Fourteen months after flash floods killed 138 people across the Texas Hill Country, the Texas Rangers are pursuing a criminal investigation into the 27 deaths at Camp Mystic. Search warrant affidavits say investigators believe camp leaders may have committed manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide when the Guadalupe River overran the all-girls Christian camp near Hunt before dawn on July 4, 2025.
A Kerr County judge approved 14 warrants last week seeking electronic data from the Eastland family, which ran the camp, and from staff members, The Texas Tribune reported. The records include phones, messages, location data and cloud backups that investigators say could show what leaders knew about flood warnings and what they did as water rose.
Texas Ranger Brant C. Johnston wrote that the alleged offenses were committed against child campers, including those who died and those who survived, according to The New York Times, which first detailed the affidavits. Johnston wrote that Camp Mystic LLC “was aware of and consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk of death to the campers in their care.” Other possible offenses listed in the paperwork include injury to a child, abandoning or endangering a child, and deadly conduct. No charges have been filed.
Twenty-five campers and two counselors died at the camp on the Guadalupe. Camp owner and executive director Richard “Dick” Eastland also died while trying to reach girls in low-lying cabins. His widow, Willetta “Tweety” Eastland, and other family members who held camp roles are among those named in the warrants.
A state-ordered review found the camp lacked required written emergency plans and adequate evacuation measures. Legislators later described cascading failures the night of the flood, including weak instructions to counselors. Kerr County accounted for 119 of the regional deaths. Camp Mystic later withdrew its license application and did not reopen for 2026. Families have sued the camp and state health officials.
Houston attorneys representing some victims’ families called the warrants a step toward accountability and said decisions before and during the flood may have been criminal. A camp representative did not immediately comment.
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