00:00:04
- MALE NARRATOR:
On the 3rd of November 2016, police searching
for a missing couple
00:00:10
at a property
in Woodruff, South Carolina made an incredible discovery. - [tool grinding]
00:00:17
- OFFICER: Kala,
how are you honey? This is bolt cutters. - NARRATOR: Thirty-year-old,
Kala Brown had been chained up
00:00:23
in a metal storage
container for 65 days. Her boyfriend, Charlie Carver
had been shot dead.
00:00:32
- CHUCK: And the coroner
came up and said that they had positive ID that it was Charlie.
00:00:39
That was a hard time. You just,
don't wanna hear those words. How could a man just walk out,
not knowing who this person was,
00:00:48
anything about this person
and just end his life right there? - NARRATOR: The killer
was a popular real estate agent,
00:00:54
named Todd Kohlhepp. Police would soon discover
two more bodies on the grounds of his property.
00:01:02
But the 45-year-old,
had even more skeletons in his closet. The murder of four employees
at a motorcycle dealership,
00:01:11
thirteen years earlier. - Todd describes
that before he leaves the scene, he goes back to each victim,
and shoots them in the head
00:01:19
before he leaves. - NARRATOR: In total,
Kohlhepp had taken the lives of seven people.
00:01:25
The twisted serial killer
had been hiding in plain sight for over a decade. - DR. YARDLEY: Getting away
with those murders
00:01:33
signals to him that there
are no consequences for this, "I can kill
and I can get away with it."
00:01:39
- NARRATOR: Todd Kohlhepp
had been unmasked as one of the world's most evil killers.
00:01:45
- ♪ - NARRATOR: When 45-year-old
real estate agent, Todd Kohlhepp was arrested for the murder
of three people,
00:02:13
and the kidnap of another,
on his property in Woodruff, South Carolina,
in November 2016,
00:02:21
investigators had no idea
he was also responsible for an unsolved shooting spree
which killed four others
00:02:29
thirteen years earlier. Journalist Daniel Gross knows
Kohlhepp's story better than most.
00:02:38
- DANIEL: When I hear the name
Todd Kohlhepp, I picture him sitting
in that interrogation room
00:02:45
when he was initially arrested
and in his mind he had those investigators
wrapped around his finger.
00:02:52
He was confessing
to a murder that they were not able to solve for 13 years,
and so, um, when I see his name
00:02:59
or see his face,
I always just think about his ego and personality
behind the man
00:03:06
that--that's murdered
all these people. - NARRATOR: Daniel continues
to discover more about
00:03:27
the deranged serial killer. Kohlhepp regularly pens letters
to him from his cell.
00:03:34
- DANIEL:
I mean, as a journalist, this is one of those cases
that you only really dream up,
00:03:39
you know, it's--it's sorta
larger than life, um, almost like,
uh, you're just reading
00:03:43
a horror book or something. Even today, you know,
he's in prison for the rest of his life,
he's convicted of murdering
00:03:51
seven people. I almost feel like we're still
just scratching the surface. - NARRATOR: This killer's story
begins in the sunshine state
00:03:59
of Florida. Todd Sampsell
was born in Ft. Lauderdale on the 7th of March 1971. But his parents
split up when he was just two.
00:04:11
Todd adopted his
stepfather's surname, Kohlhepp, when his mother remarried,
but his formative years
00:04:18
were far from happy. - DR. YARDLEY: When we look
back at Kohlhepp's childhood, we are almost ticking off
all of the warning sign
00:04:26
behaviors for serial homicide. We've got somebody
who has real difficulty forming a relationships
with his peers,
00:04:34
so he doesn't see children
his own age as potential allies, potential friends,
he sees them as competitors.
00:04:41
He can only communicate and
interact with them aggressively. He basically wants to crush
everybody else
00:04:47
and to come out victorious. We also have a history
of animal cruelty. We know that he bleached
a goldfish.
00:04:54
We know that he shot a dog
with an air gun. Here is somebody who enjoys
causing harm to other people
00:05:00
and other living creatures,
it's something that makes him feel powerful and that sadism
is a threat that will run
00:05:06
throughout the rest of his life. - NARRATOR: The family relocated
to South Carolina,
00:05:12
but Kohlhepp's mother
divorced again in 1982. The couple would go on
to remarry each other
00:05:18
several times
throughout Todd's life. Twelve-year-old Todd was causing
so much disruption at home,
00:05:27
that a decision was made
to move him 2,000 miles across the country. - DANIEL: Eventually,
he was fed up with living here
00:05:35
and convinced his mother
to let him go live with his birth father,
who he really hadn't seen
00:05:41
at all in Arizona. And I think
that might have been a way for him to try to see life
in a new light
00:05:47
and maybe get a fresh start,
change of scene, change of venue. - NARRATOR: But there
was to be no improvement
00:05:54
in Todd's behavior. In fact, in November 1986,
the troubled teenager would soon turn to violent crime.
