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 ladies searching for mental health therapy trapped in a cage in the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

A Marion County jury discovered former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood responsible 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 households said they weren't violent. Newton was only seeking medicine for her concern and anxiousness and Green’s household said 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 verdict and after a number of relatives of the women stated his resolution 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, cussed man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson instructed the choose. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To avoid wasting time.”

Circuit Courtroom 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 towards 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 did not have a key to a second door and there was no emergency escape hatch, according to 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 acquired too harmful and rescuers may now not hear them.

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

While different components like an emergency radio that failed to 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) via water.

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

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he couldn't flip round as a result of he may now not see the sting of the freeway and was apprehensive about operating right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe it wounded his pride or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed ahead into water that was not simply standing in a tall puddle, but 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 previous deputy as a substitute of the gear issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was starting and sent him although taking the ladies to the mental well being amenities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you resist the urge to try to give justice to those two girls by giving injustice to this good man," defense lawyer Jarrett Bouchette stated. “They wish to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, but before he was sentenced advised the decide he tried every part he may to keep the women calm as the waters rose and help was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a sequence of errors on my half and different folks that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what happened to the girls,” Flood said.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been eventually rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities mentioned. Bishop will stand trial for 2 counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, however it still wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was expensive too. A firefighter testified they were able to lower the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water acquired increased and sooner and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood needed to be taught to follow the rules and use frequent sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, however I cannot neglect. Happily, I still bear in mind my mother as a cheerful girl, a joyful lady who beloved her family," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mother by listening to her screams at the back of that van."

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