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 girls seeking psychological well being 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 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 dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their households mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was solely seeking drugs for her concern and nervousness and Green’s household stated she was dedicated to a psychological facility at a daily mental well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after a number of kinfolk of the women mentioned his decision to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap of their lives.

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

Circuit Court Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on every 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, preventing 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 line with 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 because the water stored rising earlier than it acquired too harmful and rescuers might no longer hear them.

“How awful must that have been to sit down there and wait to your personal demise?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

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

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

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 might no longer see the sting of the highway and was apprehensive about working 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 just standing in a tall puddle, however it was dashing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements said.

Flood's lawyer mentioned while it was a terrible tragedy, others had been attempting to unfairly blame just the former deputy as an alternative of the equipment issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and despatched him despite the fact that taking the women to the mental health amenities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you just resist the urge to attempt to give justice to those two girls by giving injustice to this good man," protection legal professional Jarrett Bouchette mentioned. “They want to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, but before he was sentenced informed the choose he tried every little thing he could to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and assist was gradual to arrive.

“It was a collection of errors on my part and different folks that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what happened to the women,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been 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, but it surely still would not open. The delay in getting help was pricey too. A firefighter testified they had been capable of reduce the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water obtained greater and quicker and it was too harmful to continue.

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

“I can forgive, but I can't forget. Happily, I nonetheless bear in mind my mother as a happy girl, a joyful lady who cherished her family," 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.