Who Is Todd Kohlhepp? 9 Facts About The Convicted Serial Killer Who Now Claims He's Behind Many More Unsolved Murders
Who and where are the victims? He's not telling... for now.
Crime Watch Daily On May 26, 2017, convicted sex offender and serial killer Todd Christopher Kohlhepp, a now 46-year-old real estate agent, pled guilty to seven counts of murder in a plea deal by which he was spared the death sentence in exchange for seven consecutive life terms, plus 30 years for sexual assault and an additional 30 years for kidnapping.
Four of the murders took place in November of 2003, two in December of 2015, and one in August of 2016, at which time he had also kidnapped one woman who survived. And now, in an 8-page letter dated November 28, 2017, he's told local South Carolina newspaper The Spartanburg Herald-Journal that there are more bodies waiting to be found.
Where are these undiscovered victims and who are they? Apparently, he's not telling.
“At this point," Kohlhepp wrote,"I really don’t see any reason to give numbers or locations.”
As we await the truth here are 9 facts that answer the question, "Who is convicted serial killer Todd Kohlhepp?" to explain why he's so damn scary.
1. His parents divorced when he was only a toddler.
Kohlhepp, now 46, was born on March 7, 1971, in Ft. Lauderale, Florida as Todd Christopher Kohlhepp, and later grew up in South Carolina and Georgia. When he was 2-years-old, his mother, Regina Kohlhepp, now Regina Ann Tague, divorced his father, and she remarried soon after to his step-father, Carl, who had two children of his own.
Todd has spoken about the strained relationship he had with his stepfather over the years, saying that his negative feelings towards his stepfather were so great he would frequently request to be allowed to live with his father instead.
2. He first began displaying violent behavior as a child.
As early as his preschool years, he was considered to be too rough with the other children, and that he seemed to relish destroying their personal property. When he was 9-years-old, he began therapy, and was described as "explosive" and "preoccupied with sexual content." His aggression escalated to cruelty towards animals, as he poisoned a goldfish using Chlorox bleach and shot one of his friend's dogs with a BB gun.
Following these incidents he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital on an inpatient basis, due to his total inability to relate to any of his own peers.
When he was sentenced for his first crime at the age of 15 (more on that to follow), the judge wrote:
"At less than the age of 9, this juvenile was impulsive, explosive, and preoccupied with sexual content. He has not changed. He has been unabatedly aggressive to others and destructive of property since nursery school. He destroys his own clothing, personal possessions and pets apparently on whim and caprice."
3. Living with his father only made things worse.
In 1983, Kohlhepp's frustrated mother finally agreed to send the 12-year-old to live with his father, William Sampsell, in Tempe, Arizona after she and his step-father separated. He worked odd jobs and developed a passion for guns and explosives, passions his father shared, and over which the two seemed to bond. Eventually, however, Todd grew angry with his father, saying that he was too busy with women.
Todd asked to move back in with his mother, but she found excuses for him to remain in Arizona.
4. He was convicted of his first crime as a teenager.
In 1986, while his father was out of town, 15-year-old Todd held a gun to the head of a 14-year-old girl who lived three houses over at gunpoint and forced her to walk with him to his home. Once there, he tied her up, covered her mouth with tape, and raped her. When he finished, he walked her back to her own home, and along the way told her that if she went to the police or told her parents about what had happened, he would kill her brothers and sisters. The girl reported him anyway.
During a psychiatric evaluation prior to his sentencing, Kohlhepp was found to have an above-average IQ of 118, and he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, which WebMD defines as "a mental illness that causes intense mood swings, impulsive behaviors, and severe problems with self-worth. It can lead to troubled relationships in every area of a person's life."
The evaluation revealed that Kohlhepp "destroyed his room with a hammer, was dismissed from the Boy Scouts because he was too disruptive, and shredded his own new clothes... His father made a statement saying the only emotion Kohlhepp was capable of was anger."
The judge also stated on the record, “Twenty-five months of the most intensive and expensive professional intervention, short of God’s, will provide no protection for the public and no rehabilitation of this juvenile.”
Kohlepp pled guilty to kidnapping in exchange for the charges of sexual assault and committing a dangerous crime against children being dropped, after which he was sentenced to 15 years in prison and was required to register as a sex offender.
5. He became a successful real estate agent.
After serving fourteen years in an Arizona prison, Kohlhepp was released in August 2001. He then returned to South Carolina to be near his mother, who later suggested he pursue a career in real estate. Kohlhepp had completed a bachelor's degree in computer science while in prison and worked for a time as a graphic designer, but he decided to switch paths and managed to acquire a real estate license in 2006 by lying about his felony conviction on the application.
Over the course of the next ten years, he managed to build a top-selling firm employing a dozen agents, received a bachelor of science degree in business administration-marketing from the University of South Carolina Upstate, acquired a pilot's license, and purchased 100 acres of local land, as well as several additional properties outside of the state.
