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 back 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 Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, but their families mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was solely seeking drugs for her worry and nervousness and Inexperienced’s family mentioned she was committed to a mental facility at an everyday mental well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after several family of the ladies stated his determination to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson informed 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 Court Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter charge and four 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 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, in accordance with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies stated they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water stored rising earlier than it got too harmful and rescuers might no longer hear them.

“How terrible should that have been to take a seat there and wait for your own dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

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

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

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he couldn't flip round as a result of he might no longer see the sting of the highway and was worried about operating 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 surely was speeding, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements said.

Flood's lawyer said while it was a terrible tragedy, others have been making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy instead of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him even though taking the ladies to the psychological well being amenities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you resist the urge to try to give justice to these two ladies by giving injustice to this good man," protection legal professional Jarrett Bouchette stated. “They wish to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, however before he was sentenced instructed the judge he tried every part he might to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and help was sluggish to arrive.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been finally rescued from the top 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 still wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was pricey too. A firefighter testified they have been able to minimize the roof off the van and began working on the cage, but the water received increased and faster and it was too harmful to continue.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood needed to be taught to comply with the principles and use frequent sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, however I cannot overlook. Luckily, I nonetheless bear in mind my mom as a cheerful woman, a joyful lady who liked her household," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mom by listening to her screams behind that van."

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