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 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 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, however their families mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was solely seeking medication for her worry and nervousness and Green’s household mentioned she was committed to a psychological facility at a regular mental well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the verdict and after several relatives of the women mentioned his choice to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson informed 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 Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on each 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 women from having 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 keeping with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour as the water stored rising before it received too dangerous and rescuers could not hear them.

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

Whereas different elements like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless resolution to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by way of water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he couldn't flip around as a result of he may now not see the edge of the highway and was nervous about working right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Possibly it wounded his satisfaction or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed ahead into water that was not just 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 mentioned whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others had been making an attempt to unfairly blame just the previous deputy as a substitute of the gear issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and sent him despite the fact that taking the women to the mental health amenities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you simply resist the urge to try to give justice to these two women by giving injustice to this good man," protection lawyer Jarrett Bouchette mentioned. “They want to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

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

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been eventually 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, but it still would not open. The delay in getting assist was pricey too. A firefighter testified they were able to lower the roof off the van and started working on the cage, however the water received larger and quicker and it was too dangerous to proceed.

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

“I can forgive, however I can't forget. Happily, I still bear in mind my mom as a cheerful lady, a joyful lady who cherished her household," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind 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.