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 women looking for psychological well being treatment trapped in a cage within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

A Marion County jury discovered 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 Green, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, however their families said they were not violent. Newton was only in search of medicine for her worry and anxiousness and Inexperienced’s family said she was committed to a mental facility at an everyday mental health appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after several family of the ladies mentioned his resolution to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, cussed man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Green-Johnson told the judge. “He abused the belief my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To avoid wasting time.”

Circuit Courtroom Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on every reckless homicide charge 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 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, in response to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies stated they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour as the water kept rising before it received too dangerous and rescuers could no longer hear them.

“How awful should that have been to sit there and wait for your own loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas other 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 came out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

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

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he couldn't turn round because he could now not see the edge of the highway and was apprehensive about running 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 just standing in a tall puddle, however it was dashing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements said.

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others have been trying to unfairly blame just the previous deputy as a substitute of the tools problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and sent him despite the fact that taking the ladies to the mental well being facilities 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," protection legal professional Jarrett Bouchette mentioned. “They wish to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, but before he was sentenced instructed the decide he tried every part he may to keep the women calm as the waters rose and assist was gradual to reach.

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

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 two counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, nevertheless it nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was pricey too. A firefighter testified they have been in a position to minimize the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, but the water got greater and quicker and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood needed to be taught to follow the rules and use common sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, however I can't neglect. Thankfully, I nonetheless remember my mother as a happy lady, a joyful girl who cherished her family," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mom by hearing her screams in the back of that van."

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