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Sex offender who chained up woman killed at least seven, say police Sex offender who chained up woman killed at least seven, say police
(about 9 hours later)
A South Carolina man killed at least seven people in a hidden crime spree that lasted more than a decade and only was uncovered when police rescued a woman chained at the neck in a storage container, authorities said on Saturday. A South Carolina man killed at least seven people in a hidden crime spree that lasted more than a decade and only was uncovered when police rescued a woman chained at the neck in a storage container, authorities said.
Todd Kohlhepp accepted responsibility for an unsolved massacre one day before the 13th anniversary of the deaths that stumped authorities, said Sheriff Chuck Wright, who was first elected a year after the murders. Todd Kohlhepp accepted responsibility for an unsolved massacre in which four people were killed, one day before the 13th anniversary of the deaths that stumped authorities, said Sheriff Chuck Wright, who was first elected a year after the murders.
Kohlhepp, 45, was due in court for a bond hearing on Sunday, having confessed to the deaths of the owner, service manager, mechanic and bookkeeper of Superbike Motorsports, a motorcycle shop in Chesnee, in Spartanburg County. He faces four counts of murder and a single kidnapping charge, according the Spartanburg County sheriff’s website on Sunday. On Sunday, relatives of those killed in the massacre gathered in a Spartanburg courtroom. They sat a few feet away from Todd Kohlhepp, 45, as he was denied bond on the murder charges. It was their first chance to face the man accused of killing their loved ones.
“God answered our prayers. If it wasn’t for Him answering our prayers and Todd talking to us, I don’t know that we’d ever solve that case,” Wright said. After the hearing, magistrate judge Jimmy Henson thanked the families for their civility and composure. “I know there’s a lot of hurt ... beyond what a lot of people understand,” he said.
Wright said Kohlhepp also showed law enforcement officers on Saturday where he says he buried two of his other victims on his 95-acre property near Woodruff. Kohlhepp, in handcuffs and wearing an orange jumpsuit, was at the site for less than an hour. Authorities have charged Kohlhepp with four counts of murder in the 2003 deaths at the Superbike Motorsports motorcycle shop in Chesnee. Kohlhepp’s alleged role in those killings was uncovered, authorities said, after a woman was found last week chained in a locked metal container on Kohlhepp’s property in rural Woodruff.
Those were in addition to the body found on Friday at the site. Wright and Coroner Rusty Clevenger identified that victim as 32-year-old Charles Carver, the boyfriend of the woman found on Thursday in a locked metal container. The murder charges against Kohlhepp represent welcome progress for investigators and families haunted by the slayings at the motorcycle shop. The killings shocked the state and left the victims’ parents and spouses reeling with each new rumor about a possible motive.
Carver and the woman went missing around 31 August. Their last known cellphone signals led authorities to the property. The Associated Press is not naming the woman because the suspect is a sex offender, though authorities have not said whether she was sexually assaulted. “We got ‘em today. We got ‘em today,” Sheriff Wright said, referring to answers in the cold case. “I’m rejoicing that this community can know that four people who were brutally murdered, there’s no wondering about it anymore.”
Carver died of multiple gunshot wounds. An anthropologist is helping determine how long he was buried, Clevenger said. He declined to say how many times Carver had been shot. The sheriff said it was possible more bodies will be uncovered. A Spartanburg County sheriff’s investigative report from Saturday said Kohlhepp “confessed to investigators that he shot and killed” the owner, service manager, mechanic and bookkeeper of the motorcycle shop, giving details only the killer would know.
The wife of one of the 2003 victims said detectives told her Kohlhepp was an angry customer who had been in the shop several times. Melissa Ponder told the AP she was resigned that her husband Scott’s death would never be solved before getting a phone call on Saturday evening from one of the case’s original detectives. Now, investigators fear they will make more disturbing discoveries as they unwind a hidden crime spree that unfolded over more than a decade. Kohlhepp is also charged with the woman’s kidnapping, and prosecutors say more charges are expected. Authorities say Kohlhepp is a suspect in at least three other deaths.
Detectives told family members of all four victims of the confession at the same time. “He knew too much about the crime scene,” Ponder said of Kohlhepp’s account to detectives. “He knew everything.” Authorities were searching again on Sunday on the suspect’s 95-acre Woodruff property. Wright said Kohlhepp had shown investigators where he says he buried two other victims there.
The Superbike killings stunned the Chesnee community, with rumors like they were committed by a Mexican drug gang or were part of a love triangle crushing the families of the victims. Melissa Ponder said she was glad the rumors weren’t true. Those are in addition to the body found on Friday at the site. Authorities identified that victim as 32-year-old Charles Carver, the boyfriend of the woman found on Thursday. Carver, who died of multiple gunshot wounds, went missing with the woman at the end of August.
