Bones have been found in the search for Travis Decker, the man accused with killing his three daughters before disappearing. Authorities have been searching for Decker since early June, after he allegedly suffocated his daughters — Paityn, 9, Evelyn, 8, and Olivia, 5 — just before a custody handoff with his ex-wife in Leavenworth, Washington.
On Thursday, the FBI announced that it has ended up an extensive two-day search of the Rock Island Campground in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, the location where the two girls’ bodies were found. Chelan County Sheriff Mike Morrison said that bones were found during the search, though it remains unclear if they are human or animal remains.
Grim Discovery in Search of Killer Father
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Morrison said the bones have been sent to the anthropology department at Central Washington University for analysis. Officials stressed that the case has not moved further and it is still unclear whether Decker is alive.
“Finding this potential evidence emphasizes the value in having various teams search an area multiple times, especially in such challenging conditions,” Morrison said.
Decker, a former military serviceman, has been on the run since June 2, when a sheriff’s deputy found his truck along with the bodies of his three daughters at a campground.
That grim discovery was made three days after he missed the deadline to bring the girls back to their mother’s home in Wenatchee, located about 100 miles east of Seattle, after a scheduled visit.
Search teams — including members from two sheriff’s offices, the U.S. Marshals Service, two police departments, and experts from Central Washington University’s anthropology department — used electronic mapping to track and record the extent of their search efforts.
A Lot Still in Mystery
The search teams eventually extended past their planned perimeter to cover as much territory as possible. Morrison stressed that investigators “are not giving up” on locating him. “We understand the frustration, we feel it as well,” he said at a news conference Monday night.
“We will not relent, we will not give up until Travis Decker is taken into custody.”
“This is not going to go away until Travis is located, whether he is alive or not,” the sheriff said, adding that he questioned whether the former soldier could realistically endure in the wilderness for this long, even with his military survival background.
“He has to be perfect every single day,” Morrison explained. “We just have to be perfect once.”
Police said that by the time Decker picked up his three daughters from their mother’s home on May 30, he was also homeless and living in his car.
His ex-wife, Whitney, told authorities that she did not consider Decker a threat, saying he cared deeply for his daughters and maintained a “good relationship” with them.
The U.S. Marshals Service has announced a reward of up to $20,000 for any information that leads to Decker’s arrest.
