Ex-deputy will get 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 girls searching for mental well being therapy trapped in a cage in the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury discovered 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 Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families stated they were not violent. Newton was solely seeking drugs for her worry and anxiety and Inexperienced’s household mentioned she was dedicated to a mental facility at a daily psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after a number of family of the women stated 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 motion by a pompous, cussed man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Green-Johnson advised the choose. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To avoid wasting time.”

Circuit Courtroom Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on every reckless homicide cost and ordered the sentences served back-to-back.

The floodwaters swept the police van off its wheels in September 2018 and pinned it towards 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 didn't have a key to a second door and there was no emergency escape hatch, in response to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the women and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour as the water stored rising before it received too harmful and rescuers might no longer hear them.

“How terrible must that have been to sit there and wait in your own loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

While different elements like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless choice to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was within the water, he could not turn around because he might not see the edge of the freeway and was frightened about working right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Possibly it wounded his pride 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 stated whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others were trying to unfairly blame just the previous deputy as an alternative of the gear issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and despatched him regardless that taking the ladies to the mental health amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, however before he was sentenced informed the judge he tried all the things he could to maintain the women calm as the waters rose and assist was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a collection of errors on my half and different people who led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the girls,” Flood mentioned.

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

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, however it still wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was expensive too. A firefighter testified they have been in a position to minimize the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, but the water bought larger and sooner and it was too harmful to proceed.

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

“I can forgive, however I can't forget. Thankfully, I still bear in mind my mom as a cheerful girl, a joyful lady who cherished her household," he mentioned. “However you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by listening to her screams at the back of that van."

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