00:06:04
- DANIEL: He was 15 years old
and, the reports say that he had gone outside
and found a neighbor
00:06:10
who was a 14-year-old girl,
and he ended up kidnapping her and taking her back
to his father's house,
00:06:17
and--and that's where he
duct-taped her mouth, he held a pistol to her head,
and sexually assaulted her.
00:06:25
- NARRATOR: It was a horrific
and unprovoked attack. - DANIEL: He threatens
to kill her, he says,
00:06:31
"If you tell anyone about this,
I'll kill your family, I'll kill your siblings,
I'll kill you."
00:06:35
I mean, scared her to death. - GEOFFREY: It's chilling,
genuinely chilling that he's so convinced
of his own importance,
00:06:44
so convinced of his own
superiority that he can
get a way with anything. He really does think
that the girl won't tell anyone.
00:06:52
- NARRATOR: But the girl's
family were already concerned for the missing teenager.
00:06:57
Her young brother had recently
been taught what to do if you need help
in an emergency,
00:07:02
and he had raised the alarm. - DR. YARDLEY: The rape victim
had a five-year-old brother
00:07:07
and he was concerned
that he couldn't find her, so he called the police
and as he was on the phone
00:07:13
to the police, his sister
comes in through the door, and then talks to the officers
and tells them
00:07:18
what had happened. But for me,
the interesting thing is--is Kohlhepp's reaction when he was arrested because
his overriding concern was,
00:07:27
"How much trouble am I in,
how much prison time am I likely to serve?" Absolutely no concern
for his victim whatsoever,
00:07:35
it's all me, myself and I. - NARRATOR: In October 1987,
aged just 16, Todd Kohlhepp
00:07:43
was sent to prison for 15 years. - DANIEL: You know,
alot of people say that's your time for rehabilitation,
um, I think for Todd,
00:07:51
it was the opposite. I think he--he sat there
and continued to harbor all this inner struggle.
00:07:58
- NARRATOR: After serving
his sentence, Kohlhepp was released
on November the 24th, 2001.
00:08:05
He'd spent almost half
his life in prison. - DANIEL: So now,
he's 30-years-old and, uh,
00:08:12
newly out of prison,
so of course he's gonna move back to South Carolina
to be with his mom.
00:08:17
- DR. YARDLEY: When Kohlhepp
is released, he starts an image management campaign,
essentially.
00:08:23
During his time in prison,
he's performed this role as a model inmate,
now he's been released,
00:08:28
he needs to, basically,
do some damage limitation, in terms of establishing
a new life for himself.
00:08:34
- NARRATOR: Five years
after his release in 2006, Kohlhepp applied
for a real estate license
00:08:41
in South Carolina. Despite being
on the sex offenders register, the 35-year-old managed
to talk his way around it.
00:08:50
- DANIEL: They raised that issue
with him and said, "Well, we know you're applying
for this license,
00:08:53
but there's this
on your record," and he submitted a letter,
essentially just downplaying
00:08:58
the entire conviction. - DR. YARDLEY: And he basically
explains this offense as a misunderstanding
between him and a girlfriend,
00:09:08
so he's basically saying,
"Well, this was-- this was her fault,
this wasn't really me."
00:09:14
- NARRATOR: In June 2006,
Kohlhepp was granted his real estate agent's license. He opened his own business,
and on the outside,
00:09:24
was living the life of a
well-respected model citizen. Albeit, with an unhealthy
fascination for guns.
00:09:33
- DR. YARDLEY: Kohlhepp
was an avid collector of firearms and I think this
is something that he inherited,
00:09:38
in a way, from his father,
who also had quite a considerable collection,
but I think for me,
00:09:44
it's about
what firearms represent. They represent power,
they represent authority,
00:09:49
and I think if you look at them
in the context of Kohlhepp's other hobbies and interests,
they are quite grandiose,
00:09:55
they are quite alpha males. So he had a pilot's license,
he was into motorbikes,
00:10:01
he liked fast cars,
so all of this paints a picture of the--the kind of
American dream, you know,
00:10:07
the macho American character. - NARRATOR: But this
charming man about town was hiding a huge secret.
00:10:15
In November 2003,
less than three years before becoming a successful
real estate agent,
00:10:22
Todd Kohlhepp had gunned down
four people in cold blood. On the 6th of November,
00:10:29
Kohlhepp walked into
a local motorcycle dealership, called Superbike Motorsports.
