S3 Ep310: Crime Weekly News: Manhunt For Travis Decker After Three Daughters Found Dead

Travis Decker, a former U. S. Army Ranger, is accused of murdering his three daughters, Paityn, Evelyn, and Olivia, during a court-ordered visitation in Washington state. After failing to return the girls to their mother, their bodies were found at Rock Island Campground, with evidence pointing to suffocation. Decker, now facing multiple charges including murder and kidnapping, remains on the run. We're coming to CrimeCon Denver! Use our code CRIMEWEEKLY for 10% off your tickets! https://www.crimecon.com/CC25Try our coffee!! - www. CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > ｿ https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> ｿ https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS:1. https://www. OneSkin.co - Use code CWN for 15% off!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Levasseur.

• 0:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  And I'm Stephanie Harlow.

• 0:19Derrick Levasseur?

  We have a sad one this week. It's making national headlines, as it should. Three little girls left for a weekend visit with their father and never came home. The search for Travis Decker, a former Army Ranger with elite survival training, has become a statewide manhunt. Authorities warn he's dangerous, potentially armed, and capable of surviving off the grid for weeks. But long before this turned into a national manhunt, there were warning signs: a bitter custody dispute, a man unraveling, and a court system that failed to intervene. By the time the alarm bells rang, it was already too late. And this unfortunately is not the first time we've heard of a case like this. And everyone's been DMing us about it, tagging us in it.

• 1:02Derrick Levasseur?

  There was a video that I reposted on Twitter of the three beautiful young girls who had their lives taken by the scumbag monster. I reposted the article originally when it first came out. And so this is a combination of a BOLO, you know, be on the lookout for this guy. We want him brought to justice as quickly as possible. Although, I don't know if that's going to happen, and we'll get into that in a couple of minutes. But Stephanie, what are your initial thoughts?

• 1:28Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, I just posted a video about this case over the weekend. So I'm pretty well versed in it and up to date. Obviously, he's on the loose. No one knows where he is. But let me give you a few details of the case. The three little girls that we're talking about are five-year-old Olivia Decker, eight-year-old Evelyn Decker, and nine-year-old Peyton Decker. And all three attended Lincoln Elementary School in the Wenache School District, which is in Washington State. So what seems to have happened here is Travis and his wife Whitney had gone through a divorce a few years prior. He had visitation with the girls. So he would have a weekend of visitation with the

• 2:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  girls where he would pick them up on Friday night and bring them back Sunday night. But then he became homeless. So he initially had an apartment after the divorce or as the divorce was going through. And then he was homeless for a little bit after this apartment. And he ended up living at the Armory because he was part of the National Guard. And his wife, Whitney, at that time, brought the case back to family court and said, hey, I want I want this parenting plan modified because my husband or my ex-husband does not have a place to live. And I don't feel comfortable with my three little girls staying at the Armory where there's, you know, military men, transients, people who just kind of stay there temporarily. They're surrounded by strange men. I don't feel safe. Additionally,

• 2:56Stephanie Harlowe?

  there were claims of neglect where Whitney said that her little girls would call her or FaceTime her and they were crying because their father was nowhere to be found. And they were playing with like some workout equipment. And one of the little girls was injured and hurt. And she said, just in general, the the three girls were showing emotional disruption whenever they would talk to their father on the phone or had or come back from visits with him and be, you know, very emotionally unregulated, which wasn't like them. So the judge did go ahead and modify the parenting plan, basically saying that Travis could continue to see his children, but no more overnights until he had a stable place to live. But there were also issues with Travis's mental state because he had served during

• 3:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  Afghanistan. When he joined the Army, he went to Afghanistan for a little while. He saw active duty. He came back with CPTSD. He was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder right around the time the marriage was ending. And although Whitney continued telling the court and even law enforcement when the girls went missing, that there had been no issues of domestic violence or abuse during their marriage. She did also tell a neighbor that there were issues with domestic abuse and that Travis had beat her. And this neighbor saw Travis with a bruised face one time and Whitney with a broken arm that she was wearing in a sling. So. It is possible that there was domestic abuse and I talked about this in my video.

• 4:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think that there probably was, but Whitney most likely never thought that it would translate to their children and she didn't want to say something in the court system that would prevent Travis from being able to continue seeing his children. And I think she worried that if she talked about incidences of domestic violence, that that might complicate things.

