Todd Kohlhepp

by Community Request

Todd Kohlhepp was born Todd Christopher Sampsell in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on March 7, 1971.

Kohlhepp’s parents divorced when he was two years old and shortly thereafter, his mother Regina Tague gained custody of her son, and the next year became re-married to a man named Carl Kohlhepp. They moved to South Carolina, and Carl Kohlhepp legally became Todd Kohlhepp’s stepfather in 1976 when Carl adopted him. Todd took Carl’s last name at the time of the adoption.

A young Todd Kohlhepp and his mother Regina

Kohlhepp was reportedly a troubled, and difficult child with many behavioral issues starting very early in his life. “He was a very troubled, very vicious kid,” former Attorney Allen Bickart told People Magazine. "He had some very, very, very serious issues. He was off the edge.”

In nursery school, he was aggressive towards other children, sometimes destroying their things. As he got older there were several incidents of cruelty to animals, such as killing a goldfish with Clorox bleach and shooting a dog with a BB gun. Some time during this period of his youth, Kohlhepp spent three and a half months as an inpatient of a Georgia psychiatric hospital due to his issues interacting with other children.

In 1983, Kohlhepp’s mother separated from his adopted father, and he was sent to live with his biological father in Tempe, Arizona. He assumed his father’s last name, and found some local work in Tempe as a teenager. He and his his father bonded over weapons, and his father reportedly taught him to "blow things up and make bombs".

Kohlhepp didn’t get along with his father either and wanted to move back home with his mother, who made excuses to extend her son’s stay with his father.

On November 25, 1986, Kohlhepp (at the age of 15) kidnapped a 14 year old neighbor in Tempe, Arizona. He held her at gun point with a .22-caliber revolver stolen from his father, brought her back to his father’s house, tied her wrists together, taped her mouth shut, and raped her. When the assault was finished, Kohlhepp walked his victim home, and threatened to kill her family if she told anyone about the assault.

She told someone anyway, and Kohlhepp was soon charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, and committing a dangerous crime against children.

In 1987, as part of a plea deal, he pled guilty to only the kidnapping charge, and the state dropped all other charges. He received a sentence of fifteen years in prison, and was placed on the sex offender registry. According to court documents, Kohlhepp was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and an IQ test placed him one standard deviation above average with an IQ of 118.

The judge in this case said Kohlhepp most likely could not be rehabilitated. His probation officer made similar notes, specifically noting that Kohlhepp "felt the world owed him something".

During his imprisonment, Kohlhepp was cited for violations including violent behavior as a teen. After his twentieth birthday he had no other violent incidents in jail.

Kohlhepp was released from prison in August of 2001, after serving fourteen years, and moved back to South Carolina, where his mother still lived.

During his time in jail, Kohlhepp received a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Central Arizona College. From January 2002 to November 2003, he worked as a graphic designer, and he also enrolled in Greenville Technical College in 2003. While attending classes here, he killed four employees at the Superbike Motorsports store in Chesnee.

On November 6, 2003, a customer found four people shot dead inside Superbike Motorsports. Kohlhepp would not be identified as the murderer until his confession in 2016. The victims were identified as owner Scott Ponder, 30; bookkeeper Beverly Guy, 52, who was Ponder's mother; service manager Brian Lucas, 29; and mechanic Chris Sherbert, 26. All four died from multiple gunshot wounds.

According to Ponder's wife, Melissa, Kohlhepp was a disgruntled customer who had been in the shop several times. According to Kohlhepp's mother, he tried to return a motorcycle he had purchased, but the Superbike Motorsports employees laughed at him, refused return his money, and mocked him for not knowing how to ride.

Kohlhepp transferred to University of South Carolina-Upstate the following year, and graduated in 2007 with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration-marketing.

Despite being a registered sex offender, Kohlhepp received his real estate license on June 30, 2006, after lying on his application. He managed to build a real estate brokerage that had a dozen agents beneath him, and was recognized as a top-selling agent in the Carolina region.

Kohlhepp also acquired a private pilot license, and several out of state properties. In May 2014, he purchased a huge plot of land (nearly 100 acres or 40 hectares), located in an area nine miles from the community of Moore, for $305,632.

