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 within the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two girls searching for mental well being therapy trapped in a cage in the back 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 mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was solely seeking medication for her concern and nervousness and Green’s family said she was committed to a psychological facility at a regular mental well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after several kin 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 movement by a pompous, cussed man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson told the choose. “He abused the belief my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save time.”

Circuit Court Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge and four years on every 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 against 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 didn't 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 stated they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour as the water kept rising earlier than it received too dangerous and rescuers could not hear them.

“How terrible must that have been to sit there and wait in your own demise?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

While different elements like an emergency radio that didn't 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 way of water.

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

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 anxious about running right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe it wounded his satisfaction or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed forward into water that was not just standing in a tall puddle, nevertheless it was rushing, 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 had been attempting to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy as an alternative of the gear problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him despite the fact that taking the women to the psychological well being amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, however before he was sentenced advised the decide he tried every thing he might to keep the women calm as the waters rose and assist was sluggish to reach.

“It was a sequence of errors on my part and different folks that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the girls,” 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 nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting help was expensive too. A firefighter testified they have been able to lower the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, but the water bought greater and faster and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood needed to study to follow the foundations and use frequent sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, however I can't overlook. Happily, I still keep in mind my mom as a happy lady, a joyful woman who cherished her household," he mentioned. “However you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mom by listening to her screams at the back of that van."

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