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 ladies seeking 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 guilty of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless murder.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families said they weren't violent. Newton was only looking for medicine for her worry and nervousness and Green’s family stated she was committed to a psychological facility at a regular psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after several kinfolk of the women said his choice to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

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

Circuit Court docket Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter cost and four 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 against a guardrail, stopping the women from being able 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 keeping with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour as the water saved rising earlier than it acquired too harmful and rescuers may now not hear them.

“How awful should that have been to take a seat there and wait for your own death?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

While other elements like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 just outdoors Nichols, however Flood drove around 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 turn round because he may now not see the edge of the highway and was fearful about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Perhaps it wounded his pride 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 had been attempting to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy instead of the tools issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and sent him despite the fact that taking the ladies to the psychological health facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, however before he was sentenced informed the judge he tried every thing he could to maintain the ladies calm because the waters rose and assist was gradual to arrive.

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

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 two counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, but it surely nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they were able to reduce the roof off the van and began working on the cage, however the water obtained higher and sooner and it was too dangerous to continue.

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

“I can forgive, but I can't neglect. Fortuitously, I nonetheless bear in mind my mom as a contented girl, a joyful girl who beloved her family," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom 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.