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u/AnimuX

r/texas r/KerrCountyFloods r/DispatchAdHoc
▲ 291 r/KerrCountyFloods

Family of Camp Mystic girl whose body was never recovered releases statement nearly 1 year since deadly July floods

> Will and Cici Steward shared a statement Friday, roughly one year since 27 campers and counselors died during July 4, 2025 flooding at Camp Mystic in Kerr County. Their daughter, Cile Steward, has not been found nearly 365 days later.

> "On this Fourth of July, it will be one year since our eight-year-old daughter, Cile, was killed in the floodwaters at Camp Mystic," the statement said in part. "We still do not know how we will face that morning. But we know we will not face it alone, because, in the wreckage of the Guadalupe River, there are still people searching, still refusing to leave our daughter behind. Their faithfulness is the reason we can meet that day at all. Thank you to each and every one of you."

kvue.com
u/AnimuX — 1 day ago
▲ 20 r/KerrCountyFloods

Camp Mystic strategies in seeking chapter 11 bankruptcy

What are the owners of Camp Mystic up to with this latest legal move? What do they get out of seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy at this stage?

 

The Bankruptcy paperwork shows:

  • Camp Mystic, LLC

  • Natural Fountains Properties, Inc.

  • Mystic Camps Family Partnership, Ltd.

  • Mystic Camps Management, LLC

 

Estimated number of creditors (a checkbox on a form): 1,000 - 5,000

Estimated liabilities (a checkbox on a form): $10,000,001 - $50 million

Filed for the Southern District of Texas with the debtor's address in Hunt, TX.

 

The estimated creditors of 1,000 - 5,000 is possibly assessment if one family joins a civil case then all of the parents of all of the campers from July, 2025 could sue for damages. edit: this might also include parents who paid deposits for future camp sessions

The estimated up to $50 million in liabilities is possibly assessment that a H27 family gets maximum awarded damages - which are capped in Texas.

It could be just under $2 million per family and therefore up to $50 million if all 27 are awarded the maximum by unanimous jury decision.

Other claimants would get much less when their children either survived or were not in immediate danger from the flood and merely had their camp session cut short. edit: this might also include parents who paid deposits to reserve a camp session for their children in the future.

 

First and foremost, this action will pause other court cases against them and possibly invalidate any future court dates previously set for civil trial hearings. So it buys them time.

Plaintiffs might have to petition a bankruptcy court to allow their civil cases to continue or re-file - possibly in Kerr County - as adversaries to the bankruptcy case.

If plaintiffs are forced to re-file civil lawsuits the legal clock is reset and the Eastland's lawyers will try to get a second chance to limit the damage of previously introduced evidence.

 

Second, so it's also an attempt to change the venue since cases aren't going so well for them with Judge Gamble in Travis County.

Willetta Eastland apparently sold her Austin home since that partly enabled plaintiffs to file a case in Travis County in 2025.

The Eastlands want judges and juries who fall under their influence in Kerr County, who will be sympathetic to them regardless of any evidence introduced at trial.

They might escape a possible Judge Gamble ruling against their closed arbitration claims. It might give them a chance to put that decision before a different judge.

 

Third, chapter 11 leaves open the option to resume holding camp at Camp Mystic Cypress Lake in the near future...

And while bankruptcy won't eliminate damages awarded over deaths (nondischargeable), it might limit other damages awarded to families with children who survived.

That's all assuming H27 and other plaintiffs win in civil trials or are granted damages by an arbitrator...

 

What sort of bankruptcy restructuring will allow them to protect assets from civil judgements?

What other strategies might be used to conceal or shield or transfer wealth to have it excluded from exemplary/punitive damages?

reddit.com
u/AnimuX — 11 days ago
▲ 123 r/KerrCountyFloods

The Eastlands once fought a multi-million dollar legal battle with their own family over Camp Mystic profits - They're not bankrupt

People don't seem to recall the scale of profits raked in from the Camp Mystic business.

It is a business which has been set up to protect the money from lawsuits - including personal injury and death - since the 1990s.

 

https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/the-not-so-happy-campers/

> The Eastlands put a high premium on two things: making money and avoiding taxes. By the mid- to late eighties, camps across the nation were confronting the very expensive problem of personal injury suits. Suddenly a camper accident—or, worse, a camper death—could spell ruin. Something had to be done. When Seaborn died, in 1990, finding a solution fell to Stacy.

> Stacy’s goal was twofold: protect the camp from any devastating legal judgment and maintain the family’s shared income. (Anne insisted that she get at least the $200,000 in dividends she’d been receiving every year.) By 1998 he had devised a solution. He created a holding company that would own the camp’s assets, including the land and the buildings, to be called Natural Fountains Properties, after some springs on the grounds. NFP would be run by Anne, Stacy, Nancy, Dick, and the cousins, with Dick as president. Stacy also created Camp Mystic, Incorporated, which would be owned and operated by Dick and Tweety. Essentially, NFP was the landlord and Mystic was the tenant. To establish a fair rent for the family—and to keep those dividends coming—Stacy created a mathematical formula based on the idea that land values and camp revenues would grow at the same rate. Every year, Dick was to add the cost of replacing all the buildings to the land value, then multiply that number by a designated factor.

 

Of course when you're dealing with millions of dollars, even the supposedly godly Eastland family is prone to greed and they've fought over the money in court before, spending millions just in legal costs.

 

https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/High-profile-family-feud-lawsuit-ends-quietly-4051234.php

> Nov 19, 2012

> After five years of litigation, court reversals and a highly publicized family feud, a judge on Monday made a final ruling in the Kerr County-based Camp Mystic lawsuit — bringing the case to an unusually quiet end.

> In a conference call from his Bexar County Courthouse office, David Peeples, presiding judge of the 22-county Fourth Administrative Judicial Region, gave his blessing to an undisclosed settlement between the parties.

> Filed in 2007, the lawsuit pitted two [siblings] against Richard Eastland, who runs the 725-acre girls camp in Hunt, in a dispute over millions of dollars in rent that the [siblings] believed they were owed.

> Richard Eastland was vindicated by a Kerr County civil court jury last year, but Peeples later threw out the verdict, setting the stage for a new trial that had been set for 2013. Peeples' decision was in the process of being appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.

> An estimated $10 million in legal fees were spent by the litigants prior to the settlement, according to previous reports.

edit:

https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/camp-mystic-survives-six-year-family-feud-4113020.php

> Dec 12, 2012

> The lawsuit stemmed from allegations that Richard Eastland cheated his siblings, Nancy Leaton and Stacy Eastland, of millions of dollars in rent by abusing his position as camp director and majority shareholder in the corporation that owns the land, Natural Fountains Properties.

> The settlement was confidential. But newly filed Kerr County records indicate Leaton, Stacy Eastland and the cousins received a combined $7.2 million to surrender their NFP interests.

 

Camp Mystic LLC has declared bankruptcy as part of their legal strategy to avoid paying out punitive damages in civil lawsuits.

The Eastlands are going to do whatever they possibly can to avoid accepting responsibility and consequences for the deaths of those children.

u/AnimuX — 12 days ago