Roxie died at Summerkids Camp. Circumstances were shocking.

Summerkids camp owners are responsible for the preventable drowning death of 6-year-old Roxie Forbes. They admitted this at trial, six and a half years after Roxie’s parents, Doug Forbes and Elena Matyas, filed their wrongful death lawsuit.

Elena subsequently suffered severe depression, suicidal ideation and was diagnosed with terminal cancer only a year after Roxie’s death. Her broken heart and broken body led to her death March 4, 2022. Elena’s dying words to Doug were, “Get as much justice for Roxie as possible.”

Doug fights for justice, facts and truth about summer camp harm so that other families do not have to endure what he does. After Roxie’s horrific death, Doug completed grad studies in journalism so that he could pursue this mission. The following represents just some of what Doug’s fight has looked like during the nearly seven-year battle he has endured to ensure that the truth about Summerkids Camp owners finds its way to the public.

Since trial transcripts are publicly available, Doug is allowed to display them in their entirety. Where Doug is otherwise precluded from mentioning the actual names of Summerkids owners or employees, he refers to them through their camp titles.

No child should ever drown under supervision. No child should ever die at a summer camp unless due to exceptional, unpreventable circumstances.

Why did Roxie drown? How could she possibly die such a violent death at Summerkids? Why did Doug’s trial take place six and a half years after Roxie’s death in the Summerkids camp pool? Why did the camp owners delay the trial six times instead of holding themselves accountable? Why have they never apologized for Roxie’s death in nearly seven years?

Incidentally, the camp-owning family sent another very young child camper to the hospital with a very serious injury weeks after Roxie died under their supervision.

Summerkids camp owners include a father and mother who were former local city college professors, a daughter who was a former Los Angeles Times writer and a brother who is an emergency room doctor. The daughter was the camp director at the time of Roxie’s death.

For years, if not decades, the camp-operating family facilitated the fraudulent lifeguard certification of its counselors, according to federal court transcripts, legal filings and admissions. Those counselors were in charge of children as young as three in the relatively small Summerkids swimming pool. The camp owners’ very own children attended Summerkids where they swam in the pool under the supervision of fake lifeguards.

The camp owners delayed the trial six times, according to publicly available court documents. The trial commenced on January 13, 2026. Doug and Elena filed the lawsuit November 5, 2019.

The family also attempted to blame Roxie, a 6-year-old child, for her own drowning death, according to their court filings.

We have included the following excerpts from federal trial transcripts and other sources to illustrate how facts matter. Summer camp harm has been a perennial issue in America for many decades. Such harm has horrific ripple effects. Sadly, camp owner-operators, including those of Summerkids, prioritize public relations, denials and coverups instead of accountability and support of severely aggrieved families.

At the federal trial, Doug’s attorney asks the Summerkids camp director-owner about accountability.

Camp owner-director originally said child safety was not her number one priority.

Despite what she said at trial, which was six and a half years after Roxie drowned in her summer camp pool, the Summerkids director said something entirely different while under sworn deposition testimony in 2020. Doug’s prior attorney had asked the camp director-owner if child safety was her number one priority, She refused to say that it was. In fact, Doug’s attorney gave her a second chance to amend her answer. She refused.

Were the Summerkids camp director-owner to have told Doug and Elena — who spent thousands of dollars for this woman and her staff to supervise Roxie — that safety of children was not her top priority, Doug and Elena would never have enrolled Roxie in Summerkids Camp. According to the California Department of Education, choosing quality care that is in a healthy and safe environment should be a parent’s number one priority. This belief is widely held by youth-serving and child care organizations nationwide.

Doug’s attorney plays this deposition testimony at trial.

At trial, Doug’s attorney reminds the camp director-owner about how she originally said safety was not her number one priority. The attorney subsequently asks more questions about safety. The camp director is suddenly more accountable.

Doug’s attorney asks the judge if she can read the camp director-owner’s original deposition testimony, which contradicts her above answer at trial. The judge grants the request and Doug’s attorney reads the original testimony.

Doug’s attorney asks additional questions that confirm the camp director-owner’s responsibilities regarding safety.

