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 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 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 mentioned they were not violent. Newton was solely seeking medicine for her concern and anxiety and Inexperienced’s household stated she was committed to a mental 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 several relatives of the ladies stated his decision 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,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Green-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 lots of time.”

Circuit Court docket Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter cost and 4 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, 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 maintain them calm for about an hour because the water kept rising earlier than it bought too harmful and rescuers could now not hear them.

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

Whereas different factors like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements said 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, but Flood drove around them after briefly speaking to the soldiers.

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he couldn't turn round because he could no longer see the sting of the freeway and was apprehensive about working right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe 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 dashing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements said.

Flood's lawyer said while it was a terrible tragedy, others have been attempting to unfairly blame just the previous deputy as a substitute of the gear problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him even though taking the women to the mental well being amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, but before he was sentenced advised the judge he tried every part he could to maintain the women calm as the waters rose and help was gradual to reach.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been ultimately 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 nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they have been able to minimize the roof off the van and started working on the cage, however the water received greater and quicker and it was too dangerous to continue.

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

“I can forgive, but I cannot neglect. Happily, I nonetheless bear in mind my mother as a happy girl, a joyful woman who cherished her household," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mom by listening to her screams behind that van."

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