Indiana woman reported missing after ‘suspicious’ fire in her house: Sheriff’s office
Britney Gard is seen in an undated photo released by the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office. Putnam County Sheriff’s Office
(PUTNAM COUNTY, Ind.) — An Indiana woman was reported missing last week following a “suspicious” fire in her house, authorities said.
Britney Gard, 46, last had contact with her family the evening of Sept. 30, according to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office. She is considered a missing endangered person “due to her unknown whereabouts,” the sheriff’s office said.
Authorities responded to her home on Oct. 1, following a 911 call for a fire at her home in Bainbridge, located about 40 miles west of Indianapolis, the sheriff’s office said. Smoke was reported coming from the residence around 7:40 p.m., the office said.
Fire crews extinguished the blaze, which investigators believe is “suspicious in nature,” Putnam County Sheriff Jerrod Baugh said in a statement on Friday. The cause of the fire remains under investigation, Baugh said in an update on Wednesday.
No one was found in the fire-damaged home, and attempts by family and friends to contact Gard following the fire have been unsuccessful, the sheriff’s office said. She was not located following a drone-assisted search of the area and searches of a pond on the property following the fire, the sheriff’s office said.
Gard was supposed to attend her daughter’s volleyball game on Oct. 1, but did not show up, her sister, Stephanie Bowen, told Indianapolis ABC affiliate WRTV.
“Her car’s at home, her purse is at home. She’s nowhere to be found, and the house is on fire. It makes no sense,” Bowen told WRTV.
“I just feel like there’s something here bigger that we don’t know,” she said.
The search continued this week for the mother of two, with dozens of people, including her sisters, looking through cornfields and wooded areas near Gard’s property on Monday, WRTV reported.
Drones have continued to be deployed in the area, and conservation officers with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources have been conducting searches of the ponds at the residence and in the surrounding area, the sheriff’s office said Wednesday.
Detectives have also been working with the FBI and Indiana State Police, “looking for any leads into the current and past locations of any and all devices that could lead investigators to the location of Britney Gard,” Baugh said Wednesday.
Baugh asked anyone with information about her whereabouts to contact the sheriff’s office.
“As this is an active investigation and the location of missing Putnam County resident Britney Gard remains unknown, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office will not be releasing detailed information about the scene, the ongoing investigation, or any speculation as to the whereabouts or condition of Ms. Gard,” Baugh said Wednesday.
Bowen urged people to be “vigilant” and to check their home security cameras.
“Britney, we love you,” she told WRTV. “We hope to see you safely return home.”
Luigi Mangione (R) appears for a suppression of evidence hearing in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Criminal Court on December 01, 2025 in New York City. (Steven Hirsch-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A year to the day after Luigi Mangione allegedly stalked and gunned down United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk, the 27-year-old alleged killer returns to court Thursday as a high-profile hearing in his state murder case enters its third day.
His lawyers are attempting to convince the judge overseeing his case to prohibit prosecutors from using critical evidence, including the alleged murder weapon and Mangione’s journal. They argue the evidence was unlawfully seized from his backpack without a warrant during his arrest.
The hearing has the potential to sideline what prosecutors say is some of the strongest evidence of Mangione’s guilt, and has provided the most detailed preview to date of their case against the alleged killer. As Mangione sat alongside his lawyers, the accused gunman has rewatched the video of him allegedly shooting Thompson in the back and heard from the officer who arrested him a Pennsylvania McDonalds.
“It’s him. I have been seeing all the pictures. He is nervous as hell. I ask him have you been in New York, he’s all quiet,” Altoona police officer Joseph Detwiler told the courtroom on Tuesday.
Prosecutors have so far called six witnesses to make their case that Mangione was lawfully arrested five days after allegedly killing Thompson. They presented security footage inside the McDonalds showing Mangione enter around 9 a.m., the recording of the restaurant’s manager calling 911, and body camera footage of officers approaching Mangione before his arrest.
Defense attorneys have homed in on the 20 minutes between officers confronting Mangione and arresting him. They argue that Mangione’s rights were violated because they waited too long to read his Miranda rights.
During his day-long testimony on Tuesday, Detwiler offered his account of the high-profile arrest, telling the courtroom that he was so skeptical that the McDonald’s tip was legitimate that he didn’t even turn on his sirens on the way to the restaurant. But once he asked Mangione to pull down his face mask, Detwiler said he “knew it was him immediately.”
“Were you up in New York recently?” Detwiler asked Mangione, according to body camera footage played in court.
