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"Amazon Review Killer" - The Grisly Crimes of Todd Kohlhepp · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So think about a serial killer's life like a split
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: screen movie.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really good way to picture it.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Right. Because on one side you have the smiling suburban realtor,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: you know, the exact type.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. The guy on the billboard.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Maybe his face is plastered on a billboard you
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: drive past on your morning commute. Or, you know, maybe
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: he's the guy who helped you navigate. closing costs on
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: your first house.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Shaking hands, wearing a tailored suit.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, running a highly successful firm with multiple employees. But
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: then on the exact same screen, playing at the exact
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: same time, you have a monster.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: A predator, just operating completely in the shadows.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Right. And today in our deep dive, we're going to
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: see how those two screens eventually merged. We are pulling
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: our insights today from a single, deeply unsettling article from
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: all that's interesting.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Detailing the crimes of Todd Kohlhepp.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you might actually know him by the moniker
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the press eventually gave him, which is the Amazon review killer.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: It's a staggering psychological puzzle we are looking at today.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: And our mission here is to dissect the architecture of
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: this individual's life. We want to understand how a man
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: who checked, I mean, literally every terrifying behavioral red flag
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: since nursery school managed to exploit structural vulnerabilities in our society.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: While building a totally successful public facade.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. While simultaneously operating as a prolific killer, we're going
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: to connect the mechanics of his early childhood trauma to
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: the systemic friction that allowed him to walk free, and
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: ultimately to the bizarre digital breadcrumbs he left out in
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: the open.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: On one of the world's largest e-commerce sites, no less. Right.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: It's wild.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: So let's start with the foundation. Because, you know, you
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: really cannot understand the adult who builds a literal compound
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: for murder without understanding the environment that wired his brain
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: as a child.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: You have to start at the beginning.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Our source material takes us back to his birth.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Born Todd Christopher Samsell on March 7, 1971, down in
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And almost immediately, the concept of a stable home is shattered.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: His parents divorced when he was only two years old.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Which is incredibly young to experience that structural shift.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Totally. And then, by 1976, his mother, Regina Tagg, marries
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a man named Carl Kohlhepp.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Right, who legally becomes his stepfather.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They move around, spending time in South Carolina and Georgia.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And this is where the deeply disturbing traits really begin
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to surface.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: And anyone who listens to true crime or follows behavioral
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: psychology is probably already familiar with the McDonald triad.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Right. The three behavioral warning signs in children.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Fire setting, bedwetting, and animal cruelty.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: And the presence of those indicators, particularly the animal cruelty,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: is just a massive neurological red flag.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: But we aren't just looking at a kid acting out
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: because of a messy divorce or moving around a lot.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: We are looking at a documented escalating pattern of malice.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Like what specifically?
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Well, the source notes he was a known bully. He
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: would purposefully destroy the school projects of his classmates.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was eventually thrown out of the Boy Scouts
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: for his behavior. But let's look at the specific mechanics
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: of the animal cruelty because the details really matter here.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the specifics are just awful.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: They are.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Because he killed a goldfish with bleach. And he shot
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: a local dog with a BB gun.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: And I really want to pause on the goldfish because
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: that is not an impulsive reaction.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, not at all.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Like, that isn't a kid throwing a tantrum and accidentally
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: knocking over a fishbowl, you know? Bleach is a deliberate
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: chemical intervention.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's calculated.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: It is a literal choice to introduce a toxic substance
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: and then just watch a living thing suffer.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: It is entirely about power and displacement. When we look
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: at the environment that was breeding this behavior, it clarifies
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: a lot, actually.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because FDI agent John Douglas looked into this, right?
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Yes. And Douglas practically invented modern behavioral profiling. Yeah. He
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: looked into Kohlhepp's background. And according to him, Kohlhepp was
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: severely bullied at home.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Like, brutally. Right.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: He was abused. He was abandoned. And most shockingly, Douglas
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: revealed that Kohlhepp's grandfather hit him with a cattle prod.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Wait, a cattle prod?
