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 seeking psychological health treatment trapped in a cage within the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury found 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 dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their households stated they were not violent. Newton was only seeking medication for her fear and nervousness and Inexperienced’s family said she was committed to a mental facility at an everyday mental health appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after several kin of the ladies stated his resolution to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson instructed 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 5 years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter cost 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 stated they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour as the water stored rising earlier than it obtained too dangerous and rescuers may not hear them.

“How awful must which have been to take a seat there and wait for your own loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

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

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

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he could not turn round as a result of he could now not see the edge of the highway and was nervous about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others were attempting to unfairly blame just the former deputy as a substitute of the tools issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and sent him although taking the women to the mental well being amenities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you just resist the urge to try to give justice to those two girls by giving injustice to this good man," protection legal professional Jarrett Bouchette said. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, however earlier than he was sentenced instructed the judge he tried all the pieces he could to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and help was gradual to arrive.

“It was a series of mistakes on my part and different those that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the ladies,” Flood said.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been eventually rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities said. Bishop will stand trial for two counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, however it still would not open. The delay in getting help was expensive too. A firefighter testified they had been capable of cut the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water obtained increased and quicker and it was too dangerous to continue.

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

“I can forgive, however I can not forget. Happily, I nonetheless keep in mind my mom as a cheerful lady, a joyful lady who loved her family," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mom 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.