• 4:42Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:42Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 4:43Derrick Levasseur?

  As it should.

• 4:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Right. But I really genuinely think that if there was, because this neighbor has no reason to lie, it seems that he and Whitney were pretty close, that she was texting him when her daughters went missing. This neighbor knew the girls, he knew Whitney, he knew Travis. He commented on how Travis's mental state and even physical appearance was deteriorating over the years. He looked like a completely different person. He wasn't doing well. So I think that's what happened is she probably, maybe it was only a few times or a handful of times and she genuinely thought, I don't, I don't think that he would ever hurt our children. And when Travis did not bring them home Friday night, he was supposed to bring them home at eight, and when it was like nine o'clock, and then nine thirty Whitney called the police and the Wenatchee police, they did want to put out an Amber Alert, but

• 5:25Stephanie Harlowe?

  the Washington State Patrol declined it, saying that this case did not meet Amber Alert criteria. They did not believe that the girls were in imminent danger. They said, you know, custody issues like this happen all the time where the kids aren't brought back on time. And if we put out an Amber Alert every time that happened, you know, we'd be putting them out constantly, people would be burnt out from them. But with Travis's military history, his history of mental illness, his history of, you know, being homeless and obviously deteriorating, he wasn't doing well. I think that it should have raised a red flag and the Washington State Patrol should have given the go ahead to put out an Amber Alert because these three little girls were found, but they were not found

• 6:09Stephanie Harlowe?

  alive. All three of their bodies were discovered around 5:00 PM Monday, June 2. They were found close to Travis Decker's white 2017 GMC Sierra truck near the Rock Island Campground, which is near Leavenworth, about three hours east of Seattle. They were confirmed to be dead and their wrists were zip tied and their heads were covered with plastic bags.

• 6:34Stephanie Harlowe?

  And so their, their cause of death was, was obviously asphyxiation. Now, the crime scene itself had other interesting things. So according to the police, there were multiple zip ties and plastic bags sort of strewn around Travis's vehicle. They also found two bloody handprints on the tailgate of his vehicle. And there was a nearby campground within walking distance that showed signs of recent activity. There was a tent and a cooler and like a campfire. But Travis Decker was nowhere to be found and he still is nowhere to be found. And because of his, his extensive military history, he had specialized training.

• 7:16Stephanie Harlowe?

  So the, the police believe that this, this man could live off the grid for an extended period of time. Not only that, this appeared to be premeditated because his cell phone coordinates put him at that same exact campground in the location where his daughters were found the day before he picked them up and took them away from their mother's house. So he obviously visited this area and law enforcement believes that he could have brought supplies there. So that he knew after he had done what he had done, he could grab his supplies and sort of disappear. I was even thinking he could have brought some sort of vehicle there, maybe like an off-road vehicle. He had time to prepare and he had time to sort of set up his getaway.

• 7:55Stephanie Harlowe?

  Now, the question is, in a lot of these cases where a parent kills a child and there are statistics I talked about in my video, they will often take their own lives and there's bloody handprints found on the back of Travis's car. So I was wondering if that's possible, that he may have done something to himself and then walked into the woods to die. But there has been a pretty major manhunt here. They can't find any trace of him and new information has showed that he was doing Google searches. And just in the days before he killed his children, and there's going to be people out there who are like, oh, there's no proof he could be another victim, there's no evidence that he killed his children. I 100% believe that he is responsible for this.

• 8:35Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't, I don't know, like this whole devil's advocate thing is getting a little old when we have three little girls who are dead. But He searched in the days leading up to this, how does a person move to Canada? How to relocate to Canada and jobs in Canada? And if anybody knows the area, Washington State, it's very close to the Canadian border. If he took off, it's very likely that he may already be in Canada and, and you know, not, um, not able to be found or brought back, or he may be on his way there. I don't know how he's going to cross. The Canadian border is pretty strict with letting people in.

• 9:07Derrick Levasseur?

  Pretty locked down right now.

• 9:08Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah, but I, but I know that you can probably just, if you find the right spot, you can probably just walk into Canada, right? If you're able to like.

• 9:14Derrick Levasseur?

  Potentially, it'd be a rural part of it.

• 9:15Stephanie Harlowe?

  Exactly, but he's got survival skills, so.

