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 remedy trapped in a cage within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury discovered former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood responsible 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 only in search of medication for her concern and nervousness and Inexperienced’s household said she was dedicated to a mental facility at a regular psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after a number of relations of the ladies mentioned his choice to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson advised the decide. “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 prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on each 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, stopping the women 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 said they spoke to the women and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour as the water saved rising before it acquired too dangerous and rescuers could now not hear them.

“How terrible should which have been to sit there and wait in your personal dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

While other components like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by way of water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he couldn't flip around as a result of he might no longer see the edge of the highway and was fearful about working 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 just standing in a tall puddle, however it was speeding, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements stated.

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others have been attempting to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as a substitute of the equipment issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and sent him even though taking the ladies to the psychological well being amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, however earlier than he was sentenced advised the choose he tried all the things he may to maintain the women calm because the waters rose and assist was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a sequence of errors on my part and other those that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the women,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been ultimately rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities stated. 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 nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they had been in a position to reduce the roof off the van and began working on the cage, but the water obtained increased and faster and it was too harmful to proceed.

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

“I can forgive, however I cannot forget. Fortunately, I still keep in mind my mom as a cheerful girl, a joyful woman who loved her household," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by listening to her screams in the back of that van."

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