(NewsNation) — Police may have spotted ex-soldier Travis Decker, who is accused of killing his three young daughters. He may be hiking alone off-trail near Colchuck Lake in Washington State, the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday.
The Sheriff’s Department says a tip came in from hikers who spotted a lone hiker who seemed to be very ill prepared for the trail. Authorities also said he was seen running from a helicopter.
Decker’s three daughters were found dead near his vehicle at a campground site. Their cause of death was suffocation.
“It sounds to me like his capture is imminent,” Chris Swecker, former assistant director of the FBI, told “Banfield” on Tuesday. Swecker worked the manhunt for Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph.
The forest where police are searching for Decker is remote, but there are structures in the area, and he could be hiding in caves, Swecker said.
He thinks police will close in on him in the daytime Wednesday.
“He’s been spotted. There’s a perimeter set up around maybe a mile going in each direction, and I think very slowly, they’ll tighten down that perimeter,” Swecker said. “He is desperate, and he’s obviously mentally disturbed. If he is armed, he’s likely to shoot. He’ll see them, the searchers, before they will see him. So they have to be very deliberate, very measured and very disciplined in how they close that perimeter.”