According to Detwiler, Mangione claimed he was homeless and presented a New Jersey driver’s license with the name Mark Rosario. As Christmas music played in the McDonald’s, the video showed Detwiler attempting to make small talk with Mangione while a dozen officers arrived at the restaurant. Twenty minutes after he was first approached, Mangione was in handcuffs and under arrest for providing a fake ID to officers.
The hearing could last into next week. The coming days are expected to focus on Mangione’s backpack, which officers placed on a table out of Mangione’s reach during the arrest — a standard move, according to Detwiler, to ensure the officers’ safety.
Defense lawyers say that another officer conducted an illegal search of the bag while the arrest was underway, eventually finding a 3D-printed handgun that prosecutors say is the murder weapon. Mangione’s attorneys argue that the gun and Mangione’s writings — in which Mangione allegedly blasts the health care insurance industry and plans the assassination — were the products of an illegal search and should never be shown to a jury.
(GRAND BLANC, Mich.) — All of the victims have been accounted for in the mass shooting and arson at a Michigan chapel after a gunman opened fire while hundreds were worshiping on Sunday morning, officials said on Monday.
Four people were killed and eight others injured, officials said at a press conference Monday afternoon.
The gunman, 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford, drove his truck into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, Michigan, on Sunday morning, before shooting congregants and setting the building on fire, according to officials.
The gunman was then killed in a shootout with responding police, law enforcement said.
On Sunday, authorities said they feared more victims would be found in the ruble of the house of worship that was allegedly set on fire by the suspected shooter. But on Monday afternoon, Grand Blanc Police Chief William Renye said that while the burned chapel was still being search, no additional victims are expected to be found.
“At this time, everyone has been accounted for. We are still in the process of clearing the church, but everyone has been accounted for,” Renye said.
Reuben Coleman, the acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Michigan field office, said the attack is being investigated as an “act of targeted violence.”
One victim died at the scene, another later died at the hospital and two more individuals were found dead at the scene due to the fire, officials said. Eight others remain hospitalized, including seven in stable condition and one in critical condition.
The chapel is a “total loss” as investigators work to comb through the rubble, officials said.
A source briefed on the investigation told ABC News that detectives are urgently working to determine the motive behind the shooting.
During Monday’s news conference, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer cautioned the public to be patient as investigators seek a motive in the shooting.
“I want to caution everyone that while we are working hard, at this juncture speculation is unhelpful and it could be quite dangerous,” said Whitmer, adding she has ordered flags across the state to be lowered to half-staff in honor of the victims.
“Your grief is our grief,” said Whitmer.
Investigators are working to learn whether the church had been the target of threats in recent months or whether the timing could be connected to the death on Saturday of Russell M. Nelson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was 101 years old.
Renye said during Sunday’s news conference that the FBI had assigned more than 100 agents to help in the investigation.
Renye said the gunman “ran the vehicle through the front door, exited and started firing shots,” adding that it remains unclear what connection, if any, the suspect had to the church.
Sanford was a veteran of the Iraq War, according to officials. ABC News confirmed with the United States Marine Corps that Sanford served four years in the Marines from June 2004 to June 2008. He ultimately rose to the rank of sergeant, officials said, serving one combat tour to Iraq.
President Donald Trump said he had been briefed on the shooting and fire, writing Sunday on social media, “This appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America.”
“The Trump Administration will keep the Public posted, as we always do. In the meantime, PRAY for the victims, and their families. THIS EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE IN OUR COUNTRY MUST END, IMMEDIATELY!” Trump said.
Trump also wrote that the FBI is leading the investigation efforts. Trump said that while the suspect is dead, there is “still a lot to learn.”
Vice President JD Vance posted his own statement on social media, calling the shooting and fire at an LDS church “awful.” He said the “entire” Trump administration is monitoring the incident.
ABC News’ Luis Martinez, Chris Looft and Sasha Pezenik contributed to this report.
Debris is piled up at the entrance to Camp Mystic on July 07, 2025 in Hunt, Texas. Heavy rainfall caused severe flash flooding along the Guadalupe River in central Texas, leaving more than 80 people reported dead, including children attending the camp. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) —The families of multiple campers and two counselors at Camp Mystic who died in the devastating flash flood in Texas in July are suing the camp, alleging gross negligence and reckless disregard for safety led to a “self-created disaster” that claimed the lives of 28 people total.
The Fourth of July flood wiped out the Christian all-girls sleepaway camp located along the Guadalupe River, which rapidly rose overnight while campers were sleeping. Twenty-five campers, two counselors and the camp’s director died after flood waters inundated the camp, trapping many in their cabins.
