Sicko scammers target family of missing Texas flood kids — demanding money to return them: ‘Absolutely heartbreaking'
'We're dealing with scammers,' said Dalton Rice, the city manager of Kerrville in Kerr County — the hardest-hit region — at a Monday press conference.
'Victims' families are being reached out to saying that they have their kids, 'Pay me money.' It's heartbreaking. It's absolutely heartbreaking.'
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5 A damaged truck and other debris from the flood in Kerrville, Texas seen on July 5, 2025.
Photo byAuthorities also are grappling with fake calls to the five hotlines set up for the missing, with officials saying the scammers make it hard to determine the exact number of people unaccounted for.
'We don't have a solid number [of missing people] that we're willing to talk about right now,' Rice said. 'We do know that it is a lot. … We also are getting a lot of fake calls.'
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Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said 'messed-up' trolls are even harassing the families of the missing girls from Camp Mystic.
He said a family he spoken was subjected to online abuse after sharing a public post about their missing daughter.
'Look, there are a lot of people that are messed up. And my call for everyone: There's a time to have political fights, there's a time to disagree. This is not that time,' Cruz said at the briefing.
5 A Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper and Kerr County Sheriff's deputy assisting a rescue diver during a search for flood victims.
AP Photo/Eli Hartman
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5 An aerial view of the flooding in Kerrville.
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'This is a time just to reach out, support each other. Go volunteer at the Salvation Army,' he said, adding that he hugged his kids 'with tears in my eyes' after learning of the news of the tragic flooding.
At least 89 people have died in the floods, which swept through the Texas Hill Country in the central region of the Lone Star State early Friday.
Follow The Post's coverage on the deadly Texas flooding
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Of the confirmed dead, 27 were little campers and counselors at Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp in Kerr County that was swept away after the nearby Guadalupe River rose an astonishing 27 feet in just 45 minutes.
Ten young campers and a counselor are still unaccounted for, officials told Monday's press conference.
5 Children's clothes hanging on a branch near the Guadalupe River near Camp Mystic.
Photo by5 Rescue workers performing a search near Camp Mystic on July 7, 2025.
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Cruz was also forced to respond to bizarre conspiracy theories, including some pushed by fellow Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, that government weather manipulation was responsible for last week's Texas floods.
There is 'zero evidence' to support such wild claims, Cruz said, in response to Greene's proposed bill aiming to ban supposed atmospheric interventions.
'The Internet can be a strange place. People can come up with all sorts of crazy theories,' he said.
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