Good morning. After days of rain in Texas, rescuers are still searching for people after floods killed at least 52, including 15 children. About two dozen girls are missing from a camp. We explain what we know about the disaster below. Then, we look at how the true-crime craze online shaped the case of the Idaho college murders.
Floods in TexasThe search for survivors continues in central Texas after a deluge of floodwater filled camp cabins to their roofs, trapped people in trailer homes and overwhelmed cars before dawn on the Fourth of July. At least 52 people were killed, including 15 children; many were sleeping when the floods hit. Among the victims were two sisters, ages 11 and 13, and a 27-year-old man who died trying to save his family. Read their stories. Some two dozen girls at Camp Mystic, a Christian camp on the Guadalupe River, remain missing. Rescuers are struggling to find them in the ongoing downpours. Thunderstorms are lingering over Texas, and some pockets of the state could see up to 10 inches of rain today. Millions of people are still under flood watches, but the heavy rainfall is expected to ease by the evening. (We will share the latest updates here.) Residents said they had little warning as the floods hit. The county most affected — Kerr County, northwest of San Antonio — did not have a flood warning system, officials said. Crucial positions at the local offices of the National Weather Service were empty, and some experts questioned whether staffing shortages had contributed to the disaster. In the tight-knit group of Camp Mystic families, distraught parents posted photos of their children online, offered prayers and shared hopeful stories. Rescuers found a young woman clutching a tree after she was swept away while camping with her family 20 miles upriver. (See the video.) Greg Abbott, Texas’s governor, said he had visited the camp and described it as “horrendously ravaged.” He vowed to find every person missing after the flood, even as he cautioned that it could take some time. “We will be relentless,” he said. “We’re not going to stop today or tomorrow. We’re going to stop when the job is completed.” The federal government said it would offer support. Still, officials acknowledged a painful reality yesterday: As time passes, the likelihood of finding survivors diminishes. — Lauren Jackson, an editor for The Morning
More on the camp
More on the floods
Murder in Moscow
In the darkness, six hours before the court hearing, the crowd was already forming. Fans of true-crime stories huddled alongside influencers and reporters from around the country. They had all descended on a courthouse in Boise, Idaho, for a chance to watch Bryan Kohberger admit that he killed four University of Idaho students in the fall of 2022. The scene was evidence of the booming popularity of true crime — a genre that often blurs the lines between journalism and entertainment. Some 19 million people now listen to true-crime podcasts each week, a number that has tripled in the past five years. True-crime aficionados gather online, with millions subscribing to YouTube channels, Reddit forums and Facebook groups. I attended the CrimeCon convention on a reporting trip and watched thousands pack into ballrooms to immerse themselves in the gory details of blood spatter and serial killers. The Idaho murders have particularly captivated that audience. Even before the trial was to begin, it inspired books, documentaries and a new crop of YouTube sleuths who built their brands by scrutinizing every development. That craze culminated in the plea hearing this week — a hearing that demonstrated how the public fervor around true crime is having remarkable consequences on real-world events. Searching for cluesIt was a case that began, as many true-crime stories do, with a gruesome scene and a mystery to solve: The four students were stabbed to death at an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, after a night of typical college fun. They were not discovered for hours. The police had no suspect. Online sleuths stepped in. They scoured for clues across the internet, analyzed photos and footage, examined friends of the victims and swapped rumors. In some ways, investigators welcomed the public’s help, asking for tips. More than 10,000 tips flooded in, but none led investigators to a suspect. Instead, detectives spent time refuting falsehoods, such as speculation that the victims were found bound and gagged or that the case was connected to a dog found skinned in town. Sleuths online also openly discussed people they suspected — a man in a hoodie, a neighbor giving interviews — who had nothing to do with the crime and in some cases were grieving the loss of their friends. One professor who was accused by a TikTok user of being involved in the killings has sued for defamation. Eventually, the case was cracked through the work of professional sleuths, not amateur ones. Investigators found a bit of DNA on a knife sheath at the scene. Although the DNA profile didn’t match anything in law enforcement databases, investigators used genetic genealogy to build a family tree that eventually brought them to Kohberger more than a month after the killings.
