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 ladies looking for mental health therapy trapped in a cage in the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury found 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, but their households mentioned they were not violent. Newton was solely searching for medicine for her worry and anxiety and Green’s household mentioned she was dedicated to a mental facility at a regular mental 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 mentioned his choice to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Green-Johnson told 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 Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on each 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 towards 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 ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour as the water saved rising earlier than it got too dangerous and rescuers may no longer hear them.

“How awful should that have been to sit there and wait to your personal death?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different elements like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless resolution 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 talking to the soldiers.

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he could not flip round as a result of he could not see the edge of the highway and was fearful about working into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Perhaps it wounded his pride or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed forward into water that was not just standing in a tall puddle, however 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 were making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy instead of the gear issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and despatched him regardless that taking the women to the mental health facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, but before he was sentenced advised the decide he tried everything he might to maintain the ladies calm because the waters rose and assist was slow to reach.

“It was a series of mistakes on my part and different folks that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened 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 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, nevertheless it nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they were capable of cut the roof off the van and began working on the cage, but the water got higher and sooner and it was too dangerous to continue.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood needed to learn to follow the rules and use common sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, but I can't forget. Luckily, I still keep in mind my mother as a happy woman, a joyful woman who liked her household," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by hearing her screams behind that van."

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