Travis Decker – now missing in Washington state‘s wilderness after allegedly murdering his three daughters – had a history of escalating violence, according to his brother who revealed Travis’ ‘violent’ reaction when his family attempted to hold an intervention.
Thomas, 35, told the Daily Mail exclusively that his brother’s actions are unrecognizable from when they were children and begged him to ‘stop this evil’ and turn himself in after the bodies of his children Paityn, 9, Evelyn, 8, and Olivia, 5, were found near Rock Island Campground.
Authorities started the search for the three little girls after they failed to return home from a scheduled visit with their father on May 30.
Three days later, they were found suffocated, with plastic bags over their heads and bound with zip ties, the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office confirmed.
Shortly after, a no-bail arrest warrant was issued for Travis, 32, on three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of kidnapping.
Now, in the second week of the manhunt, authorities believe they are closing in on the army vet, writing in a Facebook post, ‘Our office recently received a tip from a hiking party who stated they spotted a lone hiker in the Enchantments area who appeared to be ill-prepared for trail and weather conditions and appeared to be avoiding others.
‘Tracking teams immediately acted upon the information and spotted a lone, off-trail hiker from a helicopter near Colchuck Lake who ran from sight as the helicopter passed.’
But Thomas tells the Daily Mail he does not know if his younger brother will surrender when confronted by law enforcement.
Thomas Decker (pictured with wife Jessica) spoke exclusively to the Daily Mail about his brother’s alarming change in behavior over the past three years and issued a desperate plea for Travis to turn himself in
Travis Decker showed violent tendencies after his brother and father staged an intervention following Travis’ apparent financial abandonment of his family
Thomas’s wife, Jessica, posted this photo of her three children with Travis’s daughters after the three girls’ bodies were discovered on June 2
‘I honestly do not know,’ he said. ‘We have been so disconnected for the last three years.
‘I hope it is over soon. You know, there’s a lot of people – not just within the family, but outside the family – that wants closure with this.’
Heartbroken, Thomas describes how growing up together, being only two-and-a-half years apart, they were best friends.
‘We did everything together, we hunted, fished, camped and fought with each other. We were best friends as kids.’
The brothers also pursued similar career paths with Thomas joining the Army at 18 years old and Travis following in his footsteps.
‘At times we were stationed at opposite ends of the world, but we stayed in touch with phone calls and emails. We rarely saw each other because of our military careers.’
Thomas says how a little over three years ago he found out he was being stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord just outside Tacoma, Washington, a three-hour drive from Wenatchee, Washington, where Travis lived with his wife, Whitney, and their three daughters. Thomas made a call to his brother.
‘Initially, Travis was excited about the news that we were going to be finally living in the same state after all of these years.
‘I was excited, I have young kids, and Travis had three young girls. I thought we all could reconnect… with our wives and kids.
Authorities released photos of Decker from before he went missing into the vast wilderness of Washington state, showing him with sunglasses that obscured his eyes and tattoos all down his arm
Travis (right) followed in his brother’s footsteps by joining the Army after he turned 18. Thomas is two-and-a-half years older and said they were close when they were growing up
Thomas told DailyMail.com that he and his brother grew apart while serving in different locations, until he found out he’d be stationed in Washington where Travis lived with his wife, Whitney, and their three daughters
‘Then, after I moved out, I called Travis on the phone, he appeared distant and uninterested, I was taken back by his demeanor.
‘Months later I found out that Travis and Whitney were getting a divorce. He was still living at the house, but every time I spoke with him… it’s hard to explain, but you couldn’t communicate with him.
‘He listened but wasn’t listening.’
Then, Thomas found out that Travis was starting to abandon his family.
‘I told him, ‘You can’t leave your family like this. People get divorced all the time, if you are not happy in your marriage, that’s okay.’
”But your kids do not deserve this, just because you are getting a divorce doesn’t allow you to forgo your parental obligations.”
Thomas said at one point he and his father staged an ‘intervention’ with Travis at his house. Whitney took the girls away for the afternoon, and Thomas and their father showed up at Travis’ house.
‘We were trying to help him. We had hoped to have a good conversation with him – to ask him if he needed anything, any help, financial or otherwise. We are family, we want to help him and see what we could do to get him back on track.
‘But things did not go well, he tried to resort to violence, because we were not supposed to be there and we just showed up unannounced,’ said Thomas, who refused to elaborate further but clarified there was no physical violence.
