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 mental health therapy trapped in a cage in the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

A Marion County jury discovered former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood guilty 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, but their families stated they weren't violent. Newton was only seeking medication for her fear and nervousness and Inexperienced’s household said she was dedicated to a mental facility at an everyday psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after a number of relatives of the women 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 movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson instructed the judge. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save lots of time.”

Circuit Court Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter cost and four years on every 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 towards a guardrail, preventing 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, based on testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies stated they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water kept rising earlier than it bought too harmful and rescuers could now not hear them.

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

While different elements like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by way of water.

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 just outside Nichols, however Flood drove around them after briefly speaking to the soldiers.

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he could not flip around as a result of he may now not see the sting of the freeway and was fearful about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Perhaps it wounded his satisfaction 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 while it was a horrible tragedy, others had been trying to unfairly blame just the former deputy as a substitute of the gear problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and sent him though taking the ladies to the psychological health services was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced instructed the choose he tried all the things he could to maintain the ladies calm because the waters rose and assist was slow to arrive.

“It was a sequence of mistakes on my half and other those who led me to that point and I’m sorry for what happened to the ladies,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were ultimately rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities said. 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 would not open. The delay in getting help was costly too. A firefighter testified they had been in a position to cut the roof off the van and began working on the cage, but the water bought increased and quicker and it was too harmful to continue.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood needed to be taught to follow the foundations and use widespread sense at such a steep price.

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

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