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

A Marion County jury found 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 Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their families said they were not violent. Newton was solely seeking drugs for her fear and anxiety and Green’s family said she was committed to a psychological facility at an everyday psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after a number of family of the ladies stated his choice to press ahead 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 instructed the decide. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To avoid wasting time.”

Circuit Court docket Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on every 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 ladies 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, according to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies stated they spoke to the women and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water stored rising before it acquired too harmful and rescuers might not hear them.

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

While other elements like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all came 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 simply outdoors Nichols, however Flood drove round them after briefly talking to the troopers.

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he could not turn round as a result of he may now not see the sting of the highway and was nervous about working into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer said while it was a horrible tragedy, others were attempting to unfairly blame simply the former deputy instead of the gear problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him despite the fact that taking the ladies to the mental health services was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, but before he was sentenced instructed the decide he tried all the things he might to keep the women calm because the waters rose and help was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a collection of mistakes on my half and different folks that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the girls,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been finally rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities mentioned. 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 costly too. A firefighter testified they were able to minimize the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, however the water received greater and sooner and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood needed to learn to follow the rules and use common sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, but I can't neglect. Thankfully, I nonetheless remember my mom as a happy lady, a joyful lady who loved her household," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mother by listening to her screams in the back of that van."

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