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 women looking for psychological well being remedy trapped in a cage in the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

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 committed the day they died in September 2018, but their families stated they were not violent. Newton was only seeking drugs for her fear and nervousness and Green’s family said she was dedicated to a mental facility at a daily psychological health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after a number of family members of the women stated his resolution to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

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

Circuit Court docket Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter cost and four years on each reckless murder charge 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 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 maintain them calm for about an hour as the water stored rising before it obtained too dangerous and rescuers might not hear them.

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

While different components like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's actual 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) by way of water.

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

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he couldn't flip around as a result of he could not see the edge of the freeway and was apprehensive about operating into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer said while it was a horrible tragedy, others had been attempting to unfairly blame simply the former deputy instead of the gear issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him even though taking the ladies to the psychological health facilities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you simply resist the urge to attempt to give justice to these two ladies by giving injustice to this good man," defense legal professional Jarrett Bouchette mentioned. “They want to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, however earlier than he was sentenced instructed the choose he tried every thing he could to keep the ladies calm because the waters rose and help was slow to arrive.

“It was a collection of errors on my part and other folks that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what occurred to the ladies,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been finally rescued from the highest 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 would not open. The delay in getting help was expensive too. A firefighter testified they have been able to cut the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, however the water acquired increased and quicker and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood had to study to follow the foundations and use widespread sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, but I can not overlook. Happily, I nonetheless remember my mom as a contented woman, a joyful woman who liked her family," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mother by listening to her screams in the back of that van."

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