Todd Christopher Kohlhepp (born March 7, 1971) is an
American serial killer, convicted of murdering seven people in South Carolina
between 2003 and 2016.
Early life
Todd Kohlhepp was born on March 7, 1971 in Florida, and was
raised in South Carolina and Georgia. His parents divorced when he was two years
old, and his mother, who got custody of him, married another man the following
year. Later psychological reports found
that Kohlhepp had an unhealthy relationship with his stepfather and often
wanted to live with his biological father, whom he had not seen in eight years.
Kohlhepp was described as a troublesome child. In nursery
school, he was known to be aggressive towards other children and would destroy
their property. At the age of nine, when
he started undergoing counseling, Kohlhepp was described as being
"explosive" and "preoccupied with sexual content." He also displayed cruelty to animals, shooting
a dog with a BB gun and killing a goldfish with Clorox bleach. In modern psychology, cruelty to animals is
thought by many academics to be a common trait of the young psychopathic
individual. As in Kohlhepp's case, some may work up to harming human beings as
adults.
Kohlhepp's father later said the only emotion his son was
capable of was anger. Kohlhepp spent
three and a half months in a Georgia psychiatric hospital as an inpatient
because of his inability to get along with other children.
Eventually, in 1983, Kohlhepp was sent to live with his
biological father in Arizona after his mother and stepfather separated. He took
his father's surname and began working a number of local jobs. He also
inherited his father's hobby of collecting weapons and was taught by him to
"blow things up and make bombs." Despite this, their relationship
deteriorated due to his father's absence with a number of girlfriends, and
Kohlhepp expressed desires to return to his mother, though she reportedly made
excuses to extend his stay.
1987 kidnapping
conviction
On November 25, 1986, 15-year-old Kohlhepp kidnapped a
14-year-old girl in Tempe, Arizona. He threatened her with a .22-caliber
revolver, brought her back to his home, tied her up, taped her mouth shut, and
raped her. Afterwards, he walked her home and threatened to kill her younger
siblings if she told anyone about what had happened. Kohlhepp was charged with
kidnapping, sexual assault, and committing a dangerous crime against children.
In 1987, he pled guilty to the kidnapping charge and the
other charges were dropped. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison and
registered as a sex offender. According
to court records, Kohlhepp was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder
and had an IQ of 118, which was considered "above average."
The judge in the case said Kohlhepp was "very bright and should be advanced academically," but "behaviorally and emotionally
dangerous" and likely could not be rehabilitated. Kohlhepp's probation officer wrote a similar
description in court papers and added that he "felt the world owed him something." Kohlhepp's attorney in that case later
went on to say that, while defending him "he
did not believe his client would go on to harm others" in the future. During his imprisonment, Kohlhepp was
initially cited for violations that included some violent behavior, but after
turning twenty, he had no other records of disobedience.
Release
In August 2001, Kohlhepp was released from prison after
serving fourteen years and moved to South Carolina, where his mother was living.
During his imprisonment, he attended and
graduated from Central Arizona College with a bachelor's degree in computer
science. From January 2002 to November 2003, he worked as a graphic designer
for a company in Spartanburg. He began studying at Greenville Technical College
in 2003. Kohlhepp transferred to the University of South Carolina Upstate the
following year, and graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor of Science degree in
business administration-marketing.
Despite being registered as a sex offender, Kohlhepp was
able to get a real estate license on June 30, 2006, after lying about the
felony charge on his application. From this, he built a firm that had a dozen
agents in its employment. He had been
recognized as a top-selling agent in the Carolina region. The firm was closed down following his arrest.
Kohlhepp also acquired a private pilot
license and several properties out of state. In May 2014, he purchased nearly 100 acres (40
ha) of land, located in an area nine miles (fourteen kilometers) from the
community of Moore, for $305,632. He then set a fence around the property, which
cost $80,000.
A customer who sold her home to Kohlhepp remembered him as
extremely outgoing and professional, but noted that he would often talk about
his firearms and sometimes subtly used sexual innuendo during their
conversations. Conversely, a woman who assisted one of Kohlhepp's employees
described him as angry and condescending towards her partner. A banker who worked with Kohlhepp said he
often watched pornographic videos, even at work.
Kohlhepp frequented a Waffle House restaurant in Roebuck,
where his behavior disturbed the waitresses to the point where the male cook
began to take Kohlhepp's orders for them. According to this employee, one of
the waitresses was Meagan Leigh McCraw-Coxie, one of Kohlhepp's victims.
Murders
On November 6, 2003, a customer found four people shot to
death inside Superbike Motorsports, a motorcycle shop in Chesnee. The victims were identified as owner Scott
Ponder, 30; service manager Brian Lucas, 30; mechanic Chris Sherbert, 26; and
bookkeeper Beverly Guy, 52, who was Ponder's mother. All four died from
multiple gunshot wounds. Before Kohlhepp confessed to the shootings in 2016,
investigators believed that the gunman, armed with a pistol, entered the shop
from the back and killed Sherbert as he worked.
He then killed Guy in the middle of the showroom, Lucas at
the main doorway, and Ponder in the parking lot. According to Ponder's wife,
Kohlhepp was a disgruntled customer who had been in the shop several times. According to Kohlhepp's mother, he attempted
to return a motorcycle there, but the employees laughed at him, would not
return the money he had paid for the motorcycle, and embarrassed him for not
knowing how to ride one.
