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 women seeking psychological health remedy trapped in a cage in 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 stated they were not violent. Newton was only seeking medication for her concern and anxiousness and Inexperienced’s family said she was dedicated to a mental facility at a regular psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after a number of 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 movement by a pompous, cussed man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson advised the judge. “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 docket Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on each reckless murder 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 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 said they spoke to the ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water stored rising earlier than it received too dangerous and rescuers might now not hear them.

“How terrible must which have been to sit there and wait for your own loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different elements like an emergency radio that did not 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) through water.

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

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he could not turn around because he might not see the edge of the highway and was anxious about working right 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 just standing in a tall puddle, but it surely was rushing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements stated.

Flood's lawyer stated while it was a terrible tragedy, others have been trying to unfairly blame just the previous deputy instead of the gear problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and despatched him even though taking the women to the psychological health facilities 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 lawyer Jarrett Bouchette said. “They want to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, but before he was sentenced advised the decide he tried every little thing he may to maintain the ladies calm as the waters rose and help was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a series of mistakes on my part and other folks that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the women,” 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 surely nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was costly too. A firefighter testified they have been capable of minimize the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water obtained increased and quicker and it was too dangerous to continue.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood needed to be taught to observe the rules and use common sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, however I can't forget. Luckily, I still remember my mother as a contented girl, a joyful girl who liked her family," he said. “However 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.