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 in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two girls seeking psychological well being therapy trapped in a cage in the back was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.

A Marion County jury discovered 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 dedicated the day they died in September 2018, however their households stated they weren't violent. Newton was solely looking for medication for her concern and anxiety and Inexperienced’s family mentioned she was dedicated to a psychological facility at a daily psychological health appointment by a counselor she had never seen earlier than.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about 30 minutes after the decision and after a number of family of the women mentioned his resolution to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap of their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Green-Johnson told the decide. “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 prison on each involuntary manslaughter cost 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 being able 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, based on testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

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

“How awful must which were to take a seat there and wait for your own loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

While other factors like an emergency radio that failed to notify rescuers of the van's actual location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless decision to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) through water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 simply outside Nichols, however Flood drove around 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 couldn't flip around because he might now not see the sting of the highway and was worried about operating right into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer said whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others have been attempting to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy as a substitute of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and despatched him although taking the women to the mental well being amenities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you simply resist the urge to attempt to give justice to these two girls 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 told the decide he tried all the pieces he may to maintain the women calm because the waters rose and assist was sluggish to arrive.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been finally 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 still would not open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they have been in a position to lower the roof off the van and started engaged on the cage, however the water obtained increased and quicker and it was too harmful to proceed.

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

“I can forgive, however I cannot neglect. Thankfully, I nonetheless keep in mind my mother as a contented girl, a joyful woman who beloved her household," he said. “But you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mother by listening to her screams in the back of that van."

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