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 women in search of mental well being therapy trapped in a cage in the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury found 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 stated they were not violent. Newton was only looking for drugs for her fear and anxiety and Inexperienced’s family stated she was dedicated to a psychological facility at an everyday mental well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the verdict and after several kinfolk of the ladies said his resolution 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, cussed man,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-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 save lots of time.”

Circuit Courtroom Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison 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, 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 accordance with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies stated they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water stored rising earlier than it got too dangerous and rescuers could not hear them.

“How terrible must which have been to sit down there and wait for your own dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

While different factors like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply outside 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 in the water, he could not turn round as a result of he may not see the sting of the freeway and was nervous about working into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer stated whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others had been making an attempt to unfairly blame just the previous deputy as an alternative of the gear issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and despatched him although taking the women to the psychological health amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, however earlier than he was sentenced advised the choose he tried the whole lot he may to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and assist was slow to reach.

“It was a series of errors on my half and other those who 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, had been eventually 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, but it surely still would not open. The delay in getting assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they were capable of lower the roof off the van and began working on the cage, however the water received higher and quicker and it was too harmful to proceed.

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

“I can forgive, but I can not forget. Thankfully, I nonetheless bear in mind my mother as a cheerful lady, a joyful lady who beloved her household," he stated. “But you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind 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.