindsight, wrong decision, right? Definitely wrong decision because maybe that time
Starting point is 00:12:44 that was lost, maybe they're still alive. I will say this the rationale behind it does make sense to me because you do have this this world where we're doing it all the time. Think about how many civil disputes are out there where a parent doesn't bring their kids back on time and if that were the case now you set that precedent where every time one parent doesn't return the kids right away You you have to put out an umbrella and then it's like oh well this case this guy has some mental health issues Well, that was a clear cut example of that, but in most instances. They're not gonna hurt their kids I that's a that's a kind of a broad state in most instances
Starting point is 00:13:21 I don't know in most instances. They're not their kids. They're taking their kids from the other parent. I don't think that they were wrong in the, the assessment of not to put it out there because if you're putting out Amber alerts 10 times a day, they're right. People are going to turn off the alerts. They're going to unactivate them from their phones. They're not going to acknowledge them or even read them because they're just coming through their phone 10, 15 times a day. So there is a balance and it's difficult to make that choice because you could have something
Starting point is 00:13:50 like this happen. So I promise you that there's some police officers, especially the person who is ultimately at the head of making that decision, who's having some regret now. And unfortunately we're forced to make a lot of difficult decisions every day. And this one was the wrong one. Can I ask you a question then though?
Starting point is 00:14:07 Yeah. Okay, so they don't come home on time. Maybe a couple hours passes, he doesn't bring them home. Yeah. But knowing that there was a modified parenting plan, not long before this, which dictated that the kids were not safe in his overnight custody because of his deteriorating mental issues
Starting point is 00:14:23 and because of where he was choosing to stay. What do you not think the next morning when he didn't bring them home all morning that an amber alert would be warranted at that point? No. Okay. No, I wouldn't. I do. I wouldn't think that they're in imminent danger. I would think that he's violating that and that he's obviously a problem.
Starting point is 00:14:40 But what would give you an indication that they were in imminent danger then? If he made threats to the mom or anybody for that matter? That if I can't have them nobody can or something along those lines I mean, I'm giving hypotheticals but any indication that he could potentially harm them as you said His wife did or ex-wife didn't put out in the courts that there was domestic violence going on internally So how much of those details did law enforcement have making that decision? Again, I'm not making excuses, but I do see the other side of the coin and I think that's why I'm here. There's cases every single hour that come out, runaway children, civil disputes, where you can
Starting point is 00:15:17 make a decision to put out an amber alert or not. And it shouldn't be based on the fatigue of receiving too many amber alerts, but it is a factor. And if we don't acknowledge that, we're not being truthful. I think also a factor is statistics, right? And statistics show that less than 10% of child homicides are committed by strangers. And upwards of 90% are committed by someone in that child's own family. And the statistics of that increase when you're going through a divorce or a custody dispute. Those are the statistics. They're very
Starting point is 00:15:51 clear. As a police officer, we would use our station as an area where parents could facilitate that handoff of the children. That would happen probably at my station. I worked in 1.2 square miles, densely populated city over 30,000 people, but that would happen probably at my station. I worked in 1.2 square miles densely populated city over 30,000 people But that would happen on average. I would say two to four times a day and we would try to be present for those You know handoffs as well And we would try to make sure it was good and I can't tell you how many times personally as a sergeant when I was inside where mom or dad would be there and then Whoever the other side was wouldn't show up
Starting point is 00:16:26 for an hour or two. They'd be late and I'd have a mom screaming at me, are you going to go, are you going to do something about this? Are you going to go look for them? Are you going to do that? Again, different, it's a case by case thing. I'm not making excuses for Washington State Police. I don't know what they had access to, but, and I get the statistics and I acknowledge
Starting point is 00:16:43 them, but you can't put out an amber alert for every single case where there's a potential that the parent could be hurting them. There's no evidence that he was a threat to those children. There was evidence that he had mental health issues, that he was going through some things. But as you just said, there was no reports of abuse towards the children or the mother. There were reports of neglect though, which is one of the reasons that the judge modified the parenting plan because his children were hurt on his watch. Does that not count for something? Does his mental health issues that were widely documented not count for something?
