The two women were unknowingly committed to mental health care and had been transported outside Holly County for treatment.
Marion, South Carolina — Detectives against former congressman who helped transport two mental health patients who drowned when they were trapped in the back of a van swept into flood waters caused by Hurricane Florence in 2018 in South Carolina. The charges have been dropped.
Van Driver, Former Hawley County Deputy Commissioner Stephen Flood was convicted in May He is serving nine years in prison on two counts of reckless murder. But the authorities have decided to drop the involuntary manslaughter charges against Bishop Joshua, Lieutenant Bishop of Holly County.
Clements said Bishop did everything he could to save the woman. He said Flood’s trial helped clarify Bishop’s role in the September 2018 deaths of Wendy Newton, 45, and Nicolette Green, 43.
The judge agreed with Newton and Green’s commitment order, but said their families were not violent. He said he had been admitted to a mental institution for routine mental health appointments by a counselor he had never met.
Flooding swept a police van from its wheels, impaled it on a guardrail, and trapped it through the sliding door the women used to enter the van. According to Flood’s testimony at trial, Flood and Bishop did not have the key to his second door, nor did he have an emergency exit hatch.
A deputy said he spoke to the women and tried to calm them down for about an hour as the water continued to rise before it became too dangerous for rescuers to hear them.
Bishop testified that he tried to shoot out the lock on the second door, but it still wouldn’t open. Delays in getting help were also costly. Firefighters testified that they were able to detach the roof from the van and began work on the cage, but the water was too high, too fast and too dangerous to continue.
Flood told investigators he was trying to find the shortest and fastest route to the treatment center. If the road was too dangerous, the National Guard barricading the highway leading to the bridge would have told him to stop.
Prosecutors said Flood should not have stubbornly turned around when he started driving through the water covering the highway.
