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 women seeking mental health therapy trapped in a cage in the back 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 murder.

Judges ordered Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, to be involuntarily committed the day they died in September 2018, but their families stated they were not violent. Newton was only looking for medicine for her fear and nervousness and Inexperienced’s family said she was committed to a mental facility at a regular psychological well being appointment by a counselor she had never seen before.

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

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

Circuit Court Decide 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 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, based on testimony from the trial streamed by WMBF-TV.

The deputies mentioned they spoke to the women and tried to maintain them calm for about an hour as the water saved rising before it acquired too dangerous and rescuers might no longer hear them.

“How awful must that have been to sit down there and wait to your personal demise?” 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 exact location contributed to the deaths, Clements mentioned the drownings all came out of Flood’s reckless determination to drive 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) by means of water.

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

Clements learn from Flood's assertion to investigators that he felt like as soon as he was within the water, he couldn't turn round because he may now not see the edge of the freeway and was worried about running right into a ditch hidden by the water.

“Maybe it wounded his satisfaction 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 stated whereas it was a terrible tragedy, others had been trying to unfairly blame simply the former deputy as a substitute of the gear issues, the troops that waived them around the barricades and supervisors who knew dangerous flooding was beginning and sent him although taking the women to the psychological well being amenities was not an emergency.

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

Flood did not testify, but before he was sentenced instructed the decide he tried all the things he could to keep the women calm as the waters rose and assist was gradual to reach.

“It was a sequence of mistakes on my half and other those that led me to that point and I’m sorry for what occurred to the ladies,” Flood stated.

Flood and the deputy with him, Joshua Bishop, have been ultimately rescued from the highest of the transport van, authorities said. 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 wouldn't open. The delay in getting assist was pricey too. A firefighter testified they were in a position to minimize the roof off the van and began engaged on the cage, but the water obtained higher and sooner and it was too dangerous to proceed.

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

“I can forgive, however I can't forget. Thankfully, I still keep in mind my mom as a cheerful lady, a joyful lady who cherished her household," he stated. “But you, Mr. Flood, will remember my mom 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.