After sending one final, haunting message, Joyce Catherine Badon’s phone went silent as torrential rains unleashed flash floods across parts of Texas early Friday morning.
The chilling text was enough to fill her parents with dread, fearing the worst—that their 21-year-old daughter might never make it home.
Joyce is now among at least 104 people confirmed dead in the catastrophic flooding.
Joyce Badon sent a final, chilling message just moments before she and her friends were swept away by the flash flood.
Joyce Badon and her three friends—Reese Manchaca, Ella Cahill, and Aiden Heartfield—had taken a trip to a country house to celebrate the July 4th holiday together.
All four were graduates of Kelly High School, and according to reports, Ella and Aiden were in a relationship.
The group was staying at a cabin that once belonged to Aiden’s late grandfather, located along the Guadalupe River in Hunt, a community in western Kerr County that was hit especially hard by the flooding.
“My little sister, her boyfriend, and their two friends are missing because of the flood,” wrote Ella’s sister, Mackenzie Hodulik, in a social media post. “The last we heard from them was at 4 a.m.—they were trying to leave the house and get to higher ground.”
Louis Deppe led a team of volunteers who assisted Joyce’s family in the search that ultimately led to the discovery of her body.
Joyce and her three friends had headed to a cabin along the Guadalupe River to celebrate the July 4th holiday together.
“Their house collapsed around 4 a.m., and they were being swept away,” Louis told AFP.
He described the harrowing final moments Joyce shared with her friends, as captured in the last text she sent to her family.
“The final message they received from her was, ‘We’re being washed away,’” he said. “And then the phone went dead.”
Aiden also called his father, Thad Heartfield, as the chaos unfolded around them.
“Aiden said, ‘Hey, I’ve got to go—I need to help Ella and Reese… they just got washed away,’” Joyce’s father, Ty Badon, recounted to CNN.
“They just got washed away,” one of the friends said during a terrifying phone call with a parent as the floodwaters surged around them.
Ty Badon said his daughter Joyce was the last person to speak to Thad Heartfield during the chaos.
“[Aiden] handed the phone to Joyce, and she said, ‘They just got washed away,’” Ty recalled. “A few seconds later, the phone went dead. That’s all we know. We assume she was swept away too.”
Joyce’s father joined the search efforts, combing through the wreckage left behind by the flood—an overwhelming scene of fallen trees, overturned vehicles, and scattered debris.
He shared that the country house where Joyce and her friends had been staying was completely gone, swept away by the force of the water.
While searching for his daughter, Ty Badon said he came across the body of a young boy, believed to be around 8 or 10 years old.
The grieving father recalled the heartbreaking moment he discovered a child’s body while searching for his daughter.
“My son and I were walking, and at first, I thought it was a mannequin,” he told CNN. “But it was a little boy, maybe 8 or 10 years old—and he was dead.”
He shared that the search team was moving through the debris, looking for his daughter and her friends, when they came upon the child’s body.
“We were just walking, doing what we’d been doing the whole time—searching—when we stumbled across him,” he said.
“One of the bodies was found 8 to 10 feet up in a tree, surrounded by a massive amount of debris,” said Louis Deppe.
Louis also described the harrowing scenes his team encountered as they searched through the flood wreckage in small groups.
“One of the bodies was eight to ten feet up in a tree, completely surrounded by debris,” he said. “No one could see it at first—so the more eyes we had out there, the better.”
Joyce’s family eventually confirmed that her body was found days after she was swept away.
“God showed us the way we should go this morning!” her mother, Kellye Badon, wrote on social media.
“We found our lovely daughter who blessed us for 21 years!” she continued. “We pray to be able to find her three friends soon. Thanks to EVERYONE for the prayers and support.”
Reese’s aunt and uncle confirmed that her body was found “among the rubble and debris left behind by the rushing floodwaters in the Hunt, Texas area.”
Meanwhile, the search for Ella and Aiden is still ongoing, as the death toll from the catastrophic flash floods surpasses 100, with dozens more still reported missing.
“Her father walked miles, calling out her name,” one person wrote online, reflecting the heartbreak of Joyce’s father’s desperate search.