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, that is an instrument designed to deliver high
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: voltage electric shocks to massive livestock.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: To force them to move against their will.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Right. And used on a developing child.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Let's think about the neurological impact of that for a second.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: When a child's brain is developing, it is constantly pruning
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: and wiring connections based on the environment to ensure survival.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Like adapting to the chaos.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And by the time Kohlhepp was nine years old,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: He had already been placed in a mental hospital. At nine.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: At nine. He was described as highly combative and deeply angry.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Agent Douglas explicitly calls him the product of a very
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: dysfunctional family.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Which feels like a massive understatement.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: It really does. And this brings us to a core
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: concept in behavioral analysis, which is the cycle of violence,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: but specifically how trauma rewires empathy.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Okay. Break that down for us.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: So when a child is treated not as a human being,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: but essentially as livestock, to be Shocked into physical submission,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: they internalize a worldview where power equals violence.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: They learn that the only way to exert control in
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: this terrifying, unpredictable world is to completely dominate entities that
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: are smaller and weaker than they are.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Because they have no power themselves.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Right. The brain literally prunes away empathetic responses because empathy
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: in that specific abusive environment is a liability.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: It makes you weak.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Hence the goldfish. Hence the dog. Hence destroying the classmates' projects.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: It is just a desperate attempt to reclaim the power
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: being stripped from him at home.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Precisely. His biological father even later claimed that the only
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: emotion Kohlhepp knew was fury.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: I know. That is a staggering statement about a human
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: being's emotional bandwidth. Anger wasn't just a reaction for him.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: It was his default state. It was his only armor
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: against the environment he was trapped in.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, I have to jump in here because I know
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: what you listening to this are probably thinking right now.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Right, the obvious question. Yeah.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Millions of kids go through terrible, unimaginable abuse, right? Society
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: is tragically full of dysfunctional families and horrific childhood trauma.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, yes.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: But the vast majority of those children do not grow
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: up to become serial killers. They don't end up chaining
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: human beings inside shipping containers.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: No, they don't. So what is the catalyst here? What
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: shifts a tragic, abusive upbringing into active, predatory malice?
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Well, that is the ultimate friction point in behavioral science.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: The abuse was the catalyst, yes, but it was interacting
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: with a highly specific psychological makeup. Okay. Kohlhepp wasn't just angry.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: He lacked the internal mechanisms for emotional regulation. When most
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: children experience trauma, they might act out, they might withdraw,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: they might develop substance dependencies later in life.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: True.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: But they generally retain a baseline capacity to recognize the
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: humanity in others. Kohlhepp, based on his clinical trajectory, seemed
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: to lack that fundamental wiring from a very early age.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: So the trauma just fit into that void. Exactly. The
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: trauma didn't just hurt him. It weaponized a personality structure
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: that was already devoid of typical moral constraints.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: It's the difference between trauma hitting a sponge and trauma
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: hitting a mirror.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I like that analogy.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He didn't absorb it and suffer internally. He just
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: reflected it outward as aggression.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: And that outward aggression finds a totally new venue in
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: 1983 because Kohlhepp is entering his teenage years now. Emotional
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: regulation is already chaotic for any teenager, let alone one
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: with his architecture. He absolutely despises his stepfather, Karl Kohlhepp.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Rightfully so, in his mind.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he desperately wants to live with his biological
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: father out in Tempe, Arizona.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: And he finally gets to go.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: He does. With his mother going through her second divorce,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: he gets his wish. He moves across the country to Arizona.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: And, you know, intuitively you'd think a fresh start getting
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: away from the cattle prod and the immediate sources of
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: his rage might actually de-escalate things.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: You would hope so.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: But the structure of his new life actually accelerates the danger.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Because the biological father, Samsell... was not the savior Kohlhepp
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: had built him up to be in his adolescent mind.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Not even close.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: The article notes that they spent time together doing activities
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: like learning how to blow things up and make bombs.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Which is just crazy. It's like his father handed a
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: lit match to someone made of fireworks.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what it is.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Teaching an already violent, deeply angry teenager the chemical mechanics
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: of explosives instead of actually parenting him.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: It's a disastrous combination of lethal instruction... And deep emotional neglect.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Because Sam Sell spent most of his time out on dates,
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: effectively ignoring his son.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: So he felt abandoned all over again. Right.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Kohlhepp, feeling entirely rejected by the one person he thought
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: would finally offer him a stable foundation, demands to go
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: back to his mother and stepfather in South Carolina.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: But they don't want him either. No.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: They make excuses. They keep him out in Tempe. He
