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 in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two ladies looking for psychological health treatment trapped in a cage within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

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

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their households stated they weren't violent. Newton was only searching for medication for her concern and anxiousness and Inexperienced’s family mentioned she was committed to a mental facility at a daily psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after a number of kinfolk of the women mentioned his resolution 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, cussed man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson advised 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 Court docket Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter charge and four years on each reckless murder charge and ordered the sentences served back-to-back.

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

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising earlier than it obtained too harmful and rescuers might no longer hear them.

“How awful must which have been to sit there and wait on your own dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas other components like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) via water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was within the water, he could not turn around as a result of he may no longer see the sting of the freeway and was frightened about running right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe it wounded his pride or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed forward into water that was not simply standing in a tall puddle, but it surely was rushing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements mentioned.

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others have been making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy instead of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and despatched him although taking the ladies to the mental well being facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced instructed the decide he tried every part he may to maintain the women calm because the waters rose and assist was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a series of errors on my part and other people that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what happened to the women,” Flood mentioned.

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

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, but it still would not open. The delay in getting help was pricey too. A firefighter testified they had been able to minimize the roof off the van and began working on the cage, however the water got higher and sooner and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood needed to learn to follow the foundations and use widespread sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, but I can't forget. Thankfully, I nonetheless keep in mind my mom as a contented lady, a joyful lady who liked her household," he stated. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mom by hearing her screams at the back of that van."

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