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 psychological well being remedy trapped in a cage within the back 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 homicide.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their families mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was only in search of medication for her worry and nervousness and Inexperienced’s family mentioned 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 relatives of the ladies mentioned his decision 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, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson instructed the choose. “He abused the belief my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save lots of time.”

Circuit Courtroom Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter charge 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 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 response to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour as the water kept rising before it obtained too harmful and rescuers could now not hear them.

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

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

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 simply exterior Nichols, however Flood drove round them after briefly talking to the soldiers.

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he could not flip round because he could not see the sting of the freeway and was frightened about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer mentioned while it was a horrible tragedy, others were attempting to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as a substitute of the tools issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and despatched him regardless that taking the women to the mental well being facilities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you simply resist the urge to try to give justice to these two women 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 informed the choose he tried all the pieces he could to maintain the ladies calm because the waters rose and help was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a series of errors on my half and different people 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, had been ultimately rescued from the highest 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, nevertheless it nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was pricey too. A firefighter testified they had been in a position to minimize the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, but the water got higher and sooner and it was too dangerous to continue.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood had to learn to observe the foundations and use common sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, however I can't neglect. Happily, I still remember my mother as a happy woman, a joyful girl who cherished her family," he stated. “But you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by hearing her screams in the back of that van."

———

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