The Texas Rangers have obtained 14 search warrants to retrieve digital data related to Camp Mystic, accusing the Hill Country retreat in an affidavit of committing manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, injury to a child and other criminal offenses, public records show.
The state’s elite law enforcement agency has been conducting a criminal investigation into how Camp Mystic and the Eastland family, who own and operate the enterprise, responded to a flash flood that killed 25 children and two counselors on the camp property last summer.
Affidavits for the search warrants filed Friday with the Kerr County District Clerk’s office by agent Brant C. Johnston sought customer data from Apple Inc. for Apple accounts. The search warrants targeted Camp Mystic owner and executive director Willetta “Tweety” Eastland and other family members and individuals.
The affidavit seeks data collected from 12:01 a.m. July 3, 2025 – the day before the deadly flood struck Central Texas – and 11:59 p.m. the night of the disaster.
“It is the affiant’s belief that Camp Mystic, LLC committed the following offenses: Manslaughter (Texas Penal Code 19.04); Criminally Negligent Homicide (Texas Penal Code 19.05); Injury to a Child (Texas Penal Code 22.04); Abandoning or Endangering a Child (Texas Penal Code 22.041); Deadly Conduct (Texas Penal Code 22.05),” Johnston wrote in the affidavit for the search warrant.
It was not immediately clear Tuesday afternoon if any similar affidavits have been filed by the Texas Rangers for other search warrants seeking to retrieve other data from Apple accounts belonging to other members of the Eastland family.
Testimony in a state district court in Austin revealed that Camp Mystic and the Eastlands did not act on warnings of approaching bad weather, lacked a written evacuation plan and delayed efforts to move campers from cabins in low-lying areas as the floodwaters rose rapidly.
Mary Liz Eastland, a nurse who served as the camp’s chief health officer and a director of the Camp Mystic Guadalupe River campus, testified that she took her children and evacuated their home on the camp’s property, but did not call 911. Her mother-in-law, Willetta “Tweety” Eastland, also fled her house on the property without calling 911.
A separate affidavit filed in March by a Texas Rangers captain – made public in state court earlier this year – indicated the deaths at Camp Mystic could possibly be referred to a grand jury if search efforts for the only Camp Mystic flooding victim whose remains have not been found – Cile Steward, 8, of Austin – are completed. That search has been ongoing for more than a year.
Camp Mystic, a privately owned Christian retreat for girls, has operated for nearly 100 years on the south fork of the Guadalupe River, near Hunt, about 18 miles southwest of Kerrville.
The parents of most of the children killed at Camp Mystic have sued the camp, several members of the Eastland family and other related business entities for their daughters’ deaths, alleging gross negligence and wrongful death.
The flood also killed Camp Mystic owner and executive director Richard “Dick” Eastland, 70, who was swept away by high water while trying to evacuate children from a cabin.
Camp Mystic and several related businesses filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June.
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This article originally published at Texas Rangers accuse Camp Mystic of criminal offenses in children’s deaths.