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 girls searching for mental well being remedy trapped in a cage within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

A Marion County jury discovered former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood responsible of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless homicide.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their families stated they were not violent. Newton was only in search of medication for her fear and nervousness and Green’s family mentioned she was committed to a mental facility at a regular psychological health appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after a number of kin of the ladies stated his decision to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson told the choose. “He abused the belief 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 every 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 having the ability to get out the sliding door they used to enter the van. Flood and a deputy with him didn't 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 ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising before it obtained too dangerous and rescuers might now not hear them.

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

Whereas other components like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) through water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he could not flip around because he might not see the edge of the freeway and was frightened about working into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Possibly it wounded his pride 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 just the previous deputy as a substitute of the equipment issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and sent him despite the fact that taking the women to the mental well being amenities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you just resist the urge to try to give justice to those two ladies by giving injustice to this good man," protection legal professional Jarrett Bouchette said. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, however earlier than he was sentenced told the decide he tried the whole lot he might to keep the women calm as the waters rose and assist was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a sequence of mistakes on my part and other folks that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what happened to the ladies,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been ultimately rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities mentioned. Bishop will stand trial for 2 counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, however it still would not open. The delay in getting assist was pricey too. A firefighter testified they were capable of reduce the roof off the van and started working on the cage, however the water acquired higher and quicker and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood had to study to follow the rules and use widespread sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, but I cannot neglect. Luckily, I still bear in mind my mother as a cheerful woman, a joyful lady who cherished her household," he stated. “However you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mother by listening to her screams in the back of that van."

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