It was supposed to be a regular weekend trip with friends, to the house in Texas’s Hill Country.
Aidan Heartfield, a quiet, introspective young man, loved these weekends, often bringing his girlfriend, Ella Cahill, with him to his family’s house. Together with Ms. Cahill’s college roommate, Reese Manchaca, and a longtime friend from high school, Joyce Catherine Badon, they drove down to the house, in Hunt, Texas, near the Guadalupe River. The four of them, all 21, grilled, and Mr. Heartfield sent a selfie at around 1 a.m. Friday.
Mr. Heartfield and Ms. Cahill had spent part of her sister’s May wedding in Italy talking about what their own ceremony might be like. Sweethearts since sophomore year of high school, they planned to move in together after they graduated from college. Mr. Heartfield was excited about the marketing internship he had secured for his final year of school, while Ms. Cahill had settled on studying business management.
But then, at around 4:30 a.m. Friday, Aidan woke up to water in the home. He called his father, who told them to get to higher ground.
“All hell broke loose,” said Mackenzie Cahill-Hodulik, Ms. Cahill’s older sister, in an interview, recounting what she had been told. Mr. Heartfield handed the phone to Ms. Badon, saying he needed to help his girlfriend. There was a scream — “Oh my god, they just got swept away” — and Ms. Badon said to tell her parents she loved them. Then the line went dead.
In the days since, two bodies — those of Ms. Badon and Ms. Manchaca — have been recovered. Mr. Heartfield and Ms. Cahill have yet to be found.
“It’s a stab in the heart really,” Ms. Cahill-Hodulik said. She added: “They were just here to have a good time. They were great kids.”
As she spoke Tuesday morning, she was standing on a slab, she said, all that was left of the home. The entire family, she said, had driven down to the area to search for her sister and her boyfriend.
Some things have been recovered. A high school photo of Ms. Badon, Mr. Heartfield and Ms. Cahill in Mr. Heartfield’s car. His watch and keys. Ms. Cahill’s makeup bag. A sweatshirt on a tree limb half a mile from the house.
“There’s no words to explain it,” Ms. Cahill-Hodulik said. “In a way it’s comforting, because we have a piece of her. But then I go back and think of just the state of what we found them in. And I go back to thinking of how scared she was.”
She added: “Our hope is that they’re found together. We’re going to stay as long as it takes. I don’t think any of us will get any type of closure until they’re found.”
Emily Cochrane is a national reporter for The Times covering the American South, based in Nashville.
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