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 searching for psychological health treatment trapped in a cage within the again 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, however their households said they were not violent. Newton was only looking for medicine for her fear and anxiousness and Green’s household stated she was dedicated to a psychological facility at a daily mental well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after a number of family of the ladies mentioned his resolution to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap of their lives.

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

Circuit Court docket Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 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, preventing the women 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 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 because the water stored rising earlier than it got too dangerous and rescuers could no longer hear them.

“How awful must which have been to take a seat there and wait on your personal loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different elements 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 decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he could not flip around as a result of he could no longer see the edge of the freeway and was frightened about operating right into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer said while it was a terrible tragedy, others had been making an attempt to unfairly blame just the former deputy as an alternative of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him though taking the ladies to the mental well being 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," protection legal professional Jarrett Bouchette mentioned. “They want to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, however before he was sentenced informed the choose he tried the whole lot he could to maintain the women calm because the waters rose and assist was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a collection of mistakes on my part and other people that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what happened to the girls,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have 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 would not open. The delay in getting help was expensive too. A firefighter testified they were in a position to reduce the roof off the van and began working on the cage, however the water obtained larger and quicker and it was too harmful to proceed.

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

“I can forgive, however I can not overlook. Fortuitously, I still remember my mom as a cheerful lady, a joyful woman who liked her household," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom 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.