Federal prosecutor says Travis Decker, wanted in the deaths of 3 daughters, is dead

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to drop the arrest warrant for a former soldier wanted in the deaths of his three young daughters because the U.S. Marshals Service says the man is dead.

Authorities in Washington state found remains believed to belong to Travis Decker in a remote wooded area of central Washington last week, but investigators are still waiting for DNA results to confirm the man’s identity.

Still, in a court document filed Wednesday, U.S. Attorney S. Peter Serrano said the U.S. Marshals Service has advised prosecutors that Decker is dead.

Law enforcement teams had searched for more than three months for Decker after the bodies of his daughters — 9-year-old Paityn Decker, 8-year-old Evelyn Decker and 5-year-old Olivia Decker — were found in June at a campground near Leavenworth.

The Chelan County Sheriff’s Office said an autopsy determined they died from suffocation. They had been bound with zip ties and had plastic bags placed over their heads.

Decker, 32, had been with his daughters on a scheduled visit but failed to bring them back to his ex-wife, who a year ago said that his mental health issues had worsened and that he had become increasingly unstable.

He was often living out of his truck, she said in a petition seeking to restrict him from having overnight visits with their daughters until he found housing.

Decker was an infantryman in the U.S. Army from March 2013 to July 2021 and deployed to Afghanistan for four months in 2014. He had training in navigation, survival and other skills, authorities said, and once spent more than two months living in the backwoods off the grid.