New audio has emerged capturing the moment Travis Decker pleads with a judge to let him spend more time with the three daughters he now stands accused of murdering.
Tragic reports emerged in early June after the bodies of Paityn, 9, Evelyn, 8, and Olivia Decker, 5, were discovered near the Rock Island Campground in Chelan County.
The bodies of the three girls were found with plastic bags over their heads and their wrists zip-tied, according to disturbing court documents. Their father, Travis Decker, is still on the run.
Decker — charged with one count of kidnapping and three counts of first-degree murder – remains the subject of an intense search, with authorities hoping that the public may assist in helping to locate him.
It’s previously been speculated that 32-year-old Decker is using his military training to stay hidden, with other reports speculating that he may have even scoped out a hiding hole in advance of committing the atrocity. Decker served in Afghanistan in 2014, later transferring to the Washington National Guard.
Federal authorities are said to have taken over the search on June 8 after local officials said they needed assistance.
“We had reached a point where we need to rest our local resources,” the statement said, as per Fox News. “However, CCSO leadership remains closely involved in search coordination and continues their lead with the criminal investigation.”
Decker’s visitation time with his three daughters had been reduced in recent years on the grounds of his declining mental health. Whitney, Decker’s ex-wife, and her lawyer had cited alleged endangerment of the girls in their request to decrease Travis’ visitation time.
In September 2024, a judge ruled that Whitney would have near-full custody of the daughters. Travis was allowed to visit his daughters for a set number of hours every other weekend.
In newly-released audio, the fugitive father pleaded with the family court judge to let him see his children more often.
“I already only get a day and a half, two days, with my daughters, and it’s two nights,” he said.
“It’s a Friday night, Saturday night, and because of my current job and the current location, I’m in Idaho working. I am in the U.S. [Carpenter’s Union], so where I go, where the work is, is where I come, and through the new parenting plan, it takes away basically all my opportunities to be around the girls when I’m not at work. If I have the opportunity to be there for my daughters, I feel like I should be able to be there for them and not have to find my way to be around my daughters.”
In one reported instance, Decker’s daughters were allegedly heard crying to their mother over the phone during an overnight trip with their father at the Wenatchee armory. This was cited as one of the reasons why Decker wasn’t allowed to keep the kids overnight.
“I don’t believe that my weekends should be completely taken away since I have been gone. Every time I’ve had the girls, we have been in campsites, in national forests and paid campsites that have campers. We’ve never done anything that was unsafe or anything I wouldn’t want to put myself in,” Decker said.
The search for Decker continues.
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