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 searching for psychological health therapy trapped in a cage within the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

A Marion County jury discovered 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 dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their households said they were not violent. Newton was solely looking for medicine for her fear and nervousness and Green’s family 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 decision and after a number of kin of the ladies stated his resolution to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap of their lives.

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

Circuit Courtroom Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on every 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 in opposition to 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 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 said they spoke to the ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour as the water stored rising before it bought too dangerous and rescuers might no longer hear them.

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

While other factors like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless resolution to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) via water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he could not flip round as a result of he might no longer see the edge of the highway and was frightened about running right 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 just standing in a tall puddle, but it was dashing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements mentioned.

Flood's lawyer stated whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others were attempting to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy as an alternative of the tools problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and sent him though taking the ladies to the mental health facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, but before he was sentenced advised the judge he tried all the things he could to keep the women calm because the waters rose and help was sluggish to reach.

“It was a collection of errors on my half and other people that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the women,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been eventually rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities mentioned. 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 surely still wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was pricey too. A firefighter testified they were capable of reduce the roof off the van and began working on the cage, but the water obtained greater and sooner and it was too dangerous to proceed.

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

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

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