Starting point is 00:17:16 It's all factors. It's all factors. But I think we're getting off the path here because we don't know when they were killed. For all we know, when they were reported, they were already dead. So I don't want to, I don't want to just make this case all about what the police did wrong and Some may not like that but that's that's not what we need to focus on what we need to focus on is finding him and To that point. I don't know if he's still alive. I I would I would argue that more than likely He's no longer with us. He's, and he took his own life shortly after disappearing from this area. I will say, you said you're 100% certain that he killed his kids, I'm 99%.
Starting point is 00:17:57 There is a world where if something's found out that he had some dealings with people that we're unaware of that he may have been dragged away somewhere. He may have fought, the kids may have been killed, whatever, I don't know. I'm 99%. I'd like to find him and figure out his current condition. Like 99.9 or 99? I'll go 99.9, okay?
Starting point is 00:18:18 But I would say we gotta find him. That's the only way we'll have that answer. Otherwise, if we don't find him, we'll never truly know for 100%. There may be indications at the crime scene that we're not privy to right now that may suggest it was by his hand. We have to find him first, one, to hold him accountable,
Starting point is 00:18:36 but two, if he did take his own life, it wasn't self-inflicted, does it appear to be by someone else? Is it a homicide? This is all information that will give us more details towards these three children. And yes, I know we're talking about what can be done in the future. And I do think what you're saying Stephanie is important. Regardless of whether he's found it or not, there's always
Starting point is 00:18:54 improvements that can be made in law enforcement. And the reality is there's no perfect system. There's no right answer. There are clear cases of police ineptness and police just negligence. From what you've described to me today, this isn't one of them. It sounds like this decision wasn't taken lightly, but ultimately they decided not to put it out there. Well, the local, the local police wanted to. That's my point. It's a subjective thing. Yeah. So yeah, there's some, there's some officers who are on the ground talking to the mother,
Starting point is 00:19:27 who are kind of looking at these factors, and it does appear that the local police are a little... I mean, they said, they said, yeah, are we frustrated? Yeah, we're frustrated that the Amber Alert wasn't put out. Of course. Yeah, we thought it should have been. Of course. And then the state police came out, or the state patrol came out, Chris Loftus is their spokesperson, and he was kind of like well, you know We can't we can't put out an amber alert in every scenario and like I do get it and well There's no way to tell if if that would have made a difference
Starting point is 00:19:52 But you know, it's just and even if it doesn't we do have to always improve but I just give you one last scenario in This particular case Unfortunate, it's the worst outcome possible, right? And so you're gonna say the Amber Alert should have went out. And you know what? You're right. It should have went out. Now knowing what we know, it should have went out, especially with what transpired.
Starting point is 00:20:13 Maybe it doesn't make a difference. Maybe it does. We'll never know. But I say this to you and I pose this to you in the audience. Let's say that we start putting it out for every time a parent doesn't bring the kids home during a custody dispute. There's allegations of mental health issues, there's some medical documents, there's a lot of people out there that have medical health conditions that are on medication for it that's served overseas that aren't necessarily a danger.
