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 girls seeking mental health therapy trapped in a cage within the again 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 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 in search of drugs for her fear and anxiety and Inexperienced’s family stated she was committed to a psychological facility at a daily mental well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after a number of kin of the women said his resolution 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 Green-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 lots of time.”

Circuit Courtroom Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 years on each 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 against a guardrail, stopping 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 stated they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising earlier than it received too harmful and rescuers could not hear them.

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

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

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 just exterior Nichols, however Flood drove around them after briefly speaking to the troopers.

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he couldn't flip round as a result of he could no longer see the edge of the highway and was fearful about working right 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 just standing in a tall puddle, but it was dashing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements stated.

Flood's lawyer stated whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others have been trying to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy as a substitute of the tools problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and sent him though taking the ladies to the psychological well being services was not an emergency.

"I ask that you just resist the urge to attempt to give justice to those two girls by giving injustice to this good man," protection legal professional Jarrett Bouchette stated. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, however earlier than he was sentenced informed the decide he tried all the pieces he may to keep the women calm as the waters rose and help was gradual to reach.

“It was a sequence of mistakes on my half and other people who 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 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, nevertheless it still would not open. The delay in getting help was expensive too. A firefighter testified they were able to cut the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, however the water acquired higher and quicker and it was too harmful to continue.

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

“I can forgive, but I can't forget. Happily, I nonetheless bear in mind my mom as a contented woman, a joyful girl who loved her family," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by hearing her screams behind that van."

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