Latest news with #WhitneyDecker
Toronto Sun
an hour ago
- Toronto Sun
Male blood found where 3 sisters in Washington were killed
Published Jun 10, 2025 • 2 minute read This undated photo provided by Whitney Decker shows Paityn, Olivia and Evelyn Decker. (Courtesy of Whitney Decker via AP) AP LEAVENWORTH, Wash. (AP) — Blood discovered at a campsite where three young Washington state sisters were found dead last week belonged to a male, authorities said Monday as the search continued for their father, a former soldier with extensive survival skills. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Investigators have been looking for Travis Caleb Decker, 32, since the night of May 30, when he failed to return the girls to their mother's home in Wenatchee, about 100 miles (160 kilometres) east of Seattle, after a scheduled visit. Three days later, a sheriff's deputy discovered the bodies of 9-year-old Paityn Decker, 8-year-old Evelyn Decker and 5-year-old Olivia Decker down an embankment at a campsite in the Cascade Mountains. The campsite, west of Leavenworth, is about 11 miles (18 km) from the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from the U.S.-Mexico border to the U.S.-Canada border. Decker has been charged with murder and kidnapping. According to a probable cause statement filed in Chelan County Superior Court last week, Decker's truck was left at the campsite, and it had two bloody handprints on the tailgate. In a news release Monday, 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. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The sheriff's office did not say whether the tested samples had been taken from the tailgate. DNA and fingerprint analyses are pending, the news release said. Decker's dog was also found alive at the scene and turned over to the humane society for care. The sheriff's office said that while it is retaining command of the criminal investigation, it had turned over control of the search efforts to federal authorities to give its personnel time to rest. Officials have searched hundreds of square miles, much of it mountainous and remote, by land, water and air. Pictures, flowers and candles mark a makeshift memorial Tuesday, June 3, 2025, in Wenatchee, Wash., in honor of Olivia, Paityn and Evelyn Decker, who were found dead near Leavenworth after their father Travis Decker failed to return them after a scheduled visitation. Photo by Nick Wagner / AP Decker has also been charged in federal court with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. According to an affidavit filed by Deputy U.S. Marshal Keegan Stanley in that case, Decker has training in navigation, survival and other skills that make him 'a very avid and well-versed outdoorsman.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Decker once spent 2.5 months in the backwoods living off the grid, Stanley wrote, 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 Joint 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. An autopsy on Friday determined the cause of death to be suffocation, the sheriff's office said. The girls had been bound with zip ties and had plastic bags placed over their heads. Authorities have reopened popular camping and backpacking areas in the Icicle Creek area, near where the girls were discovered. Other trails in the Lake Chelan National Recreation Area have reopened for day use but not camping. Toronto Blue Jays World Olympics Editorial Cartoons Relationships
Daily Mail
15 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Disturbing new details revealed in autopsy for three sisters 'killed by their on-the-run father Travis Decker'
Disturbing new details have emerged from the autopsies of three sisters allegedly to have been killed by their father. Travis Decker, 32, remains on the run a week after the bodies of his daughters, nine-year-old Paityn, eight-year-old Evelyn and five-year-old Olivia were found near the Rock Island Campground in Washington. The Chelan County Sheriff's Office revealed 'blood samples taken from the scene have come back positive for belonging to a male, and another was not human blood.' Decker abandoned his dog when he went on the run. 'The suspect's dog was recovered and turned over to the humane society for safe care,' a spokesperson for the sheriff's office said. 'Further DNA and fingerprint analyses are still being conducted.' Autopsies have now been conducted on each of the little girls to determine their cause of death. 'The cause of death was determined to be suffocation and the manner of death was determined to be homicide,' the spokesperson said. Paityn, Evelyn and Olivia were reported missing on May 30 after Decker failed to return them home from a scheduled visitation. Whitney Decker, the fugitive father's ex-wife and mom of their late daughters, never imagined he might have been on the verge of carrying out a heinous act after he arrived to pick up their girls for a scheduled three-hour visitation According to Whitney's attorney Arianna Cozart, 'she had no reason to suspect anything was wrong.' But a supervisor at his construction job told Whitney shortly after Travis vanished that he had seemed 'on the brink of something extreme' earlier that day while on the job. Whitney said through her lawyer that she initially begged police to issue an Amber Alert for them but was told the case did not meet the requirements. When the bodies of her daughters were found, their wrists had been bound with zip ties and each of them had been suffocated with a plastic bag. After finding the girls, investigators 'obtained and served multiple search warrants