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 in search of psychological well being therapy trapped in a cage in the again 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 Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their households stated they weren't violent. Newton was solely looking for medicine for her fear and anxiety and Green’s family mentioned she was dedicated to a mental facility at a daily mental 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 relatives of the women said his decision to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap of their lives.

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

Circuit Court Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter charge and four years on every reckless homicide charge 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, preventing the ladies 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 stated they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water kept rising before it acquired too harmful and rescuers could now not hear them.

“How awful must which were to sit down there and wait for your own death?” 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 actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless resolution to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 just outside Nichols, but Flood drove round them after briefly speaking to the soldiers.

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he couldn't turn round because he may no longer see the sting of the freeway and was frightened about running 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 just standing in a tall puddle, but it was dashing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements mentioned.

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others had been attempting to unfairly blame just the former deputy as an alternative of the gear issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him although taking the ladies to the psychological well being amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced advised the judge he tried everything he could to keep the women calm because the waters rose and assist was gradual to reach.

“It was a collection of errors on my part and other people who led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the women,” Flood stated.

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 2 counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, but it nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they had been able to lower the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water got increased and sooner and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood needed to learn to comply with the rules and use common sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, however I can't neglect. Fortunately, I nonetheless remember my mother as a happy woman, a joyful girl who cherished her family," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mother by listening to her screams at the back of that van."

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