00:10:35
- DANIEL: Scott Ponder opened it
and he had a passion for motorcycles, loved to ride, you know,
so they built
00:10:41
this whole business
around this motorcycle shop, and, um, people knew about them,
you know, it was,
00:10:46
it was a thriving business,
and it was a family business. - NARRATOR: 30-year-old
Scott employed
00:10:51
a small number of people,
including his 52-year-old mother, Beverly Guy. Scott's wife
had moved to South Carolina
00:11:00
from Arizona
to be with her husband. They were married
in January 2002. - MELISSA: From
a young age, um, teen years,
00:11:10
he was really into motorcycles,
and so, I think, early on in his years,
he always planned on having
00:11:17
his own motorcycle dealership, like, he knew that--
that would happen. He was just a gentle person.
00:11:25
He had the ability to make you
feel really comfortable. I think is why he was
so successful in his business
00:11:32
is because people that came in
were immediately put at ease with just his demeanor.
00:11:38
- NARRATOR: In November 2003,
Melissa had recently found out that she was pregnant
with the couple's first child.
00:11:47
- So, Scott was not
going to actually go to that first appointment with me,
he was busy
00:11:52
and at the last minute,
he just decided, "You know what, I'm gonna
go hear the heartbeat.
00:11:57
I've never heard this before,
this is new and exciting," and so he surprised me
by showing up at the hospital.
00:12:05
I'm going to forever
remember that day because he wasn't supposed
to be there, and he was and we walked in
and we were able to experience
00:12:14
that together and it was
pretty exciting, you know, for them to find
this beating heart
00:12:19
and us to, you know,
get excited over the fact that, yeah,
we're gonna have a family
00:12:25
and that was a good day for us. I never would have imagined
that two days later,
00:12:30
it would all change. - NARRATOR: On the day
of the attack at Superbike Motorsports,
nothing seemed
00:12:39
out of the ordinary. - MELISSA: So November 6th
of 2003, he went on to work and I got ready for work,
and my last, um, memory
00:12:53
in my mind, and the picture
I have in my mind is I passed
the motorcycle dealership
00:12:57
that morning and honked at him,
and he was standing at the side of dealership
and he waved and blew a kiss
00:13:03
and that's honestly
the last time I ever saw him alive. - NOVEMBER: At around 3:00PM,
Melissa received a call
00:13:11
from a concerned colleague
who'd heard news of a shooting at the bike shop. She immediately
raced across town.
00:13:19
- MELISSA: I got to the location
that all of the law enforcement was at, and there was a good
ten or 12 law enforcement
00:13:26
vehicles with their lights on,
had the road blocked off, and I just ran past
all of them and said,
00:13:33
"That's my husband's
business down there," and I just started running. - NARRATOR: Before she
could get near,
00:13:38
Melissa was escorted home
by police officers. Together they sat and waited
for news from the crime scene.
00:13:47
- MELISSA: I was standing
at my front glass door, just looking out front,
and I see
00:13:52
Spartanburg County Coroner
drive up my driveway. So, two people walked in, told me to have a seat.
00:14:01
The woman immediately
started talking, and she identified herself
as one of the coroners,
00:14:05
and she just said,
"We had an unfortunate event "happen at your husband's
business today, um,
00:14:12
Scott was shot and killed." - NARRATOR: The bottom
fell out of Melissa's world. - MELISSA: And--and I
immediately started crying
00:14:23
and said, "I don't, I don't know
what I'm gonna do. I'm pregnant, I can't run
this business by myself, I'm--"
00:14:30
you know, just...sorrow. I started to think,
you know, his mom, "I've gotta call his mom,
where's is mom,
00:14:37
"I need to talk to her,
where is she? where's--where's Beverly?"
and... That is when they told me
that his mom had been shot
00:14:45
and killed as well,
and that Brian Lucas had been shot and killed
and they hadn't identified
00:14:51
the fourth victim yet
because he didn't have any identification on him. - NARRATOR: The fourth victim
was 26-year-old mechanic,
00:14:58
Chris Sherbert. Chris, Brian Lucas, Beverly Guy
and her son, Scott Ponder, had all been murdered
in cold blood.
00:15:09
The identity
of the gunman was a mystery. Seven months later,
in June 2004, Melissa gave birth
to a ten-pound baby boy
00:15:21
and named him Scott Junior. - MELISSA: He changed
everything for me. I, um, the first moment
I laid eyes on him,
00:15:32
I thought, "This is why
I'm still here." Because, honestly, I wanted
to have been down there
00:15:36
at the dealership that day
and just taken with him, it was so hard, but, yeah,
as soon as they put
00:15:42
that little boy in my arms,
I--I knew that that was my soul purpose,
why I was still here.
