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 women in search of psychological health therapy 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 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 families mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was solely in search of medication for her worry and nervousness and Inexperienced’s household said she was dedicated to a psychological facility at a regular psychological health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after a number of relatives of the women stated his resolution 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, cussed man,” Inexperienced'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 save time.”

Circuit Court docket Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter cost and four 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 in opposition to 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 keeping with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies stated they spoke to the women and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising before it received too dangerous and rescuers may not hear them.

“How terrible should that have been to sit down there and wait to your own death?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

While different elements like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless choice to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) via water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply 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 within the water, he couldn't turn around as a result of he could no longer see the sting of the highway and was nervous about running right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe 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 was dashing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements said.

Flood's lawyer stated whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others had been making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as a substitute of the gear problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and sent him even though taking the women to the psychological health services was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced advised the decide he tried everything he could to keep the ladies calm because the waters rose and help was sluggish to arrive.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were eventually rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities said. Bishop will stand trial for two counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, however it nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was costly too. A firefighter testified they had been able to cut the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, but the water acquired increased and faster and it was too harmful 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 price.

“I can forgive, but I can't overlook. Luckily, I still remember my mom as a cheerful girl, a joyful woman who loved her family," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mom by listening to her screams in the back of that van."

———

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