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 seeking psychological 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 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 families mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was solely in search of drugs for her concern and anxiety and Inexperienced’s household said she was committed to a mental facility at a regular psychological health 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 kin of the ladies stated 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 movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson instructed the judge. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save time.”

Circuit Court Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 years on each reckless homicide 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 having the ability to get out the sliding door they used to enter the van. Flood and a deputy with him did not have a key to a second door and there was no emergency escape hatch, in keeping with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the women and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water kept rising earlier than it got too harmful and rescuers may no longer hear them.

“How awful should which have been to take a seat there and wait in your own dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas other factors like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by way of water.

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

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 may no longer see the edge of the freeway and was worried about working 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 just standing in a tall puddle, nevertheless it was rushing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements mentioned.

Flood's lawyer stated while it was a horrible tragedy, others had been attempting to unfairly blame just the previous deputy as a substitute of the gear problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and despatched him even though 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 ladies by giving injustice to this good man," defense legal professional Jarrett Bouchette stated. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, however earlier than he was sentenced instructed the decide he tried everything he may to keep the women calm as the waters rose and help was slow to arrive.

“It was a series of mistakes on my half and other folks 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, had been ultimately 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, however it still wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they had been able to reduce the roof off the van and started working on the cage, however the water acquired larger and quicker and it was too harmful to continue.

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

“I can forgive, however I can't overlook. Happily, I nonetheless bear in mind my mom as a cheerful girl, a joyful lady who beloved her family," he mentioned. “However you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mom by listening to her screams behind that van."

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