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 women searching for mental well being remedy trapped in a cage in 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 households stated they were not violent. Newton was only seeking medication for her fear and anxiousness and Green’s family mentioned she was dedicated to a mental facility at an everyday mental health 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 women mentioned his choice to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson informed the decide. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save time.”

Circuit Court Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on each 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 towards a guardrail, preventing the ladies 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 line with 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 obtained too dangerous and rescuers may no longer hear them.

“How terrible should which were to sit there and wait in your personal dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different factors like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless resolution to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply outdoors Nichols, but Flood drove round them after briefly speaking to the soldiers.

Clements learn from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he could not turn around as a result of he could no longer see the sting of the freeway and was fearful about operating into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer said while it was a horrible tragedy, others have been trying to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as a substitute of the gear 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 mental health 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 legal professional Jarrett Bouchette said. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, but before he was sentenced advised the judge he tried every little thing he could to keep the women calm because the waters rose and help was sluggish to arrive.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been eventually rescued from the top 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, but it nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting help was pricey too. A firefighter testified they had been in a position to lower the roof off the van and began working on the cage, but the water got higher and quicker and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood had to be taught to comply with the rules and use widespread sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, however I can't neglect. Fortunately, I nonetheless keep in mind my mother as a cheerful woman, a joyful lady who cherished her family," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mom by hearing her screams behind that van."

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