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 women searching for psychological health treatment trapped in a cage within the again 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 homicide.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, however their households said they were not violent. Newton was only seeking drugs for her fear and anxiety and Inexperienced’s family stated 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 verdict and after several kinfolk of the ladies stated his choice to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole of their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson told the choose. “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 Courtroom Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter cost 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 against a guardrail, preventing the women from with 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 response to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

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

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

Whereas different factors like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) via water.

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 just exterior Nichols, but Flood drove round them after briefly talking to the troopers.

Clements learn from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he couldn't flip round as a result of he might now not see the sting of the highway and was fearful about operating right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Possibly it wounded his satisfaction or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed forward into water that was not just standing in a tall puddle, nevertheless it was speeding, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements said.

Flood's lawyer mentioned while it was a terrible tragedy, others had been making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as an alternative of the tools issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and despatched him even though taking the women to the psychological health services was not an emergency.

"I ask that you simply resist the urge to try to give justice to these two girls by giving injustice to this good man," protection lawyer Jarrett Bouchette mentioned. “They want to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, however before he was sentenced told the choose he tried everything he may to maintain the women calm as the waters rose and help was sluggish to reach.

“It was a series of mistakes on my part and different people that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the girls,” Flood said.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been eventually rescued from the top 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 nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting help was expensive too. A firefighter testified they were in a position to reduce the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water bought increased and quicker and it was too harmful to continue.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood had to be taught to follow the foundations and use frequent sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, but I can not forget. Happily, I nonetheless keep in mind my mother as a contented girl, a joyful lady who liked her family," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom 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.