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 girls in search of psychological health remedy 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 guilty of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless murder.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their families said they were not violent. Newton was solely searching for drugs for her concern and anxiousness and Green’s family stated she was committed to a mental facility at an everyday mental health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after a number of relatives of the women said his resolution to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole of their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, cussed man,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-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 Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 years on every reckless murder cost and ordered the sentences served back-to-back.

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

The deputies stated they spoke to the women and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour as the water saved rising earlier than it got too harmful and rescuers might now not hear them.

“How awful must which were to sit down there and wait to your personal loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

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

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

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he could not turn around because he might not see the edge of the freeway and was worried about working right 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 simply 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 said whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others had been trying to unfairly blame just the previous deputy as an alternative of the tools issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and despatched him though taking the women to the mental well being facilities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you simply resist the urge to attempt to give justice to those two girls by giving injustice to this good man," defense attorney 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 judge he tried all the pieces he may to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and assist was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a collection of errors on my part and different those that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the girls,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been ultimately 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 surely still wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was pricey too. A firefighter testified they were able to minimize the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, but the water obtained greater and faster and it was too dangerous to continue.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood needed to study to follow the rules and use common sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, but I can not forget. Happily, I nonetheless remember my mom as a contented woman, a joyful woman who loved her family," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mother by hearing her screams in the back of that van."

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