Camp Mystic cannot alter its property by the Guadalupe River where 27 girls and the camp’s executive director died last summer, so that evidence can be preserved while a lawsuit proceeds, a judge in Austin ruled Wednesday.
The camp cannot demolish, repair or reconstruct a number of cabins where campers slept when a massive flood struck on July 4, Travis County District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble said.
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The camp also cannot modify its grounds or its office building, recreation hall or commissary — all points of interest in the wrongful death case filed by the parents of camper Cile Steward, whose body still has not been found.
But the court order, which will be finalized in the coming days, doesn’t block Camp Mystic from reopening its neighboring Cypress Lake camp site, where cabins didn’t flood, this summer. The judge asked attorneys to bring back a map showing a clear line drawn between the Guadalupe portion where children died and the Cypress Lake portion, which the camp is seeking to reopen.
“For us, it’s incredibly vindicating to have this order ruled in our favor as it relates to maintaining the evidence and trying to really get down to the bottom of what happened to our children,” said CiCi Steward, Cile’s mother.
Mikal Watts, the lawyer representing Camp Mystic and its owners and directors, the Eastland family, also praised the judge’s decision.
“She did the right thing: She agreed that the evidence at the Guadalupe River should be preserved,” he said.
The courtroom was divided Wednesday, with Camp Mystic supporters wearing green shirts and buttons on one side, and parents and family of the campers who died on the other, wearing round buttons bearing the girls’ smiling faces. CiCi Steward wore a hummingbird-shaped brooch and earrings, explaining that the bird has come to represent a cherished connection with her daughter.
The hearing was the first time both sides of an emotional debate over what happened that night at the camp, who was at fault and what should be done about it came together in a courtroom.
Attorneys for each side argued over whether or how the flood-ravaged parts of the camp should be preserved so evidence can be collected, now eight months after the disaster. Bradley Beckworth, attorney for the Stewards, said he wanted to know exactly what happened in each cabin, exactly how high the water rose, exactly what digital and physical records existed even while he argued that some evidence had already been cleaned up or lost.
He showed an image of freckle-faced Cile, smiling in front of the water with hair blowing in the wind, onto a projector as he described her: maternal, bright, athletic, a dancer, an animal lover.
A woman in the audience doubled over, stifling her sobs.
“When you’re talking about children,” Beckworth said, “nothing could be more important than figuring out what happened.”
Watts said Camp Mystic has already enrolled more than 800 kids for this summer and has nearly $3 million on the line in tuition if it can’t reopen at all.
Watts said the Christian camp had important ministry still to do and hoped to eventually build new cabins up in the hills behind the Guadalupe River cabins where Dick Eastland and his son scrambled to save campers from the flood. Dick Eastland died in the flood while trying to rescue campers.
The judge’s ruling came after she cut short testimony from Dick’s son, Edward Eastland, the only witness called to the stand. Eastland, the Guadalupe camp’s director, struggled to get through fast-paced questions about what evacuation plan the camp had, what records they kept and what his family was doing that night.
The judge conferred with the attorneys, called for a break and returned with her instructions.
“I want to thank you all for trusting me to make this decision, obviously this is a very difficult time for many, many people, most especially the parents,” Gamble said. “And I feel that. I know it is difficult for everyone, and I feel that as well.”