Videos show how Haitian girl died in Dominican Republic field trip. Questions remain
At 9:44 a.m. on Nov. 14, 11-year-old Stephora Anne-Mircie Joseph stepped into a swimming pool at a countryside ranch outside this northern Dominican city, part of a school field trip meant to reward high-achieving students at one of the area’s most prestigious private schools.
A Haitian immigrant and honor student in Santiago de los Caballeros, Stephora waded confidently into the water. Within a minute, as she appeared to have hit deep water, her arms shot upward, flailing as she struggled to keep her head above the surface.
Around her, other children watched. Twice, a school guidance counselor walked near the pool’s edge near her, but didn’t look toward the water. Another school staffer nearby was on the phone .
Stephora drowned.
An autopsy report released this week by the National Institute of Forensic Sciences concluded that Stephora had been at the bottom of the pool for about 30 minutes before another student spotted her and pulled her to the surface, too late to save her.
“You have to see it to believe it,” said Miguel Diaz, an attorney for Stephora’s mother. “The people who were supposed to take care of her didn’t notice her absence for 30 minutes, didn’t seem to care.”
Security footage — made public only after weeks of public outcry — provide the first detailed account of how a school field trip at one of the northern Dominican Republic’s most prominent private schools, Leonard Da Vinci Institute, turned tragic. It also forms the basis of a criminal case in which prosecutors recently charged multiple school employees with involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors say they acted with “clumsiness, negligence and extreme imprudence,” failing in their duty of care during a pool outing with 87 students ages 10 to 18.
The developments have deepened questions here in the country’s second-largest city about who failed Stephora and why. After stirring outrage and calls for accountability both in the Dominican Republican and neighboring Haiti, the case is now also dividing parents of the schools about how much scrutiny a well-established institution should face when tragedy strikes under its watch.
“What we need now is action,” Lovelie Raphael Joseph, the girl’s mother, said. “We need for the justice system to take responsibility.”
For weeks after her daughter’s death, Joseph had been unable to get answers as school administrators stonewalled her, and investigators refused to let her see the video footage. There were 16 cameras inside the Hacienda Los Caballos ranch, Joseph said, and the footage released is only from two cameras.
“We are pushing to see all the videos that were inside,” she said. “We want them to give us the videos showing what happened from the moment she entered until she left.”
Caught on video
But the footage that has been released, along with vourt filings, paint a disturbing portrait of the day when just three adults were assigned to supervise Stephora and 86 other students.
Prosecutors say a school guidance counselor, Francisca Josefina Tavárez Vélez, did not intervene as Stephora struggled to stay afloat. Nor did a coordinator, Vilma Altagracia Vargas Morel. She spent more than half an hour on her phone chatting near a gazebo rather than monitoring the pool, prosecutors say.
When ranch staff and students later urged the chaperones to call 911, Tavárez Vélez allegedly replied that she was calling the school’s principal instead. Prosecutors say the school contacted its administration before emergency services, and it was a student who ultimately called 911, only after Stephora had died.
Her mother was not notified until an hour and 25 minutes after the drowning. She was initially told that her daughter was vomiting, the filings said, and then forced to wait outside the ranch for hours before being told her only child was dead.
“It was devastating, truly devastating,” Joseph said about the video footage she forced herself to watch.
For investigators, the security footage supports their central allegation: Adults assigned to supervise dozens of children around deep water were not actually watching them.
A judge granted bond with periodic check-ins this week for Tavárez Vélez, Vargas Morel and a third staffer, school administrative director Yris del Carmen Reyes Adames. Their lawyer acknowledged the emotional toll of the case and said they “are committed to ensuring the truth comes to light.”
The judge also dismissed criminal charges against a fourth employee, Gisela González, who allegedly authorized the trip. Her lawyer, María del Pilar Zuleta, emphasized that she wasn’t on site when the incident occurred.
Joseph has filed a broader criminal and civil complaint seeking charges against the school’s legal entity, Asociación Leonardo Da Vinci, Inc.; and 10 others associated with the school.
“They have to give an explanation of what happened. They cannot say they don’t know,” she said. “It’s truly irresponsible. They need to be held accountable.”
Race and pressure
Last week, as a pretrial hearing unfolded in Santiago, hundreds of Haitians marched through the nearby border town of Juana Méndez, chanting in Haitian Creole: “Why didn’t they take her to a hospital?” Border police eventually halted the demonstration. “She was just a girl who wanted to study,” the protesters said.
Along with the demands for justice there has been a shift in the conversation in a case that initially had Haitians and Dominicans united in grief in a country where issues of race and nationality shape daily life. With some Dominicans collecting signatures and drafting letters on behalf of the implicated school employees, others question whether the case would have dominated headlines and talk shows in the same way if Stephora had been Dominican.
“Some people are focused on protecting the school’s name, others on demanding justice for her,” said one Da Vinci parent, who requested anonymity because his kids attend the school. “I understand both impulses, but if we only worry about reputation, we’re missing the point. The point is that an 11-year-old went on a school trip and never came back.”
Carlos Madera, an alumnus whose three younger siblings currently study at the school, said “what happened was a tragedy.”
“But seeing people come together for such an important part of their lives, their school or their children’s school, has been impressive,” said Madera, whose parents attended a meeting the school convened with families after the incident where they assured everyone they were not hiding anything.
No lifeguards, no swim checks
Prosecutors say Stephora’s death was the direct result of an illegal excursion to an unsafe venue, with a lack of supervision, failure to provide assistance and disregard of basic protocols. And the stage for the tragedy was set, they said, long before the first student entered the water.
The outing violated an Educatioin Ministry order that explicitly bans school excursions and recreational activities in rivers, beaches, lakes and pools. Despite the ban, the school approved the trip and had parents signed consent forms in which they were not asked whether their children knew how to swim, prosecutors said. Government officials have asked the Ministry of Education to conduct a joint inspection of the school to identify practices that might put children at risk or violate their rights.
An inspection by the office of Civil Defense also found that Hacienda Los Caballos had no lifeguards, no depth indicators, evacuation routes or standard emergency signage.
A flagship Dominican school
The Leonardo Da Vinci Institute is widely regarded as one of Santiago’s best private schools, with generations of alumni and families who often send children through its classrooms. That reputation has prompted debate about how much accountability it should be subjected to.
A mother whose daughter is still enrolled at Da Vinci and did not want to be identified said the school has not been transparent. She was among those who attended the meeting with Madera’s parents, and said she was left feeling like Da Vinci officials were more concerned about their image rather than explaining what happened.
“I walked out of that meeting with more questions than answers,” she said. “If this can happen on a school trip, I need to know exactly what they’re going to do differently so it doesn’t happen again.”
“Da Vinci is a very respected school — a lot of people defend it,” she said. “But respecting a school doesn’t mean staying silent when something this serious happens. I want my daughter to finish the year there, but I also want the truth.”
Miami Herald Caribbean Correspondent Jacqueline Charles contribute to this report from Miami. Pappaterra reported from Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic.
This story was originally published December 13, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
