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 in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two ladies searching for mental well being remedy trapped in a cage within the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury discovered 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 Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their families said they were not violent. Newton was only seeking drugs for her fear and anxiety and Green’s household mentioned she was dedicated to a psychological facility at an everyday psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after a number of kinfolk of the women mentioned 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 motion by a pompous, cussed man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson told the decide. “He abused the belief my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save time.”

Circuit Court docket Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge and four 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 towards a guardrail, preventing the women 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, according to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising before it acquired too dangerous and rescuers might now not hear them.

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

While different elements like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless decision 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 around them after briefly speaking to the soldiers.

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was within the water, he couldn't flip around because he may not see the sting of the highway and was nervous about working into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer mentioned while it was a terrible tragedy, others had been making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy instead of the gear issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and sent him though taking the women to the psychological well being services was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, but earlier than he was sentenced instructed the decide he tried every part he may to maintain the ladies calm as the waters rose and assist was slow to reach.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were ultimately rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities mentioned. 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 nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they had been in a position to minimize the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water acquired larger and sooner and it was too dangerous to continue.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood needed to learn to observe the rules and use common sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, but I can not overlook. Thankfully, I nonetheless keep in mind my mother as a contented lady, a joyful lady who loved her family," he stated. “But you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mother by hearing her screams in the back of that van."

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