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 women in search of 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 responsible of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless homicide.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their families mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was solely in search of drugs for her worry and nervousness and Green’s household stated she was dedicated to a mental facility at an everyday mental well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the verdict and after several relations of the ladies stated his determination to press forward 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 Inexperienced-Johnson told the judge. “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 Court Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five 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 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 did not have a key to a second door and there was no emergency escape hatch, in accordance with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising before it obtained too dangerous and rescuers might no longer hear them.

“How awful should that have been to sit down there and wait in your personal death?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

While other components like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless choice to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) via water.

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply exterior Nichols, however Flood drove round them after briefly talking to the troopers.

Clements learn from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he couldn't turn around as a result of he may not see the sting of the highway and was nervous about working right into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer said while it was a horrible tragedy, others were attempting to unfairly blame simply the former deputy instead of the gear problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and despatched him even though taking the women to the psychological well being services was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, but before he was sentenced informed the choose he tried all the pieces he might to maintain the ladies calm because the waters rose and help was gradual to arrive.

“It was a series of mistakes on my part and other people who led me to that time and I’m sorry for what occurred to the girls,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been eventually rescued from the highest 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, but it nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting help was costly too. A firefighter testified they were capable of minimize the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, however the water bought greater and faster and it was too dangerous to continue.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood needed to study to comply with the rules and use common sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, but I cannot forget. Happily, I still bear in mind my mother as a cheerful lady, a joyful woman who liked her household," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mother by listening to her screams in the back of that van."

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