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 girls looking for psychological health treatment 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 Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their households mentioned they were not violent. Newton was solely in search of medication for her concern and nervousness and Inexperienced’s household said she was dedicated to a psychological facility at a regular psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after several family of the women mentioned his choice to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole of their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, cussed man,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson told the judge. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To avoid wasting time.”

Circuit Court docket Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge and four 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 with 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 line with 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 kept rising earlier than it acquired too dangerous and rescuers could now not hear them.

“How terrible must which were to take a seat there and wait on your personal death?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different components like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) via water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 just outside Nichols, however Flood drove round them after briefly speaking to the troopers.

Clements learn from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was within the water, he could not turn round because he could not see the sting of the freeway and was apprehensive about working 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 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 mentioned whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others have been attempting to unfairly blame just the former deputy as an alternative of the tools issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and despatched him regardless that taking the women to the psychological health amenities was not an emergency.

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

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

“It was a collection of mistakes on my half and other people that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the ladies,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were eventually rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities mentioned. 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 wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they have been capable of lower the roof off the van and started working on the cage, however the water acquired higher and sooner and it was too dangerous to continue.

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

“I can forgive, but I cannot forget. Fortunately, I nonetheless remember my mother as a happy woman, a joyful lady who liked her household," he mentioned. “However you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by hearing her screams in the back of that van."

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