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 within the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two women searching for psychological well being remedy 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 mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was only seeking medication for her concern and nervousness and Green’s household said she was committed to a mental facility at an everyday psychological health appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after several kinfolk of the ladies said his determination to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, cussed man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson advised the decide. “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 every involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on every 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, preventing the women from being able 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 said they spoke to the ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour as the water saved rising earlier than it acquired too dangerous and rescuers could no longer hear them.

“How awful must which were to take a seat there and wait to your own dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

While different elements like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's precise 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) through water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he couldn't turn round because he could not see the sting of the freeway and was nervous about running right into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer mentioned whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others were making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy instead of the tools problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and sent him despite the fact that taking the women to the mental well being facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, however earlier than he was sentenced instructed the choose he tried every thing he could to keep the ladies calm because the waters rose and assist was gradual 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 happened to the girls,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been eventually rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities mentioned. 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 assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they had been in a position to reduce the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water got increased and faster and it was too dangerous to proceed.

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

“I can forgive, but I can not overlook. Happily, I nonetheless bear in mind my mom as a cheerful lady, a joyful girl who cherished her family," he stated. “However you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mother by hearing her screams behind that van."

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