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 ladies seeking psychological health therapy 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 guilty of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless murder.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, however their households mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was only searching for drugs for her worry and anxiousness and Green’s family said she was dedicated to a psychological facility at a daily mental health appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after several kin of the women said his choice to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap in their lives.

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

Circuit Court Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 years on each reckless murder charge 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, in line with 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 as the water stored rising before it received too dangerous and rescuers could now not hear them.

“How terrible should that have been to take a seat there and wait for your own loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned 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 choice to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) through water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he could not turn round as a result of he might now not see the sting of the freeway and was nervous about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer mentioned whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others have been trying to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as a substitute of the gear 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 psychological well being facilities 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," defense attorney Jarrett Bouchette mentioned. “They want to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, however earlier than he was sentenced told the choose he tried every little thing he could to keep the women calm because the waters rose and assist 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 happened to the girls,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been eventually rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities mentioned. 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 assist was pricey too. A firefighter testified they have been able to cut the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water got greater and quicker and it was too harmful to continue.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood needed to study to follow the rules and use frequent sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, but I cannot neglect. Fortunately, I nonetheless remember my mother as a contented girl, a joyful girl who liked her family," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mother by hearing her screams at the back of that van."

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