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 in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two ladies in search of psychological well being therapy trapped in a cage in the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

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, but their families said they weren't violent. Newton was only searching for drugs for her concern and nervousness and Inexperienced’s family said she was committed to a mental facility at an everyday psychological health 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 family members of the women said his choice 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 Inexperienced-Johnson advised the choose. “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 Courtroom Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter charge and four years on each 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 against a guardrail, stopping the women from having 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 stated they spoke to the ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water kept rising earlier than it got too harmful and rescuers might now not hear them.

“How awful should that have been to take a seat there and wait to your personal dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas other elements like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless resolution to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) via water.

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 just outside Nichols, however Flood drove round them after briefly talking to the soldiers.

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he couldn't turn around as a result of he could now not see the sting of the freeway and was worried about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer mentioned whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others have been making an attempt to unfairly blame just the previous deputy instead of the tools problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and despatched him even though taking the ladies to the psychological well being services was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, however before he was sentenced told the decide he tried every little thing he could to maintain the women calm as the waters rose and assist was slow to arrive.

“It was a collection of mistakes on my half and different people that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what happened to the girls,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been finally rescued from the top 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, however it nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting help was pricey too. A firefighter testified they have been capable of cut the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, but the water obtained increased and faster and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood had to be taught to comply with the foundations and use widespread sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, but I cannot neglect. Thankfully, I still remember my mom as a cheerful girl, a joyful lady who beloved her family," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mother by hearing her screams in the back of that van."

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