• 9:18Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 9:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  And maybe he put the bloody handprints there to like throw people off. I don't know. The type of military experience he has, he was in leadership programs. He also would have very, you know, he would have training on how to be strategic, right? He's in Afghanistan. He's in an active war zone. He's still doing things. He would have the ability to be like, how can I throw people off my trail? Which is what you would have to do in the military anyways. So I was wondering today, because I've been thinking about this case every day. Was it a red herring? Like, is he trying to throw people off, make people think he's dead? I don't know, but what's your take on it?

• 9:54Derrick Levasseur?

  I have a few things I want to discuss. Let's take our only break and then we'll be right back.

• 10:01Stephanie Harlowe?

  I want to take a moment to talk to you about something I've added to my skincare within the last year, OneSkin. If you're like me, you're probably already thinking about summer and how it can affect your skin. The sun can really take a toll, especially if you're using products like retinol that can make your skin more vulnerable to UV rays. But here's the thing, I have found a better alternative, and that's OneSkin's OS1 Face Moisturizer. The OS1 Face works by boosting collagen production in a way that's actually similar to retinol, but without the risk of the sun sensitivity. And unlike retinol, it doesn't disrupt your skin barrier. It actually strengthens it. That means that your skin is going to get more resilient to things like sun, heat, and pollution.

• 10:44Stephanie Harlowe?

  Plus, it's all thanks to OneSkin's patented OS1 Peptide, which is significantly proven to reverse skin's biological age. That's right, OneSkin reverses aging at the cellular level. Now I have been using OneSkin for a little while and I'm genuinely impressed. I use it on my face. I've noticed a smoother, stronger texture. I love that it's not irritating to my skin. My skin's very sensitive, so anything can break it out or give me a rash and the results just keep getting better. Plus, it's helping my skin look more youthful, which is something I think we all want, no matter who you are. I also do want to give a shout out to the OneSkin OS1 eye cream. I always talk about this every single episode because it is probably my favorite skincare product.

• 11:29Stephanie Harlowe?

  It works so, so well. I love it. I can't believe how supple my under eyes look. Um, just hydrated and supple and tighter and I, I love it. I think it's the best eye cream I have ever used. I'm on a subscription for it now. I love it. So we suggest that you check OneSkin out and Derek is going to tell you how for yourself.

• 11:49Derrick Levasseur?

  And your skin looks amazing today, Stephanie.

• 11:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  Thank you so much. Your skin looks like you could use some OneSkin.

• 11:54Derrick Levasseur?

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• 12:32Derrick Levasseur?

  All right, we're back from break. So first off, let's go back to the decision not to put out the amber alert. In hindsight, wrong decision, right? Definitely wrong decision because maybe that time that was lost, maybe they're still alive. I will say this, the rationale behind it does make sense to me because you do have this, this world where if we're doing it all the time, think about how many civil disputes are out there where a parent doesn't bring their kids back on time. And if that were the case, now you set that precedent where every time one parent doesn't return the kids right away, you, you have to put out an amber alert. And then it's like, oh, well, this case, this guy has some mental health issues. Well, that was a clear cut example of that, but. In most instances, they're not gonna hurt their kids.

• 13:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  That's a, that's a kind of a broad state. In most instances, I don't know.

• 13:22Derrick Levasseur?

  In most instances, they're not gonna hurt their kids. They're taking their kids from the other parent. I, I don't think that they were wrong in the, the assessment of not to put it out there because if you're putting out Amber Alerts 10 times a day, they're right. People are gonna turn off the alerts. They're gonna unactivate them from their phones. They're not gonna acknowledge them or even read them because they're just coming through their phone 10, 15 times a day. So there is a balance and it's, it's difficult to make that choice because you could have something like this happen. So I promise you that there's some police officers, especially the person who is ultimately at the head of making that decision, who's having some regret now. And unfortunately, we're forced to make a lot of difficult decisions every day and this one was the wrong one.

• 14:05Stephanie Harlowe?

  Can I ask you a question then, though?

• 14:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 14:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay, so they don't come home on time. Maybe a couple hours passes, they, he doesn't bring them home.

• 14:12Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 14:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  But knowing that there was a modified parenting plan not long before this, which, which dictated that the kids were not safe in his overnight custody because of his deteriorating mental issues and because of where he was choosing to stay. Would you not think the next morning when he didn't bring them home all morning, that an Amber Alert would be warranted at that point?

