Authorities in Leavenworth, Washington, announce the discovery of remains believed to belong to Travis Decker, a former soldier sought in connection with the deaths of his three daughters.
The Chelan County Sheriff’s Office, aided by the Washington State Patrol crime scene response team, is handling the site investigation. DNA analysis will soon follow to confirm the identity, according to their statement on Thursday.
“While positive identification has not yet been confirmed, preliminary findings suggest the remains belong to Travis Decker,” the statement said.
Decker, 32, became a fugitive on June 2 after a sheriff’s deputy located his truck and the bodies of his daughters — 9-year-old Paityn, 8-year-old Evelyn, and 5-year-old Olivia — at a campground near Leavenworth.
Just three days prior, Decker did not return the girls to their mother’s residence in Wenatchee, roughly 100 miles east of Seattle, as planned.
Having served from March 2013 to July 2021 as an Army infantryman, Decker was deployed to Afghanistan for four months in 2014. Authorities noted his expertise in navigation and survival, mentioning an instance when he lived off the grid in the wilderness for over two months.
An extensive search involving over 100 officials from various state and federal agencies covered hundreds of square miles of mostly remote and mountainous terrain by land, water, and air. The U.S. Marshals Service also offered a reward of up to $20,000 for any tips leading to his arrest.
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, the sheriff’s office said. They had been bound with zip ties and had plastic bags placed over their heads.
