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 ladies looking for psychological well being therapy trapped in a cage within 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 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 were not violent. Newton was only searching for drugs for her worry and anxiousness and Green’s household stated she was dedicated to a mental facility at an everyday 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 several relations of the ladies said his resolution to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

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

The deputies said they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water kept rising earlier than it obtained too dangerous and rescuers could not hear them.

“How awful should which were to sit down there and wait to your personal demise?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas other components like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

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

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was within the water, he couldn't turn around because he might not see the sting of the highway and was frightened 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 rushing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements mentioned.

Flood's lawyer mentioned while it was a horrible tragedy, others have been making an attempt to unfairly blame just the former deputy as a substitute of the equipment issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him although taking the ladies to the mental health services was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced advised the decide he tried every little thing he may to keep the women calm because the waters rose and assist was sluggish to arrive.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been eventually 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 pricey too. A firefighter testified they had been in a position to reduce the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water bought higher and quicker and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood needed to learn to observe the foundations and use widespread sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, however I can't neglect. Thankfully, I still bear in mind my mom as a contented girl, a joyful woman who cherished her family," he mentioned. “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.