Latest / The conspiracy / The Kala Brown Case: The Kidnapping That Uncovered a Serial Killer

Transcript

The Kala Brown Case: The Kidnapping That Uncovered a Serial Killer · The conspiracy

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On August 31st, 2016, two people got in a car
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and drove to work, but they never came home. No goodbye,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: no warning, and no trace. Just two people here one
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: moment and gone the next, leaving behind nothing but questions
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: and a little dog with no food and no water.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: This is the terrifying disappearance of Kayla Brown and Charlie Carver. Crime, conspiracy, cults,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: serial killers, and murder, all things that I love to consume,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: and I know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: intellectually-minded freak. Today, we are talking about a very mysterious case,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: so without further ado, let's unbuckle our seat belts, go
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Mach 5 down the highway, slam on the brakes, and
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: bust the windshield into this mysterious case together.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: You know that.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Email from your dentist that says, you're due for cleaning? Well,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I've archived that same email for about 14 months, and
• 1:09
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• 1:13
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• 1:16
  Speaker 1: mole on my back, I just... and keeping an eye on.
• 1:19
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• 1:22
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• 2:30
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  Speaker 2: and supporting the channel. And let's get back to it.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Kayla Victoria Brown was born on November 17th, 1985 in Anderson,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: South Carolina, a small city tucked into the Northwest corner
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: of the state. Close enough to the Georgia line that
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: people sometimes forget which Carolina they're in. And there were
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: no headlines from her childhood, no stories that made the news.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: The world wasn't paying attention to Kayla Brown.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Not yet. But her mother, Bobbi Newsome, raised her there.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: And by her late 20s, Anderson was still home. And
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: at 30 years old, Kayla stood 5'8 with reddish-brown hair
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: and green eyes. And people who knew her described her
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: as someone warm and someone very present. Now, Dan Heron
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: knew the family well, and he dated Kayla's mother years
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: earlier and stayed close to both of them. And he
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: called Kayla a very close friend of mine. She had
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: a Pomeranian named Romeo, and that dog went everywhere with her.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: And if you asked anyone close to Kayla who mattered
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: most in her life, it was Romeo, her dog. And
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: her mother, Bobby, put it simply, saying, quote, that dog
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: is her baby, unquote. I can relate. I can relate.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I have five babies, and they're all dogs. But to
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: make some extra money, Kayla picked up cleaning jobs on
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: the side. And she'd been acquainted with a local real
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: estate broker named Todd Kolup for years, connected through Facebook
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: after she posted looking for extra work. Now, Kolup hired
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: her a handful of times to clean houses tied to
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: his listings. And she usually brought her boyfriend along with
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: her to help. But the work was straightforward and the
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: pay was decent. Overall, a pretty good gig. Now, Charles
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: David Carver was born on November 19th, 1983 in Anderson,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: South Carolina, the same town as Kayla. two years and
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: two days apart. And most people called him Charlie. And
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: he was 5'11 with brown hair and blue eyes and
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: about 180 pounds. And before settling into civilian life, he'd
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: done time in the Army National Guard. And he'd also
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: been an explorer cadet with the Anderson County Sheriff's Office.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And by his early 30s, he'd settled into civilian work
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: as a printing machine operator at a company called First
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Quality Tissue. But the job was just how he paid bills.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And what Charlie loved was everything else. The man loved pool.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: He played in both nine ball and eight ball leagues
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: around town. And he was a writer and he was
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: working on his fifth mystery novel. And his father, Chuck Carver,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: said about Charles, quote, he never hurt anybody. He would
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: give you the shirt off his back or the last
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: $ 2 in his pocket. That was just the guy he was, unquote.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: And his mother, Joanne, saw it the same way, saying, quote,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: he could bring a smile to the saddest person. He
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: loved to laugh. He loved making people laugh, unquote. Now,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Mackenzie Durham had known Charlie since high school, and even
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: after the romance ended, the friendship held for 16 years.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: That was just the kind of person he was, the
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: kind that people just held onto. So Kayla and Charlie
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: started dating sometime in the spring of 2016. And by August,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: they were sharing an apartment in Anderson. And at this point,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: it had only been a few months. It happened fast,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: the way things sometimes do when two people just fit.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Charlie's situation wasn't uncomplicated, though, because his divorce from his wife, Nikki,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: hadn't been finalized yet. But on paper, he was still
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: a married man. And Dan Heron saw it coming and
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: didn't hold back, saying, quote, I warned her. I said, Kayla,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: you're dealing with a married couple here, unquote. but Kayla