The camp director-owner said she and her family established a safety committee. Doug’s attorney asked whether that committee monitored their counselors at the pool, especially since it was the activity with the greatest risk. The director-owner attempted to either lie or mislead at trial, but Doug’s attorney referred back to her original deposition testimony.

Documents show very young children were at risk for decades.

Swimming is widely accepted as the most popular summer camp activity. It was no different at Summerkids where children as young as three used the pool.

This is why it is shocking that, for decades, Summerkids camp owners were responsible for the fraudulent certification of camp counselors as American Red Cross lifeguards and water safety instructors, according to an abundance of publicly available court documents, transcripts and admissions. The camp-owning family also actively promoted to thousands of parents that the counselors were legitimately certified, despite knowing they were not.

The camp owners pocketed an estimated $5,000 each year, at the risk of knowingly endangering thousands of children and causing Roxie’s death, according to court transcripts and supporting evidence.

This invoice shows how the fraudulent instructor Andrew Cervantes invoiced Summerkids at $100 per counselor, which is less than one third of the regular lifeguarding program fee, according to the Red Cross pricing sheet. Cervantes was able to make an easy couple thousand dollars in a day while Summerkids owners were able to pocket extra money.

2006-2014:

The camp-owning family hired a gentleman named Kasey Bell in 2006 before they hired Andrew Cervantes from 2014-2019. Mr. Bell told the camp owners he would provide some safety instruction to counselors, however, he made it clear that he would not be able to legitimately train and certify the counselors as Red Cross lifeguards.

Nonetheless, the camp owners intentionally retained Mr. Bell for eight years, knowing that upwards of 100 counselors at their pool were not legitimately trained or certified lifeguards. Those counselors were in charge of thousands of children during that period. Misleading thousands of parents by advertising to parents that the counselors were properly trained and certified lifeguards constituted a fraudulent act, according to numerous court filings and exhibits.

Summerkids did not legitimately train and certify half, if any, of its counselors as lifeguards, and they offered no proof that counselors legitimately received basic first aid and CPR training. The camp director-owner admitted to their intentional behavior at the federal trial.

One of the counselors illegitimately certified as a lifeguard was the supervisor at the pool when he and the other fake lifeguards neglected Roxie to death. This is a communication between this counselor and Kasey Bell after the Summerkids owner [who is referred to as “him” and “he”] hired Andrew Cervantes to replace Bell. The Summerkids counselor ironically said the lifeguards “sucked” even though he was also a fraud. Note that Bell says he is happy that the insurance company might actually be forcing the camp owners to legitimately certify counselors as lifeguards.

2014-2019:

As mentioned, like the majority of summer camps with aquatics activities, swimming was the most popular activity at Summerkids. The Summerkids pool was a primary catalyst for persuading parents to enroll their children in Summerkids.

The camp owners hired a man named Andrew Cervantes who fraudulently certified himself as a Red Cross lifeguard and instructor while working for Summerkids. The camp owners intentionally chose not to run a background check on him. They never cared to check his training records. They never attended a single training session. In fact, they never actually interviewed Cervantes. As a Red Cross Training Provider, the Summerkids camp owners had thereby violated their contract on multiple counts.

The camp owners worked with Cervantes to cut the required Red Cross lifeguard and water safety training by 75%, which means the owners were able to pocket more money for themselves by reducing training time. Cervantes had access to the Red Cross certification system, which enabled the camp owners to obtain certifications for their counselors via fraudulent means, according to an abundance of documents and testimony.

Doug Forbes conducted an investigation that unearthed this fraudulent certification scheme. He shared his findings with the top legal officers of the Red Cross who swiftly established a lifetime ban that prevented Summerkids owners from performing any Red Cross training at their camp.

The Red Cross also banned Cervantes for life and revoked every Summerkids counselor’s lifeguard and water safety certification.

The camp owners misled thousands of parents, which constituted fraud, according to court filings. Based on Doug’s investigation and federal court filings, the judge allowed Doug to pursue fraud claims against the Summerkids owners.

Cervantes fraudulently certified himself as a Red Cross lifeguard during the years he worked for Summerkids. You can see that he assigned himself as the lifeguard recipient and the instructor. A Red Cross lifeguard instructor must must first be a legitimately certified lifeguard, which he was not. Therefore the 100+ Summerkids counselors that he and the camp owners certified were frauds.

