Texas Probes Camp Mystic Deaths for Manslaughter

Texas Rangers executed 14 search warrants last week against Camp Mystic owners, executives and staff in a criminal probe of the July 4, 2025 Guadalupe River flood. Affidavits list potential offenses including manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, injury to a child, abandoning or endangering a child and deadly conduct. No charges have been filed. Ranger Brant Johnston wrote that the camp lacked adequate emergency plans, drills, training and adult supervision and failed to move children from low-lying cabins. He concluded that Camp Mystic, LLC was aware of and consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk of death to the campers. Warrants seek electronic records including Willetta "Tweety" Eastland's Apple iCloud data from those dates. Outlets report 27 or 28 deaths at the camp, generally counted as 25 campers, two counselors and co-director Richard Eastland, who died in the flood. Family attorneys Christina Yarnell and Brad Beckworth said the Eastlands held hostage answers about daughters' final moments. Campers and counselors were swept away while trying to evacuate at night. The camp did not reopen, abandoned a 2026 reopening after public outcry, and filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy with debts exceeding $10 million. Cecilia "Cile" Steward's body has not been recovered.