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 searching for psychological 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 guilty of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless homicide.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their households mentioned they were not violent. Newton was only looking for medicine for her worry and anxiety and Inexperienced’s household said she was committed to a mental facility at a regular psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

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

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

Circuit Court Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter charge and four years on every reckless murder 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 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 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 as the water saved rising before it got too harmful and rescuers might now not hear them.

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

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

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 just outdoors Nichols, but Flood drove around them after briefly speaking to the troopers.

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he could not turn round as a result of he could not see the edge of the highway and was anxious about operating right into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer stated whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others had been making an attempt to unfairly blame just the former deputy as an alternative of the tools issues, 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 simply resist the urge to try 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 told the judge he tried every little thing he may to maintain the women calm because the waters rose and assist was gradual to reach.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been eventually rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities stated. 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 in a position to minimize the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water acquired higher and quicker and it was too dangerous to continue.

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

“I can forgive, but I can't forget. Thankfully, I still keep in mind my mom as a cheerful lady, a joyful girl who beloved her household," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mother by listening to her screams at the back of that van."

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