Parents of still-missing Camp Mystic flooding victim sue camp owners

The parents of an 8-year-old Texas girl who vanished last summer when flash flooding inundated the Hill Country are suing the operators of Camp Mystic, the Christian summer camp where she had been staying when she was washed away.

Will Steward and CiCi Steward say the Eastland family, which has run the all-girls camp for decades, failed to protect Cecilia “Cile” Steward, who is “presumed to be deceased.”

“On June 29, 2025, Will and CiCi Steward dropped their eight-year-old daughter Cile off for her first time at sleepaway camp, an entire month at Camp Mystic, where Cile’s mother, aunt, grandmother, and countless cousins had attended as campers and counselors,” the lawsuit says. “Cile’s parents did not know that when they kissed Cile goodbye, it would be the last time they would ever hold her.”

The Austin couple are seeking in excess of $1 million in actual and punitive damages, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in Travis County.

Twenty-seven children and camp counselors were among the 130 people who died after slow-moving thunderstorms in Kerr County caused the Guadalupe River to flood on July 4 and turned a national holiday into a Texas tragedy.

The victims included Richard “Dick” Eastland, the owner of Camp Mystic.

“We believe Dick was trying to save a few of the campers,” Lauren Garcia, a former Camp Mystic attendee, told reporters at the time. “I believe he passed while trying to save them from the flooding.”

But the Stewards contend in the lawsuit that Eastland, and his son, Edward Eastland, waited for more than an hour before they tried to evacuate the girls from the cabins.

In addition, despite being in a flood plain and having a well-documented history of flooding, the Eastland family had a bare-bones emergency evacuation plan, and they repeatedly ignored the National Weather Service flooding alerts, the lawsuit says.

When the rains came, the Eastlands started moving some of their assets to higher ground, according to the lawsuit.

“They moved the horses. They moved the canoes. They did not move the children,” the lawsuit says.

Even as water started seeping into the cabins scattered along the riverbank, Edward Eastland insisted the campers stay put and climb to the top bunks, the lawsuit says.