Travis Decker potentially spotted by family in vast Idaho forest
Alleged child murderer Travis Decker was possibly sighted in a vast Idaho forest Saturday as authorities desperately try to find the dangerous survivalist accused of killing his three daughters.
A family camping in the Bear Creek area of the Sawtooth National Forest reported a man matching Decker’s appearance lingering around their vicinity of the more than two million-acre woods that span across Idaho and Utah, according to a press release by the US Marshals Service Greater Idaho Fugitive Task Force.
The family claimed the man stood between 5’8” and 5’10”, with black gauged earrings, his hair in a ponytail, an overgrown beard, and wearing a black mesh cap, a cream-colored shirt, black shorts, and a black backpack.
The US Marshals stated that the family who reported the person didn’t want to make eye contact and also didn’t approach him, KIVITV reported.
Cabin owners in the area have been alerted that the accused killer may be in the area.
The accused killer is described as a white man, standing 5’8” tall and weighing approximately 190 pounds.
Decker, 32, is wanted for allegedly killing his three children – Paityn, 9, Evelyn, 8, and Olivia, 5, in Washington.
A former member of the US Army and trained wilderness survivalist, he was last seen when he took the girls on Friday, May 30, for a “planned visitation.”
They were reported as missing when Travis failed to return with the girls that night.
The sisters were discovered three days later at the campground in Wenatchee on June 2 with plastic bags on their heads and zip ties around their wrists.
Decker’s abandoned truck was also found at the scene with two bloody handprints smeared on the tailgate.
Decker’s dog was found alive at the scene and later turned over to the Humane Society for care.
Officials later determined the girls had died from suffocation.
Numerous local, state, and federal agencies searched hundreds of square miles — much of it mountainous and remote — by land, water, and air since the fugitive father disappeared after allegedly killing his daughters.
Decker, who was an infantryman in the Army from March 2013 to July 2021 and deployed to Afghanistan for four months in 2014, has training in navigation, survival, and other skills that make him “a very avid and well-versed outdoorsman,” authorities warned earlier.
He once spent nearly three months living off the grid and searched online for how to relocate to and find a job in Canada in the days leading up to when he took the girls.
Decker has been charged with murder and kidnapping, as well as a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
Authorities warn that he is considered armed and dangerous, but insist they have no reason to believe Decker is a threat to public safety.
The US Marshals Service is offering a $20,000 reward for any information leading to Decker’s arrest.