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 women searching 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 committed the day they died in September 2018, however their households stated they weren't violent. Newton was solely seeking medication for her worry and anxiousness and Inexperienced’s family mentioned she was dedicated to a mental facility at a regular psychological health appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after several relations of the ladies mentioned his resolution 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, cussed man,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-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 Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter cost and four 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 against a guardrail, preventing the ladies from being able 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, based on 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 received too dangerous and rescuers might not hear them.

“How awful should that have been to sit there and wait on your personal dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

While different factors like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply outside Nichols, however Flood drove round 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 could not flip around as a result of he might no longer see the sting of the highway and was fearful about working right 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 said while it was a horrible tragedy, others have been making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy as a substitute of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him though taking the ladies to the mental well being facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced informed the decide he tried everything he might to maintain the women calm because the waters rose and assist was gradual to arrive.

“It was a series of mistakes on my half and different those that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what happened to the ladies,” Flood stated.

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

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, nevertheless it still wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was pricey 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 got larger and faster and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood had to learn to observe the foundations and use common sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, but I can not neglect. Fortuitously, I still bear in mind my mom as a contented lady, a joyful girl who liked her family," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mom by listening to her screams at the back of that van."

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