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 women seeking psychological well being treatment trapped in a cage in the back 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 murder.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families said they were not violent. Newton was only looking for medication for her worry and anxiety and Green’s household stated she was committed to a psychological facility at a regular mental well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after several family of the ladies stated 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 movement by a pompous, cussed man,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson instructed the choose. “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 each involuntary manslaughter cost 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 against 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, based on testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour as the water saved rising before it got too harmful and rescuers may now not hear them.

“How awful should that have been to take a seat there and wait in your own dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas other elements like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless choice to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) via water.

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply outdoors Nichols, however Flood drove around 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 flip round as a result of he might not see the edge of the freeway and was frightened 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 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 mentioned while it was a horrible tragedy, others were trying to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as an alternative of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and sent him despite the fact that taking the women to the mental health services 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 lawyer Jarrett Bouchette said. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced instructed the judge he tried all the things he may to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and help was gradual to reach.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were finally 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, but it surely nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was expensive too. A firefighter testified they have been capable of cut the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, but the water bought increased and quicker and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood had to be taught to observe the foundations and use common sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, but I can't forget. Luckily, I still keep in mind my mother as a cheerful woman, a joyful girl who liked her household," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mother by listening to her screams at the back of that van."

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