Travis Decker's remains may have been found, sheriff say

Kai Uyehara and Sara Jean Green, The Seattle Times on Sep 19, 2025

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CHELAN COUNTY, Wash. — The spot where authorities on Thursday found human remains that are believed to belong to Travis Decker was less than a mile from where the bodies of his three young daughters were discovered in early June near the Rock Island Campground, south of Leavenworth, Washington.

Though geographically close, thick vegetation, dense woods and the steep slopes of Grindstone Mountain stood between the two sites, according to Chelan County Sheriff Mike Morrison.

Federal and local law enforcement crews were conducting their fourth grid and drone search of rough terrain around the campground when the remains were discovered in an area that had not been previously searched, Morrison said Friday. Crews repelled from a Spokane County sheriff’s helicopter to the site, which is about three-quarters of a mile away and 2,000 feet in elevation above where the bodies of Olivia, Evelyn and Paityn Decker were discovered June 2.

The Rock Island Campground is nearly 17 miles down Icicle Road from Leavenworth.

On Friday morning, a thin haze sank between the layers of peaked mountains above a camp of law enforcement vehicles on the way up Icicle Road.

A dog barked from the back of a K-9 police vehicle as officers from local and federal agencies milled about the camp, some gathering under the shade of a tent outside a Douglas County sheriff’s trailer.

Behind the vehicles, crews loaded equipment into a helicopter between its flights up the mountain and a crew member zipped up in a bright orange flight suit.

The Decker sisters, ages 5, 8 and 9, were reported missing May 30 after their father failed to return them to their mother’s Wenatchee home per a court-ordered custody agreement. The girls were found a couple days later, fatally suffocated with their wrists and ankles bound, near Decker’s 2017 GMC Sierra pickup.

The discovery of the girls’ bodies kicked off a summerlong search for Decker, an Army veteran and skilled outdoorsman who was charged with three counts of aggravated first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree kidnapping.

A week after the girls’ bodies were found, a tip from a hiking party about a lone person ill-prepared for trail conditions intensified the search for Decker in the Enchantments area. Tracking teams spotted an off-trail hiker who ran from a helicopter flying near Colchuck Lake. More searchers and a police K-9 unit were called in and tracked a man believed to be Decker many miles away to the Ingalls Creek trailhead, south of the unincorporated community of Peshastin, off Highway 97.

Despite the assistance of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, Decker remained elusive, and authorities did not know if he was alive or dead. The FBI closed multiple campgrounds, hiking trails and roads in the Leavenworth area as part of the search, and repeatedly sought the public’s help in the effort to find him.

The human remains found Thursday were decomposed and scattered, likely by animals, said Morrison, the Chelan County sheriff. Clothing found with the remains is consistent with what Decker was last known to be wearing, and personal items were also found at the scene, he said.

Sheriff’s officials are awaiting DNA testing by the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab to confirm that the remains belong to Decker, with results possible later Friday.

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Material from The Seattle Times archives is included in this story.

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