According to experts, Travis Decker, who is accused of child murder, would struggle to last long on his own in the wilderness, yet authorities still face significant challenges in locating him.
Decker, 32, vanished six weeks ago after he allegedly murdered his three daughters during a scheduled custody visit on May 30 in Washington.
Paityn, 9, Evelyn, 8, and Olivia, 5, were found suffocated to death at an abandoned campsite near Icicle Creek on June 2.
There have been a few sightings of a man resembling Decker more than 500 miles away in Idaho, and now multiple agencies are working on the case.
Reports from a camper in Idaho’s Bear Creek area have been dismissed by US Marshals, although a nurse reported spotting a man who looked like Decker in Idaho City.
This individual was seen hiking, seeming ill-equipped with only a sleeping roll, no sleeping bag, and wearing a long-sleeve shirt and pants in the heat, as he made his way across a parking lot towards a public restroom.
Michael Lanza, founder of The Big Outside, a writer, outdoor photographer, and backpacker for more than three decades, spoke to The U.S. Sun about the possibility Decker could disappear into the nearby mountains in Idaho.
Lanza said if he already owned the correct gear and clothing and had experience in backcountry travel, he might be okay for a while, but the challenge of feeding himself would likely become the main issue.
“And in those mountains, winter sets in by sometime in September or October,” he said.
“But his challenge with feeding himself would probably arise long before then.
“It’s summer, so the weather wouldn’t be all that difficult, although a person would still need the gear and skills to make shelter and get food on his own, possibly by fishing and hunting.
“That might not provide enough food, and he wouldn’t likely have a means of preserving food [refrigeration] for more than a day, meaning he’d have to fish or hunt daily.
“Backpackers and horsepackers would typically carry a small gas stove for cooking meals, but those require fuel, so if he has a stove, he would need to be resupplied with fuel as well as food.”
Lanza said in the early summer the creeks and rivers are high so there’s plenty of water, but the crossings can be dangerous.
“Winter would require a more weather-hardy shelter than a tent for a long period of time, and wild food sources become much more scarce and difficult to obtain,” he continued.
“Traveling on foot becomes much more difficult, and there’s avalanche danger.
“Temperatures will drop well below freezing at night and may not rise above freezing on many days.
“Avoiding frostbite or worse would be difficult to impossible without the right footwear and clothing, and those wear out over time or may get wet and not dry for hours or days, depending on the weather and temperatures.
“Look at people and cultures who’ve survived in harsh winter environments, and they’ve done it typically through long-developed skills, having very good shelter, and having communities supporting one another.
“Not many people have survived winters as hermits.”
More than $6 million is said to have been spent on the search for Decker so far, and authorities still have no clue as to where he is.
Lanza said, “It’s difficult because of the mountainous and forested terrain and the vastness of that wilderness.
“Without recent sightings, searchers might not have an area to focus their efforts on, meaning they would need either thousands of people on the ground or aircraft searching with technologies that can locate a person on the ground who’s not within eyesight of them, all of which entails enormous cost.
“I expect he’ll either get captured alive or his body will be found some days, weeks, or months.”
Timeline of the search for Travis Decker
Paityn, 9; Evelyn, 8; and Olivia Decker, 5, were found dead at a campground after they were last seen on a custody visit to their dad.
Below is a timeline of events:
May 29: Cell phone activity shows that the girls’ dad, Travis Decker, drove to the Rock Island Campground and left.
May 30: 5 pm – Travis Decker picks the three girls up from their mom, Whitney Decker.
8 pm – Travis Decker is supposed to return the girls but doesn’t. Whitney Decker calls him and it goes to voicemail.
9:45 pm – Whitney Decker calls the Wenatchee Police Department to report her daughters missing.
Travis Decker’s truck is seen driving westbound on Highway 2.
Washington State Patrol is contacted for an Amber Alert but said the situation didn’t match their criteria.
May 31 : WPD issues an Endangered Missing Persons Alert.
June 2: 3:45 pm – Travis Decker’s truck is found empty at Rock Island Campground with two bloody handprints and items inside.
5 pm – Cops search the area and find the bodies of the three girls.
June 3: 9:30 am – Cops notify the public that they are still searching for Decker.
2 pm – WPD tells the public that the three girls were found dead and that Travis Decker is still on the loose.
June 8: Federal authorities take over search efforts.
June 9: Autopsy results confirm three girls were murdered by suffocation.
June 13: An affidavit revealed Whitney described Travis as having “recent mental health concerns.”
“She provided the examples of randomly leaving or waking her up by screaming at her in the middle of the night,” it read.