This was what Doug and Elena and thousands of other parents read on the Summerkids camp website. The camp owners entirely misled parents, because the owners and Cervantes had fraudulently certified the counselors as lifeguards.

The camp director-owner lied during her sworn deposition testimony, which was information that Doug’s attorney shared during the federal trial. The camp director said she did not know the requirements to become a Red Cross lifeguard.

During the trial, the camp owner admitted that she did, in fact, receive lifeguard training requirements from a Red Cross representative.

The Red Cross requires testing of candidates before they can pursue lifeguard certification testing. The Red Cross also requires a skills test and 80% on a written examination before candidates can become certified lifeguards. The camp owners and Cervantes did not provide any testing, which are serious violations. These acts constitute fraud, because the camp owners and Cervantes certified the counselors as lifeguards without testing them.

Despite knowing Red Cross lifeguard certification requirements, the camp director-owner intentionally cut the training by upwards of 75%. She tells Cervantes to be at the camp for “lifeguard training” on one Saturday for 8 hours total, including lunch and other breaks. Red Cross training is 27+ hours with pool testing and a written examination. The camp director and her father violated Red Cross policies for years.

Here is testimony from just one of the fraudulently certified lifeguard counselors that neglected Roxie to death at the Summerkids pool. The counselor says “training” was as little as six hours, which constitutes less than 25% of the required training. Also, Cervantes did not actually “train,” according to what the Red Cross considers training.

Documents show camp counselors were also at risk for decades.

Here are just a few emails from former Summerkids counselors who discuss the trauma they experienced under the supervision of the camp-owning family.

The camp director-owner chose to hole up in her office and call her own parents who were part owners of the camp with her and her doctor-brother. She chose not to call Roxie’s parents as Roxie lay dead at her pool.

According to records, the director chose to hole up in her office for upwards of 15 minutes. She called her mother and father. She chose to not call Roxie’s parents as Roxie lay dying then dead on her pool deck.

She refused to help her ill-trained counselors in the “chaotic” scene. She refused to ask her counselors — whom she helped fraudulently certify as lifeguards — how Roxie could have drowned. She refused to help manage the traumatized children. She refused to make herself available to first responders at a critical moment of care.

She said she “was not there,” but that is a lie. She was there at the camp, 20 seconds away from the pool. She chose not to go help anyone in any way. Numerous documents and testimony assert that such an act is both shocking and deeply unsettling for an owner of a child care business. Note that she also refused to say Roxie’s name.

The camp director-owner and her family prevented parents from picking up their traumatized children.

The family emailed thousands of parents shortly after the preventable drowning. They told parents not to pick up their children early, because they wanted to “keep the day as normal as possible,” despite the fact that children as young as four witnessed Roxie, a 6-year-old child, violently die. The camp owners said it was in the “best interest of the [children] and counselors,” without asking parents what they wanted for their own children.

The camp owners disallowed these parents from comforting their own children immediately after a horrific, devastating death of a fellow child. Consequently, some of those children suffered ongoing trauma and required trauma counseling.

Why did the camp-owning family prevent hundreds of parents from picking up traumatized children and other children who were near the scene? Why did the camp-owning family refuse to immediately interact with sheriffs and EMS? Why did the camp-owning family believe that a child's violent, preventable death was not enough to close the camp… not even that day? Not even for an hour?

How in the world could the camp-owning family believe this could be a “normal” rest of the day?

Despite what the camp owners claim in the below email, other witnesses, including first responders, said that the children in the pool were not immediately removed from the pool. In fact, one of the counselors said that she walked the children directly by Roxie as she lay dead on the pool deck.

Note: the camp director sent Doug and Elena a first draft of the below email prior to sending it to thousands of parents. She wanted Doug and Elena to review her almost entirely untrue public relations message while Doug and Elena were debating whether to remove Roxie from life support. This was a barbaric act.

Two Suspected Child Abuse Reports were immediately filed because the police incident report cited suspicious circumstances.

The first responding deputy issued a Suspected Child Abuse Report later that day. Another party issued a similar report soon thereafter. EMS noted suspicious if not dubious counselor statements in their reports.

The camp director and family issued a series of emails to thousands of parents in which they made false statements. They also prevented Roxie’s parents from getting any answers.