• 14:30Derrick Levasseur?

  No.

• 14:31Stephanie Harlowe?

  Okay.

• 14:32Derrick Levasseur?

  No, I wouldn't. I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't think that they're in imminent danger. I would think that he's violating that and that he's obviously a problem.

• 14:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  But what, what would give you an indication that they were in imminent danger then?

• 14:44Derrick Levasseur?

  If he made threats to the mom or anybody for that matter, that if I can't have them, nobody can, or something along those lines. I mean, I'm, I'm giving hypotheticals, but any indication that he could potentially harm them. As you said, his wife did, or ex-wife, didn't put out in the courts that there was domestic violence going on internally. So how much of those details did law enforcement have making that decision? Again, I'm not making excuses, but I do see the other side of the coin and I think that's why I'm here. There's, there's cases every single hour that come out, runaway children, civil disputes where...

• 15:17Derrick Levasseur?

  You can make a decision to put out an Amber Alert or not. And it shouldn't be based on the fatigue of receiving too many Amber Alerts, but it is a factor. And if we don't acknowledge that, we're not being truthful.

• 15:27Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think also a factor is statistics, right? And statistics show that less than 10% of child homicides are committed by strangers. And upwards of 90% are, you know, committed by someone in that child's own family. And the statistics of that increase, when you're going through a divorce or a custody dispute, those are the statistics. They're very clear.

• 15:51Derrick Levasseur?

  As a police officer, we would use our station as an area where parents could facilitate that, that, that, that handoff of the children. That would happen probably at my station. And I worked in 1.2 square miles, densely populated city, over 30,000 people. But that would happen on average, I would say, two to four times a day. And we would try to be present for those, you know, handoffs as well. And we would try to make sure it was good. And I can't tell you how many times personally, as a sergeant, when I was inside, where mom or dad would be there. And then whoever the other side was, wouldn't show up for an hour or two. They'd be late. And I'd have a mom screaming at me, are you gonna go? Are you gonna do something about this? Are you gonna go look for them? Are you gonna do, do that? Again, different, it's a case by case thing.

• 16:35Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm not making excuses for Washington State Police. I don't know what they had access to. But, and I, and I, I get the statistics and I acknowledge them. But you can't put out an Amber Alert for every single case where there's a potential that the parent could be hurting them. There's no evidence that he was a threat to those children. There was evidence that he had mental health issues, that he was going through some things. But as you just said, there was no reports of abuse towards the children or the mother.

• 17:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  There were reports of neglect, though, which is one of the reasons that the judge modified the parenting plan because his children were hurt on his watch. Does that not count for something? Does his mental health issues that were widely documented not count for something?

• 17:16Derrick Levasseur?

  It's all factors. It's all factors. But I think we're getting off the path here because we don't know when they were killed. For all we know, when they were reported, they were already dead. So I don't wanna, I don't wanna just make this case all about what the police did wrong. And some may not like that, but that's, that's not what we need to focus on. What we need to focus on is finding him. And to that point, I don't know if he's still alive. I, I would, I would argue that more than likely, he's no longer with us. He's dead. And he took his own life shortly after disappearing from this area. I, I will say, you said you're a hundred percent certain that he, you know, he killed his chi- kids. I'm 99%.

• 17:57Derrick Levasseur?

  There, there is a world where if something's found out that he had some dealings with people that were unaware of that. He may be, he may have been dragged away somewhere. He may have fought. The kids may have been killed, whatever. I don't know. I'm 99%. I, I'd like to find him and figure out.

• 18:13Stephanie Harlowe?

  Like 99.9 or 99?

• 18:16Derrick Levasseur?

  I'll go 99.9. Okay. But, but I would say we gotta find him. That's the only way we'll have that answer. Otherwise, if we don't find him, we'll never truly know. For a hundred percent. There may be indications at the crime scene that we're not privy to right now. That may suggest it was by his hand. We have to find him first. One, to hold him accountable. But two, if he did take his own life, it was it self inflicted? Does it appear to be by someone else? Is it a homicide? This is all information that will give us more details towards these three children. And yes, I know we're talking about. What can be done in the future? And I do think what you're saying, Stephanie, is important. Regardless of whether he's found it or not, there's always improvements that can be made in law enforcement.

