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 seeking mental well being therapy trapped in a cage within the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury discovered former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood responsible 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, but their families stated they weren't violent. Newton was only looking for drugs for her fear and anxiety and Inexperienced’s household said she was dedicated to a mental facility at a daily psychological health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after several kinfolk of the ladies stated his determination 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,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson informed the judge. “He abused the belief my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To avoid wasting time.”

Circuit Court docket Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter cost 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 women 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, in response to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour as the water saved rising earlier than it obtained too harmful and rescuers might no longer hear them.

“How awful should which have been to sit there and wait for your own death?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

While different elements like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's precise 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) via water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was within the water, he couldn't turn around as a result of he could not see the edge of the highway and was apprehensive about working 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 simply standing in a tall puddle, but it surely was dashing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements stated.

Flood's lawyer stated while it was a horrible tragedy, others were trying to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as a substitute of the tools problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and despatched him despite the fact that taking the women to the psychological well being facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, however earlier than he was sentenced informed the choose he tried all the pieces he could to maintain the ladies calm because the waters rose and assist was slow to arrive.

“It was a series of mistakes on my part and different those that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the ladies,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been ultimately rescued from the top 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, however it nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they have been able to reduce the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water acquired larger and quicker and it was too dangerous to continue.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood needed to be taught to follow the rules and use frequent sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, however I can not forget. Fortuitously, I still remember my mother as a happy girl, a joyful lady who cherished her household," he stated. “However you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mother by hearing her screams in the back of that van."

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