On August 31, 2016, Kala Brown, 30, and her boyfriend
Charles David Carver, 32, went missing after they went to clean Kohlhepp's
residence. Carver was later found dead of multiple gunshots on Kohlhepp's
property. Interest in the disappearance
of Brown and Carver increased as a result of messages posted to Carver's
Facebook account following their disappearance, the unusual nature of which
prompted speculation that another party had taken control of his Facebook
account.
On November 3, Brown was found by authorities, chained to
the wall inside a metal storage container on the property. Investigators had
tracked her down after tracing the couple's last known cellphone signals, after
which they heard banging noises coming from inside the container. A search of Kohlhepp's
property recovered Carver's vehicle, which was found in a ravine covered in brush.
According to Brown, she witnessed Carver being shot. Kohlhepp's mother claimed Carver was killed
for having a "really smart mouth," which Kohlhepp did not like. He
also said he kept Brown captive because she did not do anything wrong and that he
did not want to hurt her. However, Brown
stated to police just after her rescue that Kohlhepp had killed Carver because
Kohlhepp was "mad at her." During her captivity, Brown was intimidated
into not escaping after having been shown the graves of Kohlhepp's other victims.
Two bodies were discovered on Kohlhepp's property following
his arrest, on November 6–7. They were
later identified as husband and wife Johnny Joe Coxie, 29, and Meagan Leigh
McCraw-Coxie, 26, residents of Spartanburg who were reported missing on
December 22, 2015. They were allegedly hired by Kohlhepp to work on his property.
McCraw-Coxie had been killed by a
gunshot wound to the head on December 25 or 26, while Coxie had been killed a
week earlier by a gunshot wound to the torso. According to the county coroner,
they were identified through their extensive tattoos.
List of known victims
Name Sex Age
Date of murder/disappearance
Scott Ponder M 30 November
6, 2003
Brian Lucas M 30 November
6, 2003
Chris Sherbert M 26 November
6, 2003
Beverly Guy F 52 November
6, 2003
Johnny Joe Coxie M
29 December 19, 2015
Meagan Leigh McCraw-Coxie F
26 December 25 or 26, 2015
Kala Brown (survived) F
30 August 31, 2016
Charles David Carver M
32 August 31, 2016
Arrest and
investigation
Kohlhepp was arrested shortly after Brown's rescue. He later
confessed to the Chesnee shootings and the murders of the Coxies, in exchange
for allowing him to talk to his mother, give her a photograph, and transfer
money to the college fund of a friend's child. While meeting with his mother, he reportedly
confessed to the killings and kidnapping. When he confessed to the Chesnee shootings,
Kohlhepp said he shot each of the victims once in the forehead, a detail in the
investigation that was never released to the public.
A search of Kohlhepp's property also uncovered numerous
weapons, including 9mm pistols outfitted with suppressors, semi-automatic
rifles, and an undetermined amount of ammunition. Because there was no record
of a background check under Kohlhepp's name for the purchase of a firearm,
investigators believe he likely acquired the weapons illegally.
Shortly following Kohlhepp's arrest, authorities in
Spartanburg County discovered a number of seemingly joking product reviews for various
items such as padlocks, shovels, tasers, and gun accessories on retail website
amazon.com written by a user known simply as "me." One review about a
padlock stated, "Solid locks.. Have
5 on a shipping container.. Won’t stop them.. But sure will slow them down til
they are too old to care." Another, written for a folding shovel,
read, "keep in car for when you have
to hide the bodies and you left the full size shovel at home.... does not come
with a midget, which would have been nice." The reviewer’s "wish
list" page was listed as Todd Kohlhepp.
Following his arrest, Kohlhepp claimed to his mother that
there were many other victims aside from the aforementioned. When his mother
asked how many, his response was, "You
do not have enough fingers." During interrogation, he claimed to have
shot a victim in Arizona. On November
18, 2016, it was reported that the Tempe Police Department had begun an
investigation into Kohlhepp's claim, searching through unsolved homicides in
the past three decades. They said they
would focus on cases dated from 1983 to 1986, when Kohlhepp was living with his
father; and also between August 2001, when Kohlhepp completed his sentence for
kidnapping, and November 2001, when he moved back to South Carolina.
On November 25, 2016, police in Greer, South Carolina,
announced that they have named Kohlhepp as a person of interest in an unsolved
2003 bank robbery and triple homicide at the local Blue Ridge Savings Bank.
This crime was separated from the Chesnee shootings by six months.
In December 2017, Kohlhepp wrote to the Spartanburg
Herald-Journal claiming that he had more victims who have not been discovered.
Legal proceedings and
guilty pleas
Kohlhepp was charged with four counts of murder in relation
to the Chesnee shootings, and one count of kidnapping in relation to Brown's
abduction. He was later charged with
three additional counts of murder for the murders of Carver and the Coxies,
along with one additional count of kidnapping and three counts of possession of
a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. Kohlhepp's next court appearance was scheduled
for January 19, 2017, where Kohlhepp's attorney waived their right to
appearance.
According to a report by WLTX, relatives of the Chesnee
shooting victims filed a wrongful death lawsuit against him. On December 1, it was announced that Brown
also filed a civil lawsuit against him.
On May 26, 2017, Kohlhepp pleaded guilty to seven counts of
murder, two counts of kidnapping and one count of criminal sexual assault and
was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences without the possibility of
parole in a plea bargain that spared him from capital punishment. Although his defense swore at his sentencing
that there were no other victims to be found, Kohlhepp has since repeatedly
admitted there were at least two other murders. As of August 2018, he has yet
to give authorities the details.
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