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 in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two ladies seeking mental health treatment trapped in a cage within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

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 Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their families mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was only searching for medication for her worry and anxiousness and Green’s household stated she was committed to a psychological facility at a regular 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 ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, cussed man,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson advised the choose. “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 Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 years on each 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, stopping 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 response to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour as the water kept rising earlier than it received too harmful and rescuers might now not hear them.

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

Whereas different components like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) through water.

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

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he couldn't flip around because he may now not see the edge of the highway and was worried about working right into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer mentioned while it was a horrible tragedy, others were attempting to unfairly blame just the previous deputy instead of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and despatched him even though taking the women to the psychological health amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced told the decide he tried all the things he could to keep the ladies calm because the waters rose and assist was slow to reach.

“It was a sequence of errors on my half and other people that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what occurred to the girls,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been ultimately rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities mentioned. 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 still would not open. The delay in getting help was costly too. A firefighter testified they have been in a position to cut the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, however the water obtained larger and faster and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood had to study to comply with the principles and use frequent sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, but I can't overlook. Thankfully, I nonetheless bear in mind my mother as a cheerful woman, a joyful lady who beloved her family," he stated. “However you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mother by listening to her screams at the back of that van."

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