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 girls seeking mental well being remedy trapped in a cage within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

A Marion County jury discovered 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 mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was solely in search of medicine for her worry and nervousness and Green’s family mentioned she was dedicated to a psychological facility at an everyday mental 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 several relations of the ladies stated 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 motion by a pompous, cussed man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson informed the judge. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save time.”

Circuit Court Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter cost and four years on each reckless murder cost and ordered the sentences served back-to-back.

The floodwaters swept the police van off its wheels in September 2018 and pinned it against a guardrail, preventing the women 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 response to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the women and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising before it received too harmful and rescuers might no longer hear them.

“How terrible should which have been to sit there and wait for your own loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

While other elements like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) through water.

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 simply exterior Nichols, however Flood drove around them after briefly talking 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 flip around as a result of he could no longer see the sting of the highway and was anxious about operating into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others had been trying to unfairly blame just the former deputy as an alternative of the equipment issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and despatched him even though taking the women to the mental health services was not an emergency.

"I ask that you simply resist the urge to try to give justice to those two women by giving injustice to this good man," protection lawyer Jarrett Bouchette stated. “They want to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, however earlier than he was sentenced instructed the decide he tried all the pieces he could to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and assist was slow to reach.

“It was a series of mistakes on my part and other people who led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the ladies,” Flood said.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been eventually rescued from the highest 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, nevertheless it nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they have been capable of lower the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water got higher and quicker and it was too dangerous to proceed.

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

“I can forgive, however I cannot forget. Fortuitously, I nonetheless keep in mind my mother as a happy girl, a joyful lady who beloved her household," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mother by listening to her screams behind that van."

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