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 in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two women searching for mental health 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 guilty 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 families stated they weren't violent. Newton was only looking for medication for her concern and nervousness and Inexperienced’s family stated she was committed to a psychological facility at an everyday mental health appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the verdict and after several kin of the ladies said his decision to press ahead 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,” Inexperienced'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 save time.”

Circuit Court docket Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 years on each reckless homicide cost 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, preventing the ladies from having the ability 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, based on testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

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

“How terrible should which were to sit there and wait for your own loss of life?” 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 actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by water.

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

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he couldn't turn around because he could no longer see the sting of the freeway and was worried about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer stated while it was a horrible tragedy, others had been making an attempt to unfairly blame just the previous deputy as an alternative of the tools issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and despatched him although taking the women to the mental well being facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, but earlier than he was sentenced told the judge he tried all the pieces he might to maintain the ladies calm as the waters rose and assist was slow to reach.

“It was a sequence of errors on my half and different those who led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the ladies,” Flood stated.

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

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, but it still would not open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they were capable of reduce the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, but the water bought larger and faster and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood had to learn to follow the rules and use widespread sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, however I can not forget. Luckily, I still bear in mind my mom as a contented lady, a joyful lady who beloved 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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Comply with Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.