• 18:57Derrick Levasseur?

  And the, the, the reality is there's no perfect system. There's no right answer. There are clear cases of police ineptness and police just negligence. From what you've described to me today, this isn't one of them. It sounds like this decision wasn't taken lightly. But ultimately they decided not to put it out there.

• 19:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, the local, the local police wanted to.

• 19:20Derrick Levasseur?

  I, I, that's my point. It's a subjective thing.

• 19:22Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah. So I, yeah, there's some, there's some officers who are on the ground talking to the mother, who are kind of looking at these factors. And, and it does appear that the local police are a little, I mean, they said, they said, yeah, are we frustrated? Yeah, we're frustrated that the umbrella wasn't put out. Yeah.

• 19:35Derrick Levasseur?

  Of course.

• 19:36Stephanie Harlowe?

  We thought it should have been. And then the state police came out or the state patrol came out, Christopher lost, Chris, Chris Loftus is their spokesperson and he was kind of like, well, you know. We can't, we can't put out an Amber Alert in every scenario. And like, I do get it. And there's no way to tell if, if that would have made a difference, but you know, it's just.

• 19:54Derrick Levasseur?

  And even if it doesn't, we do have to always improve, but I'll just give you one last scenario. In this particular case, unfortunate, it's the worst outcome possible, right? And so you're going to say the Amber Alert should have went out. And you know what? You're right. It should have went out. Now knowing what we know, it should have went out. Especially with what transpired. Maybe it doesn't make a difference. Maybe it does. We'll never know. But I say, I, I say this to you, and I pose this to you and the audience. Let's say that we start putting it out for every time a parent doesn't bring the kids home during a custody dispute. There's allegations of mental health issues. There's some medical documents. There's a lot of people out there that have medical health conditions that are on medication for it, that served overseas, that aren't necessarily a danger. Now you're saying negligence as well.

• 20:37Derrick Levasseur?

  In totality, maybe there's something, but let's just say that there's a metric that's used. And you start putting out Amber Alerts for every one of those. Honest answer, what do you think? A good portion of the population is going to do if they start getting more than one Amber Alert a day?

• 20:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  Like I said, I don't, I don't want to put out an Amber Alert every time a kid doesn't come home after, you know, at their custodially like dedicated time. I think you need to look at the totality of circumstances, which you often say. The totality of circumstances is that he was not allowed overnight visits because he did not have his children in a safe place. So even if his children were not at a risk or an imminent danger because of him, they could have been at a risk or an imminent danger because of somebody else, which a judge felt that was a good enough reason to say no more overnight.

• 21:20Derrick Levasseur?

  No more overnights. Can you give me any details on what would the specifics of that were?

• 21:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, he was, like I said, he was homeless. So he was either, he was either staying at the armory where his wife was like, I don't feel comfortable. There's strange men around. Some of these men have mental health issues. We don't know the criminal background of these men. There's transient people that just coming off the street. We don't even know who they are. They could disappear like a ghost. And then when he wasn't at the armory, he was sleeping with the kids in his, in his truck. So once again, out in the open could be a dangerous situation. So that was.

• 21:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Any reports of child abuse?

• 21:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  There was the neglect when he wasn't with them when they were at the army and the girls started playing on the weight of the workout machine and and they said they were afraid, the girls were afraid and on eggshells because of the way he was like apparently talking to the dogs, I guess yelling at the dogs. So that scared them. So that's the neglect there. I mean, I feel like in general, not having a safe place for your children to sleep at night and continuing to bring them there is neglect, but.

• 22:15Derrick Levasseur?

  It's neglectful for sure, but I mean, some people are in tough financial circumstances and struggle to, they still have a right to see their kids.

• 22:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yes, but you don't have them overnight until you have a safe place to bring them, which is why the plan was modified.

• 22:28Derrick Levasseur?

  So I, so I say this to you then, when we're talking about the specifics of why the overnight visits were taken. From what I'm hearing, no indications of child abuse.

• 22:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  No, no, not that, not that his wife mentioned.

• 22:40Derrick Levasseur?

  So no indications of the children being hurt by this individual. You still think that that would rise to the occasion of imminent threat?

