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 in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two women searching for psychological health treatment trapped in a cage in 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 dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their households stated they were not violent. Newton was solely seeking medicine for her concern and nervousness and Green’s household mentioned she was committed to a mental facility at an everyday psychological 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 family of the ladies mentioned 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 told the decide. “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 Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter charge and four 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 did not have a key to a second door and there was no emergency escape hatch, in response to 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 stored rising earlier than it got too dangerous and rescuers may no longer hear them.

“How awful must which have been to sit down there and wait for your personal death?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different components like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated 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 exterior Nichols, however Flood drove round them after briefly talking to the soldiers.

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he could not flip around because he may now not see the sting of the freeway and was nervous about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Perhaps it wounded his pride or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed ahead into water that was not simply standing in a tall puddle, nevertheless it was rushing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements said.

Flood's lawyer mentioned while it was a terrible tragedy, others have been attempting to unfairly blame just the previous deputy as a substitute of the equipment issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and sent him regardless that taking the women to the psychological well being amenities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you resist the urge to try to give justice to these two ladies by giving injustice to this good man," defense attorney Jarrett Bouchette said. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, however earlier than he was sentenced advised the judge he tried every part he may to keep the women calm because the waters rose and assist was slow to reach.

“It was a sequence of errors on my part and different 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, were eventually rescued from the top 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, however it nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting help was costly too. A firefighter testified they were in a position to reduce the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, but the water obtained greater and quicker and it was too dangerous to continue.

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

“I can forgive, but I can't overlook. Thankfully, I nonetheless keep in mind my mother as a happy lady, a joyful lady who liked her family," he stated. “However you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mother by hearing her screams in the back of that van."

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