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 in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two ladies in search of mental health treatment 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, but their households said they were not violent. Newton was solely seeking medication for her concern and nervousness and Inexperienced’s household stated she was committed to a mental facility at a regular mental well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after a number of kinfolk of the ladies mentioned his resolution 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 Inexperienced-Johnson informed the judge. “He abused the belief my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save lots of time.”

Circuit Courtroom Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter charge 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 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 response 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 saved rising before it acquired too harmful and rescuers may now not hear them.

“How awful should which have been to sit down there and wait to your personal demise?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated 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 determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

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

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was within the water, he couldn't flip around because he could now not see the edge of the highway and was frightened about operating right into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer mentioned while it was a horrible tragedy, others had been making an attempt to unfairly blame just the previous deputy as an alternative of the tools issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and despatched him though taking the women to the mental health facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, but before he was sentenced advised the judge he tried every thing he may to maintain the women calm as the waters rose and assist was gradual to reach.

“It was a collection of mistakes on my half and other those that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what happened to the women,” 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 surely nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they had been capable of reduce the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water bought larger and faster and it was too harmful to continue.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood had to be taught to follow the principles and use frequent sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, however I can not overlook. Thankfully, I nonetheless keep in mind my mom as a cheerful girl, a joyful girl who beloved her household," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by listening to her screams behind that van."

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