DAY WITH DAD ENDS IN TRAGEDY

TRAVIS DECKER DISAPPEARED AFTER TAKING DAUGHTERS PAITYN, EVELYN AND OLIVIA FOR A COURT-ORDERED VISIT. NOW HE'S CHARGED WITH TRIPLE MURDER

- NICOLE ACOSTA, CHRISTINE PELISEK

'THEY WERE INCREDIBLE' "I truly hope that the legacy of the girls lives in everyone's heart forever," said mom Whitney at a memorial for daughters (from left, ca. 2024) Evelyn, 8, Olivia, 5, and Paityn, 9.

3 Sisters Found Dead, Manhunt for the Killer

By all accounts, Travis Decker was an enthusiastic “girl dad” to his trio of daughters, Paityn, 9, Eve-lyn, 8, and Olivia, 5, whom he shared with his ex-wife Whitney. The family’s longtime next-door neighbor Binh Nguyen recalls Travis taking the girls on camping trips in the Cascade Mountains near their home in Wenatchee, Wash. And when the Deckers’ marriage crumbled in 2022, Travis, 32, moved out of the house but still regularly stopped by with his dog to pick up the girls for visits. “They loved him a lot, and he loved them too,” says Nguyen.

Yet when Travis—a formerly clean-cut U.S. Army veteran who went on to work in construction—arrived for a pickup on Friday, May 30, Nguyen, who was watering his lawn at the time, was struck by how different his former neighbor looked. “He was skinny. He had long hair and a beard. I said, ‘Is that you, Travis?’” Nguyen recalls. As the two men chatted for 10 minutes, Travis, while polite, seemed distracted, absentmindedly asking how he’d been three times.

“It was kind of weird,” says Nguyen. “He had a sad face.”