Blood discovered at a campsite where three young Washington state sisters were found dead last week belonged to a male, authorities said Monday as the search continued for their father, a former soldier with extensive survival skills, the AP reports. Investigators have been looking for Travis Caleb Decker, 32, since the night of May 30, when he failed to return the girls to their mother's home in Wenatchee, about 100 miles east of Seattle, after a scheduled visit. Three days later, a sheriff's deputy discovered the bodies of 9-year-old Paityn Decker, 8-year-old Evelyn Decker, and 5-year-old Olivia Decker down an embankment at a campsite in the Cascade Mountains.
The campsite, west of Leavenworth, is about 11 miles from the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from the US-Mexico border to the US-Canada border. Decker has been charged with murder and kidnapping. According to a probable cause statement filed in Chelan County Superior Court last week, Decker's truck was left at the campsite, and it had two bloody handprints on the tailgate. In a news release Monday, the Chelan County Sheriff's Office said tests revealed that one blood sample taken from the scene belonged to a male, and another turned out to be from an animal. The sheriff's office did not say whether the tested samples had been taken from the tailgate.
DNA and fingerprint analyses are pending, the news release said. Decker's dog was also found alive at the scene and turned over to the humane society for care. The sheriff's office said that while it is retaining command of the criminal investigation, it had turned over control of the search efforts to federal authorities to give its personnel time to rest. Officials have searched hundreds of square miles, much of it mountainous and remote, by land, water and air. (Decker's ex-wife says there were no red flags before the girls were killed.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
