Found Deceased Olivia 5, Evelyn 8 & Paityn Decker 9, Endangered Alert, visitation w/ homeless dad Travis Decker 32, wh 2017 GMC Sierra PU, Wenatchee, 30 May 2025

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ADMIN NOTE:

I don't believe there is any known fact as to the cause of Decker's alleged PTSD. It could simply be from an emotional trauma as a child, a physical assault as a teen, etc etc.

No need to derail the thread with extensive speculation and discussion about possible sexual assault in the military. Anything is possible .. we just don't know at this point in time.
 
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I know we think hes a monster, at the same time you cant help but wonder for what he must have gone through to make him like this.
I hope that there is some learning from this for the people who should be taking care of vets,
I have read 2 articles one says he refused care, one says he was unable to get it? I dont know which one is true.
Ive read that borderrlines have an intense fear of abandonment .
he was searching for connections and then killed the 3 best connections he could have had.
Curious if ex-wife had recently started seeing someone?
 
I dont know, the article just said " soaking the bed" I dont know exactly if that means. peeing. sweating. pouring water? The article was posted in here but now I cant remember which one it was? Ill go look.
From my interpretation I think it means "to wake up sweating". I would like to think that sometimes people with bad nightmares can wake up sweating in the sheets.
 
While WD's attorney tells PEOPLE that they believe TD's already deceased, they did file a restraining order against him on 6/3/25. The petition detailed some interesting information about his behavior at work on Friday, and the weeks leading up to the murders.

6/6/25

 
OK let's assume that we shall probably never know what was his discharge diagnosis. The army doesn't owe us one.


Looking at it from a different standpoint: he didn't pass the elite ranger school exam.

So the army did not qualify a person (who later ended up killing three daughters) to serve. PTSD or not, he simply did not make the cut. We can view it as perhaps Travis being failed by everyone, or possibly, the opposite: by weeding him out, the army protected the civilians from an armed man with progressing mental/physical issues.

Let us look at it from the other angle: he was not dishonorably discharged. Meaning, he got insurance (Tricare) and VA services.

I thought VA was far, but if Travis Decker got many-hours sessions in GA, he could have gotten full evaluation and Zoom group sessions in VA. He had a car. Wenachee...it is easier to get to Western WA via I-90 vs route 2, but it was accessible. There is a closer VA, but I view the Tacoma one as the best. Anyhow…he was able to plan, as we now see.

I think that another thing was at stake: he wanted to get back into the army - eventually, to get pension and benefits, so he suppressed whatever issues he had.
What comes with “thank you for your service” is not bad at all.

On the other hand, his coworkers (i presume, the carpenters in Idaho) did not accept him. We can ask them, was it bullying or was his behavior such that it elicited a predictable reaction. (Probably, in the middle. All i can tell is that no one likes people who are cruel to animals, and if his dog was a service one they had to see something).

Maybe he lived out of his car and three plastic bags and zip-ties in a car were expected. But tbh, it is hard to get plastic bags in WA nowadays. I ordered some anti-moths zippered ones from Amazon, and they have a “breathing hole”, btw. Still, better than nothing.

A complicated situation. Sadly, I feel that he was/is very sick. But the responsibility to take medication was his, right? What about finishing the evaluation and getting the diagnosis? Maybe, not to self-medicate (this is a big question. We don't know. But some bizarre twist to this story makes me wonder..again, the army doesn’t owe us the explanation. Maybe people around him, former friends or coworkers, know more).

I am not quite sure he is moving to Canada but hope the police and everyone involved is right.
 
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From my interpretation I think it means "to wake up sweating". I would like to think that sometimes people with bad nightmares can wake up sweating in the sheets.
II think sweating also. If he admired his father’s service in the military, he may have felt he failed when he couldn’t follow his father’s path & felt shame and any underlying problems may have escalated.
 
