SEATTLE – The hunt for Travis Decker, an Army veteran accused of killing his three young daughters near Leavenworth, could be over, but authorities are urging caution.
“The United States Marshals Service has advised the Defendant TRAVIS CALEB DECKER is deceased,” said Pete Serrano and Caitlin Baunsgard in a filing Tuesday asking the federal court to dismiss their case against Decker. Serrano has recently been tapped as the new U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, and Baunsgard is an assistant U.S. attorney in Serrano’s office.
Still, lab results have still not come back yet that positively links recently discovered remains to Decker, Chelan County Sheriff Mike Morrison said in an interview Wednesday morning. He anticipates those results will come in Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning.
He warned that the Marshals Service announcement could be premature, maintaining that Decker’s death is not yet confirmed and the case is not closed.
Authorities have been investigating human remains discovered less than a mile away from Rock Island Campground, where Olivia, 5, Evelyn, 8, and Paityn Decker, 9, were found dead in June.
Morrison had asked for two separate DNA tests from the Washington State Patrol crime lab: one for the bodily remains including part of a spinal column, two femurs and feet; and one for the clothing found alongside them, which included a shirt, Army Ranger shorts and a bracelet.
Rumors were circulating that Decker had killed someone else and dressed their remains with his clothes to throw off law enforcement, Morrison said. He said he hopes the two separate results will put that theory to rest.
The Chelan County sheriff’s office had announced last week that the remains were found while federal and local law enforcement crews conducted their fourth grid and drone search of the mountainous and thickly vegetated area.
Though the remains were found three-quarters of a mile from where the girls’ bodies were discovered, they were about 1,200 feet in elevation above the site. Crews had to rappel from a helicopter to reach the remains and remove them.
The lab results, when they come, could mark the end of a nearly four-month search for Decker.
The Decker girls were reported missing May 30 after their father did not return them home to their mother, Whitney Decker, in Wenatchee, per a court-ordered custody agreement. The girls’ bodies were found a few days later near Decker’s 2017 GMC Sierra pickup.
The search for Decker cost more than $2 million in the first week and could have bankrupted the Chelan County sheriff’s department if not for the assistance of federal agencies, Morrison said last week.
The FBI closed multiple campgrounds, hiking trails and roads around Leavenworth as crews searched. Still, Decker remained elusive. There were reported sightings of Decker, but at least some of those sightings turned out to be false.
There was no firearm discovered near the remains, Morrison said. The body itself was decomposed to the point where ligaments were no longer holding the bones together. The remains were scattered, likely by wild animals.
Decker’s disappearance and the closely followed search that followed sparked numerous conspiracy theories. Morrison maintained, with evidence that Decker’s DNA alone was found at the site of the girls’ slaying, that Decker was their only person of interest.
Decker had been diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder and a borderline personality disorder after he left the Army, said Whitney Decker’s attorney Arianna Cozart in June. He had sought mental health services from Veteran Affairs and a veterans crisis line but was left to struggle alone, Cozart said.
Through Cozart, Whitney Decker said her ex-husband’s declining mental health and out-of-character behavior should have constituted enough of a threat to issue an Amber Alert when the girls were not returned on time.
The Washington State Patrol issued a less-broadcast Endangered Missing Persons Advisory, which does not include cellphone alerts, because Decker’s custodial rights did not present an immediate legal presumption of abduction or danger, the agency said.
Whitney Decker has since advocated for improvement of the state’s Amber Alert system and providing adequate mental health care to veterans. In the weeks after the Decker girls went missing, Washington legislators and child safety advocates called for reforms to the state’s family court system that would help keep children safe from a “dangerous parent.”
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