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: is trapped. He is unwanted by every parental figure in
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: his life. The rejection is absolute and final.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: And that absolute rejection culminates in a horrifying way on
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: November 25, 1986. Kohlhepp is just 15 years old. His
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: father is away. And Kohlhepp decides to act on this
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: profound sense of powerlessness. He targets a 15-year-old girl who
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: lives in the neighborhood.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Up here.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Yes, up here. He lures her out of her house
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: by fabricating a highly specific story. He tells her that
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: her boyfriend wanted to speak with her.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Which shows a lot of forethought.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: It really does. When she comes over, he forces her
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: into his home with a. 22 caliber revolver. He binds
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: her limbs with rope. He tapes her mouth shut. He
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: rapes her.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: It's just horrific.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: And then he walks her back home, threatening to kill
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: her entire family. if she ever tells anyone what happened.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Let's break down the mechanics of this crime, because the
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: level of calculation here is what firmly separates it from
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: a typical juvenile offense.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: This wasn't, you know, an impulsive playground fight. He identified
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: a specific target. He conceptualized a ruse, a story about
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: the boyfriend. designed specifically to exploit a teenager's social anxieties
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: and lower her defenses.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he knew exactly what buttons to push.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He prepared the environment. He procured the weapon, the rope,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: the tape. This requires spatial planning and a chilling level
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: of clinical detachment.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: At 15 years old.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: At 15, he is already exhibiting the organized methodology of
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: a seasoned predator.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: He was arrested within hours.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And the aftermath of this arrest is where the justice
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: system gets its first real documented look into his mind.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: He's given a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: And the results are very telling.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: They diagnose him with borderline personality disorder. They determine he
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: has an IQ of 118, which is highly intelligent.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Very much so.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: And crucially, the evaluation shows severe signs of emotional disturbance,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: but absolutely zero psychosis. Right.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: And let's define what that means in a legal and
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: clinical context, because... No psychosis is the absolute key to
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: understanding his culpability here.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Meaning he wasn't legally insane.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It means he was completely tethered to reality. He
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: wasn't experiencing auditory hallucinations commanding him to commit the assault.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: He wasn't suffering from paranoid delusions.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: His cognitive faculties were intact.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Entirely intact. He knew exactly what he was doing. He
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: understood the societal and moral boundaries he was crossing. And
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: he executed the crime anyway.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: And his stated motive. When investigators asked him why he
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: abducted and assaulted an innocent girl, he simply stated he
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: was angry at his father.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: He took the crushing rage he felt toward his father's
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: rejection and displaced it entirely onto a vulnerable, innocent target.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Just like the goldfish.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Just the dog. But now the target was a human being.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: The mechanics of his displacement had leveled up.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Significantly.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: And speaking of his parents, the source notes a staggering detail.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Not one of his three guardians... Not his mother, not
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: his stepfather, not his biological father visited him in jail.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: The isolation was complete at that point. And this is
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: where we have to look closely at the structural friction
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: within the justice system itself. The juvenile probation officer evaluating
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Kohlhepp saw exactly what they were dealing with.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: They saw the danger.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: They did. They looked at the premeditation, the weapon, the
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: total lack of empathy, and they strongly recommended that Kohlhepp
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: be tried as an adult.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Because they knew he wouldn't just stop.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Right. They recognized that a 15-year-old capable of this level
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: of predatory architecture was an extreme ongoing threat to public safety. Yeah. But,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: you know, the justice system is a bureaucracy.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: And bureaucracies rely on negotiations and resource management.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Right. The reality of court dockets. So he gets a
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: plea deal. Yeah. The state drops the sexual assault charge.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: They require him to register as a sex offender. And
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: he is sentenced to 15 years in prison without the
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: possibility of parole.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: This sentencing happened on January 19, 1987. But we really
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: have to look at the presiding judge at that sentencing.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Because if you read the quote from this judge, it
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: gives you absolute chills.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: It is so incredibly prescient.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: It really is. The judge stated on the record, and
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I quote, At less than the age of nine, this
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: juvenile was impulsive, explosive, and preoccupied with sexual content. He
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: has not changed. He has been unabatedly aggressive to others
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: and destructive of property since nursery school.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: So the judge knew.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: If a judge sees it that clearly, if the probation
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: officer sees it, if the psychiatrists document the borderline personality
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: disorder and the high IQ, I mean, how does the
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: structure of the court still allow a sentence that guarantees
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: he will one day walk free?
