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 women in search of psychological well being remedy trapped in a cage within 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 Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families stated they weren't violent. Newton was only looking for medication for her fear and anxiety and Green’s household mentioned she was committed to a mental facility at a daily mental well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after a number of kin of the ladies mentioned 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 Inexperienced-Johnson told the judge. “He abused the trust 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 5 years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on each reckless murder charge and ordered the sentences served back-to-back.

The floodwaters swept the police van off its wheels in September 2018 and pinned it towards a guardrail, stopping the women from with the ability 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 keeping with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour as the water kept rising earlier than it bought too harmful and rescuers might no longer hear them.

“How terrible must which were to take a seat there and wait for your own demise?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

While other 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 got here out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by way of water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he could not turn round because he might not see the sting of the freeway and was fearful about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Perhaps 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 surely was dashing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements mentioned.

Flood's lawyer stated while it was a horrible tragedy, others had been attempting to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy instead of the tools issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him regardless that taking the ladies to the psychological well being facilities 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," defense lawyer Jarrett Bouchette mentioned. “They wish to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, but before he was sentenced instructed the decide he tried every part he may to keep the women calm because the waters rose and help was slow to arrive.

“It was a collection of errors on my part and different people who led me to that point and I’m sorry for what happened to the girls,” 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 nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting assist was pricey too. A firefighter testified they have been in a position to reduce the roof off the van and started working on the cage, however the water received increased and faster and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood needed to study to observe the rules and use frequent sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, however I can't neglect. Happily, I still remember my mom as a contented girl, a joyful woman who loved her household," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by listening to her screams behind that van."

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