6. In 2016, he was arrested for the murder and kidnapping of a couple who worked for him.
On August 31, 2016, Kohlhepp hired Kala Brown and her boyfriend, Charles "David" Carver to clean homes in preparation for being put on the market. When they arrived at his property, Kohlhepp shot Carver multiple times in the chest in front of Brown, killing him, and took Brown captive.
Over the next two months, Kohlhepp kept Brown chained inside of a large storage container on the property.
Twice each day he would take her to the main house, where he would feed and sexually assault her before returning her to the shed. During those moments she spent with him, Kohlhepp showed Brown three shallow graves on his property, which he claimed belonged to Carver and another couple he told her he had killed in the past.
On November 3, 2016, investigators miraculously tracked down Brown's location by tracing her and Carver's cell phone signals. After she being rescued, Brown explained to the police:
"If I refused to do anything he wanted... If I said 'no,' he didn't force his self on me because he said he didn't believe in rape, but he made it very well known why I was there. And if I wasn't useful, then I wouldn't need to be kept any longer, and then he would shoot me... For some reason he just wanted me and that Charlie was just — had to go so he would know I was serious."
7. Kohlhepp's arrest allowed police to close two additional unsolved cases.
Going on the information provided by Brown, police found Carver's remains buried in a shallow grave on his property, alongside those of a married couple identified as Johnny Joe Coxie, 29, and Meagan Leigh McCraw-Coxie, 26.
The two had gone missing on December 22, 2015, also after being hired by Kohlhepp. Johnny is believed to have died from a gunshot wound to the torso on December 19, while Meagan was killed by a gunshot wound to the head on either December 25 or 26. The two have a child who was one-year-old at the time they disappeared.
Additionally, Brown shared with police, "He also told me that he walked into — a few years back — that he walked into a bike shop in Anderson and shot four people and left and that they never found out who did it."
Her description matched the details of a cold case involving the execution-style murders of four employees at Superbike Motorsports in Chesnee, SC, on November 6, 2003. The victims included store own Scott Ponder, his mother and bookkeeper Beverly Guy, store manager Brian Lucas, and mechanic Chris Sherbert. As the crime remained unsolved, it had been labeled a cold case by detectives.
When Kohlhepp later confessed to the killings, he said he'd killed the four people at Superbike Motorsports was because he didn't like the way he'd been treated there.
“All of a sudden, I had three people in front of me... Mom was the closest... And I shot her two, three times in the chest. Not my best work... She fell. The son and the manager, he... ran for the door, took off... At that range, they should have ran to me, not away... That was one big building. I cleared that building in under 30 seconds... I’m sorry, but you guys would have been proud.”
As for the Coxies, Kohlhepp had met Meagan when she was waitressing at the Waffle House he liked to frequent.
He also informed detectives that he after he shot Coxie twice in the chest he felt "conflicted about 'what to do' with McCraw-Coxie. He told her he wasn’t going to harm her, then handcuffed her and locked her in the back of the metal storage container."
"Kohlhepp said he 'fed her for a couple days' but that McCraw-Coxie kept trying to burn things inside the container [so he] eventually killed her, too...
'Every other d— day, she wanted Little Caesars pizza. I hate that s—. It only gives me heartburn... Little Caesars pizza … Dr Pepper, cinnamon rolls and freaking Newports. If you go down to that building, you’ll find an unused package of Newports that I bought for her. And then she went bats—. She tried to light my d— building on fire.'”
8. His now deceased mother stood by her son to the very end.
Tague was found dead at the age of 70 by her husband on April 23, 2017. Her cause of death was ruled as "cardio respiratory arrest secondary to end stage COPD secondary to coronary artery Atherosclerosis."
During interviews on high profile news shows such as 48 Hours, she offered excuses for or minimized every act of violence perpetrated by her son, going so far as to insisted that, although she knew full well what her son had done, he is NOT a serial killer.
"It's not like he went out daily and killed somebody. There was a lot of time between the first ones and then the others, which, I know that doesn't mean much to the families and I'm sorry. But he wasn't a serial killer."
9. He now claims there are more victims to be found.
Brown was the first to indicate that the seven murder victims identified so far may not be the last that will be found.
"He liked to brag that he was a serial killer and a mass murderer," she told police. "He said he was going to kill more people because he had dreams of his body count being in the three digits. He said right now it was still high two digits."
In his recent letter mentioned to The Spartanburg Herald-Journal, he wrote:
“Yes, there are more than seven. I tried to tell investigators and I did tell FBI, but it was blown off... It’s not an addition problem, it’s [a] multiplication problem. Leaves the state and leaves the country. Thank you private pilot’s license.”
The police and the FBI are currently examining his claims, and considering he told Brown that he already had plans to murder Holly Eudy, the married woman with whom he carried on an affair for ten years, chances are seem high that there his claims should not be dismissed.
Rebecca Jane Stokes is a sex, humor and lifestyle writer living in Brooklyn, New York with her cat, Batman. She hosts the sex, love, and dating advice show, Becca After Dark on YourTango's Facebook Page every Tuesday and Thursday at 10:15 pm Eastern. For more of her work, check out her Tumblr.