HOUSTON — The owners of Camp Mystic, the Texas camp where 28 people died in catastrophic flooding last year, face a state homicide investigation, according to court documents released this week.
The Texas Rangers, who have been investigating the camp, sought electronic communications by the camp’s owners as potential evidence of manslaughter, negligent homicide, child abandonment or other crimes, according to applications for search warrants executed last week.
“These offenses were committed against child campers — including both deceased victims and surviving campers of the flood event,” Brant Johnston, an investigator for the Texas Rangers, wrote in the affidavits filed Friday.
It was not clear when, or if, charges would be presented to a grand jury. The 14 court-approved warrants allowed investigators to search electronic data belonging to members of the Eastland family that runs the camp, several counselors and other employees.
Flooding on the Guadalupe River killed 25 campers and two young counselors at the Christian girls’ camp on July 4, 2025. Camp Mystic owner Richard Eastland also died in the flood, which killed at least 137 people.
Authorities have not filed charges against the Eastlands, and a spokesman for the family did not return messages seeking comment. The Eastland family and other camp leaders testified in court and at state legislative hearings last April, including Camp Director Edward Eastland, who admitted missteps and apologized to campers’ families.
The Texas Rangers inquiry began in March and included several visits to the camp, Johnston wrote in the affidavits. Johnston said he was “refused in the attempt to conduct interviews” with several camp officials, including Edward Eastland; wife Mary Liz Eastland; brother Richard Eastland Jr. and Glenn Juenke, the night security guard.
Johnston said in an affidavit that investigators believed Edward Eastland’s electronic data contained “evidence demonstrating a conscious disregard of recognized risks or reckless deviation from standard safety protocols.”
“Under Texas law, a person who has assumed care, custody or control of a child may be held criminally responsible for an omission that causes injury to that child,” Johnston wrote.
Johnston also wrote in the affidavit that camp officials had inadequate emergency plans, failed to conduct emergency training and did not have enough adult counselors in the cabins. Once flooding started, he wrote, the camp’s owners, who had monitored late-night flood warnings, failed to swiftly relocate campers from low-lying cabins.
“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, adding that camp officials were, “aware of and consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk of death to the campers in their care.”
The Eastlands face ongoing lawsuits from the families of campers and counselors who died in the flood. A state investigation into flooding at the camp ultimately faulted the Eastlands for inadequate safety planning and response. State lawmakers also passed a law last year requiring more safety protections at such camps in the wake of the disaster.
Some lawmakers have defended the Eastlands, instead faulting historic flooding, including state Rep. Wes Virdell (R), who called the latest investigation a “witch hunt.”
“The state won’t be happy until they have somebody to blame for an unprecedented flood,” Virdell posted on X this week.
As part of the latest probe, investigators visited Camp Mystic, and interviewed flood victims, people associated with the camp and other witnesses, Johnston wrote in the affidavits. But members of the Eastland family and other top camp officials refused interviews, Johnston wrote.
Although the Eastlands had intended to reopen Camp Mystic last spring, even as victims’ families and some state lawmakers objected, they ultimately remained closed and later declared bankruptcy.
Attorneys for some victims’ families issued statements this week saying they welcomed investigators’ search for criminal evidence.
“Families of the 27 angels killed at Camp Mystic have fought, begged, and pleaded with the Eastland family for accountability and answers,” said Christina Yarnell and Brad Beckworth, attorneys for the family of 8-year-old Cile Steward, the only camper whose body has not been found.
“Instead, the Eastlands have held hostage the information and answers owed to parents who deserve, more than anyone, to know the details surrounding their daughters’ final moments,” they wrote.
Attorneys Paul Yetter and Richard Mithoff, who represent seven victims’ families, called the search “a necessary step.”
“Our clients need full transparency and accountability for the deaths of their daughters. These warrants show that decisions made by camp leadership before and during the flood may have been criminal,” they said in a statement. “We will not stop seeking answers.”
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