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 in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two girls searching for mental well being therapy 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 Green, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, but their households stated they were not violent. Newton was only seeking medicine for her concern and nervousness and Inexperienced’s household said she was committed to a mental facility at an everyday psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after a number of family of the ladies said his determination 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 Green-Johnson told the choose. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To avoid wasting time.”

Circuit Courtroom Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on every reckless homicide 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, stopping the ladies from having the ability 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 stated they spoke to the ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water kept rising before it obtained too dangerous and rescuers could no longer hear them.

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

Whereas other components like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless resolution to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

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

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he could not flip round because he may not see the edge of the highway and was nervous about operating right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Perhaps it wounded his pride or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed ahead into water that was not simply standing in a tall puddle, but it surely was rushing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements said.

Flood's lawyer mentioned while it was a terrible tragedy, others were trying to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy as a substitute of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and despatched him even though taking the ladies to the mental 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," defense legal professional Jarrett Bouchette said. “They want to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, however before he was sentenced told the choose he tried every little thing he could to maintain the ladies calm as the waters rose and help was slow to arrive.

“It was a collection of mistakes on my half and different those who led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the ladies,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been finally rescued from the top 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 nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they have been capable of lower the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water acquired greater and faster and it was too harmful to proceed.

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

“I can forgive, but I can't neglect. Fortunately, I still bear in mind my mother as a cheerful girl, a joyful girl who loved her family," he stated. “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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Comply with Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.