Police video shows Travis Decker, fugitive dad accused of killing 3 daughters, days before girls vanished
The video from the Wenatchee Police Department shows Decker interacting with a police officer and another person on May 27. CBS affiliate KREM reported that Decker had slammed into another car at a red light. The other person in the video was the driver of the second vehicle, KREM reported.
During the nearly 20-minute video, Decker can be seen in a light-colored shirt and dark shorts with his arms crossed. He leans against his vehicle, a white truck, several times. He and the other driver appear to speak to the officer, and to each other. The police video does not include audio of the conversations. Towards the end of the footage, Decker and the other driver shake hands and return to their vehicles.
Decker, 32, has been wanted since June 2, when a sheriff's deputy found his truck and the bodies of his three daughters — Paityn, 9, Evelyn, 8, and Olivia, 5 — at a campground outside of Leavenworth, Washington. Decker was meant to have returned the girls to their mother's home in Wenatchee following a scheduled visit three days earlier.
In September 2024, Decker's ex-wife, Whitney Decker, filed to modify their custody agreement. In a petition, she wrote that Decker's mental health issues had worsened and that he had become increasingly unstable. She also said he was often living out of his truck.
Decker, an Army infantryman from March 2013 to July 2021, has extensive training in navigation, survival and other survival skills, authorities said. He once spent more than two months living off the grid in backwoods country, and deployed to Afghanistan for four months in 2014. Police spent weeks searching the rugged wilderness for him, but in late June said they believe he may have died or left the area.
"There is no certain evidence that Decker remains alive or in this area," the Kittitas County Sheriff's Office said in a social media post on June 23. "Seemingly strong early leads gave way to less convincing proofs over the last two weeks of searching. Still, we can't and won't quit this search; Paityn, Evelyn, and Olivia Decker deserve justice. And Decker remains a danger to the public as long as he's at large."
Authorities have shared multiple photos of what Decker may look like now, as well as images showing him in the days before his disappearance.
In early July, police launched a search of Idaho's Sawtooth Forest after a family reported seeing a man who looked like Decker. Police found the man and determined it was a case of mistaken identity. That man, identified only as Nick, told CBS affiliate KIRO that he had been camping in the forest with a friend to celebrate the Fourth of July but was walking alone when he was spotted by the family. His friend sent him an article about the incident, he said, and he didn't even recognize himself.
"Your instinct isn't to think 'That was me,' so my first thought was 'Oh my god, we spent the night next to a murderer!'" Nick told KIRO. "In my opinion, I don't really look like the guy. Granted, they saw me from a distance. But, just be careful, because this has been a little bit tumultuous for me and people around me."
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