Starting point is 00:20:35 Now you're saying negligence as well. In totality, maybe there's something, but let's just say that there's a metric that's used and you start putting out amber alerts for every one of those honest answer What do you think? A good portion of the population is going to do if they start getting more than one amber alert a day Like I said, I don't I don't want to put out an amber alert every time a kid doesn't come home after you know at their custodially like dedicated time I think you need to look at the totality of circumstances, which you often say I think you need to look at the totality of circumstances, which you often say the totality of circumstances Is that he was not allowed overnight visits because he did not have his children in a safe place
Starting point is 00:21:10 So even if his children were not at a risk or an imminent danger because of him They could have been at risk or an imminent danger because of somebody else which a judge felt that was a good enough reason To say no more overnight no more overnight. Can you give me any details on what would it with the specifics of that work? Well, he was like I said, he was homeless. So he was either staying at the armory where his wife was like, I don't feel comfortable. There's strange men around. Some of these men have mental health issues. We don't know the criminal background of these men. There's transient people that just coming off the street. We don't even know who they are. They could disappear like a ghost. And then when he wasn't at the armory, he was sleeping with the kids in his truck. So once again, out in the open could be a dangerous situation. So that was- Any reports of child abuse? There was the neglect when he wasn't with them
Starting point is 00:21:51 when they were at the armory and the girls started playing on the weight of the workout machine. And they said they were afraid, the girls were afraid and on eggshells because of the way he was like apparently talking to the dogs, I guess, yelling at the dogs so that scared them. So that's the neglect there. I mean, I feel like in general,
Starting point is 00:22:09 not having a safe place for your children to sleep at night and continuing to bring them there is neglect, but. It's neglectful, for sure, but I mean, some people are in tough financial circumstances and struggle to, they still have a right to see their kids. Yes, but you don't have them overnight until you have a safe place to bring them,
Starting point is 00:22:26 which is why the plan was modified. So I say this to you then, when we're talking about the specifics of why the overnight visits were taken, from what I'm hearing, no indications of child abuse. No, no, not that his wife mentioned. So no indications of the children being hurt by this individual
Starting point is 00:22:45 you still think that that would rise to the occasion of imminent threat? When he did not bring them home that night and the reason of him not being able to have them overnight was because they were not safe whether it was not safe with him or not safe with any of the you know strangers that he was bringing them around that would tell me that because a court decided that the kids were not safe with him overnight. Right, well he didn't have a house, like you said. Well exactly, but that's why his overnights were taken away. So an Amber Alert should have gone out
Starting point is 00:23:12 because a court already decided this man, it's not safe, it's not a safe place for his children to be in overnight, and he had them overnight. So when he didn't bring them back that night, an Amber Alert should have been sent out, and it wasn't. That's all I'm saying. And yeah, I mean, it's just a, it's a horrible situation.
Starting point is 00:23:26 I don't know. No, we'll put it out to you guys. I would add when we're considering danger to the kids, where we have to ask is the individual who's with them a danger or is the environment dangerous? Like him not having a home to bring them to. He would protect them, you would think. But I want to hear people's opinion.
Starting point is 00:23:44 Obviously Stephanie and I don't agree and I don't know if it would have changed the outcome, but it is important to have these debates, these discussions, because these are two differing opinions right here and I'm sure there's gonna be seven more differing opinions when you start to watch this video or you listen to it. Let us know what you think. And I think you're saying like, oh, what's gonna happen if there's an Amber Alert going out every day, like what's the public gonna do?
Starting point is 00:24:08 I agree with you. It's 100% gonna happen, there's no doubt about it. That's frustrating for me. So when someone is really in danger and been kidnapped and they turn off the Amber Alert, that person's gonna never be found. So for me, anytime a vulnerable child is not where they should be,
Starting point is 00:24:23 they could potentially be in danger. And I'm not going to be a person, if I could get 16 amber alerts a day and I'd be like, okay, I'll be on the lookout. I'll be on the lookout for this kid. Now this is a child. It's not like an adult who has their own money and decided to leave home and could have just been a runaway. Yeah, let's give that a day or so.
Starting point is 00:24:39 But with the kids, they are not home of their own volition. This is not their choice. So anytime they are in a place where they shouldn't be, I think an umbrella is fine. And if it ends out that the kids were fine and the dad was just being irresponsible, at least we know I would like to take part in any opportunity that I can have to locate a child
Starting point is 00:24:58 who's missing, even if they're not in imminent danger, just to bring them back to the place where they feel safe, because this is very traumatic for a child in general, to be in the middle of this custody battle, and who knows what's happening. Even if it's not physically dangerous, it could be emotionally dangerous, and we gotta protect our youth,
Starting point is 00:25:15 so that we don't have all these damaged people going out into the world getting mad, that they're getting Amber Alerts. You know what I mean? We have to do better for our children, so that we can hopefully go forward in a more stable and secure way in society and we don't have people being like,
Starting point is 00:25:29 oh my God, another missing child. I'm so burnt out from this. I'm so old for this. Who would even do that? I'm sure there are people. Well, you know that there are. I know that there are. It's unfortunate though.
