Deputy stands trial after SC women drowned in police van

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A deputy charged in the deaths of two women who drowned in a locked police van in 2018 ignored barricades and drove into rapidly rising floodwaters against advice from his supervisors and officials on the South Carolina highway, a prosecutor said Monday.

Former Horry County deputy Stephen Flood is on trial on two counts of involuntary manslaughter and reckless homicide for the drownings of the women he was taking to mental health facilities under a court order as rain from Hurricane Florence inundated eastern South Carolina.

Flood faces up to five years in prison if convicted of involuntary manslaughter and 10 years in prison for each reckless homicide charges.

Flood could have prevented the deaths of Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43, four separate times that evening, Solicitor Ed Clements said in his opening statement Monday at the Marion County courthouse.

First, he could have listened to people in the Horry County Sheriff's Office to avoid the shortest route which was along a highway that had flooded in major storms before, Clements said.

Flood then drove around barricades closing state Highway 9 near Nichols, ignored National Guard troops in the road past the barricades who warned them the water was too deep to drive through and drove his police transport van into water covering the highway near the Little Pee Dee River bridge, the prosecutor said.

Clements told jurors they would see drone footage as crews tried to save the women.

“All you can see is water everywhere. Once he got in there and got stuck, there was nothing he could do," the prosecutor said. "It was stubbornness. I hate to call someone stupid, but this was a stupid act that took the lives of two ladies.”

Flood's attorney told jurors if Flood was stubborn it would have...