00:15:49
- NARRATOR: Scott never knew
his father and over 15 years later,
his mom has never
00:15:54
let the memories fade. - SCOTT JR.: She told me
alot about him and how, um, he liked to, um, mess
with my grandma a lot
00:16:04
back when he was younger,
and he thought it was funny, and, uh, she liked to tell
alot of stories about him,
00:16:10
and, uh, it helped me, like,
just picture what, I mean, who he really was. During his birthdays,
usually I'm in school
00:16:19
so she takes me out of school
and we go to lunch. We just kinda
celebrate his life,
00:16:24
I guess and not--not feel down
about it, just have a day
where we celebrate him and just him, you know.
00:16:32
- NARRATOR: The investigation
into the quadruple murder at Superbike Motorsports
unearthed no obvious suspects.
00:16:40
Nothing had been stolen
and there were no witnesses to the crime,
but suddenly in late 2004,
00:16:48
the police had an
unlikely suspect on their radar. - MELISSA: It wasn't until
my son was about six months old
00:16:57
that I got called
into the sheriff's department, and they said,
"We got something
00:17:02
"that we need
to talk to you about, it's really serious,"
and my first inclination was,
00:17:07
"They know who did this,
and they wanna talk to me about it." So, they sat me down in a room,
an interrogation room and said,
00:17:14
"We took DNA from a diaper "you left here
a couple weeks ago, "and we sent it off
and compared it to the blood
00:17:23
"from the crime scene
and we have DNA "that does not match up
with your husband's,
00:17:29
and so we need you
to tell us, what's going on?" "Who's--who's
the baby's father?"
00:17:37
You know, "How do you
play a role in all--" I mean, I was taken so far aback
I couldn't believe it.
00:17:45
- NARRATOR: Melissa had turned
from a victim to a suspect. She was so stunned
by the accusations
00:17:52
that she offered
to have Scott's body exhumed so a new DNA sample could be
taken to prove her innocence.
00:18:00
- MELISSA: I wanna say
it took about a month. - When I--I received
a call back from them.
00:18:06
In essence, what they told me
is Scott and Brian's blood vials were mislabeled. Somebody put
the wrong name on the DNA,
00:18:18
and so, they were doing
a DNA test of my son with Brian Lucas, not knowing
it was Brian Lucas' blood,
00:18:25
they just thought
I'd had an affair. - NARRATOR: It had been
a year of hell for Melissa.
00:18:32
- MELISSA: It--it broke
my heart, it broke my spirit. I decided to move back to
Arizona when my child was one.
00:18:40
I just figured, it was time
for me to start back over in my home area,
and kind of get us out
00:18:47
of the public eye
because everybody knew who we were here
and I--I didn't wanna raise my son that way.
00:18:55
- NARRATOR: The police
had zero suspects and the murders would go
unsolved for over a decade.
00:19:01
But the perpetrator
was hiding in plain sight. A disgruntled customer
who'd taken his frustration out
00:19:09
in the most extreme
and callous way. The killer was Todd Kohlhepp. - DANIEL: There's records of him
being in the store
00:19:19
and the shop owner and manager
and some others had apparently-- making fun of him in a way,
sort of a light hearted banter,
00:19:27
you know, they--they were,
they were known to--to joke around. - DANIEL: And Todd being Todd,
that just fueled a fire in him,
00:19:36
you know, whereas anybody else,
it's like, "Okay, if somebody "was joking towards me
or making fun of me even,
00:19:41
you know, it's, it is
what it is," you know, they move on, right? Um, but Todd's not gonna
take--take that from anybody,
00:19:48
and them making fun of him,
he felt that they had to pay. - NARRATOR: Kohlhepp returned
to the bike shop
00:19:55
on the 6th of November 2003
and waited until no other customers
were in the store.
00:20:02
He then drew a gun
and exacted his revenge. - DANIEL: And, just one by one,
Todd executes them,
00:20:11
he shoots them, cold blood. Brian and Scott actually
were the last to be shot, and, um, after they saw
what was happening,
00:20:19
they started to run
for the front door, and, um, Todd was able
to shoot both of them
00:20:24
right outside the door. - I think getting away
with those murders at the bike shop,
would've been really meaningful,
00:20:31
um, for Kohlhepp
because it signals to him that there are no consequences
to this,
00:20:37
"I can kill
and I can get away with it." - NARRATOR: Feeling invincible,
Kohlhepp would spend
00:20:43
the next decade
honing a successful career as one of the top
real estate agents in Spartanburg.