Are they sure he is heading for the PCT? Wenatchee is less than three hours from Osoyoos BC. He could be in the Southern Interior aka the Okanagan.
Well, tbh, much as people from Idaho are religious as he is, they are harsh folks and won’t tolerate this stuff for long, so I won’t go that route. Although, to travel to Montana and then, Wyoming, and he can survive there for years.

But most logical would be to go South to Eastern Oregon and then, SW to the Bay Area. He can hide among their homeless all his life. His searches might be a red herring or a distraction.
 
Before the tragic news surfaced that three girls were found dead — and their father was suspected of killing them — their mother posted an online video tribute to her now-missing ex-husband, whom she claims was a good parent despite his mental health struggles, according to her attorney.


The 20-second video, shared exclusively with PEOPLE through Whitney Decker's attorney Arianna Cozart on June 6, was made as a Father's Day tribute to Travis Decker, Cozart says.


The video is filled with a slideshow photos of Travis, Whitney, and their daughters, Paityn Decker, 9, Evelyn Decker, 8, and Olivia Decker, 5, while Pharrell Williams' song "Happy" plays.



 
Here is a photo of Travis, their dog Chinook and Olivia? in June of 2023 at a Wenatchee pet shop. His appearance really did change dramatically in such a short time. It's really evident in that slideshow Whitney put together for Father's Day.

Screen Shot 2025-06-06 at 11.48.37 PM.webp
 
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And herein lies our never ending issue. We know that monsters are (generally) created, not genetically predisposed though genetics play a factor into resiliency and some natural mental health symptoms. The majority of this happens due to big or little T trauma. And if we can’t circle back to the trauma incident it’s because the person didnt talk about it not because it didn’t exist. The never ending issue is how to acknowledge that’s what happened to someone and use it to stop the cycles.

Meanwhile, I work in almost every county in the state and couldn’t tell you a vet qualified therapist that would have an appointment in the next month.

It’s defeating really. I hope other countries are doing all of this better.

You’d be surprised. Maybe in countries who were not at war for centuries, like Sweden or Switzerland, but in the former Eastern Europe, the opinion about US army is that it is a great place.

I see two issues: one, to join an army, the person has to understand that not only he might need to take another’s life at an order, but he also has to sacrifice own one, also at an order. Survival training, spec-op, train to do things better but some people are not army material, period. A lot of selection happens at the pre-admission state, and maybe this is where Travis simply flew under the radar. I think that he didn’t have what his father had. (MAO, the warrior gene? It gets transmitted to boys from the mother. Just one example.)

Then, haven’t we met people who came from Afghanistan or Iraq, with PTSD, had “issues” after discharge; some might look as ticking time bombs initially but they never explode. They find jobs, families, maybe substances and divorces are an issue, but they don’t even come close to annihilating anyone. If anything, they join AAs, NAs and slowly grow back into the normal life.

How did people who came from the Vietnam war cope? Many couldn’t even mention Nam for years. And opiate epidemic was a known issue, too, and so was alcoholism. And yet they didn’t complain and just went through their lives.
Same with other countries and wars.

The biggest limiting factor these days is that Tricare is not easily accepted by most non-VA providers, but some vets find jobs and get other insurances. VA does incredibly interesting studies but it is not the only option.

With Travis, I see that the army weeded him off, he was shunned by the coworkers and his wife was very supportive, but still couldn’t live with him. The wife met him when he was in the army. She didn’t know him before. I wonder if he didn’t fit in the high school, too?
 
In my opinion the fact that he tried to reconcile their marriage and she rejected him was key in this situation.
The girls suffered, had to watch each other being zip tied and dying. He probably watch them die in those minutes or walked away with the knowledge they suffered those long minutes. This feels like punishment for his ex wife.

Jmo

It is impossible to know what demons motivated TD. He systematically ‘3 individual times’ bound their hands with zip ties and secured plastic bags over their heads. He snuffed their lives out and watched for however number of minutes it took.

TD planned their murders by bringing zip ties and plastic bags to the crime scene. His intent was on using suffocation as the method to snatch the life from each of his children.