The camp owners continued to claim all of their counselors were certified American Red Cross lifeguards. They said the counselors only looked away from Roxie for 10-15 seconds. Not only is it impossible to die from drowning in that time period, but one of the fraudulently certified counselors said she did not pay attention to Roxie for five minutes. Red Cross policy is to keep every young child within an arm’s length and in constant view at all times.

Within 48 hours of Roxie’s death, the camp director-owner removed Doug and Elena from the parent portal, the mailing list and all communications related to the camp and Roxie’s death. Yet, she refused to return Doug and Elena’s $3000 camp tuition check until Doug gave her an ultimatum three months later in September.

Doug made numerous requests for the camp director to refund their tuition check. She refused. He made a final attempt months after Roxie drowned to death at Summerkids. She refused to respond. Doug enlisted the services of an attorney who finally acquired the refund three months later. Think about that… she refused to refund tuition money for a child who drowned in her camp pool.

None of the fake lifeguards noticed Roxie had drowned and was floating atop the pool. This drowning process could have lasted more than six minutes, according to an aquatics expert who testified at trial.

The camp owner-director originally told thousands of parents that Roxie was spotted within 10-15 seconds after which her counselors immediately removed from her from the pool. This was a lie. Her counselors contradicted that statement. Experts contradicted that statement. There has never been a recorded drowning that lasted such a limited period of time.

The camp owner-director intentionally failed to tell parents that not one of the four fraudulently certified counselors at the pool noticed Roxie floating dead. A counselor outside of the pool allegedly spotted Roxie floating dead. His story is also extremely hard to believe, considering he was allegedly helping with other activities upwards of 45 feet outside of the pool and somehow he spotted Roxie floating next to the edge of the pool beneath a basketball hoop on the deck. Nobody could explain how he could see Roxie when the other counselors said they were within 5-10 feet of Roxie.

Doug’s attorney asked the camp director if this account was accurate.

This is Doug’s attorney asking a doctor who was also the U.S. Coast Guard’s Chief Medical Officer about the time period of Roxie’s drowning process.

Assistant camp director participated in aiding the camp owners and did not know how to read an AED or assess CPR.

According to documents, the assistant director obeyed the camp owner family for a decade. When the camp director-owner told her to stay quiet after Roxie’s drowning death, she did just that. Documents show that the assistant director participated in acts which supported the camp owner family in its efforts to withhold the circumstances of the drowning from the public. She also said that the camp director-owner muzzled all of her counselors from saying anything about the drowning or contacting Doug and Elena to express condolences.

By participating in these acts, the camp-director-owner and her assistant camp director thereby prevented Doug and Elena from getting the answers they deserved as parents whose very young child died under dubious circumstances at their camp. This coverup was inhumane. After 10 years working for Summerkids, the assistant director quit after Roxie died.

Prior to working at Summerkids, she did not have any experience working at a camp. She worked at a ball manufacturing plant and was a self-described lunch lady. That said, she told homicide detectives, “I do all the medical,” meaning she handled all of the medical interventions at a camp that served upwards of 900 children during a summer. She had zero medical experience other than some questionable CPR instruction.

The assistant camp director admitted to misinterpreting the AED (automated external defibrillator) machine. She actually neglected to bring the AED to the pool, wasting invaluable, lifesaving time.

She failed to order pediatric AED pads and therefore attached adult pads to Roxie, wasting more time in a life and death situation. She did not know how to properly assess or aid in proper CPR. And her CPR/First Aid/AED certification, along with 12 other Summerkids staffers and the camp director-owner, were questionable at best, according to court documents. Their CPR instructor told the camp director he would “get you guys out quick,” meaning he would rush through training that had lifesaving impact on children. Incidentally, the CPR instructor’s very own daughter was in the pool when Roxie drowned.

He settled out of Court with Doug and Elena.

The assistant director twice told homicide detectives — without them asking — that Roxie was “so frail.” She never mentioned how resilient Roxie was, having overcome earlier health challenges and how she was in gymnastics, ballet and constantly on the go. The assistant director also told detectives that Roxie “was not a hardy child,” like her two children. That was an insult in and of itself. But, she also never clarified that her sons were grown adults. She repeatedly told detectives information that deflected from her own apparent negligence.

