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 women seeking mental well being treatment trapped in a cage within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury found 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 committed the day they died in September 2018, however their households said they were not violent. Newton was solely searching for medication for her concern and nervousness and Inexperienced’s family stated she was dedicated to a psychological facility at an everyday mental health appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

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

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, cussed man,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson told the decide. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To save time.”

Circuit Courtroom Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter charge 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 against a guardrail, preventing the ladies 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, based on testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising earlier than it received too dangerous and rescuers may not hear them.

“How awful must which were to sit there and wait in your own death?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

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

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply exterior Nichols, but Flood drove round them after briefly speaking to the soldiers.

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he could not turn round because he might now not see the edge of the highway and was anxious about operating into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others have been attempting to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as an alternative of the equipment issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and sent him regardless that taking the ladies to the mental well being services was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, however earlier than he was sentenced informed the choose he tried everything he could to keep the ladies calm because the waters rose and assist was slow to arrive.

“It was a collection of errors on my part and other those that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the girls,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been ultimately rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities stated. Bishop will stand trial for two counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, however it still wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they have been capable of reduce the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water bought greater and sooner and it was too harmful to continue.

Newton's son Charles said 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 forget. Fortunately, I nonetheless keep in mind my mother as a happy lady, a joyful lady who liked her household," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mom by hearing her screams in the back of that van."

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