Remains believed to be those of the Washington state man suspected of killing his three young daughters were found this week in a remote wooded area, authorities said Thursday.
Preliminary findings suggest the remains are those of Travis Decker, 32, whom authorities have been searching for more than three months. The remains were found south of the town of Leavenworth during a search, the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office said
A DNA analysis will be done, the office said.
Three weeks into the manhunt, authorities issued a lengthy statement casting doubt on whether Decker, a military veteran and National Guardsman whom the local sheriff described as a longtime outdoorsman, remained alive.
Officials said resources had been shifted to focus on finding Decker’s remains, presuming the likelihood of his death “increases every day.”
On June 10, officials said they believed they had tracked Decker to an area near the remote campsite where his daughters were found dead days earlier, roughly 130 miles east of Seattle.
The Chelan County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that the person was spotted by helicopter after a hiking party reported seeing someone who appeared unprepared for the trail and the weather and appeared to be avoiding others.
The sheriff’s office said the person ran from sight but was later tracked with dogs to a nearby trailhead.
Decker, whom his ex-wife described to authorities as homeless and experiencing mental health issues, had a planned visitation with their daughters a few days before their bodies were found.
When Decker did not return the girls and his ex-wife, Whitney Decker, could not reach him by phone, she filed a complaint that day with Wenatchee police, prompting a search that lasted through the weekend.
Evelyn, 8, Paityn, 9, and Olivia Decker, 5, were found June 2 near a campground where they also discovered Travis Decker’s white pickup truck.
They had been zip-tied and had plastic bags over their heads, a Wenatchee police detective wrote in an affidavit in support of an arrest warrant. A preliminary examination found that they most likely died of asphyxiation, the detective wrote.
Travis Decker’s unoccupied white pickup was found nearby with two bloody handprints on its tailgate, according to the affidavit.
Whitney and Travis Decker were married for seven years but divorced several years ago, according to the affidavit. Whitney Decker told the detective her ex-husband had always been communicative about their children and previously returned them when he was supposed to.
A parenting plan in effect since September 2024 required him to seek mental health treatment and domestic violence anger-management counseling, but he had not done so, the affidavit says.
A copy of the parenting plan shows that Travis Decker refused to sign it.
In the days after her girls were found dead, Whitney Decker called for reforms to the Amber alert system, which sends out text messages to all cellphones in areas where missing children have been reported. Local police sought to have an alert sent out the Friday before they were found dead, but the agency that manages the program in Washington state declined to do so.
A spokesman for the Washington State Patrol said the request did not meet strict criteria set by the U.S. Justice Department. A different alert sent that Saturday accomplished “much the same public notification/outreach as an AMBER alert would have,” he said.
Whitney Decker spoke publicly about her daughters’ killings for the first time in late June.
“They were incredible,” she told a crowd of thousands of mourners. “I truly hope that the legacy of the girls’ lives lives in everyone’s heart.”
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