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Travis Decker (Chelan County Sheriff’s Office).
Authorities in Washington State say that a “lone hiker” spotted by a tracking team and tipsters could be the man accused of murdering his three young daughters.
According to law enforcement officials, the search for 32-year-old Travis Decker may be narrowing. In an update on Tuesday from the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office, police said that a hiking party “recently” reported seeing a “lone hiker” who appeared “ill prepared for trail and weather conditions, and appeared to be avoiding others.”
After acting on the tip, a tracking team in a helicopter reportedly spotted a “lone, off-trail hiker” near a lake in the same area who quickly ran out of view. Additional ground teams were deployed to investigate further.
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The Chelan County Sheriff’s Office urged hikers to send in tips while warning residents and anyone staying in the area to “report any suspicious activity, lock your doors and vehicles, and look out for your neighbor’s property.”
In an earlier update, authorities stated that several personal items from Decker’s truck were recovered, as well as his dog, who was turned over to the Humane Society. Blood found on the truck was revealed to belong to a male donor; police earlier said a bloody handprint on the vehicle was adult-sized. Nonhuman blood was also found at the scene.
From left to right: Paityn, Evelyn, and Olivia Decker (Wenatchee Police Department).
Police also released the official cause of death for the three girls — 9-year-old Paityn, 8-year-old Evelyn, and 5-year-old Olivia — as suffocation. The manner of death was homicide.
Since the discovery of the three girls’ bodies on June 2, information about the troubled, ex-military Decker has been revealed. His former wife and the mother of his late daughters described him as “unstable” in divorce documents. Decker was believed to be living a transient lifestyle and was a survivalist known to go out into the wilderness for a couple of months at a time. He was also reportedly diagnosed with borderline personality disorder but had not been seeking treatment.
The case against Decker escalated to the federal level after a criminal complaint was filed in a U.S. District Court in Spokane, Washington, on June 5, accusing the alleged fugitive of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. In a U.S. Marshals affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime, Decker reportedly searched Google for “how does a person move to canada,” “how to relocate to canada,” and “jobs canada” on May 26, days before he picked up his daughters and allegedly killed them. Decker also allegedly searched a Canadian jobs site.
The affidavit stated that the location where the three girls’ bodies were found — on a road in Leavenworth, Washington, on U.S. Forest Service land — was “relatively close to the Canadian border” and about 11 miles from the Pacific Crest Trail, which “leads directly” to Canada.
The federal charges come in addition to state and local charges — Decker has been charged by Chelan County prosecutors with three counts of aggravated first-degree murder and three counts of kidnapping.
