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 in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two girls searching for mental health treatment trapped in a cage in the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury found 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 Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families said they were not violent. Newton was only seeking medication for her concern and nervousness and Inexperienced’s family said she was dedicated to a mental 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 verdict and after a number of kinfolk of the women stated his determination to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap of their lives.

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

Circuit Court docket Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on every reckless murder 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 response to 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 because the water kept rising earlier than it received too dangerous and rescuers might now not hear them.

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

While other factors like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all got here 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. Highway 76 just exterior Nichols, but Flood drove around them after briefly talking to the soldiers.

Clements learn from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he couldn't flip round because he could now not see the sting of the freeway and was nervous about working right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe it wounded his pleasure or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed forward into water that was not just standing in a tall puddle, but it surely was speeding, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements said.

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others were trying to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as an alternative of the equipment problems, 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 women to the mental well being services was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced informed the judge he tried all the things he may to keep the women calm as the waters rose and assist was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a series of errors on my part and other people that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what occurred to the girls,” Flood said.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were 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 assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they had been able to cut the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water got greater and faster and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood needed to study to observe the principles and use common sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, however I can't overlook. Luckily, I still remember my mom as a contented woman, a joyful lady who cherished her household," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mother by hearing her screams in the back of that van."

———

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