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 within the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two girls in search of psychological well being remedy trapped in a cage in the back 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 homicide.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their households said they weren't violent. Newton was only in search of medicine for her worry and nervousness and Inexperienced’s family said she was dedicated to a psychological facility at an everyday psychological health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the verdict and after a number of family members of the women said 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 motion by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson advised the judge. “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 every involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on every 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 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 did not have a key to a second door and there was no emergency escape hatch, in accordance with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

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

“How terrible must that have been to sit down there and wait for your personal dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

While 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 got here out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) via water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 simply outside Nichols, but Flood drove around them after briefly talking 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 may no longer see the sting of the highway and was frightened about operating into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Perhaps 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 said.

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others were attempting to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as a substitute of the gear issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him even though taking the women to the psychological well being facilities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you resist the urge to try to give justice to those two women by giving injustice to this good man," defense attorney Jarrett Bouchette stated. “They want to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, but before he was sentenced instructed the judge he tried every little thing he may to maintain the ladies calm because the waters rose and help was slow to arrive.

“It was a collection of mistakes on my part and different folks that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the women,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been eventually rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities mentioned. Bishop will stand trial for 2 counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, however it still would not open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they have been in a position to minimize the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water obtained increased and sooner and it was too harmful to continue.

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

“I can forgive, but I can't overlook. Thankfully, I nonetheless remember my mom as a cheerful woman, a joyful woman who cherished her family," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mother by listening to her screams behind that van."

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