00:20:50
But in 2015, Kohlhepp's
lust for blood returned. The 44-year-old
had recently acquired
00:20:59
a large plot of land
in Woodruff, South Carolina. The 95-acre grounds
would soon become
00:21:06
Kohlhepp's killing fields. On the 22nd of December 2015, 29-year-old Johnny Coxie and his
25-year-old wife, Meagan,
00:21:18
were reported missing. - Meagan and Johnny were a young
married couple in their 20s
00:21:24
and they were quite vulnerable. They had experienced
quite a few issues in the past,
00:21:29
um, drug addiction,
they'd had their--their child removed by--by Social Services,
and they came to know Kohlhepp
00:21:38
because he offered them work,
working on his property doing manual labor. So, I think he very much saw
00:21:47
that vulnerability in them,
um, and--and exploited that because Kohlhepp is a predator,
and he is--is very good
00:21:55
at spotting vulnerabilities
in other people. - GEOFFREY: Kohlhepp sees them
as almost a perfect pair
00:22:01
of victims. So, he makes a pretense,
on the 19th of December 2015, he says, "I would like you
to come out
00:22:09
"to the Woodruff property,
I need some clearing to be done." Now, not many people
are gonna miss them, I mean,
00:22:15
they've been living rough. They--they haven't got
lots and lots of, um, relatives around.
00:22:22
He takes them to the property,
they get out of the car... - DANIEL: Then he shoots Johnny.
00:22:29
He drops dead,
he then takes Meagan Coxie and puts her into a container
and holds her captive
00:22:39
for about a week. - NARRATOR: In a bid to escape
the clutches of Kohlhepp, Meagan started a fire
in her makeshift prison.
00:22:48
Just like her husband,
she was executed in cold blood by the twisted killer. - GEOFFREY: He said she was
acting like a caged animal,
00:22:59
and so, he said,
quite matter factly, "I put a bullet
in the back of her head." So now he's got two bodies.
00:23:06
He digs graves for them both, and buries them on the property. Goes back to work
as a real estate agent
00:23:13
as if nothing
whatever had happened. - NARRATOR: The police
had no leads in the disappearance
of Johnny and Meagan Coxie.
00:23:22
Once again, Kohlhepp
had got away with murder, and eight months later,
he was ready to kill again.
00:23:29
On the 4th of September 2016, a family made a call
to the police to report that their 32-year-old son,
Charles David Carver,
00:23:40
known as Charlie, was missing. - CHUCK: He was just
a caring person, he always wanted to help people.
00:23:46
He'd give you the last $2.00
out of his wallet and the shirt off is back
if you needed it, you know,
00:23:52
he was just that kind of a guy. - DANIEL: Seemed like
a--a happy life. Charlie would text his father
everyday or every other day.
00:24:00
They'd talk about sports, um, so
he lived a pretty normal life. - CHUCK: The last text I got
from him before he went missing
00:24:08
was about football, you know,
it was just a funny cartoon, and I still have it.
[chuckles]
00:24:16
- NARRATOR: Alongside Charlie,
his new girlfriend, Kala Brown, had also disappeared.
00:24:23
- CHUCK: I ran into Charlie
and Kala in Walmart on a Saturday. We were shopping
and they were coming out,
00:24:31
and he introduced Kala to us
and that was the first time I'd met her,
and five days later,
00:24:41
they went missing. - NARRATOR: In late August,
Charlie and his girlfriend had been contacted by a friend
of 30-year-old Kala,
00:24:51
Todd Kohlhepp. - DANIEL: Kala had already
known Todd Kohlhepp. They had met previously and they
had chatted online on Facebook.
00:25:02
Pretty often,
you know, at some point, Kohlhepp had offered for Kala
to work for him as well,
00:25:10
you know, he was looking
for work and he knew Kala as sort of a friend at this point.
00:25:16
- NARRATOR: Days
turned into weeks, and Charlie and Kala
failed to return home. They had seemingly vanished
off the face of the Earth.
00:25:26
- CHUCK: About 30 days into it,
my wife and I talked and I said, "Something's wrong,
don't know what,
00:25:34
what has happened," but just
had the parent feeling that... you know, it wasn't
gonna be good, and so,
00:25:43
we sat our kids down
and, three youngest and said, "This may not, you know,
end well, you know,
00:25:52
your brother may be gone." - NARRATOR: The search continued
into October 2016, but it would be in vain.
00:26:01
Charlie Carver had been dead
since the 31st of August. Just like Johnny
and Meagan Coxie,
00:26:10
Charlie and Kala's visit
to Kohlhepp's Woodruff home would end in tragedy. - DANIEL: So they came together
on the property
00:26:18
and without hesitation,
Todd Kohlhepp ends up shooting, um, Charlie three times
in the chest,
00:26:24
and he dropped to the floor. At this point,
Kala Brown is just stunned, you know, this--
she just watched her boyfriend
00:26:30
get murdered in front of her
and not sure what to do, basically silent,
just standing there in fear
00:26:37
and Kohlhepp then goes to her,
shoves her in the shipping container
and chains her up inside there.