Real-world impactsAfter officials charged Kohberger, the sleuthing didn’t stop. True-crime fans began speculating about the motive and whether there was enough evidence to convict him. The court attempted to curtail the fervor surrounding the case by issuing a gag order. That seemed to have little effect: People online uncovered the identity of a key witness. Social media influencers hypothesized about a man who they erroneously believed was a Kohberger accomplice. NBC’s “Dateline” reported about evidence that had not previously been made public. The defense cited the extensive publicity as one reason to postpone the trial. But the judge saw it another way: The interest was ever-growing. The trial was needed to end the theorizing. “The longer the public is made to sit and wait for the facts to come out at trial, the more time there is for inflammatory, speculative stories, movies and books to circulate,” the judge wrote. Then, in a last minute surprise, Kohberger agreed to a plea deal that would send him to life in prison. But some family members of the victims fumed that the state had not pursued the death penalty. The case’s audience, tracking every detail of the proceedings, mobilized once again. The court received a flood of calls and emails, the judge reported. The onslaught was so great that it disrupted the court’s operations, redirecting staff who were working not only on Kohberger’s case but also on other cases. The judge called the public effort to influence the plea deal “highly inappropriate.” “This court will never take into account public sentiment in making an opinion regarding its judicial decisions in cases,” he said. “I ask that you not continue to mount such campaigns.” For more: Kohberger had studied serial killers and crime scenes in college. I interviewed one of his former professors, a world-leading expert on serial killers.
Middle East
Politics
Other Big Stories
Senator Lisa Murkowski voted to pass President Trump’s budget bill in exchange for exceptions for Alaska. Did she do the right thing? Yes. Murkowski’s only job as senator is to protect Alaska, not the rest of the country. “Those outsiders criticizing her should have to explain why they didn’t achieve the same carve-outs or sweeteners for their own states,” Ann Brown writes for Anchorage Daily News. No. Carve-outs for one state aren’t uncommon, but Murkowski sacrificed the well-being of all Americans. “It is incumbent upon Murkowski to explain what aspect of the bill was so beautiful in her eyes that it justified potentially stripping millions of health care and food assistance,” Addison Graham writes for Deseret News.
Trump’s politicization of the F.B.I. will make the bureau less able to combat foreign espionage, organized crime and drug trafficking, the Editorial Board argues. Here’s a column by Ross Douthat on the Republican budget bill. Morning readers: Save on the complete Times experience. Experience all of The Times, all in one subscription — all with this introductory offer. You’ll gain unlimited access to news and analysis, plus games, recipes, product reviews and more.
Still stomping: Jon Caramanica was in Wales for Oasis’s first concert in 16 years. Vows: Five seconds into their first conversation, he was hooked. Your pick: The most clicked article in The Morning yesterday listed 10 nutrition lessons from the year so far. Trending: People were looking up Ozzy Osbourne’s final concert with Black Sabbath. Lives Lived: Ronald Ribman’s plays mined the absurdity of existence. He set his frequently neurotic characters in bleak, morally ambiguous situations where laughter, as he put it, “is a measure of the sickness of society.” Ribman died at 92.
Track and Field: At the Prefontaine Classic, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Sha’Carri Richardson dazzled, while Faith Kipyegon and Beatrice Chebet smashed world records. Wimbledon: Jannik Sinner, Novak Djokovic and Ben Shelton all advanced on Day 6.
“Don’t Let Him In,” by Lisa Jewell: Stockpiling vacation reads? Add this gem to your list — it’s the perfect thriller for a lazy afternoon, especially if you have a yen for silver-tongued villains. Nick appears in Nina’s life at her lowest moment: After her husband dies, he returns a Zippo lighter he has held onto since the two men worked together at a restaurant years before. Nina is charmed, but her daughter, Ash, is instantly suspicious of the lanky, white-haired stranger who insinuates himself into their lives. Then we meet Martha, a London florist, who’s increasingly alone with her infant daughter while her husband, Alistair, disappears for unexplained stretches of time, only to return with the sketchiest explanations of his whereabouts. And there are other women, all under the spell of a sneakily charming man. How their fates converge — and his charisma begins to curdle — is the mystery of this cautionary tale. |