for records contained in Decker's Google accounts,' leading them to discover that the 32-year-old appeared to be planning how to relocate to Canada, according to an affidavit reviewed by the Independent. In the affidavit, Deputy U.S. Marshal Keegan Stanley wrote that Decker made several searches on May 26, including: 'how does a person move to Canada,' 'how to relocate to Canada' and 'jobs Canada.' The father, who remains on the run, then visited the website 'Find a job - Stanley detailed. His daughters' remains were also found 'relatively close to the Canadian border and approximately 11 miles from the Pacific Crest Trail, a well-established trail that leads directly to Canada,' per the affidavit. Decker, who is wanted on three counts each of first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping, also 'has training in navigation, woodland/mountainous terrain, long distance movements, survival and numerous other disciplines needed to be able to flee,' the affidavit continued. 'Prior to the above alleged crimes, Decker frequently recreated in outdoor, woodland and mountainous areas throughout the Eastern District of Washington and surrounding states,' it read. 'Amongst other outdoorsman activities, Decker frequently engaged in hiking, camping, survival skill practice, hunting and even lived off the grid in the backwoods for approximately 2.5 months on one occasion.' On June 8, local authorities handed search efforts for Decker over to federal authorities to 'rest local resources.' 'We had reached a point where we need to rest our local resources,' the spokesperson said. 'Our command staff continues to be engaged with the search command while we give our teams time off to rest and recuperate and be ready to rejoin the search for, and capture of, the suspect.' Decker is 5'8'' with black hair and brown eyes. An updated wanted poster showed Decker wearing a tan shirt with the number 59 on the sleeve, dark shorts, flip flops with his hair tied back, carrying pizza boxes. The poster also included close up photos of Decker's tattoos on his arms and ankle, and stated that Decker was 'last seen wearing tan or green t-shirt, dark shorts.' He is considered very dangerous given his extensive military training and propensity for violence.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
Feds take over manhunt for Washington father accused of killing 3 young daughters
After law enforcement officers spent days scouring a remote section of Washington state for a man accused of killing his three young daughters, the sheriff leading the manhunt turned the search over to federal authorities, officials said Monday. Since last week, the search for Travis Decker, 32, has covered hundreds of square miles by air, land and water, the Chelan County Sheriff's Office said in a news release, and the department has reached the point 'where we need to rest our local resources.' 'Our command staff continues to be engaged with the search command while we give our teams time off to rest and recuperate and be ready to rejoin the search for, and capture of, the suspect,' the sheriff's office said. The sheriff's office remains the lead agency in the criminal investigation into the deaths of Decker's three daughters, Evelyn, 8, Paityn, 9, and Olivia Decker, 5, the department said. The girls were found dead June 2 near a campground east of Seattle after Decker failed to return them from a visitation three days before. An arrest warrant accuses him of first-degree murder and kidnapping. An autopsy completed Friday attributed the girls' deaths to suffocation, according to Monday's release. A detective previously wrote in an affidavit in support of an arrest warrant that they had bags over their heads and had been zip-tied. Two bloody handprints were found on Decker's white pickup, which was found near the girls, and one of the blood samples recovered from the scene was that of a man, the department said. Another blood sample was nonhuman. The sheriff's office said additional DNA and fingerprint analyses are being conducted. Authorities said they have collected a large amount of evidence from the scene, along with Decker's dog, which was turned over to a local animal rescue. Authorities have described Decker, a military veteran and active member of the Washington State National Guard, as a longtime outdoorsman known to go 'off-grid' for months. The sheriff has warned people with cabins in the area to lock their doors and leave their lights on at night. The affidavit shows that Decker's ex-wife, Whitney Decker, described her relationship with her ex-husband as cordial and said he'd never previously failed to return their children. A parenting plan imposed by a court last year required him to seek mental health treatment and domestic violence-anger management counseling, but he hadn't done so, and he refused to sign the plan, according to the affidavit. Since the girls were found dead, Whitney Decker has called for reforms to the Amber Alert system, which sends out text messages to all cellphones in the area of missing children but wasn't used after she told authorities that her ex-husband had violated their parenting plan. A spokesman for the agency that manages the system, the Washington State Patrol, has said a request for an alert from local authorities didn't meet strict criteria required by the federal program. This article was originally published on
NBC News
18 hours ago
- NBC News
Feds take over manhunt for Washington father accused of killing 3 young daughters
