Seattle: Authorities have closed a wide section of popular campgrounds and backpacking areas in Washington as they search for a former Army soldier wanted in the deaths of his three young daughters.
Dozens of additional law enforcement officers from an array of agencies joined the investigation and search on Friday for Travis Caleb Decker, 32, four days after the bodies of nine-year-old Paityn Decker, eight-year-old Evelyn Decker and Olivia Decker, 5, were found dead at a remote campsite outside Leavenworth, in Washington State.
This undated photo provided by Whitney Decker shows Paityn, Olivia and Evelyn Decker.Credit: AP
The girls’ mother reported them missing the night of May 30 when Decker failed to return them to her home in Wenatchee, about 160 kilometres east of Seattle, after a scheduled visit.
Governor Bob Ferguson announced on Friday night that he was ordering the state’s National Guard to help with the search, saying “we will be providing helicopter transportation for law enforcement as they search in remote areas.”
“The brutal murder of these young children has shocked our state,” he added in a statement on social media. “I’m committed to supporting law enforcement as they seek justice for Paityn, Evelyn and Olivia.”
The seach for Travis Caleb Decker is continuing.Credit: AP
Decker was an infantryman in the Army from March 2013 to July 2021 and deployed to Afghanistan for four months in 2014, according to an Army spokesperson. From 2014 to 2016, he was an automatic rifleman with the 75th Ranger Regiment in Washington.
In September last year his ex-wife, Whitney Decker, wrote in a petition to modify their parenting plan, saying 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.
“He has made huge sacrifices to serve our country and loves his girls very much but he has got to get better,” she wrote. “I do not want to keep Travis from the girls at all. … But I cannot have our girls staying in what is essentially a homeless shelter, at times unsupervised, with dozens of strange men, or staying in a tent or living in his truck with him both in extreme temperatures and unknown areas for their safety.”