One of three lawsuits filed Monday includes the families of five campers — Anna Margaret Bellows, 8; Lila Bonner, 9; Molly DeWitt, 9; Lainey Landry, 9; and Blakely McCrory, 8 — and the two counselors who died — Chloe Childress, 18, and Katherine Ferruzzo, 19 — as plaintiffs.
“Today, campers Margaret, Lila, Molly, Lainey, and Blakely should be third graders, and counselors Chloe and Katherine should be freshmen at the University of Texas. They all are gone,” the petition stated. “And while their families struggle with their loss, the Camp’s actions since the tragedy have only deepened the pain.”
Among the actions, the lawsuit cites the recent announcement that Camp Mystic will partially reopen one of its sister sites next summer and continues to evaluate plans to rebuild the Guadalupe River location.
“And through it all, the Camp refuses to accept any responsibility for its actions and failures to act, defiantly blaming this tragedy on ‘an act of God’ that no responsible steps could have avoided,” the lawsuit alleged.
The lawsuit claims that the camp officials “focused on profits over safety,” made “catastrophic decisions concerning the cabin locations” and had unsafe policies regarding floods, including an alleged “never evacuate” order.
The families are seeking more than $1 million in damages, according to the petition.
“Our clients have filed this lawsuit to seek accountability and truth,” one of the families’ attorneys, Paul Yetter, said in a statement. “Camp Mystic failed at its primary job to keep its campers and counselors safe, and young girls died as a result. This action is about transparency, responsibility and ensuring no other family experiences what these parents will now suffer the rest of their lives.”
The second lawsuit against Camp Mystic was filed by the parents of 8-year-old camper Eloise “LuLu” Peck.
The lawsuit alleged that the campers and counselors were killed “after, predictably, the river rapidly rose, and floodwaters swept through what Camp Mystic knew was a vulnerable and low-lying area of the Camp.”
“Lulu Peck was among those horrifically swept away and killed,” it continued.
The lawsuit alleged that “these terrifying last moments and then deaths were proximately caused by the negligence and gross negligence” of the defendants, claiming they “knew that Camp facilities were located in a flood zone, knew of the history of flash flooding in Kerr County, knew of repeated prior flood events at the Camp, and received warnings from family members about flood risk.”
The third lawsuit was filed against Camp Mystic and related entities on Monday by the father of Ellen Getten, a 9-year-old camper who died on July 4.
The suit names two additional defendants that were not listed in the multifamily or Peck family suits: William Neely Bonner III and Seaborn Stacy Eastland.
All three lawsuits are seeking at least $1 million in damages.
In a statement to ABC News, Camp Mystic said, “We continue to pray for the grieving families and ask for God’s healing and comfort.”
Jeff Ray, legal counsel for Camp Mystic, said in a statement, “We intend to demonstrate and prove that this sudden surge of floodwaters far exceeded any previous flood in the area by several magnitudes, that it was unexpected and that no adequate warning systems existed in the area.”
“We disagree with several accusations and misinformation in the legal filings regarding the actions of Camp Mystic and Dick Eastland, who lost his life as well. We will thoroughly respond to these accusations in due course,” Ray added.
At least 138 people were killed in flash flooding across the Hill Country region, including 117 in Kerr County, officials said.
Officials in hard-hit Kerr County, where Camp Mystic is located, said that more than 12 inches of rain fell in under 6 hours, and that the Guadalupe River rose more than 20 feet per hour during the storm.
Regulations regarding the development of summer camps in an area known as “Flash Flood Alley” and flash-flood warning systems came under scrutiny following the disaster.
The catastrophe prompted the state to pass legislation aimed at enhancing safety measures at summer camps and create a grant program to support the installation of early-warning sirens in areas prone to flash flooding.
In September, Camp Mystic announced plans to reopen one site of its summer camp next year. The summer program officials said that Camp Mystic Cypress Lake, a sister site that opened in 2020, will be open in summer 2026, while Camp Mystic Guadalupe River will not be able to reopen by then due to the devastating damage sustained earlier this year.
“The heart of Camp Mystic has never stopped beating, because you are Mystic. We are not only rebuilding cabins and trails, but also a place where laughter, friendship and spiritual growth will continue to flourish,” camp officials said at the time. “As we work to finalize plans, we will do so in a way that is mindful of those we have lost. You are all part of the mission and the ministry of Camp Mystic. You mean the world to us, and we look forward to welcoming you back inside the green gates.”
