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 ladies seeking mental health remedy trapped in a cage within the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

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 dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families stated they weren't violent. Newton was solely in search of drugs for her worry and anxiety and Green’s household stated she was committed to a psychological facility at an everyday psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after a number of relations of the women said his resolution to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole of their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Green-Johnson advised the decide. “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 Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on every 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 towards 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 didn't 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 ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water stored rising before it acquired too harmful and rescuers might not hear them.

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

While different factors like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 just exterior Nichols, however Flood drove around them after briefly talking to the soldiers.

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he couldn't turn around because he might not see the edge of the freeway and was worried about working into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer stated whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others were making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the former deputy instead of the gear problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and despatched him despite the fact that taking the ladies to the psychological health facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, however earlier than he was sentenced told the decide he tried every part he could to maintain the ladies calm as the waters rose and help was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a series of mistakes on my half and other folks that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the women,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been finally 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 wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they were able to minimize the roof off the van and began working on the cage, however the water bought increased and sooner and it was too harmful to continue.

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

“I can forgive, but I can not neglect. Luckily, I nonetheless remember my mom as a contented woman, a joyful girl who loved her family," he stated. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mom by hearing her screams at the back of that van."

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