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 searching for mental well being therapy trapped in a cage in the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

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

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their families mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was only looking for medicine for her fear and anxiety and Inexperienced’s household mentioned she was committed to a psychological facility at an everyday psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after a number of kin of the ladies stated his determination to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Green-Johnson informed the choose. “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 Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 years on every reckless murder cost 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, stopping 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 line with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies stated they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising before it acquired too harmful and rescuers might not hear them.

“How terrible must which were to sit down there and wait for your own loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

While different elements like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless choice to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

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

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he couldn't flip around because he could no longer see the edge of the freeway and was apprehensive about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer mentioned while it was a terrible tragedy, others have been attempting to unfairly blame just the former deputy as a substitute of the equipment issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and despatched him regardless that taking the ladies to the psychological well being facilities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you just resist the urge to try to give justice to those two ladies by giving injustice to this good man," protection legal professional Jarrett Bouchette said. “They want to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, however before he was sentenced informed the judge he tried all the pieces he might to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and help was gradual to arrive.

“It was a sequence of mistakes on my part and different people who led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the girls,” Flood said.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been finally rescued from the top 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, nevertheless it still would not open. The delay in getting help was expensive too. A firefighter testified they have been in a position to reduce the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, but the water received larger and faster and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood had to study to follow the principles and use common sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, but I can't overlook. Luckily, I still bear in mind my mom as a contented lady, a joyful woman who loved her family," he stated. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mother by listening to her screams at the back of that van."

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