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: and Charlie pushed forward anyway, and their friends could see
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: this wasn't a fling. Marriage was already part of the conversation,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: and they'd only been a couple for around four or
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: five months at this point, but both of them were
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: very serious about it, and they were happy together. But
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: they were also broke. Making ends meet was a constant struggle,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: so any chance they had to pick up extra work,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: they took. So on August 29th, 2016, a friend came
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: by the apartment that evening and the three of them
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: sat down for dinner together, just a normal night. And
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: on August 30th, Kayla was still texting people back, and
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: several friends heard from her that day, nothing unusual. But
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: then came August 31st. That morning, Charlie clocked out of
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: his shift at work, and he was caught on the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: building's surveillance feed heading out the door. But this would
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: be the last time anyone saw him on camera. And
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: after that, both of their phones went quiet. and the
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: texts stopped, and so did the calls. Everything stopped. Now,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Kayla and Charlie's day was pretty simple. Todd Kolop, the
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: real estate broker Kayla had cleaned houses for over years,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: had asked them to come out to a piece of
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: property he owned near Woodruff, South Carolina, and their job
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: was to clear brush. Now, Kayla did consider asking a
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: different person to come, but she ended up just getting
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: her boyfriend to come along with her, as he usually
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: did on a lot of her jobs. So the two
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: of them drove out together to a property that stretched
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: across nearly 100 acres of woods and open land in
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: rural Spartanburg County. The communities surrounding the property were places
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: where people recognized each other at the grocery store and
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: the football field. And Greenville News reporter Michael Burns described
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: them as, quote, typical small Southern towns, home to high
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: school football and Sunday dinners after church, unquote. So Kayla
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Brown and Charlie Carver would do what they were supposed
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: to do and go to their job. But this would
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: be the day they would mysteriously go missing. Now, Joanne Shifflett,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Charlie's mother, had a rule with her son. A day
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: didn't pass where the two of them didn't talk in
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: some way. A text, a call, something. Days of silence
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: turned into a week. And Joanne picked up the phone
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: and called the front office at the apartment complex where
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: the couple lived. And she asked someone to go knock
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: on their door. So the manager knocked, but no answer.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: And so she let herself in. And everything inside was untouched,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: and the place felt abandoned. But she did find one thing,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: and that was Romeo, Kayla's Pomeranian, and left behind with
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: no food and no water. And Charlie's mother reported him
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: missing on September 3rd. And two days later, a friend
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: of Kayla's went to the police and filed her own
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: missing persons report. And both cases would go through Anderson PD.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: And what investigators found inside the apartment only deepened the
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: family's panic because Kayla's glasses were still there and her
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: contact lenses were too. And also the medication she took
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: regularly and her car sat untouched in the parking lot.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: And the only thing unaccounted for was Charlie's car, a
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: white 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix. with the plate number HWY224.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: And the woman who managed Anderson Crossing told reporters Charlie
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: had rented there going on three years. And when his
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: rent was unpaid, she said, that was a red flag.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: He never missed a payment. Charlie just didn't do that.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: So both families were certain of one thing, Kayla and
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Charlie hadn't left on their own. And the proof to
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: them was the dog. Kayla wouldn't walk away from Romeo.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: That was not a possibility anyone who knew her would believe.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: But days would turn into weeks and no one knew
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: what to do. So the two mothers, Bobby and Joanne,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: went to the apartment together that weekend and they would
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: just box up every last thing their kids owned and
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: they would just move it into storage, waiting for a
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: return that might not come. And Joanne tried to explain
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the weight of it to Dateline saying, quote, It's so
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: much worse than you can think, not knowing. It's like
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: you have a hot skillet and there are two drops
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: of water you put on it and they just disappear, unquote.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: And the community stepped in where the investigation stalled and
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: volunteers printed flyers and papered them across Anderson. And Facebook
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: groups sprang up overnight, sharing the couple's photos, pushing the
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: story further than local news could ever carry it. And
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Dateline picked up the case on October 10th, running the
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: couple's story over a month later as part of the
