Fugitive dad, Travis Decker, accused of killing 3 daughters possibly spotted in Idaho forest
The U.S. Marshals Service Greater Idaho Fugitive Task Force said it had received a tip Saturday from a family recreating near a camping area in Idaho's Sawtooth National Forest that they saw a man whose description was consistent with that of Decker.
Authorities asked anyone who was in the area over the Fourth of July weekend, specifically in the Bear Creek area in Idaho, to come forward with any tips, CBS affiliate in Seattle KIRO-TV reported.
The Bear Creek area is between Sawtooth National Forest and Boise National Forest, about 100 miles east of Boise, Idaho.
Decker has been wanted since June 2, when a sheriff's deputy in Washington found his truck and the bodies of his three daughters — 9-year-old Paityn Decker, 8-year-old Evelyn Decker and 5-year-old Olivia Decker — at a campground outside Leavenworth, Washington.
Authorities found the girls' bodies down an embankment at a campsite in the Cascade Mountains. A man's blood discovered on the tailgate of Decker's vehicle was confirmed to likely be his, with the DNA profile matching the one found on his belongings, the Chelan County Sheriff's Office said last week.
The discovery came three days after he failed to return the girls to their mother's home in Wenatchee, about 100 miles east of Seattle, following a scheduled visit.
Photos from the Chelan County Sheriff's Office showing how Travis Decker may have changed his appearance.
Chelan County Sheriff's Office
Last month, investigators said there was no evidence that the father and ex-soldier remained in the area or that he is alive at all. They also released images of what Decker might look like after weeks on the run.
Authorities in Washington on June 10 said they believed they'd spotted Decker near a remote alpine lake in a popular backpacking area in the Cascade Range. Tracking teams followed up on a tip from hikers who reported seeing a lone hiker who appeared to be ill-prepared for the conditions.
But he has not been found.
Eric Toms, supervisory deputy U.S. Marshal with the District of Boise, said the agency was receiving more tips from the public following the statement the task force released Sunday. Toms, in an email, said the agency was evaluating each tip and that a search team involving the marshals service, the U.S. Forest Service and the Camas County Sheriff's Office set out Monday.
He said authorities planned to speak with residents and people camping or recreating in the area. He said Decker has a history of hitchhiking and encouraged motorists not to pick up any hitchhikers.
The Marshals Service is offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading to Decker's capture.
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Almost from the outset, the FBI had debunked the dossier and later fired its author, Christopher Steele, for lying. The ex-British spy had been a paid source for the FBI. By concealing this vital information, Comey sought and obtained surveillance warrants from the FISA court on a Trump campaign associate, Carter Page. No evidence of wrongdoing was ever discovered because none existed. When the Russia hoax failed to prevent Trump from winning the presidency, the same malevolent adversaries doubled down on the Clinton-inspired scheme. The new documents released by Gabbard show that a Dec. 8, 2016 draft of the President's Daily Briefing (PDB) assessed that "Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure." But that conclusion, compiled by top intelligence agencies, did not conform to the Trump collusion narrative. Comey and others apparently scuttled the PDB and concocted an alternative plan. The next day, Dec. 9, Obama convened select cabinet officials, along with Clapper, Brennan, and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. A new Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) was ordered that would undermine the PDB and perpetuate the Trump-Russia collusion fiction. The replacement narrative would claim that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Trump win the presidency. It didn't seem to matter that it was not true. Brennan and Comey ensured that the discredited dossier was incorporated in the ICA, which was rushed to completion before the new president took office. Why the urgency? So that Comey could use it to entrap Trump into a false confession before his inauguration. On Jan. 6, 2017, the FBI director traveled to Trump Tower armed with the ICA that deceptively alleged Russian interference in the campaign and also confronted the president-elect with salacious accusations in the dossier that the bureau knew were untrue. Comey's unscrupulous gambit failed when Trump vigorously denied the allegations as utterly preposterous, which they were. Meanwhile, there is still more damning evidence that must be declassified —some of it sealed for nearly a decade and buried in the bowels of the FBI and other intel agencies. None of that deterred Comey and his minions at the FBI. They escalated their investigation of Trump and propagated the collusion lie. Clapper leaked the dossier to CNN, as reporters and pundits spent the next year happily convicting the new president in the court of public opinion without a shred of plausible evidence. When Comey was eventually fired, he purloined FBI documents on his way out the door and promptly leaked them to a friend in the media to trigger the appointment of a special counsel who just happened to be his former colleague and mentor, Robert Mueller. In the end, of course, Mueller and his team of partisans —try as they may— could find no evidence of a criminal collusion conspiracy. Those of us who fairly and honestly covered the faux scandal knew it all along. In my 2018 book titled The Russia Hoax, I wrote on page one that "there was not a whiff of credible evidence to legally justify the probe" initiated by Comey. I described it as "a clever feint for a covert criminal investigation in search of a crime, reversing and bastardizing the legal process." I laid out the facts which still hold true today. In my follow-up book the next year, Witch Hunt, I offered more incriminating details of exactly how malign actors aspired and conspired to evict Trump from office: "Evidence against him was invented or embellished. Laws were perverted or ignored. Trump was framed for a 'collusion' conspiracy that had never existed. They knew it was untrue." The newly constituted FBI has already opened a criminal investigation of Brennan and Comey. That is a good start. But they were not the only ones who should be held to account. The list is a long one, and it goes right to the top —Obama and Clinton. It started with the collusion hoax, but it didn't end there. Trump appears to have been the victim of an ongoing criminal conspiracy that stretched for nearly a decade. It eventually evolved into the specious prosecutions brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith that were engineered by the Biden administration and simultaneous coverups of suspected illegality by the Biden family, many of whom received preemptive pardons. On that basis, the FBI is reportedly examining the possibility of bringing a "grand conspiracy" case that would encompass many of the above-noted acts that were intended to unduly influence three presidential elections, 2016, 2020, and 2024. CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION The advantage of adopting this legal avenue is two-fold. First, it would extend any expired statute of limitations to the date of more recent overt acts such as the raid on Mar-a-Lago and events thereafter. Second, it would allow any prosecutions to be brought in a venue other than Washington, D.C., where the endemic bias of jurors make it nearly impossible to gain convictions. Meanwhile, there is still more damning evidence that must be declassified —some of it sealed for nearly a decade and buried in the bowels of the FBI and other intel agencies. But even without it, there is little doubt that top officials at the FBI, CIA, Department of Justice and the White House abused their authority for political purposes. Armed with immense power and often lurking in the shadows, they were capable of uncommon corruption. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Their allegiance was not to the Constitution and the rule of law but to themselves. Personal animus and a voracious appetite for control motivated their zeal. Trump was their obstacle. He jeopardized their hold on power, so they schemed to destroy him by any means and at any cost. The only cure for lies is the truth. And the only remedy for lawlessness is justice. The pursuit of what is right depends on both principles. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM GREGG JARRETT Print Close URL