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: That is the flaw. The judge's warning proved completely useless
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: against a justice system built on mandatory release dates.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Because when those doors eventually open, he isn't going to
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: be cured. Prison for Coal Help wasn't a rehabilitation center.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: It was a psychological pressure cooker.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: You don't cure a profound lack of empathy by putting
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: someone in an environment where displaying empathy basically gets you victimized.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: You learn to hide it even better.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: That is the fundamental flaw in applying standard correctional timelines
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: to atypical psychiatric profiles.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: A 15-year sentence without parole for a highly intelligent, predatory
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: individual is who views the world entirely through a lens
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: of dominance and submission, is just. It's an extended holding pattern.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: It doesn't fix anything.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: It doesn't dismantle his pathology at all. What it actually
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: does is teach him the ultimate lesson in survival, how
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: to mask his intentions, how to blend in, how to
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: become a chameleon.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: So let's look at what happens when that pressure cooker
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: finally opens. It's August 2001. Todd Kohlhepp is released from prison.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: He is now 30 years old. He has spent exactly
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: half of his entire life locked in a cage. Right.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: He moves back east to Spartanburg, South Carolina. He gets
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: his first driver's license. And he needs a job.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Like anyone would.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Right, but how does a convicted violent felon, a registered
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: sex offender with a massive 15-year gap in his employment history,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: just walk into a job?
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: He exploits the societal assumption of trust.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, how?
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Well, the source material states he found a job at
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: a sports apparel business called Seven Sons & Co., By
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: completely fabricating his employment history on his resume.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Just lied entirely.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Yes. He littered it with fake experience to cover the
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: decade and a half he was incarcerated. And if we
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: look at the mechanics of background checks in 2001, it
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: explains a lot.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Right. Pre-911.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The digitization and centralization of criminal records across state
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: lines were nowhere near as robust as they are today.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: So they didn't talk to each other.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Right. If an employer didn't pay for an extensive multi-state
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: background check, A juvenile conviction from Arizona might not trigger
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: a flag in South Carolina at all.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: And Kohlhepp probably knew that.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, Kohlhepp, being intelligent and manipulative, likely knew exactly what
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: a basic local screening would and wouldn't catch. He reinvented
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: himself on paper and society just accepted the paperwork.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: So he builds the first layer of the mask. He
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: reintegrates seamlessly. But underneath that fabricated resume, the rage that
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: default setting a fury was completely intact.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Just waiting.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: And we see just how intact it was two years later,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: November 6, 2003. This is the day of the Superbike
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Motorsports Massacre. Yes. According to the source, Kohlhepp had gone
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: into this motorcycle shop and had tried to return a bike.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: While he was there, he was allegedly laughed at by
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: the staff.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, we have to define what being laughed at actually
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: means to a person with his specific pathology.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Right, because normally you just get mad.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Exactly. In psychology, we call this a narcissistic injury. For
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: a normal person, trying to return an item and being
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: mocked by a clerk is frustrating. Maybe embarrassing. You might
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: leave a bad review. You might argue with the manager.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: But for someone with Cole Help's psychological structure, his entire
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: survival mechanism is built on feelings superior and dominant. A
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: laugh doesn't just hurt his feelings. It threatens the core
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: architecture of his ego.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: It's an attack.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: His brain perceives that humiliation as an existential life-or-death threat
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: requiring total annihilation of the source.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: And his response to that perceived threat is catastrophic. He
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't argue. He leaves the store, retrieves a firearm, returns
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: to the shop, and executes four people.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Four people.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: He murdered the 30-year-old owner, Scott Ponder. He murdered Scott's
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: 52-year-old mother, Beverly. He murdered the 29-year-old manager, Brian Lucas.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: And he murdered a 26-year-old mechanic, Chris Sherbert. Four lives
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: entirely erased because of a bruised ego over a returned motorcycle.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: This incident is a textbook demonstration of the total failure
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: of his emotional regulation.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: 15 years did nothing.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: 15 years in the prison system did absolutely nothing to
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: mitigate his underlying pathology. When he faced that narcissistic injury,
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: the fury instantly bypassed any rational thought process.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: But what we also have to analyze here is the
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: execution of the crime itself, because the mechanics are baffling.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: To walk into a commercial business in broad daylight, murder
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: four adults... and walk away without leaving enough forensic or
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: eyewitness evidence to be immediately apprehended. It speaks to a
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: chilling level of situational awareness.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: And cold-blooded efficiency.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: This is where I really struggle to understand the timeline,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: and I want to break down the mechanics of this shift.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Because he went from a meticulously planned, deeply personal crime
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: at age 15, where he targeted someone he knew, created
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: a specific ruse, and focused heavily on control and containment. Right.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: He went from that, to a sudden explosive quadruple homicide
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: at age 30 over a retail dispute.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: It seems like a leap.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. How does a killer's methodology shift from that kind
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: of calculated single-target predation to a mass spree shooting?
