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 health treatment trapped in a cage in the again 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, however their households mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was only searching for medicine for her concern and anxiety and Inexperienced’s family said she was committed to a psychological facility at an everyday mental 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 a number of kinfolk of the women said his choice to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, cussed man,” Green'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 save lots of time.”

Circuit Court Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on every reckless homicide 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, preventing the ladies from having 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 line with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water stored rising before it acquired too harmful and rescuers might now not hear them.

“How terrible should which have been to take a seat there and wait on your personal dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

While different elements like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's precise 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. Freeway 76 simply outside Nichols, however Flood drove around them after briefly talking to the soldiers.

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he couldn't flip around because he could not see the edge of the freeway and was worried about running right into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer stated while it was a terrible tragedy, others were attempting to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as a substitute of the tools issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and sent him despite the fact that taking the ladies to the psychological health amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, but earlier than he was sentenced instructed the judge he tried every little thing he could to keep the women calm as the waters rose and assist was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a collection of errors on my half and different those who led me to that time and I’m sorry for what occurred to the women,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been finally rescued from the highest 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 would not open. The delay in getting help was costly too. A firefighter testified they had been in a position to cut the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water received greater and quicker and it was too dangerous to continue.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood had to be taught to comply with the rules and use common sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, but I can not forget. Luckily, I still remember my mother as a happy woman, a joyful lady who loved her family," he stated. “However you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by listening to her screams in the back of that van."

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