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 looking for mental well being therapy trapped in a cage in the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

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 Green, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, but their families said they weren't violent. Newton was only searching for drugs for her fear and anxiety and Inexperienced’s family said she was dedicated to a psychological facility at an everyday mental well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the verdict and after several kin of the ladies stated his resolution 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, cussed man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson advised the judge. “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 Courtroom Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on each 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 towards a guardrail, stopping 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, based on testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned 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 may no longer hear them.

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

Whereas different factors like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's actual 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 outdoors Nichols, however Flood drove around them after briefly talking to the soldiers.

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was within the water, he couldn't turn around as a result of he might no longer see the sting of the highway and was nervous about operating right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Possibly it wounded his delight or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed forward into water that was not just 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 whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others have been making an attempt to unfairly blame just the previous deputy instead of the tools issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him although taking the ladies to the mental well being facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, however earlier than he was sentenced instructed the judge he tried every thing he could to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and help was gradual to reach.

“It was a collection of mistakes on my half and different people that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what occurred to the ladies,” Flood said.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been eventually rescued from the top 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, but it nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was expensive too. A firefighter testified they had been able to minimize the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, but the water got higher and quicker and it was too dangerous to continue.

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

“I can forgive, however I cannot neglect. Happily, I still keep in mind my mom as a cheerful girl, a joyful girl who beloved her family," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mother by listening to her screams behind that van."

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