|
Decker, a former soldier, has been wanted since June 2, when a
sheriff’s deputy 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 the Rock Island Campground in
the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest.
The discovery came three days after he failed to return the
girls to their mother’s home in Wenatchee, about 100 miles (160
kilometers) east of Seattle, following a scheduled visit.
Authorities closed popular campgrounds and trailheads in the
forest near Leavenworth as close to 100 FBI agents and other law
enforcement officers bushwhacked through rugged terrain. Divers
planned to again search Icicle Creek in an effort to reach areas
where logjams had previously barred dive teams, they said.
During a news conference Monday, Chelan County Sheriff Mike
Morrison and Peter Orth, the FBI's supervisory senior resident
agent in Yakima, stressed that investigators still have no
evidence about whether Decker is alive or dead.
“You can't be too thorough in a search like this,” Orth said.
"It is such incredibly dense vegetation that anybody who walks
down one of these trails could walk 10 meters off the trail and
no one would ever know they're there.”
Teams were conducting a grid search in a quarter-mile (0.4 km)
radius around the campground, they said.
The U.S. Marshals Service is offering a reward of up to $20,000
for information leading to Decker’s capture.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights
reserved |
|
