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 within the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two ladies seeking mental well being treatment 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 murder.

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 weren't violent. Newton was solely searching for medication for her worry and anxiety and Inexperienced’s family said she was dedicated to a psychological facility at an everyday psychological health appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the verdict and after a number of kinfolk of the women said 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,” Green's sister Donnela Green-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 save time.”

Circuit Court docket Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter cost and four years on each reckless murder 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 having 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, based on testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the women and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water stored rising before it received too dangerous and rescuers may no longer hear them.

“How terrible must which were to take a seat there and wait on your personal loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

While different factors like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) via water.

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

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he could not flip around because he could now not see the edge of the highway and was anxious about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe it wounded his delight or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed forward 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 terrible tragedy, others were making an attempt to unfairly blame just the former deputy as a substitute of the gear issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and sent him though taking the women to the psychological health services was not an emergency.

"I ask that you just resist the urge to try to give justice to those two ladies by giving injustice to this good man," protection legal professional Jarrett Bouchette mentioned. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, however before he was sentenced told the judge he tried every little thing he might to keep the women calm as the waters rose and assist was gradual to reach.

“It was a collection of mistakes on my part and other those who led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the girls,” Flood said.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been finally rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities stated. 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 wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was pricey too. A firefighter testified they were in a position to lower the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, however the water acquired larger and faster and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood had to study to comply with the principles and use common sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, but I can not overlook. Luckily, I still keep in mind my mother as a cheerful woman, a joyful lady who loved her family," he stated. “However you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mom by listening to her screams behind that van."

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