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 within the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two women in search of mental health treatment trapped in a cage within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

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 were not violent. Newton was only seeking medication for her fear and anxiety and Green’s household mentioned she was committed to a psychological facility at a regular mental health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after several family members of the women mentioned his decision 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, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-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 time.”

Circuit Court Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter charge and four years on each 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 against a guardrail, stopping 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, in accordance with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the ladies and tried to keep them calm for about an hour as the water saved rising earlier than it obtained too dangerous and rescuers could now not hear them.

“How awful must that have been to sit there and wait in your own death?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different factors like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless resolution to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by water.

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

Clements read from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he could not flip around because he might now not see the edge of the highway and was frightened about working into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe it wounded his pride 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 stated.

Flood's lawyer stated whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others had been attempting to unfairly blame just the previous deputy as an alternative of the gear problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him although taking the ladies to the mental well being services was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, however before he was sentenced advised the judge he tried all the things he may to keep the women calm as the waters rose and assist was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a sequence of errors on my part and other people that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the girls,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been eventually rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities stated. 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 would not open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they were in a position to lower the roof off the van and began working on the cage, but the water acquired increased and quicker and it was too dangerous to continue.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood had to learn to observe the rules and use widespread sense at such a steep value.

“I can forgive, but I cannot neglect. Fortunately, I nonetheless remember my mother as a happy woman, a joyful girl who liked her household," he mentioned. “However you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mom by hearing her screams behind that van."

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