00:26:44
- NARRATOR: Just like
Meagan Coxie, Kala Brown became
Todd Kohlhepp's prisoner. - DANIEL: The next two months,
Kala Brown is in captivity.
00:26:54
She's on that property,
no one's heard from her, no one knows where she is,
meanwhile, Kohlhepp
00:26:59
is still living his normal life. He's going to work,
he's working late hours, he's talking to people
like normal.
00:27:05
- GEOFFREY: I think
he's convinced himself that's it's all worked,
that "My fantasy's come true,
00:27:09
"I have my captive,
I go there everyday, "do what I want with her,
and I resume my, quote,
00:27:15
'ordinary life' outside." He is so obsessed
with his own satisfaction, with his own personality
with that god complex of his,
00:27:24
that he doesn't believe
for one second that she will ever
leave his clutches. The pretty fly
in the spider's web.
00:27:34
She is his and will remain his. - NARRATOR: But this time,
by utilizing cell phone
00:27:40
triangulation, the police
were hot on the heels of Todd Kohlhepp. - DANIEL: Then they realized
that Kala's phone is pinging
00:27:49
in Spartanburg County,
so they reach out to Spartanburg and from there,
they learn property records
00:27:55
and they can see that, okay,
this property--piece of property is owned by a man
named Todd Kohlhepp.
00:27:59
- NARRATOR:
On the 3rd of November 2016, two months after the
disappearance of Charlie Carver
and Kala Brown,
00:28:07
the police were ready to swoop. - DANIEL: We've got
investigators in Spartanburg
00:28:13
that go to Kohlhepp's house,
which is about 20 minutes or so from the Woodruff property,
and meanwhile,
00:28:19
there's another team
of investigators that go to the Woodruff property
with a search warrant.
00:28:25
- DANIEL: And they get
into the property and they start looking,
they find Kala chained up
00:28:29
in the container. They hear her inside,
they take a long time to kinda cut through
all the chains and locks
00:28:35
that had been on the container,
open it up, find her, rescue her. - GEOFFREY: Wonderful video
of them actually
00:28:44
opening the container,
taken by the police at the time. It's extraordinary
and they--they walk in
00:28:50
and right at the back
of the container, right at the far end,
there she is. - NARRATOR: There was
no sign of Charlie.
00:29:04
- NARRATOR: Investigators radio
this traumatic update through to their colleagues
at Kohlhepp's home.
00:29:25
- DANIEL: And at this point,
Kohlhepp just shuts down, he--he kinda gives
this blank stare and he goes,
00:29:30
"I don't know
what you're talking about." - DANIEL: And they're
pressing him on it, saying,
00:29:46
"We've got Kala,
now you can either cooperate "and tell us more,
tell us where Charlie is
00:29:50
or we could go the hard way." - NARRATOR: Finally
Todd Kohlhepp was safely behind bars.
00:30:14
Kala Brown had been saved
after a terrifying ordeal. - DR. YARDLEY: He held her
in a storage container
00:30:20
for 65 days, um,
and subjected her to the most horrendous
sexual violence, um, he raped her, twice a day,
um, on some occasions.
00:30:31
She was simply there
as his play thing to be used as he wished. She reported that Kohlhepp
told her that he owned her,
00:30:40
that she was his possession,
and that is very indicative of--of somebody who
is controlling,
00:30:46
somebody who sees
women as objects, somebody is inherently
a misogynist, so I think her account
is a really valuable one,
00:30:55
and I'm just very thankful that
she survived to tell the tale. - DANIEL: Unlike Meagan,
who we know,
00:31:02
sort of put up a fight
and was very and very disagreement with Kohlhepp,
um, I think Kala did what
00:31:07
she had to do to--to get by. Ultimately, you know,
she was rescued and I don't know
00:31:12
if she ever thought
she would be rescued, but, ultimately that happened. - NARRATOR: But there was no
good news for the Carver family.
00:31:21
- CHUCK: I guess it was
that Saturday night about seven o'clock,
it was dark, and the coroner came up,
00:31:30
and said that they had
positive ID that it was Charlie. That was the hard time. You just...
don't wanna hear those words.
00:31:47
- NARRATOR: Days later,
Chuck was able to visit the Woodruff property
where his son's life
00:31:53
had been so cruelly taken away. - CHUCK: Standing there
on that gravel driveway,
00:32:01
close to the same area where
he was probably been laying, I was just like,
"How could he do this?"
