Travis Decker Went on the Run After His Daughters Were Found Dead—3 Months Later, He Was Declared Dead

On September 18, 2025, authorities recovered the partial, considerably decomposed remains of fugitive father Travis Caleb Decker in five separate areas of secluded and remote woods, just south of Leavenworth, Wash.—not far from Rock Island Campground, where the 32-year-old former Army infantry soldier’s three young daughters: Paityn, 9; Evelyn, 8; and Olivia, 5, were found dead three months earlier.

The Decker girls’ bodies were discovered on June 2, 2025, next to the abandoned truck Decker, who was charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts first-degree kidnapping, lived in. Three days earlier, the sisters were reported missing by their mother, his ex-wife, Whitney.

All three, investigators said, had been zip-tied and had plastic bags placed over their heads, causing them to painfully asphyxiate.

Detectives believe wild animals picked at Decker’s corpse, leaving mostly bones behind. Decker’s skull and torso have never been found, and authorities said they’ll likely never know what caused the former Army infantryman’s death since they cannot perform an autopsy. DNA testing on Decker’s clothing confirmed he was dead, and a three-month manhunt for the father that cost local officials close to $10 million ended.

Decker, who grew up in Wisconsin, had a known history of mental health issues, including borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder diagnoses. But that doesn’t explain why he might have wanted to kill his three daughters. To Chelan County Sheriff Michael Morrison’s mind, motive doesn’t much matter in this case.

“No explanation can justify such a horrific act or bring those girls back,” Morrison tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “Our focus remained on identifying the suspect, locating him, whether alive or deceased, and ensuring that justice, truth and the voices of those innocent girls prevailed. That was our duty, and we carried it out to the fullest.”

Officials can’t say how long after the murders Decker died, but said the search for him presented significant challengers.

“The crime itself deeply impacted our communities and our personnel,” Morrison explains. “We received an overwhelming number of leads, many placing him across different regions and even different countries. Sorting through that volume of information was daunting and time-consuming.”

Investigators from several law enforcement agencies, including federal and state agencies, participated in what Morrison deems “one of the most complex investigations and manhunts in our county’s history.”

“It was truly a collective effort—and a collective success—made possible by the professionalism, persistence and teamwork of all involved,” he continues.

While U.S. Marshals initially declared Decker dead in a September 2025 court filing to dismiss his arrest warrant, Morrison made the official declaration days later after “official DNA confirmation was obtained.”

“Only after a confirmed match was made did we make any official statements regarding his death. At no time did our investigators cut corners or attempt to rush the process,” he says. “This investigation was handled with precision, patience and professionalism.”

Morrison confirms the homicide investigation has been officially closed.

“While this marks the end of a dark and painful chapter for our agency and county, it is most importantly a step toward closure for the girl’s family and Travis’s,” Morrison says. “This tragedy shook our communities to their cores. It brought grief, anger, and disbelief, but also strength, unity and resilience. Our communities came together in ways that reminded us who we are: people who care deeply for one another.

“While this case has left lasting scars, it has also reaffirmed our shared commitment to each other and to the safety of every member of our community.”

Susan Hatters Friedman, a professor of forensic psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, tells A&E Crime + Investigation that experts have identified five reasons for why parents murder their offspring.

While there are shared patterns in most filicides and familicides, there’s no way to actually predict them, Hatters Friedman cautions.

“Some common things you’ll see is some element of depression, some element of paranoia, some element of illicit substance or alcohol abuse,” she says. “It occurs in people who’ve had a recent financial loss, like the loss of a job, and people who learn some criminal activity of theirs is coming out. But no one knows what’s going on in someone else’s mind.”

Parents, Hatters Friedman explains, will kill a child out of “love,” believing they’re sparing them from a “cruel world.” Revenge is another reason. “They want to emotionally wound the [other] parent as much as possible and will either kill all of the children, or choose the other parent’s favorite,” Hatters Friedman says. “It’s difficult for most of us to conceptualize treating their child as a pawn or a weapon, instead of a person.”

Parents also kill children they never wanted or no longer want, especially when they see the child as a threat to a blossoming relationship. “Sometimes, there is a potential partner on the horizon who didn’t want kids, like with Susan Smith,” who, in 1994, drowned her two sons, 3-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alex, because a man she’d been having an affair with didn’t want children.

Sometimes, abusive parents kill without meaning to. “This was initially called ‘accidental filicide’ back in the 1960s,” Hatters Friedman notes. “This was usually written off as a parent overly disciplining their child.” Others experience psychotic breaks and will kill their kids at the behest of some supreme entity.

Interestingly, Hatters Friedman says reported filicides are generally split 50/50 between mothers and fathers.

“It’s our cultural and gender bias where, when mom does it, we tend to think she must have been mentally ill, because women don’t do this,” she says, “and we tend to think when a father does it that he was just violent and evil. We really need to look at the why for what the motive is. No one can know what’s going on in someone else’s mind.”