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Missing in America series. But as the weeks dragged on,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: something strange started happening on Charlie's Facebook page. Posts kept appearing,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: more than 50 of them after the couple vanished, in fact.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: One entry slotted into July said Kayla was pregnant with
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: a baby girl. And another in August said they closed
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: on a home. Third, dated September 1st, announced a wedding.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: And photos were uploaded too, presented as if they were recent.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: And the family recognized them immediately. They'd been posted more
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: than a year earlier. Joanne knew her son's voice. Whoever
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: was writing those posts wasn't Charlie. At least that's what
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: she thought. And then the content would start to turn
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: dark and the account started filling up with disturbing memes
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: and violent imagery. One read, quote, I weren't crazy, I'd
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: be insane, unquote. And another said, quote, sometimes late at night,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: I dig a hole in the backyard to keep the
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: nosy neighbors guessing, unquote. The family was adamant. Charlie's account
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: had been hijacked, but the damage was already done. And
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: the stream posts gave some people a reason to believe
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: the couple had simply walked away from their lives. It
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: kind of muddied the urgency, and it created doubt where
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: there should have been alarm. And it bought the person
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: responsible for their disappearance exactly what he needed. Time. And
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: while someone was using Charlie's account to muddy the search...
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Todd Cola was posting on his own page, the guy
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: who hired Kayla and Charlie multiple times. Two weeks after
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: the couple vanished, he wrote a post actually mocking missing
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: persons cases saying, quote, people go missing all the time.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: They always turn up somewhere, unquote. And then he added
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: a line about himself saying, quote, in the event I
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: become missing, please note no one would take me. I
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: eat too much and I am crabby, unquote. So who
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: really was Todd Colep? Todd Christopher Samsell was born on
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: March 7th, 1971 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And he was
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: an only child and his parents, Regina and William Samsell,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: split up when he was just two years old. And
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Regina won the custody battle and a year later, she
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: married again. And by 1976, the new husband had legally
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: adopted Todd. And that's how he became Todd Colep. The
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: home he grew up in was anything but stable though.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: And he and his stepfather clashed constantly. Because his mother
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: and stepfather divorced, then reconciled, and then would divorce again.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: And therapists who evaluated him over the years saw the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: same thing every time. Todd resented his stepfather. And the
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: father he actually wanted to be with was his biological dad,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: but that was someone he hadn't seen in eight years.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: but the warning signs showed up early. As far back
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: as nursery school, teachers watched him go after other children
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: and break their things. And by age nine, he was
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: in counseling, and the clinical language in his file was
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: pretty blunt. It was just explosive. And for a nine-year-old,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: a disturbing fixation, which was, quote, preoccupied with sexual content, unquote.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: And he also hurt animals. And he shot a neighbor's
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: dog with a BB gun. And he killed a goldfish
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: by pouring Clorox bleach into the bowl. And years later,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: his birth father tried to describe his son's emotional rage.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: And all he could come up with was anger and madness.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: And that was it. And those were the only two settings.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Just a rageful, mean little nine-year-old asshole. Essentially. So at
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: nine years old, Todd was admitted to the Georgia Mental
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Health Institute as an inpatient. And he stayed for three
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and a half months, and he couldn't get along with
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the other children. And while there, the therapist documented two things.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Todd still openly hated his stepfather, and his fixation on
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: sexual content persisted. And the marriage between his mother and
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: stepfather collapsed again in 1982. And that summer, Todd was
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: sent to stay with William Samsell, his biological father. And
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: it was the first real time they really had together.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: But the visit would end and Todd returned home to
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: his mother. And that's when he would take a hammer
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: to his own bedroom and just tear it apart. And
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: then he told his mother he'd kill her if she
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: didn't let him go back to his father's. And that October,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: the Spartanburg School District flagged the 12-year-old now for an evaluation.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: because teachers just could not control this kid, because he
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: would blow up at the smallest provocation, defy authority on reflex,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: and shut down completely if anyone corrected him. The evaluation
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: stretched from December 1982 through May 1983. And once the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: evaluation wrapped up, Regina agreed to let Todd go. And
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: he packed up and moved to Arizona, where his father
