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 in search of mental well being remedy trapped in a cage in the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

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, but their households mentioned they were not violent. Newton was solely looking for medication for her fear and anxiousness and Green’s household mentioned she was dedicated to a psychological facility at a regular mental health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after a number of relations of the ladies mentioned 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, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson instructed the choose. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save lots of time.”

Circuit Court Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on each 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 in opposition to a guardrail, preventing 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, according to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

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

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

Whereas other elements like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 just exterior Nichols, however Flood drove around them after briefly speaking to the troopers.

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he could not flip around as a result of he may no longer see the sting of the highway and was fearful about running right 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, however it was speeding, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements stated.

Flood's lawyer stated whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others had been attempting to unfairly blame just the previous deputy as an alternative of the equipment issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and sent him regardless that taking the women to the mental health facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, however before he was sentenced advised the decide he tried everything he could to maintain the ladies calm as the waters rose and assist was gradual to arrive.

“It was a sequence of mistakes on my part and other people who led me to that time and I’m sorry for what occurred to the girls,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been ultimately rescued from the top 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, but it surely still wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was pricey too. A firefighter testified they have been in a position to cut the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water got increased and faster and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood needed to be taught to observe the principles and use frequent sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, however I cannot forget. Fortunately, I nonetheless keep in mind my mom as a happy girl, a joyful woman who loved her family," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember 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.