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

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 Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was solely searching for drugs for her worry and anxiety and Inexperienced’s family stated she was dedicated to a mental facility at a regular mental health appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the verdict and after a number of relatives of the ladies said his resolution to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole of their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson advised 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 Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on each reckless murder cost and ordered the sentences served back-to-back.

The floodwaters swept the police van off its wheels in September 2018 and pinned it against a guardrail, preventing the women 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, based on testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water kept rising before it obtained too harmful and rescuers may now not hear them.

“How awful should which were to take a seat there and wait on your personal dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different elements like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless choice to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply exterior Nichols, but Flood drove around them after briefly talking to the soldiers.

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was within the water, he could not turn round because he might not see the sting of the freeway and was fearful 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, but it surely was dashing, 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 had been attempting to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as a substitute of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and despatched him despite the fact that taking the ladies to the psychological health facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, but earlier than he was sentenced informed the choose he tried all the things he may to keep the women calm because the waters rose and help was gradual to arrive.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been finally rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities mentioned. Bishop will stand trial for two counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, but it surely nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they were in a position to lower the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, but the water received increased and faster and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood needed to study to comply with the foundations and use widespread sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, however I cannot overlook. Luckily, I nonetheless bear in mind my mom as a cheerful girl, a joyful lady who loved her household," he said. “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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Comply with Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.