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 women looking for psychological health therapy trapped in a cage in the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

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 Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families said they were not violent. Newton was solely searching for medicine for her fear and anxiety and Green’s household stated she was committed to a mental facility at a daily mental health appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after a number of kin of the women said his determination to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole of their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, cussed man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson told 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 Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 years on each 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 towards a guardrail, stopping the ladies from with the ability 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, according to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies stated they spoke to the ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour because the water saved rising before it obtained too dangerous and rescuers could now not hear them.

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

Whereas other components like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's exact 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) through water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 just outside Nichols, however 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 in the water, he could not turn around because he may not see the sting of the highway and was fearful about working 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, however it was speeding, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements mentioned.

Flood's lawyer stated while it was a terrible tragedy, others had been making an attempt to unfairly blame just the previous deputy as a substitute of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and sent him although taking the ladies to the psychological well being facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, however earlier than he was sentenced told the choose he tried every part he may to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and help was sluggish to reach.

“It was a sequence of mistakes on my half and other those 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 eventually 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, nevertheless it nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was costly too. A firefighter testified they have been able to minimize the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water obtained increased and sooner and it was too harmful to continue.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood had to study to follow the rules and use common sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, however I can't overlook. Thankfully, I nonetheless remember my mom as a happy woman, a joyful lady who beloved her family," he mentioned. “However you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by listening to her screams behind that van."

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