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 ladies in search of mental health treatment 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 homicide.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, but their households mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was only searching for medication for her worry and nervousness and Green’s household said she was dedicated to a mental facility at a daily mental health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after several kinfolk of the ladies said his determination to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson told the decide. “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 five years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter cost and four 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, 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, 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 because the water kept rising earlier than it bought too harmful and rescuers may not hear them.

“How terrible must which were to sit there and wait in your personal death?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different elements like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's actual 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) by means of water.

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

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 may no longer see the edge of the freeway 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 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 stated.

Flood's lawyer stated whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others had been trying to unfairly blame just the previous deputy instead of the gear problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and sent him regardless that taking the women to the psychological health amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, but before he was sentenced informed the decide he tried all the pieces he may to keep the women calm because the waters rose and help was gradual to arrive.

“It was a series of errors on my part and other folks that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the girls,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been finally rescued from the highest 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, nevertheless it still wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was costly too. A firefighter testified they were capable of minimize the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water received increased and sooner and it was too dangerous to continue.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood needed to learn to comply with the principles and use frequent sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, but I can't forget. Fortunately, I still remember my mom as a happy lady, a joyful girl who loved her household," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mother by listening to her screams behind that van."

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