Texas authorities weigh potential manslaughter case in Camp Mystic deaths

Camp Mystic is facing a criminal investigation that could lead to manslaughter or negligent homicide charges, among others, after 25 girls and two teenage counsellors died during flash flooding that wiped out the camp last year.

Applications for search warrants that were executed last week and viewed by the Associated Press show that investigators sought to obtain the electronic communications of the camp’s owners, saying they could provide evidence of manslaughter, negligent homicide, child abandonment or other crimes.

Texas Ranger Brant Johnston alleged in an affidavit that Camp Mystic had inadequate evacuation plans, failed to conduct emergency drills or training and that some cabins did not have enough adult staff. Its owners also neglected to take precautions when they didn’t relocate children from low-lying accommodations despite having monitored flood warnings, Johnston alleged, the U.S. agency reported.

Global News has not independently reviewed the affidavits.

“Young campers cannot reasonably be expected to independently recognize a rapidly developing, life-threatening hazard or to organize and execute an evacuation absent direction from an adequate number of adult supervisors,” Johnston wrote, the AP said.

“Camp Mystic, LLC was aware of and consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk of death to the campers in their care,” he concluded.

Twenty-five campers, two counsellors and the Christian girls’ camp owner, Richard Eastland, were killed when the banks of the Guadalupe River burst on July 4, 2025.

Eastland was killed while trying to evacuate a group of young girls in his truck. Many of the counsellors in charge of the dorms were teenagers and were left to make life-altering decisions without the guidance of adults, the Washington Post said in a report last July.

The camp was a generational institution for Texas families, who every summer for nearly 100 years had dropped off their girls to ride horses, canoe, fish and attend Bible studies.

The camp, which scrapped plans to reopen and welcome 900 girls this year —amid outrage from victims’ families and lawmakers — filed for bankruptcy in June.

“Bankruptcy will not stop all responsible parties from being held accountable,” Paul Yetter, a lawyer who represents multiple families of campers and counsellors who died at Camp Mystic, said in a statement at the time. “These innocent girls deserve justice.”

Victims’ families have also filed lawsuits accusing the camp of failing to protect the girls as powerful floodwaters approached; the body of Cecile Steward, an eight-year-old camper, has still not been found.

Her parents, Will and CiCi Steward, are suing the Eastland family over their handling of the disaster.

Two teenage counsellors had previously revealed to The Guardian that staff and campers were made to hand in their phones for the duration of their stay, meaning none of them had received news of the flood warnings.

All told, the destructive flooding killed at least 136 people along a several-mile stretch of the river.

At the time of the disaster, almost 700 girls were boarding at the camp.