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 in search of mental well being therapy trapped in a cage in the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury discovered 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 Green, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families mentioned they were not violent. Newton was solely searching for drugs for her concern and nervousness and Inexperienced’s household mentioned she was dedicated to a psychological facility at a regular psychological health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after a number of kinfolk of the women mentioned his choice 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 Inexperienced-Johnson informed 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 Courtroom Decide William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in jail on every involuntary manslaughter cost and four years on every 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 having 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, based on 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 as the water kept rising before it got too dangerous and rescuers may no longer hear them.

“How terrible must that have been to take a seat there and wait in your own dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

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

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply outside Nichols, but Flood drove around them after briefly talking to the soldiers.

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he could not flip around because he may not see the sting of the freeway and was anxious about operating into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others have been making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the former 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 regardless that taking the women to the mental health amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, however before he was sentenced advised the decide he tried every thing he may to keep the women calm as the waters rose and assist was slow to arrive.

“It was a collection of errors on my half and different people that 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, were ultimately rescued from the highest 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, however it nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting help was costly too. A firefighter testified they have been in a position to cut the roof off the van and started working on the cage, but the water received increased and sooner and it was too dangerous to continue.

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

“I can forgive, however I cannot neglect. Fortunately, I nonetheless bear in mind my mom as a happy lady, a joyful woman who loved her household," he mentioned. “But you, Mr. Flood, will bear in mind my mother by hearing her screams behind that van."

———

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