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 ladies looking for psychological health therapy trapped in a cage in the again 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 Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily dedicated the day they died in September 2018, but their families said they weren't violent. Newton was solely looking for medication for her fear and nervousness and Inexperienced’s household said 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 half-hour after the verdict and after several kinfolk of the women said his determination to press forward with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix gap in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in movement by a pompous, stubborn man,” Green's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson advised 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 Courtroom Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in jail on each involuntary manslaughter cost and four years on each 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 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, in keeping with 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 as the water kept rising before it got too harmful and rescuers may not hear them.

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

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

Nationwide guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 simply exterior Nichols, but Flood drove around them after briefly speaking to the troopers.

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was in the water, he could not flip around as a result of he may not see the edge of the highway and was worried about operating 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 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 stated.

Flood's lawyer mentioned while it was a horrible tragedy, others have been making an attempt to unfairly blame just the previous deputy instead of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew harmful flooding was beginning and sent him though taking the ladies to the mental health amenities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you 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 need to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, however before he was sentenced instructed the judge he tried all the things he might to maintain the ladies calm as the waters rose and assist was gradual to reach.

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

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, had been ultimately rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities stated. 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 wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was costly 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 got higher and quicker and it was too harmful to continue.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood had to study to follow the rules and use common sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, however I can't overlook. Happily, I still bear in mind my mom as a contented girl, a joyful lady who cherished her household," he said. “However you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mom by hearing her screams at the back of that van."

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