During this period of his life his behavior seems to have become increasingly unstable. A customer of his Realty office, who sold Kohlhepp her home, remembered him as outgoing and professional, but often talked of his firearms and laced innuendo into their conversations. Another woman described him as angry and condescending towards her partner. A banker who worked with him said he often watched pornographic videos at work.

At a Waffle House restaurant his behavior disturbed waitresses enough that a male cook started taking Kohlhepp's orders for them so they wouldn’t have to deal with him. According to the cook, one of the waitresses was Meagan Leigh McCraw-Coxie, 26, who was reported missing along with her husband Johnny Joe Coxie, 29 just before Christmas, on December 22, 2015.

Meagan McCraw-Coxie and Johnny Joe Coxie

Meagan was trying to turn her life around, and called her mother from jail saying that she had a job. Meagan told her mother she was hired to clean homes by a real estate agent, and that the same real estate agent had hired her husband Johnny to clean his properties, and that the agent would drive them to and from the jobs. Meagan’s mother reported them missing a few days later.

On August 31, 2016, Kala Brown, 30, and her boyfriend Charles David Carver, 32, also went missing. They had taken a job removing brush and other debris from one of Kohlhepp's properties. Brown, of Anderson, South Carolina, had cleaned houses for Kohlhepp’s real estate listings before, and usually brought Carver with her. She knew Kohlhepp from Facebook, where he had contacted her after she posted that she was looking for work. He offered to pay her to clean some of his properties, and encouraged her to bring someone with her.

On November 3, Brown was located by authorities. A social media post indicated Brown was to meet Kohlhepp at the property on the day the couple disappeared, and the last ping from her cell phone came from the property. While they were searching the area, they heard banging noises coming from an exposed shipping container. Inside, Brown was chained to the plywood wall of the metal shipping container. A wider search also revealed Carver's vehicle, which was covered in brush in a small ravine, and his corpse at the edge of the property.

According to Kala Brown, she was an eye witness to her fiance Charlie Carver’s murder. She and Carver were waiting for Kohlhepp outside of his garage, holding hands. They were in love, and had plans to marry.

“He walked out and he had the gun in his hand, and he pretty much shot Charlie before he ever even made it completely out the door,” Brown said.

Kohlhepp emerged from the garage and calmly shot Charlie Carver 3 times in the chest.

“He grabbed me and told me to come inside or I’d join Charlie,” Brown said, and that he was “completely calm and reserved. It was like nothing out of the way had even happened.”

Kohlhepp grabbed her from behind and dragged her into the garage, handcuffed her wrists and ankles, and put a ball gag in her mouth. Then he told her he had to go deal with Charlie.

Kohlhepp wrapped her boyfriend's body in a blue tarp after shooting him, Brown said. “I was numb. I couldn’t think. I still hadn’t comprehended what happened,” Brown said about the aftermath of watching Carver be murdered in front of her. She said Kohlhepp told her, “It was easier to control someone if you took someone they loved.”

Kohlhepp then dragged her into the stifling metal storage container where he had rations and bottles of water.

He left her bound and gagged, put the chain around her neck, and attached the chain to the container. Kohlhepp returned hours later to warn “that if I tried to run, he’d kill me. If I tried to hurt him he’d kill me, if I fought back, he would kill me,” she said.

Brown told police just after her rescue that Kohlhepp had killed Carver because Kohlhepp was "mad at her", and would tell Dr. Phil that he kept her captive because of his infatuation with her.

During her captivity, Brown was raped repeatedly, and intimidated into not escaping after having been shown the graves of Kohlhepp's other victims. Kohlhepp's mother would claim Carver was murdered for his "really smart mouth", and that he kept Brown captive because she “did not do anything wrong” and he “did not want to hurt her”.

Dr Phil asked Kala Brown during during their interview,

“Have you said goodbye to him in your mind?”

“I’m still trying to,” she said.

“What do you say to him now?” McGraw said.

“I apologize a lot … It was my job. He was there with me. I’m sorry about that,” she said tearfully.

Kohlhepp was arrested shortly after Brown's rescue.

To Be Continued…