Starting point is 00:25:39 So we have some stats to be on the lookout for him. Yeah, a couple of things. Couple of things I wanna say. I'm in a difficult position because as a father, I don't necessarily disagree with anything you're saying. And I wouldn't turn the Amber Alerts off, but I also have to play administrator, law enforcement. I've got to put that hat on. And the logistics of that and how
Starting point is 00:26:00 you handle that on a mass level, whether it's by state or by the country, as far as how we put these out, when they go out, what's the criteria that has to be met in order to do so. Again, there's no perfect system. There's always room for improvement. At the end of the day, I'm thinking about Peyton, I'm thinking about Evelyn, I'm thinking about Olivia,
Starting point is 00:26:22 I'm thinking about their mother, because this is a situation where she was trying to do the right thing, she was trying to keep the kids with her, keep them safe, she knew there were issues going on, she was trying to balance the whole be a good mom with not taking away the kids from Travis, because she knew that he had seen and gone through some things that maybe he didn't have control over
Starting point is 00:26:43 completely, right, maybe, and she was trying to balance that and unfortunately... Trying to give him the benefit of the doubt I think and yeah yeah of course I put no blame on her whatsoever. I don't either. I don't either. And as you said there we have to find Travis we have to find Travis because we're gonna get a lot more answers if we find him especially if he's alive even if he's dead we're gonna get more answers but number one priority right now is finding him so that he can be held accountable for what he did or he can at least explain what happened and so if you're in the Washington area or if you're in Canada watching this or if you're in one of the surrounding states you have to know there is a twenty thousand dollar reward right now. Travis is wanted for homicide and kidnapping. Three counts each, yes.
Starting point is 00:27:21 Yep, his date of birth is 8-15-92. He's approximately five foot eight inches tall, 190 pounds. He's a Caucasian male with black hair, brown eyes. He was last seen on May 30th, 2025. He also goes by the alias Caleb. But if you're watching on YouTube, take a look at the photo. He may have changed his look.
Starting point is 00:27:41 If I'm him, I'm shaving my beard, I'm cutting all of that off. I'm changing my look. If he'm him, I'm shaving my beard, I'm cutting all of that off, I'm changing my look. If he's mentally aware to even do that, because it sounds like he maybe kind of was on the cusp of a mental break, honestly. And there is a number that you can call, but the law enforcement does warn people,
Starting point is 00:27:57 hey, he could be armed, but he is definitely dangerous. Do not approach him. Do not make yourself known to him. If you see him, call 911 immediately. Be a good witness. Or call the CCSO tip line at 509-667-6845. And I want one more question for you, Derek, before we go. Okay.
Starting point is 00:28:17 Put your father hat back on. One more question, one more answer. I want one more answer from you. Okay. Put your father hat back on. Yeah. If this was one of your children missing, and you knew, because we all have people like this
Starting point is 00:28:27 in our families, right? You knew that they were with somebody who you trusted, who you're related to, but who also maybe has some issues with like alcoholism or mental health issues or something, and they didn't come back when they were supposed to, would you have still wanted an Amber Alert put out? Of course I would have. But that's the father hat.
Starting point is 00:28:47 That's the person who's in the situation. But if we were all wearing our father and mother hats, maybe less of this would happen. Well police are fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers, but I don't want to keep beating a dead horse. We're not going to, you're not going to change my opinion on this. I hate saying this. I wish I lived in a world where there was a system that I could put it out nationally to every single phone and they had no capability of turning it off and they had to look at it. But that's not the world we live in. So I have to balance my personal feelings and my emotions with what's going to work best out for those cases going forward.
