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A judge is hearing arguments on whether Texas Rangers should be limited in accessing electronic records related to last year's deadly floods at Camp Mystic. FOX 4's Dionn Anglin has more.
DALLAS - A judge denied requests from the family that runs Camp Mystic to limit the scope of search warrants related to the deadly flood disaster from last year.
The hearing held in Kerr County on Tuesday was part of the Texas Rangers criminal investigation into Camp Mystic, where 25 campers and two camp counselors died in a flash flood on July 4, 2025.
The state’s criminal case includes charges like manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, abandoning and endangering a child, and others.
The state alleges Camp Mystic should have been far more prepared for a catastrophic flood from the Guadalupe River and taken precautions. It accuses the camp of instead being focused on profits.
A search warrant was issued for electronic records like cellphone calls and texts from members of the Eastland family, which own the camp, and the management team stretching from July 3, 2025 through late October.
But defense attorneys argue that length of time constitutes gross overreach. They’ve called it a "fishing expedition."
They filed motions asking the judge to lessen the scope of the search warrants and limit investigators’ reach into the personal files of the Eastland family and management team for Camp Mystic.
The judge denied those motions, according to a FOX San Antonio report .
Tuesday’s hearing in the criminal matter comes just days after another civil lawsuit was filed.
The parents of 8-year-old Mary Grace Baker filed a multi-million wrongful death lawsuit against Camp Mystic.
Parents of 8-year-old Mary Grace Baker filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Camp Mystic operators, alleging gross negligence led to fatal flood drownings.
The Source: The information in this story comes from a broadcast report from FOX 4's Dionne Anglin and a FOX San Antonio report.
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The BBC's Ione Wells on how the Lindsay Clancy trial gripped America - and ultimately fell apart
A Massachusetts judge has denied a motion to dismiss the murder case against Lindsay Clancy, the US woman accused of killing her three children.
The judge's ruling follows her defence team's request to dismiss the case after the 12-person jury in her September trial failed to reach a verdict.
Clancy has not denied killing her children in 2023, but her defence team argues she was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis at the time. Prosecutors say the killings were intentional.
The ruling clears the way for prosecutors to pursue the case. They could reduce the charges in a potential second trial or dismiss them altogether.
Clancy's defence team argued to dismiss the case against her due to double jeopardy - a legal standard that prevents a person from being tried for the same crime twice.
Her lawyers argued that Judge William Sullivan, who presided over the 26-day jury trial last summer, acted prematurely when he declared a mistrial on 4 September, saying that he should have sought a viable alternative.
The five-week trial, its lead-up and aftermath gripped Americans, and put postpartum mental health issues such as psychosis in the spotlight.
In his ruling on Monday, Sullivan said that a retrial would not unconstitutionally subject Clancy to double jeopardy, according to court documents obtained by the BBC.
The possibility that "an unreasonably stubborn or eccentric juror" could be seated is "an unavoidable risk of the jury system", he said.
"Because the court concludes that there was manifest necessity for a mistrial based on the jury's deadlock, a retrial on the murder indictments does not violate Clancy's right not to be placed in double jeopardy."
Sullivan also denied a defence motion to see records of the lone holdout juror in the case and to question the juror under oath.
He said the defence failed to demonstrate that the records were needed for Clancy's defence at any retrial, and that questioning the juror "would have been impermissibly coercive".
The judge has marked 16 November to discuss scheduling a potential second trial. He previously suggested it could begin in March.
The BBC has contacted Clancy's lawyers for comment.
Lindsay Clancy's ex-husband says he forgave her so he would not be 'eaten up inside forever'
Lindsay Clancy's trial puts postpartum psychosis in the spotlight
Prosecutors in the closely watched case alleged that on 24 January 2023, Clancy intentionally strangled all of her children - Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, eight months - in their Duxbury, Massachusetts, home.
After weeks of emotional testimony, the jury took a week to deliberate, repeatedly telling the judge that they could not reach a verdict.
The deadlock stemmed from a lone juror who voted to convict Clancy of first-degree murder, while the 11 other jurors intended to acquit Clancy by reason of insanity.
In Massachusetts, as well as in all US criminal murder trials, juries must reach a unanimous decision to convict or acquit a defendant.
Because the jurors failed to unanimously agree on whether the prosecution had proved Clancy was guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt" as required by US law, the judge declared a mistrial on 4 September, which means that she was neither found guilty nor not guilty.
Clancy is currently being housed in a state-run psychiatric hospital and medical facility in Massachusetts.
Lindsay Clancy holdout juror says he had no doubt she deliberately killed her children
'Emotional rollercoaster' - Lindsay Clancy jurors speak out on what led to mistrial
Lindsay Clancy's ex-husband says he forgave her so he would not be 'eaten up inside forever'
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