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 girls searching for psychological health 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 responsible of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless murder.

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

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after a number of kin of the women mentioned his determination to press ahead 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 Green-Johnson told the choose. “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 docket Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison 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 towards 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, in response to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies stated they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour as the water stored rising earlier than it obtained too dangerous and rescuers might not hear them.

“How terrible must which were to take a seat there and wait to your personal loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

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

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

Clements learn from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was within the water, he could not turn round as a result of he might now not see the edge of the freeway and was worried about running into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Possibly it wounded his delight or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed forward into water that was not simply 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 mentioned.

Flood's lawyer said while it was a terrible tragedy, others have been trying to unfairly blame just the former deputy as a substitute of the tools issues, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him regardless that 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 women by giving injustice to this good man," defense lawyer Jarrett Bouchette mentioned. “They want to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, but earlier than he was sentenced instructed the decide he tried everything he might to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and assist was gradual to arrive.

“It was a series of mistakes on my half and different those that led me to that time and I’m sorry for what occurred to the ladies,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been ultimately rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities mentioned. 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 began engaged on the cage, however the water got greater and faster and it was too dangerous to continue.

Newton's son Charles stated he hated that Flood had to study to comply with the principles and use frequent sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, but I can't forget. Luckily, I still remember my mom as a cheerful lady, a joyful lady who cherished her family," he stated. “However you, Mr. Flood, will remember 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.