Ex-deputy gets 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 women looking for mental well being remedy trapped in a cage in 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 Green, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, however their households said they were not violent. Newton was only seeking medicine for her fear and nervousness and Green’s family said she was committed to a psychological facility at a daily psychological health appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the verdict and after several relatives of the ladies mentioned his determination to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson told the judge. “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 5 years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter charge 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, preventing the ladies from with 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, according to 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 before it acquired too dangerous and rescuers could now not hear them.

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

While other elements like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) through water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he couldn't flip around because he could now not see the sting of the highway and was apprehensive about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe it wounded his satisfaction 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 stated while it was a terrible tragedy, others have been trying to unfairly blame simply the previous 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 despatched him regardless that taking the women to the mental health services was not an emergency.

"I ask that you just resist the urge to try to give justice to those two girls by giving injustice to this good man," protection legal professional Jarrett Bouchette stated. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, however earlier than he was sentenced told the judge he tried the whole lot he might to maintain the women calm as the waters rose and help was gradual to arrive.

“It was a collection of errors on my part and other people 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 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, nevertheless it nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was expensive too. A firefighter testified they had been able to minimize the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water received larger and faster and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood had to learn to follow the principles and use widespread sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, however I can not forget. Fortuitously, I nonetheless keep in mind my mom as a happy lady, a joyful woman who beloved her family," he mentioned. “However you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mother by hearing her screams at the back of that van."

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