Sasha’s linked article goes one step further to give weight to the argument that a part of his motive ‘was the knowledge it would be the last time Whitney would see her 3 daughters alive’. We know it was his intent because he had already selected and visited the crime scene the previous day.

Note: This was new information for me. In the linked KXLY article Whitney referred to the divorced couple's recent marriage anniversary the week before. At that time Travis had attempted to repair the marriage.

<snipped from KXLY link>
"Last week he tried to reconcile our marriage and had even made comments to the girls about him moving back in, and I rejected his advancements," Whitney wrote.

in my mind that rejection puts another brick in the argument that if Whitney wouldn’t reconcile with him then he would retaliate by snuffing the life out of each her cherished children.

This is only my opinion. Please feel free to critique my post. I respect everyone’s opinions.


Wenatchee mother's restraining order reveals Travis Decker's escalating behavior
 
In my opinion the fact that he tried to reconcile their marriage and she rejected him was key in this situation.
The girls suffered, had to watch each other being zip tied and dying. He probably watch them die in those minutes or walked away with the knowledge they suffered those long minutes. This feels like punishment for his ex wife.

Jmo

100%
I despise this man.
 
Here is the US Marshals Service affidavit with the Google search history of Travis Decker ("how to relocate to canada", "how does a person move to canada", "jobs canada", etc.

I haven't read all the comments, but, he spent less than 3 minutes on searching. Surely he wasn't serious about any of it, and my opinion is ,it was done to throw off the search. I think he went in the other direction.
 
TD planned their murders by bringing zip ties and plastic bags to the crime scene. His intent was on using suffocation as the method to snatch the life from each of his children.
Those materials aren’t hard to access and I can guarantee my husband has them in his truck as I type this.
I think we should not get tunnel vision. While it is probable that he planned it, so far I have not seen any real evidence that he factually did. Most guys who are the type that fix stuff themselves have zip ties in the car or in the garage - if he was living out of the car, mosf of his stuff would be there. Pretty much everyone has plastic bags in the car. If we had heard of videos of him buying the zip ties in the morning of and googleing about how long it takes to suffocate a kid, it would be different. But having zip ties and plastic bags is not indicative of intent of murder by itself.
Why I think it is important to notice, is because it is such an unusual method of killing someone. I think the reasons for why he chose that method are going to important, in all cases, wheateher he planned it ahead, wheather he did it on the spot without planning ahead or wheather he had some sort of a break from reality. I really want to ask my friends to list methods how to kill someone and to see if anyone mentions this option in their list of 10 or 20 ideas.
We know it was his intent because he had already selected and visited the crime scene the previous day.
Visiting a camping site you plan to go to and/or that you live at as you're homeless does not really show intent of murdering your three kids either. I'm sure plenty of other people have visited a campsite on two occations and not murdered their kids on their second visit. :)
I'm not trying to nag. It might be sus if he was, say, scouting out where to drop the bodies. But there is not much scouting to do in terms of "is this a good place to suffocate kids at", imho. He really might have been at the campsite for a practical reason not related to the murders, even if he was planning to kill them ahead. So this, too, does not prove any intent, imo.
in my mind that rejection puts another brick in the argument that if Whitney wouldn’t reconcile with him then he would retaliate by snuffing the life out of each her cherished children.
This one I wholehearteldy agree with. But I kinda don't want to emphasise it, because I cannot imagine how the poor mother is feeling and thinking that had she said something different and more vague, the kids might be alive. I really want her to know and feel that it is not her fault.
he was searching for connections and then killed the 3 best connections he could have had.
Wow, this really pointed out yet another angle of tragedy in all this.
 
Well, tbh, much as people from Idaho are religious as he is, they are harsh folks and won’t tolerate this stuff for long, so I won’t go that route. Although, to travel to Montana and then, Wyoming, and he can survive there for years.

But most logical would be to go South to Eastern Oregon and then, SW to the Bay Area. He can hide among their homeless all his life. His searches might be a red herring or a distraction.
Never thought about the Bay Area. Will keep an eye out here in California
 
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