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 girls seeking mental health remedy trapped in a cage within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

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 committed the day they died in September 2018, but their families said they were not violent. Newton was only in search of medication for her concern and nervousness and Green’s family said she was committed to a psychological facility at a daily mental well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after a number of kin of the women stated his decision to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, cussed man,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson informed the decide. “He abused the belief my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To avoid wasting time.”

Circuit Court docket Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison 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, according to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising before it got too harmful and rescuers could no longer hear them.

“How awful must that have been to take a seat there and wait in your personal dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

While different factors like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless choice to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by way of water.

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

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he couldn't flip around because he might no longer see the edge of the freeway and was nervous about running right 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, nevertheless it was rushing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements mentioned.

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others had been attempting to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as an alternative of the gear issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and sent him despite the fact that taking the ladies to the psychological well being amenities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you simply resist the urge to try to give justice to those two ladies by giving injustice to this good man," protection legal professional Jarrett Bouchette stated. “They wish 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 could to keep the women calm because the waters rose and assist was slow to arrive.

“It was a sequence of errors on my part and other those that 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, had been 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, but it surely still would not open. The delay in getting assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they had been able 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 said he hated that Flood had to learn to follow the rules and use common sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, but I can not forget. Luckily, I still remember my mom as a contented woman, a joyful girl who liked her household," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mom by hearing her screams at the back of that van."

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