00:32:09
How could a man just walk out,
not knowing who this person was, anything about this person,
and just end his life,
00:32:18
right there? - NARRATOR: Lying close
to Charlie Carver on the grounds of Todd Kohlhepp's
Woodruff property
00:32:26
were the bodies of Johnny
and Meagan Coxie, all three had been shot
and left in shallow graves.
00:32:34
- DANIEL: Meanwhile, Todd
is already in jail, arrested and so the--the murder charges
have already started stacking up
00:32:40
against him
while he's sitting there in those first initial days
of being caught.
00:32:45
Todd is already explaining
to investigators, "Hey if you listen to me, if,
you know, maybe if we work out
00:32:49
a deal, um, I've got
a lot more to tell you guys." - NARRATOR: Charged
with three murders
00:32:56
and the imprisonment
of Kala Brown, Todd Kohlhepp
was about to confess to a crime that had gone
unsolved for 13 years.
00:33:05
The revelation would leave
investigators completely dumbfounded. He revealed to investigators
00:33:11
that he had even more
to tell them. - DANIEL: He is just going
in depth, in great detail about
00:33:20
the various things that he did,
including and most importantly, uh, the murders of the
Superbike Motorsports families.
00:33:43
- DR. YARDLEY: And when
he's describing to the police what happened,
he's bragging about it,
00:33:47
he's saying, "You would've
been proud of me." He's looking for validation. He's--he's wanting other people
to be impressed by him,
00:33:55
and we see this often
in cases of--of serial killers. Once they are linked
to a particular crime
00:34:01
or a series of crime, they
wanna take the credit for it. They want full recognition
for what they've done.
00:34:16
- NARRATOR: The investigators
were completely taken aback. Kohlhepp knew details
of the four Superbike killings
00:34:22
that had never been made public. They decided to call
the families of the victims,
00:34:29
including the widow of
Scott Ponder, Melissa Brackman. - MELISSA: I was walking out
of the movie theater
00:34:36
with my family
and it was Detective Lachica, and he wanted to know if I would
be available in an hour,
00:34:45
that I needed to be able
to talk to him and be home, and I said, "Sure." And so, he calls me
and--and he said,
00:34:57
"We have a confession
to the Superbike," and I break down, and I just,
I--I can't believe this,
00:35:06
like, "Are you--are you
serious?" and he's just like, "This is not something
I would kid with you about,"
00:35:10
and he started to explain, "Have you been following
the news? There was a girl
that we just recovered,"
00:35:15
and I said, "I have been
following that story, how does that relate t--?"
you know, and he says,
00:35:19
"It's the same guy." - NARRATOR: After 13 years
of unanswered questions, Melissa couldn't quite believe
that the mystery
00:35:29
of who killed her husband
had been solved. - MELISSA: I was everything.
[chuckles]
00:35:34
I was happy, I was angry, I was sad, I was...
in question of everything, like, "What was his motive?"
you know,
00:35:44
"Why would, why would he
have gone and-- "why did he kill
my mother-in-law? "Why did, you know,
if he was mad at the dealership,
00:35:50
"why would he take out
my mother-in-law, what's--what's that about?" - NARRATOR: The community
of Spartanburg, where Kohlhepp
00:35:58
was lauded as a well-respected
real estate agent, was stunned. A serial killer had been
operating in their midst.
00:36:09
- DANIEL: At this point,
Kohlhepp has confessed to these four murders. He's confessed to killing
Charlie Carver and the Coxies,
00:36:17
um, so he's got
seven murder charges stacked against him
and the kidnapping of Kala.
00:36:23
And shortly after,
since he's confessed, there is-- they don't need to go to trial,
um, he--he ends up
00:36:29
taking a, uh, plea agreement. "If you plead guilty
to these seven murders, we'll give you a life sentence
and you'll avoid
00:36:37
the death penalty,"
and so he said, "Sign me up." - NARRATOR: On the 26th
of May 2017, Todd Kohlhepp
00:36:45
was given seven
consecutive life sentences. One for each of his victims
plus another 60 years
00:36:53
for the kidnap of Kala Brown. Two years later,
at a civil hearing in July 2019, the victims' loved ones,
seeking compensation
00:37:05
from Kohlhepp's estate,
were given an opportunity to confront the killer. - CHUCK: The whole time
I was talking, we were engaged,
00:37:16
you know, he wasn't looking
at the ceiling or the walls or the floor, it was me and him,
and I was telling
00:37:22
my story of Charlie. How his loss
has impacted me and my family. As I finished up,
our attorney asked me,
00:37:33
"What was the amount
of damages we were seeking?" I said that we weren't seeking
a certain amount
00:37:39
'cuz you can't put an amount
on a person's life. And no amount of money
was gonna bring him back.
