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 in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two ladies looking for mental well being 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 guilty of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless homicide.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, but their families said they were not violent. Newton was only looking for medication for her concern and anxiousness and Inexperienced’s family mentioned she was dedicated to a psychological facility at an everyday mental 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 relations of the women mentioned his decision 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 Green-Johnson advised the decide. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save lots of time.”

Circuit Courtroom Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter charge 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 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 said they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising before it bought too dangerous and rescuers may now not hear them.

“How terrible must that have been to take a seat there and wait to your own death?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas other elements like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless choice to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by water.

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply outdoors Nichols, however Flood drove around them after briefly speaking to the troopers.

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he could not turn round as a result of he could no longer see the sting of the freeway and was fearful about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer stated whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others had been attempting to unfairly blame just the former deputy as a substitute of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and sent him regardless that taking the ladies to the psychological well being services was not an emergency.

"I ask that you simply resist the urge to try to give justice to these two ladies 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, but earlier than he was sentenced informed the decide he tried all the pieces he may to maintain the women calm because the waters rose and help was gradual to arrive.

“It was a sequence of mistakes on my part and different people that led me to that time 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 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 were capable of reduce the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water bought larger and faster and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood had to be taught to observe the rules and use common sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, however I cannot forget. Happily, I still keep in mind my mother as a contented woman, a joyful girl who liked her family," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mom by hearing her screams at the back of that van."

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