Remains believed to be Travis Decker, the 32-year-old father accused of murdering his three young daughters near a Washington campground, were located in a remote wooded area, according to the Chelan County Sheriff’s office.
The remains were found during a search south of Leavenworth, officials said.
“While positive identification has not yet been confirmed, preliminary findings suggest the remains belong to Travis Decker,” the sheriff’s office said Thursday evening.
The sheriff office said it had been in contact with the Decker family and is “providing them with support and updates as the investigation proceeds.”
“We are praying that the remains found are confirmed to be Travis’s. We continue to be grateful for law enforcement’s efforts in this case and are forever appreciative of the entire world’s love, compassion, and support for Whitney,” said Arianna Cozart, the attorney for Whitney Decker, Decker’s ex-wife and mother of the three girls killed.
Decker, an Army veteran, was wanted for three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree kidnapping, police said.
His daughters — Paityn Decker, 9; Evelyn Decker, 8; and Olivia Decker, 5 — had left home for a planned visitation with him on May 30, and never returned, officials said. Three days later, the girls were found dead near the Rock Island Campground in Chelan County, Washington, following a search, police said.
Decker’s truck was recovered at the scene but he was nowhere to be found, sparking a massive manhunt.
Hundreds of people from dozens of agencies and organizations were involved in the manhunt. Throughout the search efforts, multiple possible sightings of Decker were reported to officials, including two in Idaho — one on June 4 and another on July 5 — and one in Washington on Aug. 1, with all three proving to be unsuccessful or turning out to not be Decker.
Amid the search for Decker, authorities warned that he should be considered armed and dangerous.
The United States Marshals Service was offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading directly to Decker’s arrest.
The girls had each been found with plastic bags over their heads and their wrists were zip-tied, according to court documents previously obtained by ABC News.
An autopsy determined the girls’ cause of death to be suffocation and the manner of death is homicide, the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office said on June 9.
Officials also revealed in July that the bloody handprints found on the tailgate of Decker’s truck matched the DNA profile “that we believe is Decker’s,” saying they “do not have any reason to believe there are any other suspects.”
Cozart previously told ABC News that Decker struggled with mental health issues, including PTSD, and was unable to receive help through veterans’ resources.
The father “had some mental health issues and some instability in his life” that led to restrictions regarding overnight visitation and taking his daughters out of the area, but before the girls disappeared, “there were no red flags,” Cozart said.
Decker was deployed to Afghanistan in 2014 while on active duty in the Army and transferred to the Washington National Guard in 2021 “from the active component,” according to a spokesperson for the Washington State Military Department. Preparations for an “administration separation” began in 2023 or 2024, but the process has not officially started, the spokesperson said.
Nearly two months into the search for Decker, officials said they were scaling back the manhunt amid a “decrease in leads and tips,” but encouraged “everyone venturing out into these areas remain vigilant and report and suspicious activities.”
Previously, Chelan County Sheriff Mike Morrison had told ABC News they were not going to give up on the case.
“We could be in a fight for five years, 10 years, 20 years. I certainly hope we’re looking at a couple weeks and it closes out, but it could be a long time and we are committed to staying with it,” Morrison told ABC News in July.
However, the FBI shut down the Rock Island Campground and surrounding area in late August to conduct an extensive grid search. The agency found “several items” after two days combing the area that were to be sent back for testing, including bones.
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