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 in search of psychological well being remedy trapped in a cage within the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

A Marion County jury found 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 families mentioned they were not violent. Newton was only searching for drugs for her fear and anxiousness and Inexperienced’s household mentioned she was committed to a mental facility at an everyday mental well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the verdict and after a number of family members of the women stated his decision to press ahead 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 Green-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 Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on every reckless homicide charge 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 having 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 line with 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 kept rising before it bought too harmful and rescuers may now not hear them.

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

Whereas different 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) through water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he could not turn around because he may no longer see the sting of the freeway and was nervous about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe it wounded his pride or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed forward into water that was not simply 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 said.

Flood's lawyer said while it was a terrible tragedy, others have been trying to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy as an alternative of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and despatched him even though taking the women to the psychological well being amenities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you just resist the urge to attempt to give justice to those two girls by giving injustice to this good man," defense lawyer Jarrett Bouchette mentioned. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, but before he was sentenced told the choose he tried every part he may to keep the women calm because the waters rose and assist was slow to reach.

“It was a sequence of errors on my half and different people that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the women,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been eventually rescued from the highest 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, nevertheless it still would not open. The delay in getting help was costly too. A firefighter testified they had been capable of minimize the roof off the van and began working on the cage, however the water bought increased and sooner and it was too dangerous to proceed.

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

“I can forgive, but I can't overlook. Thankfully, I still bear in mind my mom as a happy lady, a joyful girl who beloved her family," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mother by listening to her screams behind that van."

———

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