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 in search of psychological well being treatment trapped in a cage within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury discovered former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood guilty 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 said they weren't violent. Newton was solely in search of drugs for her fear and anxiousness and Green’s family stated she was committed to a mental facility at an everyday mental health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after a number of relatives of the ladies mentioned his choice to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole of their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, cussed 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 Court Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on each 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 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 keeping with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

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

“How terrible must that have been to take a seat there and wait for your own dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

While different components like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's precise 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) through water.

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

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 might now not see the sting of the freeway and was anxious about working into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe it wounded his pleasure or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed forward into water that was not simply standing in a tall puddle, nevertheless it was speeding, 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 had been trying to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as an alternative of the tools problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him despite the fact that taking the ladies to the psychological health services 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," defense attorney Jarrett Bouchette mentioned. “They want to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, however earlier than he was sentenced told the choose he tried every part he could to maintain the women calm because the waters rose and assist was gradual to arrive.

“It was a collection of mistakes on my part and other those that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what happened to the women,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been 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, however it nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they have been able to lower the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water received greater and sooner and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood had to be taught to observe the rules and use common sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, but I can't forget. Fortunately, I still remember my mother as a contented lady, a joyful woman who liked her family," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mom by listening to her screams at the back of that van."

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