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: It looks like a profound shift in methodology on the surface,
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: but the underlying drive of the mechanical engine of the
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: behavior is exactly the same.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Which is what?
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: A desperate need to assert ultimate power and control to
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: compensate for internal rage.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: At 15, his anger was focused on the chronic rejection
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: of his father, and he took it out in a
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: highly controlled, one-on-one scenario that he could plan for days.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: At 30, the trigger was acute public humiliation.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: So it was an immediate need.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The Superbike murders were about instantly reestablishing dominance over
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: people who had the audacity to make him feel small.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: He didn't have the luxury of time to plan a
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: complex abduction. The rage demanded immediate, annihilating satisfaction.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: So it's not a change in nature.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Right. The shift from calculated predator to... spree killer isn't
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: a change in his fundamental nature. It's purely a change
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: in the circumstances of the trigger. When his ego was
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: threatened publicly, the mask dropped and the violence was absolute.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: And the most unbelievable part of the Superbike massacre, the
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: friction of the investigation, he got away with it.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: For a very long time.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: For over a decade. Thirteen years went by. Seasoned homicide
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: detectives were actively working this quadruple murder. The community was terrified.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: And Kohlhepp just faded right back into his daily routine.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Which is terrifying.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: How does an amateur evade a major homicide investigation for
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: 13 years?
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Well, it's because the crime was entirely random from the
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: perspective of the victim's network.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Right. They had no idea who he was.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: He had no deep ties to the shop. He wasn't
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: a disgruntled former employee or a jealous ex-partner. He was
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: a phantom customer who felt slighted.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: And without a massive digital footprint linking his phone to
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: the location, which, you know, wasn't nearly as ubiquitous in
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: 2003 as it is today, he just vanished into the
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: background noise of the city.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the most surreal chapter of this story.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Because he didn't just hide in his house after murdering
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: four people, he built an empire.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: The evolution of his public facade is astonishing during this period.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: By 2006, he obtains a real estate license.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Again, we see him exploiting the structural vulnerabilities of background checks.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: He manages to hide his criminal past from the licensing board.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: How does that even happen?
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Often, state licensing boards rely on applicants' self-reporting felonies, accompanied
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: by a basic state-level check.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: So just an honor system plus a local check.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If his Arizona juvenile record remained sealed or didn't
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: cross-pollinate with South Carolina's professional licensing databases, he could slip
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: right through the cracks.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: And he did.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: He did. He starts his own company, TKA Real Estate.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: He operates it initially out of his own home in Moore,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: South Carolina, a property he bought for $ 137, 500. That's substantial. Yeah.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: And his business doesn't just survive. It thrives in a
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: booming housing market. He grows the firm rapidly, eventually employing
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: a dozen people. He's working as a successful graphic designer
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: on the side. He's taking lessons to become a licensed pilot.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: He is the very picture of a driven, successful... community-oriented entrepreneur.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: But here is where the two screens of our split-screen
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: movies start bleeding into each other in the most grotesque way.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: You really do.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: While he's shaking hands, hosting open houses, selling properties, and
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: managing employees, he is simultaneously living a second digital life. Online.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Yes. He creates a profile on Amazon. The username is
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: incredibly generic. It's just me.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Just me.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And under this veil of anonymity, he starts leaving
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: product reviews. But he's not reviewing blenders or patio furniture.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Not at all. He's leaving reviews for heavy-duty padlocks, tactical
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: gun accessories, shooting targets, books detailing emergency field surgery, chainsaws,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: and small tactical folding shovels.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: The juxtaposition is what makes this case so psychologically dense.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: It's insane.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: On one hand, you have the disciplined, forward-facing businessman who
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: understands contracts, marketing, and client relations. On the other, you
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: have a man who is actively, publicly... mocking his own
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: atrocities on the internet.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Mocking his victims, essentially.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Yes. The reviews aren't just product ratings, they are confessions
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: masquerading as dark humor.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: I want to read a couple of these exact reviews
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: from the source material, just so you can hear the
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: precise tone he was using, because it is vital to
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: understand the voice of the monster hiding behind the screen.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: It's chilling. For a chainsaw, he wrote, works excellent. Getting
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: the neighbor to stand still while you chase him with
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: it is hard enough without having an easy-to-use chainsaw.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: And people just read that and thought it was a joke.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And for a small folding shovel, he wrote, keep
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: in car for when you have to hide the bodies
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and you left the full-size shovel at home does not
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: come with a midget, which would have been nice.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: Let's analyze the psychology behind this, because the press eventually
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: dubbed him the Amazon review killer. And it perfectly captures
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: the modern digital arrogance of his pathology.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: The arrogance is unbelievable.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Right. Why do killers boast? Why leave a trail of
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: digital breadcrumbs that could potentially ruin everything he built?
