Ex-deputy will get 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 searching for psychological health remedy trapped in a cage in 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 homicide.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their households stated they weren't violent. Newton was only in search of medication for her fear and nervousness and Green’s household stated she was committed to a psychological facility at a regular psychological health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after several family of the ladies said his decision 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 belief my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save time.”

Circuit Court Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge and four 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 in opposition to a guardrail, stopping the ladies 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 response to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies stated they spoke to the women and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour as the water stored rising earlier than it got too harmful and rescuers could not hear them.

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

Whereas different factors like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless choice to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

Nationwide 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 within the water, he couldn't turn round because he could no longer see the sting of the freeway and was frightened about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others had been making an attempt to unfairly blame just the former deputy instead of the equipment issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and despatched him though taking the women to the mental well being facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, however before he was sentenced informed the choose he tried every little thing he could to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and assist was sluggish to reach.

“It was a collection of errors on my half and different people who led me to that time and I’m sorry for what occurred to the ladies,” Flood said.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have 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, but it still wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was expensive too. A firefighter testified they were capable of cut the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water acquired increased and quicker and it was too harmful to continue.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood needed to learn to comply with the foundations and use frequent sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, but I can not overlook. Luckily, I still keep in mind my mom as a cheerful lady, a joyful woman who loved her family," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mother by hearing her screams behind that van."

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