The tragic, twisted psychology of Travis Decker, the wanted Washington killer dad
Travis Decker, the 32-year-old father who brutally murdered his three young daughters, is still missing and is now wanted federally. He’s thought to be headed to Canada. What do we know about Travis Decka and his twisted psychology? Let’s discuss.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Michelle. I hope you’re doing well. Welcome to another video. It is Sunday morning, the 8th of June, and I want to talk about the search for Travis Decker today. I’ve done a couple of videos on Travis and the horrific situation, but in this video, I want to concentrate on what we know about Travis Decka and his psychology.

For those who don’t know me very well, I worked in psychology for over 20 years. I lectured and did research, and some of that research took me into this area. One study that I helped one of my PhD students publish, for example, looked at PTSD in army veterans. It was a small-scale study and showed that army veterans with PTSD were no more or less likely to be resilient than anybody else. But it was only a small study. I tell you this just to say that I know this area of study very well.

So, I want to see how what we know relates to Travis Decker. For those who don’t know what happened here, it was Friday, May 30th. Travis picked up his three young daughters—9-year-old Payton, 8-year-old Evelyn, and 5-year-old Olivia—for a scheduled visit. Travis and the girls’ mother, Whitney, had been divorced for some time. The divorce was civil, and they had a court-ordered parenting plan that was agreed upon by all. Things were going generally okay with this plan. It had been amended in recent months. Travis used to be allowed to have the girls overnight—until he became homeless. Things started to go downhill from there.

The court order was changed, and Travis was no longer allowed to keep the girls overnight. So, on that Friday, May 30th, he picked them up around 5:00 p.m., presumably just to take them for a bite to eat and spend some time with them. He was meant to return them by 8:00 p.m.

Eight o’clock rolled around—no sign of them. Nine o’clock came, and Whitney began to worry. At 9:35, she called 911. The reason she alerted authorities so soon—because it could have just been a delay—was that Travis’s phone was turned off, and it was now dark. Whitney knew that Travis wasn’t in a good headspace. He had PTSD from his army days. He had served in the military, had been to Afghanistan, and returned with PTSD, as many veterans sadly do.

We know that veterans with PTSD are more likely to go through divorces than other people. PTSD is hugely problematic for relationships. It’s a hard, hard condition to deal with—not only for the person going through it but also for their family members and loved ones.

Travis had reached out to the VA. He couldn’t jump through the hoops that were necessary—he was too mentally, psychologically fragile for that. So Whitney was really concerned. Police attended, but it wasn’t until the next morning that they decided to put out an alert. Whitney had asked for an AMBER Alert, but it was denied because the children weren’t judged to be in any danger. One of the criteria for an AMBER Alert is that the child is at risk of imminent bodily injury or death, and it was deemed not to be the case.

Saturday turned into Sunday, then into Monday. The search for the three girls and their dad was on. Whitney knew—she knew in her bones—that something dreadful had happened.

Not only did Travis have PTSD, but he’d also been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder as well, which adds a whole level of complexity to a PTSD diagnosis. Local law enforcement asked the state patrol twice to issue the AMBER Alert, and they didn’t. It would have put the information out to a wider group. It would have pinged people’s phones—and in the rural area we’re talking about, that was important. The area is Washington State—Chelan County, which is sparsely populated. Travis could literally disappear—and that’s seemingly what he did.

However, during that weekend of police investigation, his white GMC truck was spotted on traffic cameras. They were able to get a rough direction of where Travis was heading. But it wasn’t until Monday that a phone ping gave a more specific location. Deputies were dispatched to the Rock Island campground in Leavenworth, and there one deputy found Travis’s white truck. Bloody handprints on the back. They started a ground search for Travis and the girls.

Sadly, not far from the truck, down an embankment, the bodies of Payton, Evelyn, and Olivia were found. And what a scene it was. They had all been zip-tied, according to charging documents. They had been asphyxiated—plastic bags over their heads. It was the most horrific scene. A horrible way to die for three little girls. Their last moments must have been terrified—the man they trusted most in the world had betrayed them. Absolutely horrendous.

