Todd Kohlhepp

Todd Christopher Kohlhepp (born March 7, 1971) is a suspected American serial killer who confessed to having murdered seven people in the state of South Carolina since 2003.

Early life

Todd Christopher Kohlhepp was born on March 7, 1971^[2] in Florida, and was raised in South Carolina and Georgia.^[3][4] His parents divorced when he was two years old, and his mother, who got custody of him, remarried to another man the following year.^[4][5] Later psychological reports found that Kohlhepp had an unhealthy relationship with his stepfather and often wanted to live with his biological father, who he had not seen in eight years.^[1][5]

Kohlhepp was described as a troublesome child. In nursery school, he was known to be aggressive towards other children and would destroy their property.^[6] At the age of nine, when he started undergoing counseling, Kohlhepp was described as being "explosive" and "preoccupied with sexual content".^[3] He also displayed cruelty to animals, shooting a dog with a BB gun and killing a goldfish with Clorox.^[6] His father said the only emotion his son was capable of was anger.^[4][7] Kohlhepp spent three-and-a-half months in a Georgia mental hospital as an inpatient because of his inability to get along with other children.^[1]

Eventually, in 1983, Kohlhepp was sent to live with his biological father in Arizona after his mother and stepfather split up. 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.^[1][8]

1987 kidnapping conviction

While living with his father in Arizona in 1986, Kohlhepp kidnapped a fourteen-year-old girl in Tempe on November 25. 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 what happened. Kohlhepp, who was fifteen at the time of the crime, was charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, and committing a dangerous crime against children. In 1987, he pleaded 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.^{[1][3][7][9][10]} According to court records, Kohlhepp was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and had an IQ of 118, which was considered "above average".^[1]

The judge in the case said he was "very bright and should be advanced academically," but "behaviorally and emotionally dangerous" and likely could not be rehabilitated.^[3][7][9] Kohlhepp's chief probation officer wrote a similar description in court papers and added that Kohlhepp "felt the world owed him something".^[11] 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.^[12] During his imprisonment, Kohlhepp was initially cited for violations that include some violent behavior, but after turning twenty, he had no other records of disobedience.^[1]

Release

In August 2001, Kohlhepp was released from prison after serving fourteen years and moved to South Carolina, where his mother was living.^{[3][7][13][14]} 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 in Greenville Technical College in 2003. Kohlhepp then transferred to the University of South Carolina Upstate during the following year, and graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration-marketing.^[14][15]

Despite being registered as a sex offender, however, 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 managed to build a firm that had a dozen agents in its employment.^[11][13][14] He had been recognized as a top-selling agent for a region spanning parts of the Carolinas.^[15] 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 placed sexual innuendo in their conversations. Conversely, a woman who assisted one of Kohlhepp's employees described him as angry and condescending towards her partner.^[16] A banker who worked with Kohlhepp said he would often watch pornographic videos, even at work.^[15] The firm was closed down following Kohlhepp's arrest.^[17]

Kohlhepp also acquired a private pilot license^[11] and several properties out of the state.^[18] In May 2014, he purchased nearly 100 acres of land, located in an area 9 miles (14 km) from Moore, for $305,632. He then set a fence around the property, which cost $80,000.^[1][11][19]

Kohlhepp began frequenting a Waffle House restaurant in Roebuck. He allegedly had a habit of inviting the waitresses to his home and leaving large tips for his meals. His behavior disturbed the waitresses to the point where a male cook who also worked at the restaurant 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 alleged victims.^[20]

Suspected victims

On November 6, 2003,^[14] four people were found shot to death inside Superbike Motorsports, a motorcycle shop in Chesnee, South Carolina, by a regular customer.^[5] 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 outside the bathroom 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.^[13][21][22] 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 a motorcycle.^[23][24][25]

On August 31, 2016, Kala Brown, 30, and her boyfriend Charles David Carver, 32, went missing after they went to do cleaning at Kohlhepp's residence. Carver was later found dead of multiple gunshots on Kohlhepp's property.^{[5][7][11][13]} On November 3, Brown was found by authorities, chained up in a shark cage inside a metal storage container on Kohlhepp's property. Investigators had tracked her down after tracing Brown and Carver'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.^{[5][11][18][26]} According to Brown, she witnessed Carver being shot.^[5] According to Kohlhepp's mother, Kohlhepp said Carver was killed for having a "really smart mouth", which Kohlhepp did not like. Kohlhepp also said he kept Brown captive because she did not do anything wrong and that he did not want to hurt her.^[25] During her captivity, Brown was fed once a day. She was intimidated into not escaping after being shown the graves of Kohlhepp's other victims.^[27][28]

Two bodies were discovered on Kohlhepp's property following his arrest, on November 6–7.^[17][29] 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.^[23][30][31] Meagan McCraw-Coxie had been killed by a gunshot wound to the head on December 25 or 26, while Johnny 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.^[31][32][33]

List

Arrest and investigation

Kohlhepp was arrested shortly after Brown's discovery. He later confessed to the Chesnee shootings and the murders of the two people whose bodies were found buried on his property,^[7] 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.^[24] While meeting with his mother, he reportedly confessed to the killings and kidnapping.^[28] 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.^[5]

A search of Kohlhepp's property also uncovered numerous weapons, including 9mm pistols outfitted with suppressors, assault 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.^[34]

Following his arrest, Kohlhepp claimed to his mother that there were no victims aside from the aforementioned. However, he claimed to have shot a victim in Arizona during interrogation.^[5] On November 18, 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.^[35] They said they will focus on cases dated from 1983 to 1986, when Kohlhepp was living with his father;^[8] and also between August 2001, when Kohlhepp completed his sentence for kidnapping, and November 2001, when he moved back to South Carolina.^[36]

On November 25, 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.^[37]

Legal proceedings

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.^[21] 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.^[32][33][38] Kohlhepp's next court appearance is scheduled for January 19, 2017.^[17] According to a report by WLTX, relatives of the Chesnee shooting victims will also file a wrongful death lawsuit against him.^[36] On December 1, it was announced that Brown will also file a civil lawsuit against him.^[39]

References