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 looking for mental well being therapy trapped in a cage within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

A Marion County jury found 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 dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their households stated they weren't violent. Newton was only looking for medication for her concern and anxiety and Green’s household said she was dedicated to a mental facility at a regular psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after several family of the ladies mentioned his decision to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson advised the decide. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save time.”

Circuit Courtroom Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter charge and four 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 ladies 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, according to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water kept rising earlier than it bought too dangerous and rescuers could no longer hear them.

“How awful should that have been to sit down there and wait on your own death?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different factors like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by water.

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

Clements learn 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 may not see the edge of the highway and was anxious about operating into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe 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 said whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others have been attempting to unfairly blame just the previous deputy as an alternative of the equipment issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and despatched him even though taking the ladies to the mental health services was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, however before he was sentenced told the decide he tried every little thing he may to maintain the ladies calm as the waters rose and assist was slow to arrive.

“It was a collection of mistakes on my half and other those who led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the women,” Flood said.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were ultimately rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities stated. 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 help was pricey too. A firefighter testified they had been in a position to cut the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water got increased and sooner and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood had to study to observe the rules and use common sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, but I can not overlook. Luckily, I still bear in mind my mother as a happy woman, a joyful woman who liked her family," he mentioned. “However you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mom by listening to her screams at the back of that van."

———

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