SEATTLE (AP) — Authorities who have spent the past three weeks searching in the mountains of Washington state for an ex-soldier wanted in the deaths of his three young daughters say there is no evidence that he remains in the area or that he is alive at all.
Travis Decker, 32, has been wanted since June 2, when a sheriff’s deputy found his truck and the bodies of his three daughters — 9-year-old Paityn Decker, 8-year-old Evelyn Decker and 5-year-old Olivia Decker — at a campground outside Leavenworth. The discovery came three days after he failed to return the girls to their mother’s home in Wenatchee, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Seattle, following a scheduled visit.
“There is no certain evidence that Decker remains alive or in this area,” the Kittitas County Sheriff’s Office said in a social media post Monday. “Seemingly strong early leads gave way to less convincing proofs over the last two weeks of searching. Still, we can’t and won’t quit this search; Paityn, Evelyn, and Olivia Decker deserve justice. And Decker remains a danger to the public as long as he’s at large.”
The post said resources were being shifted to focus on finding Decker’s remains “if he died in the rugged wilderness during this intense search — a possibility that increases every day.” Sheriff’s Inspector Chris Whitsett said Tuesday that includes the use of dogs trained to find human remains.
“Because of the ruggedness, the remoteness of the of that country, and some of the conditions that we’ve observed, it’s clear that the longer he stays out there — the longer anybody stays out there — the greater the chance that something’s gonna happen, and whether he intends it or not, that he’s gonna die,” Whitsett said.
The U.S. Marshals Service is working to track down Decker if he managed to escape the region, the sheriff’s office said, and extra patrols have been on duty. The killings occurred in neighboring Chelan County, but backcountry trails link the area to Kittitas and to the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from Canada to Mexico.
It would not be unprecedented for Decker to evade a search in the rugged, remote region for three weeks; the area is dotted with abandoned buildings as well as unoccupied vacation homes in which he might find shelter, as well as caves and former mines.
In 2020, Jorge Alacantara-Gonzalez, who was wanted in the killing of a turkey hunter, spent 23 days on the run in much of the same terrain. He was finally caught when someone called police to report seeing someone in a cabin that should have been unoccupied.
Authorities looking for Decker say they are similarly relying on tips from the public to help find him. They have asked people to be alert in the backcountry and to check surveillance or game cameras on their properties.
Earlier this month, hikers in a popular Cascade Range backpacking area called The Enchantments reported seeing a lone person who appeared to be ill-prepared for the conditions and seemed to be avoiding others. A helicopter crew responded and spotted an off-trail hiker near an alpine lake.
The person ran from sight as the helicopter passed, the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office said. Authorities later found a trail, and K-9 teams tracked the person to the area of the Ingalls Creek Trailhead, south of Leavenworth, before the trail went cold.
“We still believe public awareness and help is our best tool — whether it comes from a cabin owner who finds something out of place, a hiker in the Enchantments who discovers evidence our searches missed, or anyone else,” the sheriff’s office said.
Decker was an infantryman in the Army from March 2013 to July 2021 and deployed to Afghanistan for four months in 2014. He has training in navigation, survival and other skills, authorities have said, and he once spent more than two months living in the backwoods off the grid.
Last September, Decker’s ex-wife, Whitney Decker, wrote in a petition to modify their parenting plan that his mental health issues had worsened and that he had become increasingly unstable. He was often living out of his truck, and she sought to restrict him from having overnight visits with their daughters until he found housing.
An autopsy determined the girls’ cause of death to be suffocation. They had been bound with zip ties and had plastic bags placed over their heads.
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