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 ladies looking for psychological well being treatment trapped in a cage within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

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 dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their households said they were not violent. Newton was solely searching for medication for her fear and anxiousness and Inexperienced’s household stated she was dedicated to a psychological facility at an everyday psychological health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the verdict and after a number of family of the women said 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,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-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 Court docket Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 years on each reckless murder cost and ordered the sentences served back-to-back.

The floodwaters swept the police van off its wheels in September 2018 and pinned it towards a guardrail, stopping the ladies 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 accordance with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies stated they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour as the water kept rising before it obtained too harmful and rescuers could not hear them.

“How terrible must that have been to sit there and wait for your own demise?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different factors like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) through water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he could not flip round as a result of he could not see the edge of the freeway and was fearful about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer mentioned whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others had been attempting to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as a substitute of the gear issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and sent him although taking the women to the psychological health services was not an emergency.

"I ask that you resist the urge to try to give justice to these two girls by giving injustice to this good man," defense attorney Jarrett Bouchette stated. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced told the choose he tried the whole lot he could to keep the women calm as the waters rose and help was gradual to arrive.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been finally rescued from the top 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, but it surely nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was expensive too. A firefighter testified they were able to cut the roof off the van and began working on the cage, but the water bought larger and quicker and it was too harmful to continue.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood had to be taught to follow the rules and use common sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, however I can't neglect. Fortuitously, I still bear in mind my mother as a happy girl, a joyful lady who beloved her family," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mother by hearing her screams behind that van."

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