“It isn’t closure, but it is an answer,” she said. “And I am thankful for that.” The Associated Press is not naming the woman because the suspect is a sex offender, though authorities have not said whether she was sexually assaulted.
Kohlhepp was released from prison in Arizona in 2001. At 15, he was convicted of raping a 14-year-old neighbor at gunpoint and threatening to kill her siblings if she called police. Kohlhepp had to register as a sex offender. That didn’t stop him from getting a South Carolina real estate license in 2006 and building a firm. In Spartanburg, Kohlhepp appeared in an orange jumpsuit for the brief bond hearing and declined to make a statement. He did not have an attorney. After Kohlhepp left the courtroom, Henson told the family members they would have a chance later to address Kohlhepp in court.
Wright said “it’s strange” that Kohlhepp managed the pretext of a normal life for so long. Scott Waldrop, who has lived next door to the Woodruff property for nearly 22 years, said he thought Kohlhepp was a serious Doomsday “prepper” who liked his privacy, but “he didn’t seem like a threat”. “When it comes your time to speak to that defendant, speak from the heart,” he said. “You have something to say. You’ve been waiting 13 years to say it.”
Waldrop said when he saw the container, it was full of bottled water and canned goods. After buying the property two years ago, Kohlhepp immediately started putting a chain link fence around it. The father of Brian Lucas, the 29-year-old service manager who died at the motorcycle shop, thanked the judge.
Waldrop said Kohlhepp paid him to put up no trespassing signs, cut trees for him and other odd jobs around the property. Kohlhepp also installed deer cameras and put bear traps throughout. “Your honor, I appreciate your words to us and your counsel,” Tom Lucas said as two others put their hands on his shoulders. “We thank you.” Standing with his wife before the hearing, Lucas said he wanted to be in court to look Kohlhepp in the eye.
“I was the only one he let over there, I think because I laughed at his jokes and listened to him,” he said. “I just hate to know somebody who’s done something like this.” “I want to look at him, and I want to try to use that in healing,” he said.
Kohlhepp has a house about nine miles away in Moore, where neighbor Ron Owen said Kohlhepp was very private, but when they did talk across the fence, he was a “big bragger”. He and his wife, Lorraine, said there was a vigil on Friday night to mark the anniversary of the killings, and gatherings were a regular occurrence over the years.
Kohlhepp liked to talk about the money he made day trading online, for example, and about his two BMWs. He recently told Owen, 76, that he’d spent $80,000 on the chain link fence. Before Kohlhepp emerged as a suspect, investigators said all four victims were killed with the same pistol. They have theorized that the killer came in the back and killed mechanic Chris Sherbert, 26, as he worked.
“We didn’t see any signs whatsoever that this was going on,” Owen said. “My first reaction’s a baseball bat, but I know I’m not to take that in my own hands. God will deal with him.” Bookkeeper Beverly Guy, 52, was found just outside the bathroom, in the middle of the showroom. Thirty-year-old shop owner Scott Ponder was found just outside the door, in the parking lot. He was Guy’s son. Brian Lucas was in the doorway of the shop.
Kohlhepp was released from prison in Arizona in 2001. As a teenager, he was convicted of raping a 14-year-old neighbor at gunpoint and threatening to kill her siblings if she called police.
Kohlhepp had to register as a sex offender. But that didn’t stop him from getting a South Carolina real estate license in 2006, building a firm and maintaining the appearance of normalcy.
Melissa Ponder, who was married to Scott Ponder, said detectives told her Kohlhepp was an angry customer who had been in the motorcycle shop several times. She said that she had resigned herself to Scott Ponder’s death remaining unsolved until she got a phone call on Saturday evening from detectives.
“It isn’t closure, but it is an answer,” Ponder said by phone. “And I am thankful for that.”
Another grieving relative who came to the hearing, Terry Guy, was Scott Ponder’s stepfather and Beverly Guy’s husband. He said Kohlhepp’s arrest means relatives of the victims can now finally be at peace.
“I’m just so relieved,” Guy said.
The building that housed the shop is now shuttered and surrounded by a chain-link fence, along a two-lane highway leading toward the Blue Ridge Mountains. Two miles away in downtown Chesnee, Danny Lee said the killings rattled his quiet hometown of about 900 residents. The 52-year-old knew the victims and had a bike in the shop for repairs at the time.
“He said he did it. We’ve got to take his word for it,” he said of the suspect. “What I still want to know is why.”