“She also said near the end of the marriage he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder that she believes he currently does not take medications for.”
June 17: New audio of Travis in court fighting for custody of his daughters is released.
“I understand that my current position when I’m by myself isn’t ideal, but my daughters aren’t a part of that,” he said in September 2024.
“I only get to see them over the weekends and camping is something that the four of us have done since the three of them were in diapers.”
June 18: Jennifer Rice spotted a man meeting Decker’s description in Idaho City while leaving Gentry’s Outpost at 4.21 pm.
June 20: Memorial is held where Whitney speaks publicly about girls for first time.
July 5: US Marshals say a family spotted a man believed to be Travis Decker in the Sawtooth National Forest in Idaho.
July 10: The sighting at the campsite has now been ruled out by authorities.
Police recently said there was no clear evidence as to whether Decker is alive or dead and millions of dollars have been spent on fruitless weeks-long manhunt.
Decker is an Army veteran with extensive military skills who previously spent months alone in the outdoors, leading officials to believe he may have planned to survive in the wilderness for a while.
But Chelan County Sheriff Mike Morrison in Washington told CNN Decker isn’t a wilderness “guru,” despite online theories inflating his survival skills.
“We’re not going to glorify his abilities,” Morrison said.
“We don’t think that he’s some kind of special forces guru.
“He could get lucky at times, and eventually luck runs out.”
Elisabeth Brentano, an outdoor photographer, also spoke to The U.S. Sun about adventures in the Sawtooth National Forest, where Decker was initially thought to have been spotted this month.
“It is possible to go off the grid in the Sawtooth National Forest for days, or even weeks, without being discovered if someone has strong survival skills and equipment,” she said.
“For example, one would need a way to purify their water [either by boiling or filtering], they’d need food [they’d have to hunt or forage, and/or pack in dehydrated meals], and once temperatures start dropping, they’d need shelter and heat [i.e., tarp, tent, firewood etc].
“While there are no grizzly bears in the Sawtooths, there are black bears, mountain lions and even wolves, so that’s another element of danger.”
Meanwhile, Dave Canterbury – a veteran survival expert and owner of Pathfinder School in Ohio, an outdoor self-reliance and survival school – previously told The U.S. Sun Decker could be near the Canadian border by now.
Decker was homeless at the time of the murders and has been diagnosed with PTSD.
He has been accused of kidnapping his daughters and killing them after he picked them up from his ex-wife Whitney for a planned visitation on May 30.
The little girls’ bodies were discovered at Rock Island Campground in Leavenworth, over 20 miles away from their home in Wenatchee, with plastic bags over their heads and zip ties around their wrists.
About 100 yards away from the bodies, Decker’s white truck was found abandoned with his wallet inside and bloody handprints containing his DNA on the tailgate.
A neighbor said Decker looked thin and appeared distracted when he arrived for the handoff at Whitney’s home.
Binh Nguyen, who lived next door to the Deckers for years, told People about the conversation he shared with the dad on the day he disappeared.
“He was skinny. He had long hair and a beard,” Nguyen told the outlet.
“I said, ‘Is that you, Travis?’”
The men spoke for about 10 minutes as Decker waited to pick up his daughters.
However, Nguyen noticed that Decker looked distracted and wasn’t fully paying attention to their conversation
“What was strange was that he kept asking me the same question at different points in our conversation,” Nguyen told the Daily Mail.
“Like he wasn’t remembering he already asked.”
The girls’ mom Whitney has said she wants him found “dead or alive.”
Court documents show Whitney claimed Decker was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and didn’t take medication for it, despite treatment being part of the parenting plan.
“Travis has really struggled since he left the military and his mental health can be hard sometimes,” Whitney told Seattle CBS affiliate KIRO before the girls’ bodies were found.
“I think this is an effect of that, and I don’t personally think that he’s dangerous.”
In a declaration filed in September, Whitney wrote that her ex-husband’s instability was affecting their daughters, according to the Seattle Times.
“Since our separation, it has become increasingly clear that Travis has been struggling to maintain stability in his life,” Whitney wrote, according to KIRO.
She said Decker was prone to “outbursts” and would come into her home yelling for the girls.
Whitney wrote that the girls would scream or cry when getting dropped off for their visits with him.
The mom said it was in the children’s best interest that they no longer have overnight visits with their dad.
“Travis just keeps getting more and more unstable,” the mom wrote in the filing on September 20, 2024.
“He has made huge sacrifices to serve our country and loves his girls very much but he has got to get better for our girls.”
Authorities announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to Decker’s arrest.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or chat at thehotline.org.
