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 within the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two girls looking for psychological health remedy trapped in a cage in the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury found former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood guilty of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless murder.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their families stated they were not violent. Newton was solely seeking medication for her concern and anxiety and Inexperienced’s household stated she was dedicated to a mental facility at a regular psychological health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after several family of the women said his choice to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson advised the choose. “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 docket Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on every reckless murder 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 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, based on testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the women and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising earlier than it got too dangerous and rescuers could no longer hear them.

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

Whereas other elements like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements said the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by way of water.

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 simply outside Nichols, however Flood drove around them after briefly speaking to the soldiers.

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was within the water, he couldn't flip around as a result of he might not see the edge of the highway and was fearful about operating 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, nevertheless it was rushing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements said.

Flood's lawyer mentioned whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others have been attempting to unfairly blame just the former deputy as a substitute of the gear issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and sent him even though taking the ladies to the psychological health facilities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you resist the urge to try to give justice to those two ladies 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, however earlier than he was sentenced told the judge he tried all the pieces he could to maintain the ladies calm as the waters rose and assist was sluggish to reach.

“It was a series of mistakes on my half and other those that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what happened to the women,” Flood said.

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

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, nevertheless it still wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was pricey too. A firefighter testified they had been able to cut the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water obtained higher and faster and it was too harmful to continue.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood needed to learn to follow the rules and use widespread sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, however I cannot forget. Thankfully, I nonetheless remember my mom as a contented woman, a joyful girl who liked her household," he said. “However 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.