Starting point is 00:29:19 And when you think about it, we're talking about one case. Think about how many civil disputes there are in the state of Washington There's a there's hundreds of thousands of them and every mother and father When faced with a similar situation if an amber alert is put out for this one person They're gonna expect it to be put out for them so I'm saying something that's difficult for me to say because like you said as a father and As I'm assuming as all the mothers out there, we have a large female audience here, you would want the National Guard out there looking for your children. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:29:51 But there is this weird position that we're forced to be in as the law enforcement people, where we have to make a really difficult decision. I've already acknowledged in this one, it didn't work out and it was wrong. And we'll never know if it would have made a difference, but going forward, what can we do? There's definitely things we can change. The issue I have here with this one specifically,
Starting point is 00:30:12 when we're talking about totality of circumstances, I would like to believe that if there was evidence of child abuse, that the alert would have went out. And if for me, I would have probably put the alert out anyways, but I'm more, we live in a smaller city, we have a smaller state, not as many amber alerts, I would have probably put it out. But what would have put me over the edge definitively would have been any evidence or indication
Starting point is 00:30:36 of potential child abuse from the past. Any indication of that, other than them just not having a home to live in, I would have put the amber alert out. But from what you're telling me, there was no evidence of that. It just sucks that we live in a world where we can't determine the difference between when this is actually necessary and urgent,
Starting point is 00:30:54 and when people are just playing with the system. That's really unfortunate, yeah. But I mean, listen, there were signs here. There were things, and I'm hoping that when there's a post-mortem done, we learn that although an Amber alert wasn't put out Washington State Police along with local police were still doing a lot of the work behind the scenes they were out there looking for plates they were going to they were
Starting point is 00:31:17 they were friends so do you get what I'm saying here we didn't get to amber alert now if you told me Washington State Police said, eh, we don't see a problem, that to me is a huge issue. But if we had access to what they were doing behind the scenes where troopers were responding to areas of familiarity, friends, family, colleagues, et cetera, they were doing the work. I give them a little grace. It was the local police, not the state police.
Starting point is 00:31:43 That's a problem then. State police should have been doing the work as well. I think they did the following day, or in the following days when it's obvious, like, hey, something's going on here. But put it on billboards, stuff like that. They did send out an endangered missing persons alert. Oh, they did.
Starting point is 00:31:57 But the next day. Okay. But we know that that's not the same alert system. It doesn't go to phones. It doesn't go on those billboards that you see when you're driving. When you get the amber alert, you know it's serious. And that's why you have to be careful
Starting point is 00:32:12 how often you put them out. You don't want to desensitize people to it. That's the problem. You don't want to desensitize people to the eh, eh, that you get on your phone. When I see that, when that goes off, everybody's looking at their phone. We want to keep it that way. Well, let us know what you guys think in the comment section
Starting point is 00:32:28 We've had some discussions and let us know what side you fall on But we're interested to know interested to hear from you by the way I'm not oblivious to the fact that the majority is gonna agree with you I don't know the majority is gonna agree with you and that's okay that's why I'm here you put forth a is going to agree with you and that's okay. That's why I'm here. You put forth a pretty good argument. But that's why I'm here because fortunately, unfortunately, however you want to look at
Starting point is 00:32:51 it, that's what makes crime weekly different. I've done it. I've had to make those decisions. I've been in an administrative role and it is not something we take lightly. And I constantly feared making the wrong decision or not doing something a certain way and Having one of those children or even an adult there their blood being on my hands Because I would have that's how I would have felt even though it wouldn't be the case I would have felt that way and so it's a burden and it's a lot of stress and it's it's tough to make those difficult
Starting point is 00:33:23 Decisions, but listen, like you said everyone let us know what you think and why do you feel that way? And hopefully we get Travis sooner than later. I'm hoping he's alive because I want answers. But if you're asking me and I had to choose, I would say the likely outcome, the reason they haven't found him is because he's dead somewhere in a really secluded area and we may never find him, depending on where he is. I kind of agree with you. But he's not moving.
Starting point is 00:33:52 Yeah. That's my opinion. So let us know what you think. We're gonna be back later this week with part four of Darlie Routier. We have had some developments in this case. Little teaser, we've had Team Darlie and family of hers reach out, we're talking to them,
Starting point is 00:34:10 and we're gonna see how this whole series unfolds, but we could have a very interesting ending that may potentially include an interview, we'll see. But we will talk to you later this week. Everyone stay safe out there, we'll see you soon. Bye.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.