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 women seeking psychological well being therapy trapped in a cage in the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

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 committed the day they died in September 2018, however their households mentioned they were not violent. Newton was only in search of drugs for her worry and anxiety and Green’s family said she was committed to a psychological facility at a daily psychological health appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the verdict and after a number of relations of the ladies stated his choice to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, cussed man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson instructed the choose. “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 Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 years on each reckless homicide charge 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, stopping the ladies from with 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, based on testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water stored rising before it bought too dangerous and rescuers might not hear them.

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

Whereas different components like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless resolution to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by water.

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 just 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 as soon as he was in the water, he couldn't turn around because he may now not see the edge of the freeway and was fearful about operating right into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer stated while it was a horrible tragedy, others had been trying to unfairly blame just the former deputy instead of the gear issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and despatched him even though taking the ladies to the psychological health amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, however earlier than he was sentenced told the judge he tried everything he could to maintain the women calm because the waters rose and assist was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a sequence of mistakes on my half and other people who led me to that time and I’m sorry for what occurred to the girls,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were finally rescued from the top 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 still wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they had been capable of reduce the roof off the van and started working on the cage, however the water obtained larger and quicker and it was too dangerous to proceed.

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

“I can forgive, however I can't overlook. Thankfully, I nonetheless bear in mind my mother as a cheerful woman, a joyful girl who cherished her household," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mom by hearing her screams at the back of that van."

———

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