• 22:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  When he did not bring them home that night and the reason of him not being able to have them overnight was because they were not safe, whether it was not safe with him or not safe with any of the, you know, strangers that he was bringing them around. That would tell me that because a court decided that the kids were not safe with him overnight.

• 23:06Derrick Levasseur?

  Right. Well, he didn't have a house, like you said.

• 23:07Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, exactly. But that's why his overnights were taken away. So an Amber Alert should have gone out because a court already decided this man is not safe, it's not a safe place for his children to be in overnight and he had them overnight. So when he didn't bring them back that night, an Amber Alert should have been sent out and it wasn't. That's all I'm saying. And yeah, I mean, it's just, it's a horrible situation. I don't know.

• 23:27Derrick Levasseur?

  No, we'll put it out to you guys. I would add when we're considering danger to the kids, where we have to ask, is the, is the individual who's with them a danger or is the environment danger, dangerous? Like him not having a home to bring them to. He, he would protect them, you would think. But I, I want to hear people's opinion. Obviously Stephanie and I don't agree. And I, I don't know if it would have changed the outcome, but it is important to have these debates, these discussions. Because these are two differing opinions right here, and I'm sure there's going to be seven more differing opinions. When you start to watch this video or you listen to it, let us know what you think.

• 24:03Stephanie Harlowe?

  And I think you're you're saying like, oh, what's gonna happen if there's an Amber Alert going out every day? Like, what's the public gonna do? I agree with you.

• 24:09Derrick Levasseur?

  It's 100% gonna happen. There's no doubt about it.

• 24:11Stephanie Harlowe?

  That's frustrating for me.

• 24:13Derrick Levasseur?

  So when so when someone is really in danger and been kidnapped, and they turn off the Amber Alert, that person's gonna never be found.

• 24:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  So for me, anytime a vulnerable child is not where they should be, they could potentially be in danger, and I'm not gonna be a person, if I could get 16 Amber Alerts a day, and I'd be like, okay, I'll be on the lookout. I'll be on lookout for this kid now. This is a child. It's not like an adult who, you know, has their own money and decided to leave home and could have just been a runaway. Yeah, let's give that a day or so. But with the kids, they are not not home of their own volition. This is not their choice. So anytime they are in a place where they shouldn't be, I think an Amber Alert is fine. And if that ends out that that the kids were fine and the dad was just being, you know, irresponsible, at least we know. I would like to take part in any opportunity that I can have to locate a child who's missing, even if they're not in imminent danger, just to bring them back to

• 25:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  their the place where they feel safe, because this is very traumatic for a child in general to be in the middle of this like custody battle and and who knows what's happening, even if it's not physically dangerous, it could be emotionally dangerous. And we gotta protect like our youth so that we don't have all these damaged people going out into the world getting mad that they're getting Amber Alerts. You know what I mean? Like, we have to do better for our our children so that we can hopefully go forward in a more stable and secure way in society. And we don't have people being like, oh, my God, another missing child. I'm so burnt out from this. I'm so over this. Who would even do that? I'm sure there are people. Well, you know that there are. I know that there are.

• 25:36Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, there are.

• 25:37Stephanie Harlowe?

  It's unfortunate, though. So we we have some stats to be on the lookout for him.

• 25:41Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, I a couple of things, couple of things I want to say. I I'm in a difficult position because as a father, I don't necessarily disagree with any of your saying, and I wouldn't turn the Amber Alerts off, but I also have to play administrator, law enforcement, I gotta put that hat on, and the logistics of that and how you handle that on a a mass level. Whether it's by state or by, by, by the country as far as how we put these out, when they go out, what's the criteria that has to be met in order to do so? Again, there's no perfect system. There's always room for improvement. At the end of the day, I'm thinking about Peyton, I'm thinking about Evelyn, I'm thinking about Olivia, I'm

• 26:22Derrick Levasseur?

  thinking about their mother, because this is a situation where she was trying to do the right thing. She was trying to keep the kids with her, keep them safe. She knew there were issues going on. She was trying to balance the whole be a good mom with not taking away the kids from Travis because she knew that he had seen and gone through some things that maybe he didn't have control over completely, right? Maybe, and she was trying to balance that and unfortunately-

• 26:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  Trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, I think, and yeah.

• 26:47Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah, of course. I, I put no blame on her whatsoever.

• 26:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't either. I don't either.

• 26:51Derrick Levasseur?

