Former Horry deputy found guilty in 2018 drowning deaths of mental health patients
A former Horry County sheriff’s deputy was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being found guilty on all charges related to the drowning deaths of two mental health patients.
Stephen Flood was convicted Thursday on two counts each of involuntary manslaughter and reckless homicide for the 2018 deaths of Nikki Green and Wendy Newton.
Marion County Judge William Seals sentenced Flood to five years each on the involuntary manslaughter charges and four years each on the reckless homicide charges, with all those sentences running consecutively, according to WMBF’s live stream of the trial.
In South Carolina, reckless homicide can carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years, while involuntary manslaughter is punishable by up to five years in prison.
Family members of Green and Newton spoke to the court after the verdict and prior to sentencing, urging the judge impose a maximum sentence for the loss of their loved ones.
“This is a grief that, for me, has no closure,” Green’s mother, Linda Green, said, explaining that she often visualizes her daughter screaming as the floodwaters rose in the van.
Flood was driving Green, of Myrtle Beach, and Newton, of Shallotte, North Carolina, on Sept. 18, 2018 from Horry County hospitals to mental health centers in Darlington and Lancaster.
The van was in the Nichols, S.C., area when the deputies drove around a barricade and into high waters caused by Hurricane Florence.
The van was overtaken the water, and the deputies waited on top of the van until they were rescued. It took about 45 minutes for emergency crews to find the van.
Flood and Bishop were taken to the hospital, but Green and Newton were left due to dangerous conditions at the time. Officials had said the deputies tried to rescue the women but were unsuccessful.
The woman’s bodies were recovered the next day, and their deaths were later ruled to be caused by drowning. Flood and fellow Horry sheriff’s deputy Joshua Bishop, who was also in the van during the transport, were fired about a month later.
Bishop — who is also facing two counts of involuntary manslaughter — is scheduled to face trial next.
This story was originally published May 19, 2022 at 12:21 PM.
