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 in search of psychological well being remedy trapped in a cage within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury discovered 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 stated they were not violent. Newton was only in search of medicine for her worry and anxiousness and Inexperienced’s family stated she was dedicated to a psychological facility at a daily psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the verdict and after a number of family members of the women mentioned his determination to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole of their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson told the choose. “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 Courtroom Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 years on every 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, 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 did not have a key to a second door and there was no emergency escape hatch, in keeping with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the women and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water kept rising before it got too harmful and rescuers could not hear them.

“How terrible must that have been to sit down there and wait to your own loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

While other components like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless choice to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by water.

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

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

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

Flood's lawyer stated whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others were trying to unfairly blame just 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 despatched him even though taking the ladies to the mental well being services was not an emergency.

"I ask that you simply resist the urge to attempt to give justice to those two women by giving injustice to this good man," defense attorney Jarrett Bouchette stated. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, but earlier than he was sentenced advised the judge he tried all the things he could to keep the women calm as the waters rose and help was sluggish to reach.

“It was a sequence of mistakes on my half and other folks that led me to that point 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 stated. Bishop will stand trial for 2 counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, but it surely nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting assist was pricey too. A firefighter testified they had been able to reduce the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, but the water acquired greater and quicker and it was too harmful to continue.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood needed to learn to comply with the foundations and use common sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, but I can't neglect. Fortuitously, I nonetheless bear in mind my mom as a contented lady, a joyful lady who liked her household," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mother by listening to her screams behind that van."

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