After law enforcement officers spent days scouring a remote section of Washington State for a father accused of killing his three young daughters, the local sheriff leading the manhunt turned over the search to federal authorities, officials said Monday. Since last week, the search for Travis Decker, 32, has covered hundreds of square miles by air, land and water, the Chelan County Sheriff's Office said in a news release, and the department reached the point 'where we need to rest our local resources.' 'Our command staff continues to be engaged with the search command while we give our teams time off to rest and recuperate and be ready to rejoin the search for, and capture of, the suspect,' the sheriff's office said. The sheriff's office remains the lead agency on the criminal investigation into the deaths of Decker's three daughters, Evelyn, 8, Paityn, 9, and Olivia Decker, 5, the department said. The girls were found dead June 2 near a campground east of Seattle after Decker failed to return them from a visitation three days before. An arrest warrant accuses him of first-degree murder and kidnapping. An autopsy completed Friday attributed the girls' cause of death to suffocation, according to Monday's release. A detective previously wrote in an affidavit in support of an arrest warrant that they had bags over their heads and had been zip-tied. Two bloody handprints were found on Decker's white pickup, which was found near the girls, and one of the blood samples recovered from the scene belonged to a man, the department said. Another blood sample was non-human. The department said additional DNA and fingerprint analyses are being conducted. Authorities said they have collected a large amount of evidence from the scene, along with Decker's dog, which was turned over to a local animal rescue. Authorities previously described Decker, a military veteran and active member of the Washington State National Guard, as a longtime outdoorsman known to go 'off-grid' for months. The sheriff has warned people with cabins in the area to lock their doors and leave their lights on at night. The affidavit shows that Decker's ex-wife, Whitney Decker, described her relationship with her ex-husband as cordial and said he'd never previously failed to return their children. A parenting plan imposed by a court last year required him to seek mental health treatment and domestic violence-anger management counseling but he had not done so and refused to sign the plan, according to the affidavit. Since the girls were found dead, Whitney Decker has called for reforms to the Amber Alert system, which sends out text messages to all cell phones in the area of missing children but was not used after she told authorities that her ex-husband had violated their parenting plan. A spokesman for the agency that manages the system, Washington State Patrol, has said that a request for an alert from local authorities did not meet strict criteria required by the federal program.
New York Post
a day ago
- New York Post
New photos released of Travis Decker as huge manhunt continues fo veteran dad accused of murdering 3 daughters
New photos have been released of Travis Decker as the huge manhunt continues for the Army veteran wanted for allegedly murdering his three young daughters. A new wanted poster for Decker shows the accused triple murderer's distinctive tattoos and his hair pulled back in a ponytail, while in the clothes he was last seen wearing before running off with his daughters. Decker is deemed 'dangerous' — and possibly armed — as he remains on the run a week after the bodies of his daughters Paityn, 9, Evelyn, 8, and Olivia, 5, were found bound and with plastic bags over their heads near an abandoned truck he'd been living out of. The National Guard has been deployed in the extensive manhunt for Decker — who is homeless and had searched 'how to relocate to Canada' days before the girls were found dead near the Rock Island Campground in Chelan County last Monday, June 2. Advertisement 4 New photos released by police show Decker's hair done up in a ponytail Chelan County Sheriff's Office 4 Decker's three daughters were found dead at a campground in Washington state. Chelan County Sheriff's Office The girls' wrists were zip tied and bags had been placed over their heads, officials said. The campsite is only about 11 miles from the Canadian border. Advertisement The search began on Friday, May 30, when Decker's daughters didn't return from a scheduled visitation with their dad. Their heartbroken mother's attorney told The Post on Friday that Decker is more a 'broken'' man than a cold-blooded killer after he allegedly murdered them. 4 Evelyn Decker, Paityn Decker, and Olivia Decke were found dead with their hands ziptied and bags over their heads. Facebook/Whitney Decker 4 The new pictures show Decker's tattoos. Chelan County Sheriff's Office Advertisement 'It's clear that something broke in him because no person can go out there and be a parent to three beautiful girls for nine years, pretend like he loves them, if he's intending to kill them for nine years,' Whitney Decker's lawyer, Arianna Cozart, said. 'He's a broken human, like anybody who could commit such a heinous act is, you know, I don't know the better way to put it,' she said. Decker was on 'the brink of something really extreme' in the weeks before he allegedly killed his three little girls, new court documents show. Advertisement His erratic behavior prompted Whitney Decker to quickly file a protection order petition against the accused killer. 'He had seemed better, then it seemed like things just started happening one after another,' Whitney Decker wrote in the documents.
