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 girls looking for mental well being treatment trapped in a cage in the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

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 Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was solely looking for medicine for her worry and anxiousness and Green’s household mentioned she was committed to a psychological facility at an everyday psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after several relatives of the women mentioned his decision to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole of their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, cussed man,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson instructed the judge. “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 Court docket Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 years on each 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 against a guardrail, preventing the women from with 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, in response to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water stored rising before it bought too harmful and rescuers might now not hear them.

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

While other factors like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless resolution to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by way of water.

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply 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 within the water, he could not turn around as a result of he might no longer see the sting of the highway and was worried about working into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Perhaps it wounded his satisfaction or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed ahead 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 stated.

Flood's lawyer stated while it was a terrible tragedy, others had been attempting 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 beginning and sent him regardless that taking the women to the psychological health 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 attorney Jarrett Bouchette said. “They want to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, however before he was sentenced informed the decide he tried every little thing he might to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and help was gradual to reach.

“It was a series of mistakes on my half and different folks that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what happened to the women,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were eventually rescued from the top 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 still would not open. The delay in getting help was pricey too. A firefighter testified they were capable of minimize the roof off the van and began working on the cage, but the water bought higher and faster and it was too dangerous to continue.

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

“I can forgive, however I can't forget. Thankfully, I still keep in mind my mom as a contented girl, a joyful woman who cherished her family," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mother by hearing her screams in the back of that van."

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