Camp Mystic’s owners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday, June 24, a move that immediately paused pending litigation against the camp, including a wrongful death lawsuit tied to the July 4, 2025 flooding that killed 28 people. The filing was made in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas and cites more than $10 million in debt.
The bankruptcy lands nearly a year after the flood, when 25 young campers, two 18-year-old counselors and the camp’s co-executive director, Dick Eastland, died. For families still pursuing wrongful death claims, the filing is not just a financial maneuver. It changes the courtroom calendar at the exact moment they have been waiting for answers.
Kyle Findley of Arnold & Itkin LLP represents six families — the Getten, McCown, Pohl, Sheedy, Stevens and Toranzo families — in a wrongful death lawsuit against the Eastland family. He said the filing is not accountability, but a financial reorganization that could let the same people and entities keep control of Camp Mystic while trying to get around the court. He called it another attempt to delay responsibility after 27 girls died.
That fight now sits inside a bankruptcy case that Camp Mystic LLC has marked as complex Chapter 11. Court documents say Edward Eastland is listed as manager, and the petition estimates between 1,000 and 5,000 creditors, assets of between $1 million and $10 million, and liabilities of between $10 million and $50 million. Those figures help explain why the owners chose Chapter 11: it is designed to reorganize debt while a court sorts out competing claims.
But the legal and human collision is hard to miss. Sam Taylor of the Lanier Law Firm, who represents the Naylor, Hanna, Hollis, Hunt, Dillon and Lytal families, said the filing was another slap in the face to parents whose daughters died in the flood. Brad Beckworth, Christina Yarnell and Blair Townsend, who represent the family of Cecilia “Cile” Steward, 8, called the move a despicable gut punch. Steward’s body had still not been recovered nearly a year after the flooding, and her family remains among those waiting for the case to move.
The filing does not erase the claims, but it does slow them. That means the next decisive step is no longer the wrongful death case alone; it is how the bankruptcy court handles Camp Mystic LLC’s effort to reorganize while the families continue pressing for accountability.
