Ex-deputy gets 18 years after detainees drown in locked van

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- A deputy in South Carolina whose police van was swept away by floodwaters within the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two women looking for psychological well being therapy trapped in a cage within the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

A Marion County jury found former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood guilty of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless murder.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their families stated they were not violent. Newton was only looking for medication for her worry and nervousness and Inexperienced’s household mentioned she was dedicated to a psychological facility at a daily psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after several relations of the women mentioned his choice to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson told the judge. “He abused the belief my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To avoid wasting time.”

Circuit Courtroom Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on every reckless homicide charge and ordered the sentences served back-to-back.

The floodwaters swept the police van off its wheels in September 2018 and pinned it in opposition to a guardrail, preventing the ladies from having the ability to get out the sliding door they used to enter the van. Flood and a deputy with him didn't have a key to a second door and there was no emergency escape hatch, in accordance with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising before it got too harmful and rescuers may no longer hear them.

“How terrible must which were to sit down there and wait on your personal demise?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different elements like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless resolution to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) through water.

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 just outdoors Nichols, but Flood drove round them after briefly talking to the troopers.

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he couldn't flip round because he might not see the edge of the freeway and was anxious about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Possibly it wounded his delight or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed ahead into water that was not simply standing in a tall puddle, but it was speeding, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements said.

Flood's lawyer mentioned while it was a horrible tragedy, others were making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as a substitute of the tools problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and despatched him even though taking the women to the mental health facilities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you simply resist the urge to try to give justice to those two ladies by giving injustice to this good man," protection attorney Jarrett Bouchette mentioned. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, however earlier than he was sentenced advised the judge he tried all the things he might to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and help was gradual to arrive.

“It was a sequence of errors on my half and different those who led me to that time and I’m sorry for what occurred to the women,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been finally rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities stated. Bishop will stand trial for 2 counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, however it nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting assist was pricey too. A firefighter testified they had been capable of cut the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, but the water got larger and quicker and it was too harmful to continue.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood needed to be taught to follow the principles and use common sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, but I cannot neglect. Thankfully, I still keep in mind my mom as a contented woman, a joyful lady who loved her household," he stated. “However you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mom by listening to her screams behind that van."

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Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.