  And, and as you said, there, we have to find Travis. We have to find Travis because we're gonna get a lot more answers if we find him, especially if he's alive. Even if he's dead, we're gonna get more answers. But number one priority right now is finding him so that he can be held accountable for what he did, or he can at least explain what happened. And so if you're in the Washington area, or if you're in Canada watching this, or if you're in one of the surrounding states, you have to know there is a $20,000 reward right now. Travis is wanted for homicide and kidnapping.

• 27:19Stephanie Harlowe?

  Three counts each, yes.

• 27:21Derrick Levasseur?

  Yep. His, his date of birth is 8/15/92. He's approximately 5'8" tall, 190 pounds. He's a Caucasian male with black hair, brown eyes. He was last seen on May 30th, 2025. He also goes by the alias Caleb, but if you're watching on YouTube, take a look at the photo. He may have changed his look. If, if I'm him, I'm shaving my beard, I'm cutting all of that off, I'm changing my look.

• 27:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  If he's mentally aware to even do that, because it sounds like he maybe kind of was on the cusp of a mental break.

• 27:51Derrick Levasseur?

  Right.

• 27:52Stephanie Harlowe?

  Honestly. And there is a number that you can call, uh, but the, the law enforcement does warn people, hey, he could be armed, but he is definitely dangerous. Do not approach him. Do not make yourself known to him. If you see him, call 911 immediately.

• 28:05Derrick Levasseur?

  Be a good witness.

• 28:06Stephanie Harlowe?

  Or call the CCSO tip line at 509-667-6845. And I want one more question for you, Derek, before we go.

• 28:17Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay.

• 28:18Stephanie Harlowe?

  Put your father hat back on.

• 28:19Derrick Levasseur?

  One more question, you want me to, one more answer?

• 28:20Stephanie Harlowe?

  I want one more answer from you.

• 28:21Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay.

• 28:21Stephanie Harlowe?

  Put your father hat back on.

• 28:23Derrick Levasseur?

  Yeah.

• 28:23Stephanie Harlowe?

  If this was one of your children missing and you knew, because we all have people like this in our families, right? You knew that they were with somebody who you trusted, who you're related to, but who also maybe has some issues with like alcoholism or mental health issues or something. And they didn't come back when they were supposed to. Would you have still wanted an Amber Alert put out?

• 28:43Derrick Levasseur?

  Of course I would have. But, but you're, but that's the father hat. That's, that's the person who's in the situation.

• 28:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  If we were all wearing our father and mother hats, maybe less of this would happen.

• 28:52Derrick Levasseur?

  Well, police are fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers, but I don't want to keep beating a dead horse. We're not gonna, you're not gonna change my opinion on this. I hate saying this. I wish I lived in a world where there was a, a system that I could put it out nationally to every single phone and they had no capability of turning it off and they had to look at it. But that's not the world we live in. So I have to balance my personal feelings and my emotions with what's going to work best out for those cases going forward. And when you think about it, we're talking about one case. Think about how many civil disputes there are in the state of Washington. There's, there's hundreds of thousands of them and every mother and father, when faced with a similar situation, if an Amber Alert is put out for this one person, they're going to expect it to be put out for them.

• 29:36Derrick Levasseur?

  So I'm saying something that's difficult for me to say, because like you said, as a father, and as, as I'm assuming as all the mothers out there, we have a large female audience here. You would want the National Guard out there looking for your children.

• 29:50Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 29:51Derrick Levasseur?

  But there is this weird position that we're forced to be in as the law enforcement people, where we have to make a really difficult decision. I've already acknowledged in this one, it didn't work out and it was wrong. And we'll never know if it would have made a difference. But going forward, what can we do? There's definitely things we can change. The issue I have here with this one specifically, when we're talking about totality of circumstances, I would like to believe that if there was evidence of child abuse. That the alert would have went out. And if for me, I would have probably put the alert out anyways, but I'm more that's, we live in a smaller city. We have a smaller state, not as many amber alerts. I would have probably put it out. But what would have put me over

• 30:32Derrick Levasseur?

  the edge definitively would have been any evidence or indication of potential child abuse from the past. Any indication of that, other than them just not having a home to live in, I would have put the amber alert out. But from what you're telling me, there was no evidence of that.

• 30:46Stephanie Harlowe?

