Camp Mystic hearing concludes with judge’s rebuke, strengthened preservation order and 2027 trial dates

A three-day evidentiary hearing in the Camp Mystic wrongful death litigation concluded Wednesday in Austin with a judge strengthening her preservation order, scrapping a 2028 trial date in favor of 2027, and formally warning both legal teams that the extraordinary acrimony that has defined the proceeding will not be tolerated going forward.

The hearing before Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble produced three days of testimony — including nearly five hours from camp director Edward Eastland alone — that laid bare the failures of July 4, 2025, in granular, often agonizing detail. When it was over, the judge made clear she had been paying attention: she added language to her preservation order explicitly stating that the defendants potentially violated the Texas Administrative Code by failing to maintain a written evacuation plan, a legal finding that strengthens the plaintiffs’ negligence case heading into trial.

For the 22 families suing Camp Mystic, the three days of testimony represented something they have waited nine months for — a public accounting, under oath, of what happened in the early morning hours of July 4 that led to the deaths of their children. For the Eastlands, who have deep roots in Kerr County and enjoy broad support from a loyal base of Camp Mystic alumni and families stretching back generations, the hearing was an equally painful ordeal — one that placed their decisions, their communications and their character under a microscope in open court. The proceeding was, in many ways, an emotional tug of war between two very different versions of the same night, argued by lawyers whose mutual contempt became impossible to ignore. For everyone in that courtroom, Wednesday marked the end of one chapter and the beginning of a long road ahead.

Nine things to know about what happened Wednesday

1. This case will almost certainly never be tried in Kerr County. The wrongful death lawsuit filed by Will and CiCi Steward of Austin was filed in Travis County District Court — and every indication is that it will stay there. The Stewards were able to file in Travis County because the late Dick and Tweety Eastland maintained their homestead there, and several of the camp’s LLCs were registered in Austin — giving the plaintiffs a legal foothold to file outside Kerr County. The defense has requested a change of venue, but Judge Guerra Gamble’s conduct throughout the hearing suggests she has no intention of sending the case elsewhere.

That geographic reality carries significance for this community. While the disaster happened on the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, only two of the 28 people who died at Camp Mystic were from Kerr County. The remaining victims came from communities across Texas and the country — a fact reflected in where the lawsuits were filed and who is pursuing them. It also means the trial that will ultimately determine liability for the deaths of 25 campers, 2 counselors and Dick Eastland will play out before a Travis County jury — not a Kerr County one. In a large urban county where the Eastland family’s deep roots and broad community support carry little weight, the jury pool will have a very different relationship to this case than it would in Kerrville.

2. There are five separate lawsuits — and the judge has kept them that way. Judge Guerra Gamble is presiding over all five wrongful death cases stemming from the Camp Mystic disaster, but she has explicitly declined to consolidate them. Each case remains legally distinct, brought by different families represented by different attorneys. That is why five separate legal teams were present throughout the hearing, why the trial dates are staggered, and why coordination between those teams — particularly around the depositions of surviving campers — required the judge’s direct intervention. The cases move together in some procedural respects but will ultimately be tried separately.

3. The fight over the injunction is not over — the appeals court weighs in Monday. Wednesday’s hearing may have concluded, but the legal battle over Judge Guerra Gamble’s March 5 temporary injunction — which bars Camp Mystic from altering its Guadalupe River campus — is not finished. The Third Court of Appeals in Austin has a hearing scheduled for April 20 on Camp Mystic’s motion to stay that injunction. That means the preservation order the judge just strengthened could still face appellate intervention as soon as next week. For Kerr County readers following this case, the injunction fight is one front in a multi-front legal battle that will continue well beyond Wednesday’s proceedings.

4. The judge moved the trial up and set firm dates. Judge Guerra Gamble scrapped the original April 2028 trial date, saying it sent the wrong message about the urgency of a case involving the deaths of 27 people. She replaced it with staggered trial dates in 2027 — June 21 and October 11 — with individual trials expected to run two to three weeks each. The next major court dates are May 13, when the judge will hear the defense’s motions to compel arbitration across all five cases, and May 14, a discovery scheduling conference where lawyers will present their plans for expert site visits and depositions.

5. The judge strengthened her preservation order based on what she heard. After four days of testimony, Judge Guerra Gamble modified her March 5 temporary injunction to explicitly state that the defendants “potentially violated the Texas Administrative Code by failing to maintain a written evacuation plan.” That language supports a legal finding of negligence per se — meaning a violation of the law itself constitutes negligence — and signals that the judge found the hearing’s evidence meaningful enough to strengthen the order Camp Mystic has been fighting to overturn since March. The modification is significant: it is the judge’s clearest signal yet that the testimony produced at this hearing will have lasting consequences for the litigation.

6. The road to trial is long and carefully mapped. Before any jury hears any of these cases, there is a structured sequence of steps. Expert teams — including accident reconstructionists and flood specialists — will make phased visits to the camp property, beginning as soon as possible and continuing as deposition testimony informs their analysis. The judge mandated face-to-face meetings between opposing counsel before any discovery dispute reaches her courtroom. She also set May 13 for the arbitration hearing — a critical proceeding that will determine whether some or all of the cases are pushed out of court entirely and into private arbitration, as the defense has sought. That ruling alone could significantly reshape the litigation landscape.

7. The surviving campers will be deposed only once. In one of the most significant rulings of the final day, Judge Guerra Gamble ordered that the girls who survived the July 4 flood will be deposed a single time only. All five legal teams — representing 22 families across multiple lawsuits — must coordinate their questions in advance. The depositions will be captured on high-quality video, and the judge said she will not require the children to testify live before a jury. It is a ruling that reflects both the legal complexity of a multi-plaintiff case and the human weight of what these young survivors have already endured.

8. The defense won a small but meaningful concession. Plaintiffs’ attorney Brad Beckworth agreed to modify the preservation order to exclude one building — the Sugar Shack — allowing camp caretakers Craig and Betsy Althaus to return to their home on the property. The defense had argued the injunction was unnecessarily displacing staff and family members from personal residences including Cypress Hollow, Ranch House and Granny’s House. Beckworth countered that the camp does not yet have a license to operate, making the urgency of releasing other structures difficult to justify. The judge will revisit the question of additional structures after experts complete their initial site visit and advise the court on what can safely be released from the preservation order.

9. The emotion spilled well beyond the witness stand. Three days of testimony produced moments that will be difficult to forget — a camp director admitting a loudspeaker could have saved 27 lives, a health officer being asked whether a missing girl would still be alive if she had made one phone call, audio of a stranded camper telling a 911 dispatcher she “cannot get a hold of our main office.” But the intensity did not stay contained to testimony. Beckworth told the judge that during the night watchman’s account of girls hanging on for their lives, members of the defense legal team laughed audibly in the courtroom while a grieving mother sat nearby in tears. A defense attorney allegedly told plaintiffs’ counsel they were going to “burn in hell” after Tuesday’s session, in front of Beckworth’s 22-year-old daughter. Judge Guerra Gamble addressed both incidents formally, warning that such conduct would trigger a full investigation and severe consequences if it ever happened again under her watch. In a case built on the grief of 22 families, the conduct of the lawyers has become a story of its own.