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 within the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, drowning two ladies looking for mental well being treatment 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 Inexperienced, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, but their families stated they weren't violent. Newton was solely seeking medication for her fear and anxiety and Inexperienced’s household said she was dedicated to a mental facility at a daily mental well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

Flood, 69, was sentenced about half-hour after the decision and after several kinfolk of the women mentioned his determination to press ahead 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 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 Courtroom Choose William Seales sentenced Flood to five years in prison on every involuntary manslaughter charge and 4 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 towards a guardrail, preventing the ladies from having 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, in accordance with testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies stated they spoke to the women and tried to keep them calm for about an hour because the water stored rising before it bought too dangerous and rescuers may not hear them.

“How awful must which were to sit down there and wait in your personal dying?” Solicitor Ed Clements stated in his closing argument Thursday.

While other elements like an emergency radio that did not notify rescuers of the van's precise location contributed to the deaths, Clements stated the drownings all got here out of Flood’s reckless determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) through water.

National guard troops put up barricades on U.S. Highway 76 just outdoors Nichols, but Flood drove around them after briefly talking to the troopers.

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 as a result of he may now not see the sting of the freeway and was apprehensive about operating right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Possibly it wounded his pride or stubbornness. I don’t know. He pushed ahead into water that was not simply 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 stated whereas it was a horrible tragedy, others were making an attempt to unfairly blame simply the former deputy instead of the equipment problems, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and despatched him despite the fact that taking the ladies to the mental health facilities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, but earlier than he was sentenced informed the judge he tried everything he might to maintain the women calm as the waters rose and help was gradual to arrive.

“It was a series of mistakes on my part and different folks that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the ladies,” 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 2 counts of involuntary manslaughter at a later date.

They tried to shoot the locks off the second door, but it surely still would not open. The delay in getting assist was costly too. A firefighter testified they were able to reduce the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, however the water bought increased and sooner and it was too harmful to proceed.

Newton's son Charles said he hated that Flood needed to study to follow the rules and use frequent sense at such a steep worth.

“I can forgive, however I cannot overlook. Happily, I still remember my mother as a cheerful woman, a joyful woman who beloved her family," he stated. “However you, Mr. Flood, will keep in mind my mother by hearing her screams at the back of that van."

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