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Because he felt guilty.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. He wasn't leaving these reviews to
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: confess to the police because he felt guilt. He was
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: dropping inside jokes to the public because he felt superior.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: It is a terrifying display of narcissism. By writing these reviews,
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: he is essentially laughing at the entire world. He feels
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: a sense of total unassailable invincibility.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Because no one caught him for 13 years.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He's sitting in his nice suburban house, running a
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: successful real estate business, knowing he has literal blood on
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: his hands. And he's getting a physiological thrill out of
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: telling the world exactly what he is.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Secure in the knowledge that they won't realize it's the truth.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: And he was right to feel secure. Because think about
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: how many times you've read a bizarre product review online
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: or seen an unhinged comment on a video and thought, oh,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: it's just an internet troll being edgy.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: It's so common.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: It's just someone leaning into dark humor for shock value.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: The internet in the late 2000s and early 2010s was
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: absolutely saturated with that kind of anonymous, performative edge.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: It was everywhere.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Kohlhepp weaponized our societal assumption that people on the internet
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: are just joking. He hid his reality right out in
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: the open, buried under the immense noise of millions of
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: mundane e-commerce transactions.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: He relied on the anonymity of the crowd, the sheer
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: volume of data being generated every second. And it worked flawlessly.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: It did.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Nobody connected the successful, sharply dressed realtor to the edgy
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Amazon reviewer, let alone to the unsolved Superbike murders from
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: years prior. His compartmentalization was absolute. The split screen movie
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: was playing perfectly.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: But the screens were about to merge. And the catalyst
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: for that merger was his own success.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Because of the money.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Because his real estate empire gave him significant capital.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: It gave him liquid money to expand his ambitions. And
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: he used that money to buy 95 acres of sprawling
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: rural land in Woodruff, South Carolina.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Huge piece of land.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: He paid over $ 300, 000 for it. And what is the
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: very first piece of infrastructure he installs? He wraps the
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: entire massive property in a chain link fence.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: He was building a fortress.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: A private kingdom where he would finally have absolute unchecked control.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: far away from the prying eyes of suburban neighbors or
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: local law enforcement patrols.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: No one could see what he was doing.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: For a man whose entire psychological framework was built around
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: dominating and controlling others, 95 fenced-in acres wasn't an investment property.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: It was the ultimate unrestricted playground for his pathology.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: And in 2016, that playground becomes active. In late August
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: of that year, a 30-year-old woman named Kalayla Brown and
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: her 32-year-old boyfriend, Charles Carver, go missing.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: And just vanish.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: The connection. They had been hired by Todd Kohlhepp. His
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: real estate business involved buying and cleaning up properties, and
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: he hired Kola and Charles to clean up his Woodruff compound.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: They vanished without a trace on August 31st.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: The investigation ramps up, and this is where modern technological
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: friction finally catches up to his analog methodology.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Because it's not 2003 anymore.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Spartanburg County police are desperately looking for Kola and Charles,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: and they pull their cell phone records. Unlike in 2003,
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: digital footprints are now ubiquitous.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Everyone has a smartphone.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: The cellular data shows that both of their phones gave
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: off their final location pings somewhere in the immediate vicinity
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: of Kohlhepp's 95-acre Woodruff property.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Which is all they need.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Yes. This vital piece of digital evidence gives law enforcement
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: the probable cause they need to execute a search warrant
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: on the compound.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: The police arrive at the property. They are searching this massive, sprawling,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: heavily wooded area. And during the search, the silence is
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: broken by a noise.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: A banging noise.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: They hear a faint, rhythmic banging coming from a large
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: metal shipping container sitting on the land. They pry it open,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: and the reality they uncover inside is the absolute stuff
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: of nightmares.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Kayla Brown is inside. She has been trapped in that
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: metal box for nearly two months. She is chained up
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: by the neck and ankles like livestock.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: The psychological terror of that scenario is entirely unfathomable. According
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: to her subsequent harrowing testimony, Kohlhepp didn't just kidnap her. No.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: She testified that he shot her boyfriend, Charles Carver, right
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: in front of her eyes, murdering him instantly to establish
