![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783957570_69_lucas-roper-mug.png\")
<\/p>\nDALLAS – The family of an 18-year-old who drowned in Lake Ray Hubbard is preparing to speak publicly for the first time since authorities arrested a teenager accused of orchestrating a months-long cover-up of the death.<\/p>\n
Lake Ray Hubbard drowning arrest <\/p>\n
The news conference is scheduled to take place at 11 a.m. Monday at the Next Generation Action Network Headquarters, located at 1808 S. Good Latimer Expressway, where Daniel Erving’s family is expected to demand justice and full accountability.<\/p>\n
The briefing comes just days after Dallas police arrested 19-year-old Lucas Roper on July 9. Roper is currently booked into the Dallas County Jail on a charge of tampering with physical evidence.<\/p>\n
The backstory:<\/p>\n
According to court documents, the investigation stems from an April 13 incident when Erving, Roper, and an unidentified juvenile went fishing and swimming at the lake before jumping from a bridge into the water. Investigators say Erving drowned shortly after jumping. His body was recovered by emergency teams four days later.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rather than calling for help, police say Roper launched an extensive effort to hide the tragedy from authorities because he panicked and did not want to get into trouble.<\/p>\n
According to an arrest affidavit, Roper admitted to investigators that he and the juvenile threw Erving\u2019s clothes into nearby brush. Roper also allegedly deleted the call logs and text messages from Erving\u2019s cell phone, ordered the juvenile to toss the device out of a moving vehicle’s window, and fled the area.<\/p>\n
Detectives later interviewed the juvenile suspect, who corroborated the account and told police Roper instructed him to discard the phone. Authorities have not identified the juvenile due to his age, and it remains unclear if he faces separate charges.<\/p>\n
What’s next:<\/p>\n
The Erving family has stated they plan to continue fighting for answers regarding the final moments of their son’s life. The 11 a.m. news conference will be streamed live on the FOX Local app.<\/p>\n
The Source: Information in this story comes from an arrest affidavit from the Dallas Police Department.<\/p>\n
Dallas<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS – The family of an 18-year-old who drowned in Lake Ray Hubbard is preparing to speak publicly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1046,102,581,104,103,223,216,393],"class_list":["post-371232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-county","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-news","tag-tx","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}