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 women in search of mental well being therapy 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 responsible of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless homicide.

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

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after several kinfolk of the women said his determination to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap of their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson instructed the decide. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save lots of time.”

Circuit Court Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter cost 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 towards 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, according to 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 kept rising earlier than it received too harmful and rescuers may now not hear them.

“How awful should which have been to take a seat there and wait on your personal death?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different components 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 determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 just outdoors Nichols, however Flood drove around them after briefly speaking to the soldiers.

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he couldn't turn around as a result of he may no longer see the edge of the freeway and was fearful about running right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe 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 dashing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements mentioned.

Flood's lawyer said while it was a horrible tragedy, others have been making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as a substitute of the tools issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and despatched him though taking the ladies to the mental well being amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, however before he was sentenced told the judge he tried the whole lot he could to keep the women calm because the waters rose and assist was sluggish to arrive.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were 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, however it still wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was expensive too. A firefighter testified they have been able to lower the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, but the water received larger and sooner and it was too dangerous to proceed.

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

“I can forgive, however I can't neglect. Luckily, I nonetheless remember my mom as a contented girl, a joyful girl who loved her family," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mom by hearing her screams at the back of that van."

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