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 within the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two women searching for mental health 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 murder.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, but their households mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was only in search of drugs for her fear and nervousness and Inexperienced’s family stated she was dedicated to a mental facility at an everyday mental well being 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 relations of the women mentioned his determination to press forward 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,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Green-Johnson informed the choose. “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 Courtroom Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter cost 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 against a guardrail, stopping 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, in line with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the women and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water stored rising before it bought too dangerous and rescuers might now not hear them.

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

Whereas different elements like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he couldn't flip round because he could no longer see the sting of the highway and was anxious about operating into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer stated whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others have been attempting to unfairly blame simply the former deputy instead of the tools problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and despatched him regardless that taking the women to the mental well being services was not an emergency.

"I ask that you resist the urge to try to give justice to those two women by giving injustice to this good man," protection legal professional Jarrett Bouchette stated. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, but before he was sentenced told the judge he tried every little thing he could to keep the ladies calm because the waters rose and help was sluggish to reach.

“It was a collection of mistakes on my half and different those who led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the girls,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been finally rescued from the top 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, nevertheless it nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they had been capable of lower the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, but the water acquired greater and quicker and it was too harmful to continue.

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

“I can forgive, but I can not overlook. Fortuitously, I still keep in mind my mom as a cheerful girl, a joyful lady who cherished her household," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by listening to her screams behind that van."

———

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