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 searching for psychological health therapy 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 homicide.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their families stated they were not violent. Newton was only looking for drugs for her fear and anxiousness and Inexperienced’s household mentioned she was committed to a mental facility at a daily mental health appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after several family of the women mentioned his determination to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson advised the decide. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save time.”

Circuit Courtroom Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter cost 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 in opposition to a guardrail, stopping the women from being able 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 accordance with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies stated they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising before it received too harmful and rescuers could no longer hear them.

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

Whereas other elements like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless resolution to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by water.

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

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he couldn't flip around because he may not see the sting of the highway and was frightened about working 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 just standing in a tall puddle, but it surely was speeding, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements mentioned.

Flood's lawyer stated while it was a terrible tragedy, others had been making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the former deputy instead of the gear issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and despatched him though taking the ladies to the psychological health services was not an emergency.

"I ask that you resist the urge to try to give justice to those two women by giving injustice to this good man," protection legal professional Jarrett Bouchette stated. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, however before he was sentenced instructed the choose he tried the whole lot he could to maintain the ladies calm because the waters rose and help was sluggish to arrive.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been 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 still would not open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they had been capable of minimize the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, but the water acquired larger and faster and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood needed to be taught to follow the rules and use widespread sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, but I cannot overlook. Thankfully, I nonetheless remember my mother as a contented lady, a joyful girl who loved her family," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mom by hearing her screams in the back of that van."

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