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 women in search of mental well being remedy trapped in a cage within the back 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 Green, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, but their families mentioned they weren't violent. Newton was solely looking for medication for her concern and anxiety and Green’s family said she was committed to a psychological facility at a regular mental health appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the verdict and after a number of relatives of the ladies stated his resolution to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, cussed man,” Green's sister Donnela Green-Johnson advised the decide. “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 jail on each involuntary manslaughter cost and four years on every reckless homicide 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 response to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

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

“How awful must which were to sit down there and wait for your own loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

While different elements like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's actual 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.

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

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he couldn't flip around because he could no longer see the sting of the freeway and was anxious about working into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Possibly it wounded his pride or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed ahead into water that was not just standing in a tall puddle, but it surely was dashing, crossing the guardrail. All of it was the Little Pee Dee River by then,” Clements mentioned.

Flood's lawyer mentioned whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others were trying to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy as an alternative of the tools problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and despatched him though taking the women to the psychological well being facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced advised the decide he tried every thing he might to maintain the women calm because the waters rose and assist was sluggish to arrive.

“It was a sequence of errors on my part and different those who led me to that point and I’m sorry for what happened to the women,” Flood mentioned.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been finally rescued from the top 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, however it still wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was pricey too. A firefighter testified they have been able to minimize the roof off the van and started working on the cage, however the water received increased and sooner and it was too dangerous to continue.

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

“I can forgive, however I can not overlook. Fortuitously, I nonetheless bear in mind my mother as a cheerful woman, a joyful lady who liked her household," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by hearing her screams at the back of that van."

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