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 ladies looking for mental health remedy trapped in a cage in the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

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 Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their households stated they weren't violent. Newton was only searching for drugs for her worry and nervousness and Green’s family stated she was committed to a psychological facility at a regular psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after a number of relatives of the ladies stated his resolution to press forward 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,” Inexperienced'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 save time.”

Circuit Courtroom Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on every reckless homicide cost 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 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 response to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

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

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

Whereas different factors like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless choice to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

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

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he could not flip round as a result of he could now not see the sting of the highway and was anxious about running right 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 stated.

Flood's lawyer mentioned while it was a horrible tragedy, others have been making an attempt to unfairly blame just the former deputy instead of the tools problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and sent him although taking the ladies to the mental health amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced advised the decide he tried all the pieces he may to maintain the women calm because the waters rose and assist was gradual to arrive.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have 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, however it still would not open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they had been in a position to lower the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water obtained larger and sooner and it was too dangerous to continue.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood had to study to observe the rules and use common sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, but I cannot neglect. Fortuitously, I still keep in mind my mom as a happy woman, a joyful lady who beloved her family," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mom by listening to her screams at the back of that van."

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