A year later, when their mother died in 2023, Thomas reached out to check on his younger brother and ask him if he wanted any of her possessions.
Travis appeared ‘distant and uninterested’ when his brother moved to Washington State some three years ago
The home where Whitney and her three daughters lived. It’s also where the intervention took place, which Thomas said escalated to the point where Travis ‘tried to resort to violence’ because he and his father showed up ‘unannounced’
Whitney gave no indication that she thought she and her three daughters were at risk of being harmed, otherwise Thomas said, he would have intervened
‘Again, whatever I said fell on deaf ears. By this time, he and Whitney were divorced, and he wasn’t paying child support, nor fulfilling his parental obligations.’
But Thomas said he had to eventually cut off Travis, adding that ‘He was spreading lies about me and I just no longer wanted to deal with it.
‘I have worked hard for what I have accomplished, and I did not want his lies to ruin my career or anything else. So I told myself I would not communicate with him anymore.
‘And to cut him off was tough. We grew up together, he is my baby brother, we did a lot of things together, and I thought we were going to be a big happy family, take our kids on trips, be uncles and dads.
‘It’s tough now knowing that will never be the case.’
Thomas last saw Whitney and the three girls about one week before they were murdered.
‘We were being transferred again, and we were going to be driving near where they lived so we spent a night in Wenatchee. We got a hotel and Whit, the girls came swimming, and we had a little pizza party. We laughed and played and just caught up on conversation, normal family stuff.
‘Whitney told my wife that she still wanted Travis to find help. But she never mentioned that she was concerned about her and her daughters’ safety around Travis.
‘Travis was still attending the girls’ sporting events, but he still was not financially providing for his girls.’
Thomas said nothing was out of the ordinary with Whitney, adding that if he ‘knew of any potential danger we would have acted upon it. We did not get any vibe Whitney had any concern of potential violence.’
Thomas and Jessica last saw Whitney and the three girls about one week before they were murdered
The Chelan County Sheriff’s Office says they believe they are closing in on the Army veteran as the manhunt enters its second week
Authorities are increasingly confident they’re closing in on Travis after a hiking party reported seeing an ‘ill-equipped’ man actively avoiding contact on a trail at Colchuck Lake
Whitney told Thomas that Travis had been going to a therapist and trying to get help. Once he started doing better, she told Thomas, he stopped going.
Thomas said he can’t speak on whether or not his brother had PTSD, saying, ‘I don’t know. I mean, everybody gets affected from different things differently.
‘There are people in the military that can see the worst things and they’re fine. And there’s people that go to the office every day and they are out.
Thomas said at the time they were originally speaking, they had plans to hang out – Travis was out of the military by this time. ‘Then all of a sudden he changed – I don’t know what changed or why, it is something I have been trying to figure out these past three years.’
Travis was an infantryman in the US Army from March 2013 to July 2021 and deployed to Afghanistan for four months in 2014, said Army spokesperson Lt Colonel Ruth Castro.
He has training in navigation, survival and other skills, authorities said. He once spent more than two months living in the backwoods off the grid.
‘The guy on the wanted poster for murdering my three nieces is not the brother I know,’ said Thomas. ‘I can’t even comprehend what is going on.
‘I am in complete shock that he would do something like this. He loves his daughters – at least I thought he did. And Whitney is devastated beyond belief.’
SWAT teams from the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Special Operations unit looking for Travis. Thomas told the Daily Mail he’s unsure if his brother will surrender when confronted by law enforcement
‘The ‘guy on the wanted poster for murdering my three nieces is not the brother I know,’ Thomas told DailyMail.com
Thomas said that part of him, if given the chance to talk to his brother, ‘wants to ask Travis why? Why did you do this?’
But he does not think Travis would be honest, asking, ‘Can you trust somebody that did something like this to give you an honest answer?’
Thomas said he is cooperating with law enforcement, speaking to them just days before his interview with the Daily Mail.
‘They wanted to know anything I knew about Travis – other phone numbers, email addresses, likes or dislikes, what was he like, habits, etc. They wanted to get an idea of who he is.’
A GoFundMe page set up to help the girls’ mother raised more than $1.2 million by Wednesday afternoon.
As for Thomas, he just wants to put this all to rest. ‘I hope this is over soon so we can start the healing process and get some semblance of closure.’
