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 girls searching for psychological well being therapy 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 murder.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, however their households mentioned they were not violent. Newton was solely looking for medication for her worry and nervousness and Green’s household said she was committed to a psychological 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 verdict and after a number of kin of the women stated 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 movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson informed 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 Court docket Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 years on each reckless homicide 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 ladies from having 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, based on testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies stated they spoke to the ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising before it bought too harmful and rescuers might not hear them.

“How awful must that have been to sit there and wait on your personal death?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

While different factors like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by way of water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 simply outdoors Nichols, but Flood drove round them after briefly speaking 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 turn round because he might not see the sting of the freeway and was anxious about working right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe it wounded his pride 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 said.

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others were making an attempt to unfairly blame just the former deputy instead of the equipment issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and sent him although taking the ladies to the psychological health services was not an emergency.

"I ask that you simply resist the urge to try to give justice to those 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 didn't testify, however before he was sentenced instructed the judge he tried every little thing he could to maintain the women calm because the waters rose and assist was slow to reach.

“It was a series of errors on my part and other those who led me to that time and I’m sorry for what occurred to the ladies,” 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 two 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 costly too. A firefighter testified they had been capable of lower the roof off the van and started working on the cage, however the water obtained increased and faster and it was too dangerous to continue.

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

“I can forgive, however I can not neglect. Luckily, I nonetheless remember my mother as a happy girl, a joyful girl who beloved her household," he stated. “However you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mom by listening to her screams in the back of that van."

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