Authorities discovered remains in a remote wooded area south of Leavenworth believed to be that of Travis Decker, the Wenatchee man accused of killing his three young daughters, according to the Chelan County Sheriff's Office.
The potential finding and close to the over 100-day manhunt occurred this week in a search led by the U.S. Marshals Service Pacific Northwest Violent Offender Task Force and included the Chelan County Sheriff's Office, Washington State Patrol, U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Forest Service, Spokane County Sheriff's Office and FBI, the Chelan County Sheriff's Office said Thursday in a news release.
"While positive identification has not yet been confirmed, preliminary findings suggest the remains belong to Travis Decker," the sheriff's office said in the release.
The agency is processing the scene with the help of the WSP crime scene response team. DNA analysis will follow.
Decker, the 32-year-old former U.S. Army soldier, is charged with kidnapping and aggravated first-degree murder in the deaths of his three daughters, Olivia Decker, 5; Evelyn Decker, 8; and Paityn Decker, 9, from Wenatchee. The girls were found zip-tied and asphyxiated with plastic bags in an embankment at the Rock Island Campground near Leavenworth, according to previous reporting from The Spokesman-Review.
The search over the last nearly four months drew national attention, involved several law enforcement agencies and one tip in July that led law enforcement to the Sawtooth National Forest in Idaho until investigators learned the man hiking in the southern Idaho wilderness who matched the description of Decker was not actually him.
The sheriff's office will provide more information as it becomes available through the investigation, the release said.