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 seeking mental well being remedy 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 homicide.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their households mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was only searching for drugs for her fear and nervousness and Inexperienced’s family mentioned she was committed to a psychological facility at a regular psychological health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after several family of the women mentioned his choice 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, cussed man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson told the decide. “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 Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter cost and four 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, 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 didn't 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 mentioned they spoke to the women and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour as the water stored rising before it got too dangerous and rescuers may no longer hear them.

“How awful must which were to sit down there and wait for your personal dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

While different factors like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's actual 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) by means of water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply exterior Nichols, but Flood drove around them after briefly speaking to the soldiers.

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was within the water, he couldn't flip around because he might no longer see the sting of the freeway and was nervous about operating right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Perhaps it wounded his pleasure or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed ahead 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 mentioned.

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others have been attempting to unfairly blame just the previous deputy as a substitute of the equipment issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and sent him although taking the women to the psychological health services was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced instructed the judge he tried the whole lot he might to maintain the women calm as the waters rose and assist was gradual to reach.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were finally rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities said. 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 still wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they were capable of minimize the roof off the van and started working on the cage, however the water got greater and faster and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood had to be taught to observe the principles and use frequent sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, however I can not neglect. Happily, I still bear in mind my mom as a cheerful lady, a joyful lady who liked her household," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mother by listening to her screams in the back of that van."

———

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