  It just sucks that we live in a world where

• 30:48Derrick Levasseur?

  That's it.

• 30:48Stephanie Harlowe?

  We can't determine the difference between when this is actually necessary and urgent, and when people are just playing with the system. That's really unfortunate. Yeah.

• 30:57Derrick Levasseur?

  But I mean, listen, there were signs here. There were things. And I'm hoping that, I'm hoping that when this, there's a postmortem done, we learn that although an amber alert wasn't put out, Washington State Police, along with local police, were still doing a lot of the work behind the scenes. They were out there looking for plates. They were going to, you know,

• 31:17Stephanie Harlowe?

  They were, they were doing that, yeah.

• 31:18Derrick Levasseur?

  So do you get what I'm saying here? We didn't get to amber alert. Now, if you told me, Washington State Police said, eh, we don't see a problem. That, that to me is a huge issue. But if you're, if we had access to what they were doing behind the scenes, where troopers were responding to areas of familiarity, friends, family, colleagues, etc., they were doing the work. I give them a little grace.

• 31:41Stephanie Harlowe?

  It was the local police, not, not the state police.

• 31:43Derrick Levasseur?

  That's a problem then. State police should have been doing the work as well.

• 31:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  I think they did the following day, like, or the, in the following days, when it's, when it's obvious, like, hey, something's going on here. But like, you know, put it on billboards, stuff like that. They did send out an endangered missing persons alert.

• 31:56Derrick Levasseur?

  Oh, they did.

• 31:57Stephanie Harlowe?

  But the next day.

• 31:58Derrick Levasseur?

  Okay.

• 31:59Stephanie Harlowe?

  But we know that that's not the same alert system.

• 32:02Derrick Levasseur?

  It's not.

• 32:02Stephanie Harlowe?

  It doesn't go to phones. It doesn't go on, you know, those billboards that you see when you're driving.

• 32:06Derrick Levasseur?

  When you get the amber alert, you know it's serious. And that's why you have to be careful how often you put them out. You don't want to desensitize people to it. That's the problem. You don't want to desensitize people to the eh eh that you get on your phone. When I see that, when that goes off, everybody's looking at their phone. We want to keep it that way.

• 32:26Stephanie Harlowe?

  Well, let us know what you guys think in the comments section. Uh, we've had some discussions and you know, let us know what side you fall on. But we're interested to know, interested to hear from you.

• 32:35Derrick Levasseur?

  By the way, I, I'm not oblivious to the fact that the majority is gonna agree with you.

• 32:40Stephanie Harlowe?

  I don't know, honestly.

• 32:42Derrick Levasseur?

  The majority is gonna agree with you and that's okay. That's why I'm here.

• 32:45Stephanie Harlowe?

  You put forth a pretty good argument, man.

• 32:47Derrick Levasseur?

  But that, but that's why I'm here because fortunately, unfortunately, however you want to look at it, that's what makes Crime Weekly different. I've done it. I've had to make those decisions. I've been in an administrative role and it is not something we take lightly. And I constantly feared making the wrong decision or not doing something a certain way and having one of those children or even an adult, their, their blood being on my hands. Because I would have, that's how I would have felt, even though it wouldn't be the case, I would have felt that way. And so it's a burden and it's a lot of stress and it's, it's tough to make those difficult decisions. But listen, like you said, everyone, let us know what you think and why do you feel that way? And oh, hopefully we get Travis sooner than later.

• 33:32Derrick Levasseur?

  I'm hoping he's alive because I want answers. But if you're asking me and you're, and I had to choose, I would say the likely outcome, the reason they haven't found him is because he's dead somewhere in a really secluded area and we may never find him.

• 33:49Stephanie Harlowe?

  I kind of agree with you.

• 33:50Derrick Levasseur?

  But he's not moving.

• 33:51Stephanie Harlowe?

  Yeah.

• 33:52Derrick Levasseur?

  That's my opinion. So let us know what you think. We're gonna be back later this week with part four of Darlie Routier. We have had some developments in this case. Little teaser, we've had, uh, team Darlie and, and family of hers reach out, we're talking to them and, and we're gonna see how this, this whole series unfolds, but we could have a very interesting ending that may potentially include an interview. We'll see. But we will talk to you later this week. Everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon.

• 34:24Stephanie Harlowe?

  Bye.