There was a dog there as well. I assumed when I first heard that the dog was there that it was alive, but I’m now not sure. I don’t think it’s ever been clarified whether the dog was alive—maybe in the truck or tied up—or whether the dog was dead. But those bloody handprints on the truck—they are adult-sized. I don’t know if the DNA has come back from them, but were they from killing the dog? Travis is nowhere to be seen. It’s not like he did himself in at the scene, as is often the case with family annihilators.

So, what do we know about this type of horrific event? Why does a parent do this? Why take out their own flesh and blood? You have to be a special kind of monster to be able to do that, don’t you?

Let’s look at some studies. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs talks about PTSD. It’s a shame that Travis couldn’t get help through them. He’d been court-ordered to attend mental health classes and anger management, but there’s no evidence he went to any of them. He had reached out to the VA—maybe the people he thought could help him the most. But he couldn’t navigate the system. Too many hoops, and he was too mentally fragile.

The system failed—failed Travis, failed his girls. Failed Whitney.

Whitney has said through her lawyer that Travis would burst into the house and demand to see the girls. He wasn’t physically abusive, but he had become irritable in a way that wasn’t him. Whitney said he was a good dad—an active dad. Even through homelessness and financial struggles—he’d lost jobs and couldn’t hold down life anymore—he still attended school and sports events for the girls. Whitney wanted him to carry on like that. She had love and empathy for him. She just couldn’t deal with the person Travis had become.

Sadly, trauma survivors often have flashbacks. They may go to great lengths to avoid such memories and struggle with anger and impulses. Some push away loved ones. Whitney said, through her lawyer, that something in him snapped. Travis was never violent with the girls. He had mental health issues. He was loving at his core—but something broke.

Our government should provide real resources to people like Travis. You ask them to serve their country. When they return broken, there should be help. There is some help—but Travis couldn’t get to it. He couldn’t meet the requirements.

Now, family annihilation is thankfully rare, so academic research is limited. But there was a 2013 study in the UK—Birmingham City University—by Yardley, Wilson, and Lines. It looked at 71 family annihilators from 1980 to 2012. 59 were male. Over half were in their 30s. August was the most common month—school holidays, weekends—when fathers have more access to their kids. 81% of family annihilators attempt suicide after the act. That refutes the idea of standoffs or shootouts.

They found these killers weren’t necessarily lifelong failures—some were surgeons, police officers, executives. Most common cause? Family breakup—66%. Then financial difficulty. Then mental illness.

Travis Decka? Former soldier. PTSD. Borderline personality disorder. Job loss. Homelessness. Reduced access to his kids. All major stressors.

A 2019 Australian study grouped family annihilators into types. One type, the “adaptive,” engages in actions showing guilt and planning. Travis left the girls down an embankment, zip-tied, suffocated. It fits—partially. But again, people don’t fit neatly into boxes. That’s why I don’t like typology research.

Family annihilators often come out of nowhere. Many people go through divorce, trauma, PTSD, and don’t do this. Something in Travis broke. Something not easily predicted. Not by psychologists, not by courts, not even by loved ones.

This case has echoes of Chris Watts, of Chad Doerman. There’s rage. There’s a breakdown in seeing the child as a child. But Travis didn’t take his own life. The FBI believes he may have fled.

In the days before the murders, he searched online for how to move to Canada, how to find work there. The Pacific Crest Trail is only 11 miles from the campground where the truck was found. He’s done off-grid living. He knows how to survive. Could he hike 11 miles, slip into Canada, and vanish? Yes. It’s possible.

They’ve shut down parts of the trail. They don’t want civilians out there. It’s too easy to misidentify someone on a drone camera.

Could Travis get away? Yes. Has he? That’s another matter.

Let me know your thoughts about this horrific case in the comments, and I’ll see you in the next video. Bye, guys.