{"id":257850,"date":"2025-09-27T04:39:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T04:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/257850\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T04:39:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T04:39:18","slug":"travis-deckers-cause-of-death-may-never-be-known-coroner-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/257850\/","title":{"rendered":"Travis Decker’s cause of death “may never be known,” coroner says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cause of death of Travis Decker<\/a>, the man accused of killing his three young daughters earlier this year in Washington state before disappearing and sparking a monthslong manhunt<\/a>, “may never be known,” the local county coroner told CBS News on Friday. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Chelan County Coroner Wayne Harris told CBS News that Decker’s “cause and manner” of death, along with the time of death, couldn’t be determined.<\/p>\n

Harris said the coroner’s office received only “minimal skeletal remains,” and with so much time having passed since the death, “there is nothing to autopsy.”<\/p>\n

“The only examination done at this point was by a forensic anthropologist,” Harris said in an email Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Local law enforcement confirmed Thursday that the human remains that were found in Washington state<\/a> last week came back as a match for Decker after DNA testing.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old, a former Army soldier with extensive survival skills, was the suspect in the May killings of his three daughters<\/a>, 9-year-old Paityn Decker, 8-year-old Evelyn Decker and 5-year-old Olivia Decker. DNA testing confirmed he was the only suspect in the murders, police have said.<\/p>\n

The search for Decker began May 30, after the girls’ mother reported he failed to return them to her Wenatchee, Washington, home, about 100 miles east of Seattle, following a scheduled visit.<\/p>\n

Three days later, authorities discovered the girls’ bodies down an embankment at a Cascade Mountains campsite, their wrists bound with zip ties. Autopsies revealed the girls had suffocated, authorities have said.<\/p>\n

\n

Lauren Fichten<\/a><\/p>\n

contributed to this report.\n <\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

Kierra Frazier<\/a><\/p>\n

Kierra Frazier is a news editor for CBS News & Stations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cause of death of Travis Decker, the man accused of killing his three young daughters earlier this…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":252644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4219,51,9620,50,52,2058],"class_list":{"0":"post-257850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-murder","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-washington"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115274420317798652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}