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 therapy trapped in a cage in the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

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 Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their households mentioned they were not violent. Newton was solely seeking medicine for her fear and anxiousness and Inexperienced’s household mentioned she was dedicated to a mental facility at a daily mental well being 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 kin 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,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Green-Johnson informed the choose. “He abused the belief my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save time.”

Circuit Court docket Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge 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 against a guardrail, stopping the ladies from with 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 keep them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising earlier than it acquired too dangerous and rescuers might no longer 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.

While other components like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless resolution to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) via water.

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 just outdoors 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 couldn't flip around because he might no longer see the edge of the freeway and was fearful about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe it wounded his delight or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed forward into water that was not just 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 mentioned.

Flood's lawyer stated whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others had been attempting to unfairly blame just the previous deputy instead of the tools problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and despatched him despite the fact that taking the ladies to the mental well being services was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, however before he was sentenced told the choose he tried every little thing he could to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and help was gradual to arrive.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been eventually rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities stated. 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 would not open. The delay in getting assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they were able to lower the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water obtained greater and quicker and it was too dangerous to proceed.

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

“I can forgive, however I cannot overlook. Happily, I still bear in mind my mom as a happy girl, a joyful woman who liked her household," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mom 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.