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 girls searching for psychological well being 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 homicide.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families said they weren't violent. Newton was solely in search of medication for her worry and anxiety and Inexperienced’s family mentioned she was dedicated to a mental facility at a regular psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

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

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, cussed man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson informed 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 Court Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 years on every reckless murder charge 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 ladies 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 line with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour as the water stored rising before it obtained too dangerous and rescuers may not hear them.

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

Whereas different elements 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 decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

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

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he could not turn around as a result of he could now not see the edge of the freeway and was fearful about working 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 surely was speeding, 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 were attempting to unfairly blame just the former deputy as an alternative of the tools issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and sent him even though taking the women to the psychological health amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced instructed the choose he tried the whole lot he might to keep the women calm as the waters rose and help was gradual to arrive.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were eventually 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, however it still would not open. The delay in getting assist was pricey too. A firefighter testified they had been able to lower the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, but the water obtained higher and faster and it was too harmful to continue.

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

“I can forgive, but I cannot neglect. Happily, I still remember my mom as a contented lady, a joyful girl who loved her household," he mentioned. “However you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by listening to her screams in the back of that van."

———

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