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 seeking psychological health remedy trapped in a cage within the back 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 homicide.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families said they were not violent. Newton was only looking for medicine for her worry and anxiousness and Inexperienced’s family said she was dedicated to a mental facility at a daily mental well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after a number of family of the ladies mentioned his determination 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, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Green-Johnson instructed 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 Court docket 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 in opposition to a guardrail, stopping the women from with the ability to get out the sliding door they used to enter the van. Flood and a deputy with him did not 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 women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water kept rising earlier than it got too harmful and rescuers may no longer hear them.

“How awful must that have been to sit there and wait to your own loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas other factors like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless choice to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

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

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he couldn't flip round as a result of he may no longer see the edge of the freeway and was nervous about running right into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others have been trying to unfairly blame just the former deputy instead of the tools problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and despatched him 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," defense lawyer Jarrett Bouchette mentioned. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, but before he was sentenced informed the choose he tried every little thing he may to maintain the women calm as the waters rose and assist was slow to reach.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were ultimately rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities mentioned. 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 nonetheless wouldn't 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 working on the cage, but the water received higher and faster and it was too harmful to continue.

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

“I can forgive, however I can't neglect. Thankfully, I nonetheless bear in mind my mother as a happy lady, a joyful lady who liked her household," he mentioned. “However you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by hearing her screams at the back of that van."

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