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: total dominance, and then locked her in the campaigner where
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: he continually assaulted her.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: This reveals the true intended purpose of the compound.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just a real estate investment or a private
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: off-grid retreat. It was a custom-built hunting ground. It was
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: a private prison designed specifically to facilitate his darkest, most
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: violent urges without any risk of interruption.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Looking at the shipping container, the padlocks he likely bought
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: on Amazon, the heavy chains. I mean, this wasn't a
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: spontaneous one-off crime.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: This was heady infrastructure. He spent hundreds of thousands of
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: dollars building this compound. He clearly planned this out with
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: the meticulousness of an architect. He was planning to do
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: this indefinitely, wasn't he?
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: Based on every piece of behavioral evidence... He had absolutely
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: no intention of ever stopping.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: It was a long-term plan.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Serial predators who invest this heavily in physical infrastructure, buying
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: vast tracts of land, erecting perimeter fences, installing secure, soundproof
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: holding containers, they're preparing for a long-term, sustained campaign of violence.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: The methodology here is deeply structurally revealing.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Let's trace the mechanics back to 1986. How did he
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: capture his first victim when he was 15?
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: He used a fabricated ruse about her boyfriend to lower
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: her defenses and lure her onto his territory. Right.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: And 30 years later, he is utilizing the exact same
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: psychological mechanism.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: The job offer.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: He uses the legitimate ruse of employment, a cleaning job,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: to lower Kayla and Charles's defenses and lure them onto
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: his territory. The scale of the crime evolved from a
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: suburban bedroom to a 95 acre fortified compound. But the
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: core manipulation, the predatory architecture, remained completely unchanged.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: He had perfected his system over three decades.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: And a Woodruff property was the culmination of his life's
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: dark work.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Kohlhepp is arrested on the property. And while he's in custody,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: the full horrifying scope of what happened on those 95
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: acres begins to unearth itself.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Literally unearth itself.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Because he eventually confesses to the police and reveals the
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: specific locations of two more bodies buried on his property.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Investigators excavate the sites and identify the remains of 29-year-old
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Johnny Joe Coxey and 26-year-old Megan Lee McCraw Coxey.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: They had been missing for almost a year.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: Vanishing in December of 2015. And just like Kayla and Charles,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: the mechanics of their disappearance were identical.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: They were hired for a job.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: They had been lured to the property under the guise
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: of being hired to clean Kohlhepp's home. And just like
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Charles Carver... Both Johnny and Megan had been shot to
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: death on the property.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: The sheer volume of the tragedy is overwhelming when you
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: lay it all out. It is. Seven lives taken, four
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: at the Superbike shop, Charles Carver, and the Coxies. Seven
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: lives completely confirmed.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: On May 26, 2017, the complex legal proceedings finally come
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: to an end. Todd Kohlhepp pleads guilty to seven counts
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: of murder, two counts of kidnapping, and one count of
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: sexual assault. He receives seven consecutive life sentences without the
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: possibility of parole.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: It is a definitive, unyielding end to his freedom. But
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: it forces a harsh, necessary reflection on the structural vulnerabilities
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: of the systems designed to protect society.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: We have to look at the failures.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Think about the totality of his timeline. Here is a
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: man with a highly documented psychiatric history of extreme violence,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: officially diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, lacking any measurable empathy,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: who committed a calculated armed sexual assault at 15.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: And the system warned us.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: The juvenile probation system explicitly warned he was a severe
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: ongoing threat. Yet the friction of the legal system allowed
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: him to plea down. The timeline of his sentence allowed
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: him to walk free at 30.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: And then he gets a real estate license.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: The gaps in background checks legally allowed him to obtain
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: a real estate license by simply omitting the truth on
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: a form. The system allowed him to purchase 95 acres
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: of land and heavy equipment. The guardrails in society didn't
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: just fail. They were actively bypassed by a monster hiding
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: behind paperwork and a tailored suit.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: The way he ran his life was like a Russian
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: nesting doll of deception.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: That's a great analogy.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: The outermost doll is this smiling, successful businessman on the
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: billboard shaking hands and closing deals. You open that up
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: and you find a convicted felon meticulously hiding a 15-year
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: prison sentence.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: And underneath that?
