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 within the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two ladies searching for psychological health treatment 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 responsible of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless murder.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families mentioned they were not violent. Newton was only in search of medication for her fear and anxiety and Green’s family mentioned she was committed to a mental facility at a regular mental well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after a number of family members of the ladies said his determination to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap in their lives.

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

Circuit Court docket Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter cost and four years on every 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 in opposition to a guardrail, stopping the women from with 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 accordance with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies stated they spoke to the ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour as the water kept rising before it got too dangerous and rescuers could no longer hear them.

“How terrible should which were to sit there and wait on your own dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different factors like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless resolution to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) via water.

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

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he couldn't turn round because he may now not see the sting of the highway and was frightened about running right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Perhaps it wounded his pride or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed forward into water that was not simply standing in a tall puddle, however it was rushing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements stated.

Flood's lawyer mentioned whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others had been making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy as an alternative of the gear problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and despatched him regardless that taking the women to the psychological well being facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, however earlier than he was sentenced advised the choose he tried the whole lot he may to keep the women calm as the waters rose and assist was gradual to arrive.

“It was a series of mistakes on my part and other those that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what occurred to the women,” Flood said.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were ultimately rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities said. 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 assist was pricey too. A firefighter testified they had been able to minimize the roof off the van and began working on the cage, however the water got greater and sooner and it was too dangerous to continue.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood had to be taught to comply with the principles and use widespread sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, but I can't neglect. Fortunately, I still bear in mind my mother as a contented woman, a joyful woman who loved her household," he mentioned. “However you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by listening to her screams at the back of that van."

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