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 searching for mental well being remedy trapped in a cage in the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

A Marion County jury found former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood guilty 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 households said they were not violent. Newton was solely in search of medicine for her worry and anxiousness and Inexperienced’s family stated she was committed to a psychological facility at an everyday mental health appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the verdict and after a number of family members of the women stated his determination to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap of their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson instructed the choose. “He abused the trust my sister, Nikki, Wendy and the state of South Carolina entrusted him with. And for what? To avoid wasting time.”

Circuit Court Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter charge and four years on every reckless murder 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, stopping the ladies from with 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, in response to 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 because the water stored rising before it got too harmful and rescuers might no longer hear them.

“How awful should which have been to sit down there and wait on your personal loss of life?” Solicitor Ed Clements said in his closing argument Thursday.

While other elements like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Freeway 76 just outside 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 turn round because he may no longer see the edge of the highway and was frightened about working right into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer stated while it was a terrible tragedy, others have been making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the previous deputy as a substitute of the tools problems, the troops that waived them across the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was starting and sent him regardless that taking the women to the mental health facilities 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 stated. “They need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood did not testify, however earlier than he was sentenced informed the decide he tried all the pieces he could to keep the ladies calm as the waters rose and help was slow to arrive.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have 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, nevertheless it nonetheless would not open. The delay in getting help was pricey too. A firefighter testified they were in a position to lower the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water received higher and faster and it was too dangerous to proceed.

Newton's son Charles mentioned he hated that Flood had to be taught to comply with the principles and use frequent sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, but I can not overlook. Happily, I still remember my mom as a cheerful girl, a joyful woman who cherished her household," he stated. “However you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mom by hearing her screams in the back of that van."

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