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 women in search of psychological well being therapy trapped in a cage in the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury discovered former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood guilty of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless homicide.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, but their families stated they weren't violent. Newton was solely seeking medication for her fear and anxiety and Green’s household mentioned she was dedicated to a psychological facility at an everyday psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after several relations of the women stated his choice to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap of their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Green-Johnson advised 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 Courtroom Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter cost and four years on each reckless homicide charge 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, stopping the women 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 line with 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 because the water saved rising before it acquired too dangerous and rescuers could now not hear them.

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

Whereas different elements like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) through water.

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

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 might not see the edge of the freeway and was anxious about operating right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Possibly it wounded his pride or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed forward 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 said.

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others were making an attempt to unfairly blame just the former deputy as an alternative of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and despatched him even though taking the women to the psychological health facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, but earlier than he was sentenced instructed the choose he tried all the things he might to maintain the women calm because the waters rose and assist was sluggish to reach.

“It was a sequence of errors on my part and different those who led me to that point and I’m sorry for what happened to the women,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were finally 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, but it surely nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting assist was pricey too. A firefighter testified they were capable of reduce the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, but the water received greater and quicker and it was too harmful to continue.

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

“I can forgive, however I can not overlook. Thankfully, I nonetheless keep in mind my mom as a cheerful girl, a joyful lady who loved her household," he stated. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mother by hearing her screams in the back of that van."

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