The assistant director, a 60+-year-old woman, says that the camp director-owner told her not to even inquire about Roxie. She followed that order without any question.

This is what the assistant camp director told homicide detectives after the counselors at the pool had neglected Roxie to death and failed to execute proper CPR, according to aquatics experts and the counselors’ own admissions.

“I assessed the situation while I was doing CPR. The counselors, they were doing what we trained them to do. Incredibly proud of how they handled themselves.”

This is what the assistant camp director told homicide detectives about how she interpreted the reading of the automated external defibrillator (AED). When an AED says “No shock advised,” it means the victim, in this case Roxie who was no longer breathing and does not have a heartbeat, is clinically dead at that point.

“It said no shock, continue compressions, which I think at this point in my mind, I thought it was a good thing.”

One of the family members who is a Summerkids co-owner is also an emergency room doctor who was supposed to be at the camp “on a regular basis.”

He was on vacation when Roxie drowned to death. Doug found out he was rarely at the camp in the past.

Roxie’s parents chose this camp in large part because he and his camp-owning family had promised that he, a professional healthcare provider, was going to be on site. They also promised to employ professional lifeguards. Neither promise was true. The doctor-brother was in Hawaii when Roxie drowned. And, again, the lifeguards were frauds.

This was only the second week of camp. He and his camp-owning family stipulated in writing and communications, before Summerkids commenced activity, that he would rearrange his ER shifts to be at Summerkids on a regular basis, which clearly implied consistent medical supervision from a professional.

Multiple documents made it clear that he was rarely if ever at Summerkids during 2019 and the year before. The camp-owning family removed his name from the Summerkids website after the drowning. He would have been the only truly qualified person to administer CPR and AED treatment to Roxie and potentially save her life… if he had been there.

The camp director — his sister — attempted to mislead the jury at trial regarding her doctor-brother’s promised role at the camp, but she failed, according to the following:

The camp owner-director chose not to conduct an investigation into how Roxie could possibly drown in her pool.

A 6-year-old girl died in the Summerkids camp swimming pool under the alleged supervision of multiple counselors. How can it be that the camp director-owner did not believe it was imperative to conduct her own internal investigation into this horrific death? According to a multitude of court filings and testimony, she attempted to bury the story, cover up the facts and keep the camp open as if Roxie drowned from some other circumstance, which was not the case, according to the medical examiner’s written report, all of Roxie’s doctors and other experts.

Doug’s attorney asks the camp owner-director if she questioned one of her fake lifeguards who neglected Roxie to death. Doug’s attorney also asks the camp owner-director if she sought help from her doctor-brother who is a co-owner and was supposed to be onsite.

The camp owners’ attorneys repeatedly attempted to muzzle Doug Forbes and his now-deceased wife in order to prevent the truth from being shared.

While certain information is privileged, other information is not. The camp owners’ attorneys has made numerous attempts to threaten Doug Forbes and his now deceased wife Elena Matyas so that certain damning information that Forbes - a journalist - has uncovered on his own remains quiet. This information is on this website solely to help parents and guardians understand the lengths to which some operations will go to prevent facts from being aired. Doug has traveled the nation to explore summer camp harm. He has found that eerily similar circumstances bind camps that not only commit harm but also administer aggressive coverup campaigns.

According to documents, first responders, Summerkids staffers and parents said that Summerkids was in utter “chaos” when Roxie was found dead. Parents said their children at the pool were traumatized. First responders said the children were still on the pool deck when while Summerkids staffers were violently administering faulty rescue treatment. Summerkids counselor Faith Porter admitted that she even walked the children directly past Roxie who lay dead on the deck.

Parents demanded answers. The camp-owning family refused to admit that Roxie even drowned. The camp director-owner said she needed more information, even after having thousands of documents, including medical reports from multiple sources and a dozen depositions at her fingertips. Every first responder and medical document has concluded that Roxie drowned and not because of any medical condition. The camp director-owner’s own staff has admitted to neglecting Roxie, despite knowing she was a learning swimmer like other children in the pool.

This website is availed to help caregivers make informed decisions about recreational child care facilities like Summerkids — otherwise known as camps — and aquatics-related activities. It also helps caregivers understand that facilities that do commit harm should be held accountable.