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 within the again was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail.

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 households stated they weren't violent. Newton was only seeking drugs for her concern and nervousness and Green’s family mentioned she was committed to a mental facility at a daily psychological health appointment by a counselor she had by no means seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after a number of relatives of the women said his choice to press ahead with the shortest route left an impossible-to-fix hole in their lives.

“This was a deliberate act set in motion by a pompous, stubborn man,” Inexperienced's sister Donnela Inexperienced-Johnson told the choose. “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 Judge William Seales sentenced Flood to 5 years in prison on each involuntary manslaughter cost 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 against a guardrail, preventing the ladies from with 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, according to testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies said they spoke to the ladies and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour as the water saved rising before it bought too harmful and rescuers may no longer hear them.

“How awful should which have been to sit there and wait for your personal death?” Solicitor Ed Clements mentioned in his closing argument Thursday.

Whereas different factors like an emergency radio that didn't notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned 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 just outdoors Nichols, however Flood drove round them after briefly talking to the troopers.

Clements read from Flood's statement to investigators that he felt like once he was in the water, he couldn't turn around as a result of he may no longer see the sting of the freeway and was nervous about working into a ditch hidden by the water.

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

Flood's lawyer stated while it was a horrible tragedy, others were attempting to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as an alternative of the equipment issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and sent him though taking the ladies to the psychological well being amenities was not an emergency.

"I ask that you just resist the urge to attempt to give justice to those two women by giving injustice to this good man," defense attorney Jarrett Bouchette said. “They wish to make him a scapegoat for this accident.”

Flood didn't testify, but earlier than he was sentenced told the decide he tried everything he might to keep the women calm because the waters rose and help was slow to arrive.

“It was a collection of errors on my half and other people that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the girls,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, were ultimately rescued from the top of the transport van, authorities mentioned. Bishop will stand trial for 2 counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, but it surely nonetheless wouldn't open. The delay in getting help was pricey too. A firefighter testified they had been in a position to cut the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, but the water got greater and quicker and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood had to learn to comply with the rules and use frequent sense at such a steep price.

“I can forgive, however I cannot forget. Thankfully, I nonetheless remember my mom as a cheerful girl, a joyful woman who cherished her household," he mentioned. “However you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mom by hearing her screams behind that van."

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