Nearly three months after authorities in Washington State launched a manhunt for a military veteran accused of killing his three young daughters, the fugitive father has still not been found.
On Monday, investigators returned to a key location in the horrific crime — the remote campground where Travis Decker’s abandoned pickup truck was found near the bodies of his three girls, ages 5, 8 and 9, a law enforcement official said.
The effort, coordinated by the FBI’s Seattle field office, includes nearly 100 law enforcement personnel, with intelligence analysts, evidence specialists and special agents with an expertise in child abduction cases and forensic analysis, according to Chelan County Sheriff Michael Morrison.
“These resources demonstrate the seriousness with which every agency is approaching this case,” Morrison said in a news release.
The release does not say what they’re looking for or why they’re returning to Rock Island Campground, roughly 150 miles east of Seattle, but Morrison described the search as a “targeted effort” that will cover rugged U.S. Forest Service land.
The search is expected to last through Tuesday, he said.
“While this latest operation may or may not yield new findings, our promise is that we will not stop until we have exhausted every possible avenue to find him and to bring closure to this case,” Morrison said.
The sheriff’s office continues to follow every credible lead, he said, noting there is still no evidence to indicate whether Decker, 33, is alive or dead.
Authorities have been searching for Decker, a U.S. Army veteran described as an avid outdoorsman, since May 30, when his ex-wife contacted police and said he did not return their daughters, Paityn, 9, Evelyn, 8, and Olivia, 5, after a planned visit.
The girls were found at the campground on June 2 with plastic bags over their heads, according to an affidavit in support of an arrest warrant. An autopsy found that they died of suffocation.
Authorities appear to have seen Decker, who is wanted on charges of first-degree murder and kidnapping, just once, when a man believed to be him was seen in the Blewitt Pass area, southeast of Rock Island Campground.
Another sighting in Idaho turned out to be someone else.
Authorities have not identified a possible motive, but according to the affidavit, Decker refused to sign a parenting plan last September that ordered him to seek mental health treatment and domestic violence-anger management counseling.
His ex-wife, Whitney Decker, has said she believes her daughters might still be alive had an Amber Alert been issued in the hours after she first contacted police.
