The parents of a 2-year-old girl who drowned at the Lake of the Ozarks in 2025 have filed a lawsuit in federal court against officers and officials involved in the case.
The lawsuit names various directors and employees of the Missouri Department of Social Services, Missouri Children’s Division, Camden County Juvenile Office, and Camden County Sheriff’s Department as defendants.
The lawsuit alleges detectives “cornered and aggressively interrogated” the parents while the search for the toddler was ongoing, employing “hostile and manipulative questioning tactics rather than coordinating rescue efforts.”
Later that evening, Iszabella Obryan was found dead in Bollinger Creek Cove near the child’s home.
According to the lawsuit, when the parents returned to their home from the scene, detectives physically blocked access to the residence, asserting that the parents were not permitted to enter the home pending a search warrant.
The detectives subsequently obtained a search warrant confined to the geographic boundaries of a separate property on Tenney Road in Roach, Missouri, according to the lawsuit.
Despite the geographic limitations, detectives still executed the search at the parents’ separate residence, according to the lawsuit.
During the execution of the warrant, detectives allegedly staged the scene inside the home to manufacture an impression of criminal endangerment, the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit alleges that detectives gathered lawful medical marijuana items from separate rooms, transported them to a bed, added hats featuring marijuana leaf prints, and photographed the artificial spread to deceive the court, according to the lawsuit.
In the search warrant application, detectives alleged that both parents smelled of burnt marijuana, exhibited rambling speech, and possessed loose drug paraphernalia, according to the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs denied these allegations, noting that no drug residue or illegal paraphernalia was located or confiscated by law enforcement, according to the lawsuit.
Subsequent forensic hair follicle analysis returned negative results for all illicit substances and alcohol, confirming only state-licensed medically prescribed marijuana use, according to the lawsuit.
On March 4, 2025, state actors separated the parents’ surviving children into an isolated room during a scheduled meeting at the Children’s Division office without a warrant or court order, according to the lawsuit.
The parents allege that no circumstances existed to justify a warrantless seizure, noting that law enforcement left the children undisturbed inside the grandparents’ home for nine hours between the initial contact and the morning meeting, according to the lawsuit.
The parents later discovered that an officer signed and backdated the written authorization for temporary protective custody to a date exactly one month prior to the incident, allegedly generating a fraudulent court record to cover up the warrantless seizure, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit further claims officials made false statements about the developmental capabilities of the surviving children, made false statements claiming the parents had been neglectful in the past, and placed the surviving children with a non-family member instead of their biological grandparents.
While at a child advocacy facility, the lawsuit alleges the children “were subjected to highly invasive physical and forensic medical inspections of their private parts and genitals,” which occurred without any parent notification or consent and without a judicial warrant.
The lawsuit seeks a trial by jury.
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