Father’s dog found alive at campsite where 3 young daughters were found dead, officials say
CHELAN COUNTY, Wash. (Gray News) – As the manhunt continues for Travis Decker, the father suspected of killing his three young daughters in Washington state, officials are releasing more information about what was found at the crime scene.
The Wenatchee Police Department said Decker’s daughters – 9-year-old Paityn Decker, 8-year-old Evelyn Decker, and 5-year-old Olivia Decker – were found dead near the Rock Island Campground on June 2.
Officials believe they were killed by their father during a planned visitation.
The coroner has ruled the girls’ deaths as homicides, saying they died from suffocation. The Associated Press reports that the girls had been bound with zip ties and had plastic bags placed over their heads.
But Decker’s dog was also found at the campsite, the sheriff’s office said. The dog was alive and taken to the humane society for care. Officials did not say if the dog was injured in any way.
According to a probable cause statement, Decker’s truck was also left at the campsite, and it had two bloody handprints on the tailgate.
The Chelan County Sheriff’s Office said tests revealed that one blood sample taken from the scene belonged to a male, and another turned out to be from an animal. It’s unclear if the animal blood was that of Decker’s dog.
The Chelan County Sheriff’s Office is urging some of its residents to lock their doors and stay alert as police search for Decker in the area.
Law enforcement is searching in the Ingalls Creek area, west of Wenatchee. The Chelan County Sheriff’s Office said Decker “is believed to potentially be in this area.”
Anyone who sees Decker is asked to call 911.
Decker, 32, is described as 5 feet, 8 inches tall, weighing 190 lbs., with black hair in a ponytail and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a light shirt and dark shorts.
If you see him, do not approach him for safety reasons. Police said he may be armed and is a veteran with extensive training.
Decker is wanted on three counts of first-degree murder and kidnapping charges.
Records show that Decker, a combat veteran, was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a serious mental illness.
Arianna Cozart, attorney for the girls’ mother, Whitney Decker, told KING his diagnosis was most likely related to his combat. She said that he tried to get help, but there was too much red tape to get veteran services.
The attorney said Whitney Decker believes the system let her family down.
“She really feels that the system let her children down. It was the inadequacies in the services for our veterans that killed those children. That’s it,” Cozart said.
According to an affidavit obtained by the Associated Press, Decker has training in navigation, survival and other skills that make him “a very avid and well-versed outdoorsman.”
Decker once spent 2.5 months in the backwoods living off the grid, and in the days before he took the girls, he searched online for how to relocate to and find a job in Canada.
Decker was an infantryman in the Army from March 2013 to July 2021 and deployed to Afghanistan for four months in 2014, according to Army spokesperson Lt. Col. Ruth Castro. From 2014 to 2016, he was an automatic rifleman with the 75th Ranger Regiment at t Base Lewis-McChord in Washington.
Last September, his ex-wife, Whitney Decker, wrote in a petition to modify their parenting plan that his mental health issues had worsened and that he had become increasingly unstable, often living out of his truck. She sought to restrict him from having overnight visits with the girls until he found housing.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Whitney Decker with legal costs and funeral expenses for her three daughters. As of Tuesday, it has raised over $1 million.
Copyright 2025 Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