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: You open that one up. And you find a deeply angry,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: isolated child being shocked with a cattle prod by his
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: own grandfather. And you open that final innermost doll and
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: there is nothing there but an abyss.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Just empty.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Just pure, unadulterated fury and a mechanical desire to exert
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: control through destruction.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: And that abyss is perfectly encapsulated in a final, chilling
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: detail from the source material. Right. After his arrest, when
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: the scope of his crimes was dominating the news cycle,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: His mother visited him in jail.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: This is the woman who, along with his stepfather, kept
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: him in Arizona when he begged to come home all
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: those years ago.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Yes. She asked him a question that investigators were desperately
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: trying to answer. How many others had he killed?
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: And his reply to his own mother as he sat
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: in that cell was, you do not have enough fingers.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: The psychological weight of that statement is profound. And we
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: have to view it through the lens of everything we've
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: unpacked today.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Right. Is it true?
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: We have to analyze the mechanics of that claim. Is
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: it the truth? Are there dozens of victims we don't
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: know about scattered across the country over that massive 13-year
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: gap between the Superbike murders and the construction of the
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Woodruff compound?
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Or is it a lie?
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: Or is it one final desperate act of a pathological narcissist?
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: A man whose power, property, and freedom have been completely
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: stripped away, sitting in a concrete box trying to reclaim
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: his dominance, by terrifying his mother and the public with
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: a boastful, fabricated lie.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: That makes total sense.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Whether it is a terrifying hidden truth or an ego-driven
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: manipulation designed to keep his name in the press, it
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: perfectly distills the essence of Todd Kohlhepp. He fundamentally wanted
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: the world to fear him, and he didn't care how
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: he achieved it.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: We've covered an incredibly dark, complex journey today. We started
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: with a child's brain being miswired by unimaginable abuse and
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: traced his path through a flawed... friction-heavy justice system out
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: into a thriving real estate market and down into the
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: horrifying reality of a custom-built prison in the woods of
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: South Carolina.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: It's a lot to process.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: The terrifying reality of this deep dive is that the
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: monster didn't hide in the shadows. He didn't lurk in alleyways.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: He hid in the glaring light of real estate billboards
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: and Amazon comment sections.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: It is undoubtedly heavy material. But analyzing the mechanics of
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: these cases is crucial. The warning signs, the red flags
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: of the judge explicitly noted had been there since nursery school,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: were largely minimized by the bureaucratic systems that should have
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: contained him.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Understanding how he manipulated those systems, how he built his
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: public facade to fund his private horrors, is the only
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: way society learns to recognize the next anomaly before they
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: have the chance to build their own compound.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: As we wrap up this deep dive, I want to
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: leave you with a thought to mull over, something that
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: really sticks with me after unpacking the mechanics of his
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: digital life. We live in a world where we leave
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: digital footprints everywhere we go.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Constantly.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: What we buy, what we review, what we search for.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: We know that modern algorithms are incredibly sophisticated. They can
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: predict what kind of shoes you want to buy before
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: you even realize your old ones are wearing out.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they know everything.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: So if a retail marketing algorithm is that smart, How
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: far are we from a world where an algorithm can
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: flag the darkest corners of human behavior? Where a system
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: can connect a string of edgy, violent jokes on a
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: product review to a real-world threat before the chain-link fence
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: even goes up?
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: That's a fascinating question.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Kohlhepp showed us that the split-screen movie can play right
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: in front of our faces, hiding in plain sight. We
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: just have to learn how to watch both screens at
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: the exact same time. Thanks for joining us on the
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Deep Dive. We'll see you next time.