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 ladies seeking mental health 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 weren't violent. Newton was only in search of drugs for her fear and anxiety and Green’s household mentioned she was dedicated to a psychological facility at a daily psychological health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after a number of relations of the women stated his choice to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, cussed man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Green-Johnson told the decide. “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 Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 years on every reckless murder cost 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 keeping with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour as the water saved rising earlier than it got too dangerous and rescuers may no longer hear them.

“How terrible must which were to take a seat there and wait to your personal dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas other components like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came 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 outside Nichols, however Flood drove around them after briefly talking to the troopers.

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he could not turn around because he could now not see the edge of the freeway and was apprehensive about running right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Perhaps it wounded his pride or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed ahead into water that was not simply standing in a tall puddle, but 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 terrible tragedy, others have been attempting to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as a substitute of the tools issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and despatched him although taking the women to the psychological well being services was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, however before he was sentenced instructed the judge he tried the whole lot he might to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and help was gradual to arrive.

“It was a series of errors on my part and other those who led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the women,” Flood said.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been ultimately rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities said. Bishop will stand trial for two 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 assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they have been capable of minimize the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water bought increased and faster and it was too harmful to continue.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood needed to study to observe the rules and use widespread sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, however I cannot neglect. Luckily, I still remember my mom as a happy 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."

———

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