00:37:49
Because I wanted Todd
to hear that. [sniffling] I wanted Todd
to understand what he took.
00:38:02
From me. - NARRATOR: Also at
the lawsuit hearing, were the family of Scott Ponder,
including his widow, Melissa.
00:38:17
- DANIEL: And, uh, it was
such a powerful moment 'cuz she had actually
taken the stand to explain,
00:38:23
you know, what this has meant
to her and what this has done to her,
and she used the opportunity
00:38:27
to forgive Kohlhepp,
which is so rare to see, you know, somebody who
destroyed her life in a sense,
00:38:34
and, you know,
killed her husband. She took the high road
and she sat there and she looked him
square in the eye and said,
00:38:41
"Mr. Kohlhepp, I forgive you." - MELISSA: Did I really owe him?
Not really, but I just needed him
to understand that, you know,
00:38:50
what his reasoning
and what he's using was playful banter
from a couple of guys that joke around alot
and that was the environment,
00:39:00
and, you know, that was hard
and a normal person does not go in and wipe four people out
because they piss you off.
00:39:11
- NARRATOR: As well as Melissa,
her son, Scott, was given the opportunity
to look into the eyes of the man
00:39:17
who'd taken the life
of his father just months before he was born. Scott showed
maturity beyond his years
00:39:27
and is certain that his actions
would be met with approval from his father. - SCOTT JR.: I knew that
he would be proud of me
00:39:34
and my, um, mom
and the rest of my family that was there was proud of me. I just, in general, knew that
I was doing good for my dad
00:39:41
and I knew that even though
I was nervous, I had to push through it
and I just knew
00:39:45
that I had to do it
because this is the last chance I had to, uh, speak to him
and just get the message across
00:39:52
and that's basically
all I wanted. - MELISSA: I miss Scott,
he was so good to me.
00:40:01
I'm thrilled
that I have a child that bears his resemblance
and that has picked up
00:40:08
some of his characteristics
and it actually-- it's--it's good for me, it make,
it makes me happy.
00:40:13
It makes me feel like,
sadly as it is, it's all played out
in--in a positive way.
00:40:21
- NARRATOR: Since his
incarceration, Todd Kohlhepp has hinted there may have been
other victims in the 12-year gap
00:40:29
between the Superbike killings
and the Woodruff murders. - DANIEL: I definitely feel like
this story is just beginning.
00:40:36
I feel like it's a story that,
um, that the nation is gonna be interested in,
moving forward.
00:40:43
If we learn
about other killings, you know, these are other families
out there that are looking
00:40:46
for answers,
and they can have answers if Kohlhepp is willing
to come forward and provide more detail
that can lead to a discovery
00:40:53
of a body
or who knows what else. - NARRATOR: Daniel Gross
has been writing to the killer
00:40:59
to try and uncover
Kohlhepp's secrets. - DANIEL: It's a bizarre feeling
every time--every time I see
00:41:06
his signature on those letters
or just his little banter of, you know,
"Hope you're doing well,"
00:41:11
or, you know,
whatever he might say. It's a weird feeling because,
um, it's this gray area of,
00:41:17
um, you know,
you're a serial killer and we're not friends
by any means, you know,
00:41:22
let's try to find
some more detail here and bring some other families
some closure.
00:41:26
- NARRATOR: Kohlhepp's ability
to blend into his surroundings made him an exceptionally
dangerous killer.
00:41:34
- DANIEL: Even the sheriff,
Chuck Wright, mentioned, after his arrest
that he believes he might've
00:41:39
even met Kohlhepp at some point,
without even knowing that, you know, he's shaking
a serial killer's hand,
00:41:44
and so that just shows that,
you know, Todd Kohlhepp was out there, he was,
he was in the public,
00:41:48
he had built
this successful brand. - DR. YARDLEY: I think for me
what makes this case
00:41:53
so exceptional are the different
victim types that he targets. He kills anybody who is a threat
to his sense of self,
00:42:02
and I think it is that
complete disregard for--for other people
and anybody who gets
00:42:07
in his way is gonna suffer. - NARRATOR: Kohlhepp
was a selfish killer, who murdered seven people
for no reason.
00:42:16
Four of them
in a petulant rage that left an unborn child
fatherless. It is not only
the lives he took,
00:42:24
but the lives he left behind,
a grieving wife, a distraught father,
an emotionally scarred
00:42:32
young woman that make
Todd Kohlhepp one of the world's
most evil killers. - ♪ ♪♪
00:43:06
- [swishing sound]