A mother who allegedly couldn’t be bothered to look up from her phone while her 3-year-old son drowned nearby at a Texas waterpark has been indicted nearly two years later.
Jessica Weaver, 35, is charged in connection with the death of her son, Anthony Malave, who drowned in May 2023 during a soft opening at the new Camp Cohen Water Park in El Paso.
One of 18 lifeguards working at the park pulled the unconscious boy out of a 4-foot-deep section of the pool. He was rushed to the hospital where he died, police said.
Anthony Malave drowned in a pool in May 2023 while his mother, Jessica Weaver, was allegedly distracted by her cell phone. Jessica WeaverWeaver was glued to her phone while the boy splashed around in the pool without a life jacket, witnesses told police, according to documents obtained by People magazine.
One witness told cops she saw Weaver sitting by the pool “by herself on her phone, never looking up or paying attention to anything.”
Another witness claimed they saw the inattentive mother “singing along to a song that was playing” as she lay down and looked at her phone for several minutes.
Signs at Camp Cohen state that kids 6 and younger “must be directly attended by a swimming adult” at all times and “must be supervised by an adult within arm’s reach.”
The mom was indicted last month on one count of injury to a child causing serious bodily injury.
The indictment claims she failed to give Anthony a life vest, be in the water with him, follow the water park’s rules, keep Anthony in her sight and provide or request CPR for her son, KFOX reported.
Jessica Weaver, 35, was indicted last month. El Paso Police Department)Weaver had filed a lawsuit in June 2023 — a month after her son’s death — blaming lifeguards.
Her wrongful death lawsuit against the City of El Paso and the entertainment company hired to operate the park, ASM Global, alleged the water park was “severely understaffed and that the few lifeguards on duty were undertrained and had no idea what they were doing.”
“Conventioniently,” the lawsuit claims, footage of the drowning — which the city was responsible for keeping — was destroyed.
Anthony was pulled out of the pool by a lifeguard. Jessica WeaverWeaver was first arrested in August 2023 in her home state of Indiana — which her attorneys claimed at the time was “retaliatory tactics” for her lawsuit.
The Civil lawsuit is still pending, the El Paso Times reported.
