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 psychological well being therapy trapped in a cage within the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

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 Green, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, but their households said they were not violent. Newton was solely searching for medicine for her concern and nervousness and Green’s family said she was dedicated 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 kin of the ladies said his determination 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 informed the decide. “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 ladies 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, according to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour as the water kept rising before it obtained too dangerous and rescuers could no longer hear them.

“How terrible must which were to take a seat there and wait to your personal loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

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

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply outdoors Nichols, however Flood drove round them after briefly speaking to the soldiers.

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was within the water, he could not turn round because he could not see the edge of the freeway and was apprehensive about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Possibly it wounded his pleasure or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed ahead 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 mentioned.

Flood's lawyer mentioned whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others had been trying to unfairly blame just the previous 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 sent him regardless that taking the ladies to the mental well being facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, but earlier than he was sentenced informed the judge he tried all the pieces he may to maintain the ladies calm because the waters rose and help was gradual to arrive.

“It was a sequence of errors on my half and other people that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the women,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were eventually rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities stated. 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 nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was costly too. A firefighter testified they were in a position to minimize the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water bought increased and faster and it was too harmful to continue.

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

“I can forgive, but I can't forget. Happily, I nonetheless keep in mind my mom as a happy woman, a joyful girl who beloved her family," he stated. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mother by listening to her screams behind that van."

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