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 looking for psychological health treatment 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 responsible of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless murder.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, but their households mentioned they were not violent. Newton was only looking for medication for her fear and nervousness and Green’s household said she was committed to a psychological facility at a daily psychological health appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the verdict and after a number of relations of the women said 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 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 avoid wasting time.”

Circuit Courtroom Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter cost and four 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 in opposition to 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, according to 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 as the water saved rising earlier than it bought too dangerous and rescuers might now not hear them.

“How terrible must which were to take a seat there and wait to your personal dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas other components like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless choice to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by water.

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

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was within the water, he could not turn round as a result of he may no longer see the edge of the freeway and was fearful about operating right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe 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 stated whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others have been making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy instead of the gear issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and sent him despite the fact that taking the ladies to the psychological well being services was not an emergency.

"I ask that you simply resist the urge to try to give justice to those 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, however before he was sentenced informed the choose he tried everything he could to keep the ladies calm because the waters rose and help was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a collection of mistakes on my part and different those who led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the ladies,” Flood said.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were finally rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities said. 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 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 higher and faster and it was too harmful to proceed.

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

“I can forgive, however I can not neglect. Thankfully, I still keep in mind my mom as a cheerful lady, a joyful girl who beloved her household," he stated. “However you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mother by listening to her screams behind that van."

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