The Texas Rangers are seeking answers to a question that has haunted families since the July 4, 2025, flood at Camp Mystic: what did camp leaders know as warnings came in, and what did they do to protect the children in their care? Twenty-five campers, two teenage counselors and camp owner Dick Eastland died when the Guadalupe River flooded the Christian girls' camp in Hunt, Texas.
Investigators have obtained warrants to examine electronic data belonging to members of the Eastland family and camp staff. According to reporting on the warrant affidavits, a Texas Rangers investigator identified possible offenses including manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. No criminal charges have been filed. The records may help establish who received warnings, who communicated with whom and when decisions about evacuation were made.
The questions go beyond the speed of the rising water. State-appointed investigators previously found that Camp Mystic lacked required written emergency plans and adequate evacuation measures. Their report said a flash flood warning was issued at 1:14 a.m. and identified an interval before Eastland called his son for help shortly after 3 a.m. Investigators concluded that campers could have been directed toward higher ground during that time.
The report also found that counselors' phones had been taken without replacement communication equipment and that some cabins had fewer counselors than usual. Those findings sharpen the question at the heart of the case: if young campers depended on adults to recognize the danger and direct them, did the camp give those adults the plans, information and means to act?
Families have brought wrongful-death lawsuits, while Camp Mystic has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The camp withdrew its application for an operating license and did not reopen this year. The criminal investigation remains a separate matter: prosecutors will have to decide whether the evidence supports charges, and the allegations have yet to be tested in a criminal trial.
For parents who entrusted their daughters to Camp Mystic, the answer cannot bring the children home. It can, however, establish whether the deaths resulted from an unavoidable disaster alone or from decisions that left children without a workable route to safety. That is why the timeline in the camp's messages matters so much.
