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 girls in search of mental health therapy trapped in a cage within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

A Marion County jury discovered former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood responsible of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless murder.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, however their families mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was solely seeking medicine for her fear and anxiousness and Inexperienced’s household said she was committed to a mental facility at a daily mental 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 kin 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 instructed 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 Court docket Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 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 in opposition to a guardrail, preventing the women from being able 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, according to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water stored rising before it obtained too dangerous and rescuers could no longer hear them.

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

While different factors like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) via water.

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 just outside Nichols, however Flood drove round them after briefly talking to the soldiers.

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he could not flip round as a result of he could not see the sting of the highway and was frightened 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 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 just the previous deputy instead of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and despatched him regardless that taking the women to the mental well being amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, but before he was sentenced told the choose he tried every part he might to maintain the women calm as the waters rose and assist was slow to arrive.

“It was a collection of errors on my part and other folks that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the girls,” Flood stated.

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 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 assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they have been able to lower the roof off the van and began working on the cage, however the water bought larger and faster and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood needed to learn to observe the principles and use widespread sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, however I cannot forget. Luckily, I nonetheless keep in mind my mother as a contented lady, a joyful woman who liked her family," he stated. “However you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mother by listening to her screams in the back of that van."

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