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: was waiting. And her neighbor described the boy as a
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: devil on a chain. And Todd forced her son into
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: a dog kennel, sealed it shut, and sent it rolling
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: across the yard. And then he grabbed the kid and
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: cracked his head against clay pipes. And while her son cried,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Todd just laughed. He thought it was hilarious. And once
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: settled in Arizona, Todd dropped the Colep name temporarily and
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: went by Samsell again. And he started working whatever odd
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: jobs he could find nearby. And his father actually collected
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: weapons and taught the boy how to handle them. That
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: is not good parenting for a child that is literally
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: diagnosed as crazy and angry and rageful. But what do
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: I know? I'm not a parent, you know? And he
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: would also show Todd how to blow things up and
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: make bombs. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the tree, essentially, is what we're seeing right now. Little nature,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: little nurture, working 50-50 in this one. But this father-son
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: relationship would fall apart too, because William was constantly gone,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: spending his time with a string of girlfriends. And Todd
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: asked to go back to his mother, but Regina didn't
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: want him back. Not surprising. And every time Todd asked
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: to come home, she found another reason to delay. So
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: neither parent, it seemed, wanted to be the one holding
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: the devil on the chain. And on November 25th, 1986,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: 15-year-old Todd kidnapped a 14-year-old girl named Christy Granado in Tempe, Arizona.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: And he forced her at gunpoint with a. 22 caliber revolver.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: And he marched her back to the house where he
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: was living, restrained her, covered her mouth with tape, and
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: S her. And afterward, he walked her home and he
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: told her if she said a word, he'd kill her
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: entire family.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Oh no.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: My God. But luckily, she would tell them anyway. And
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Kolop was charged with kidnapping and assault and committing a
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: dangerous crime against children. And a guilty plea on the
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: kidnapping count came in 1987. And the charge and the
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: charge for crimes against children were dismissed as part of
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: the deal. And the sentence was 15 years in prison.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: And court records from the case painted a clinical picture.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: And he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. And his
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: IQ tested at 118, which is above average. And the
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: sentencing judge saw exactly what he was dealing with. On paper,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the kid had potential. Quote, very bright and should be
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: advanced academically. Unquote. But that package came with something the
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: court just couldn't fix. Quote, behaviorally and emotionally dangerous. Unquote.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: So rehabilitation, the judge concluded, was unlikely. And his probation
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: officer noted in the court file, Koleb, quote, felt the
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: world owed him something, unquote. And in prison, the early
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: years looked like a continuation of everything before. And he
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: racked up violations, and some of them were violent. But
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: after he turned 20, something shifted, and there were no
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: more incidents on his record. And whether that meant he'd
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: changed or simply just learned how to hide was a
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: question no one seemed to ask. So while locked up,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Kolep earned a degree in computer science from Central Arizona College.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: And in August of 2001, after 14 years behind bars,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: he would walk out. And he was now 30 years old.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: And he moved to South Carolina to live with his mother.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: And on November 30th, 2001, he registered as a sex offender.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: And for the next few years, he bounced between jobs
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: and classrooms. And he worked graphic design at a Spartanburg
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: company for almost two years. And he enrolled at Greenville
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Technical College. And then in 2006, he applied for a
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: South Carolina real estate license. And the application asked about
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: prior felony convictions, and Kolop, naturally, lied on that question,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: and the license was granted. She's not doing criminal... background
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: checks in 2006 or what's going on there anyway. And
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: by 2008, he had a bachelor's degree from the University
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: of South Carolina Upstate in business administration and marketing. And
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: by then he was already building his empire and his
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: real estate brokerage grew fast. At its peak, 12 agents
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: worked under him, and other agents knew his name. And
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: he ranked among the top sellers in the Carolinas. And
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: on top of all that, he got certified to fly
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: planes and started buying real estate in other states. And
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the people around him saw a driven, confident professional. And
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Cherry Lawrence, who worked for him, said, quote, he was
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: an excellent boss. He stood up for us whenever we
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: needed him, unquote. And everyone in the office knew about
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the registry. That actually wasn't a secret, but Kolop had
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: a story for that. Of course, of course he had
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: a backup story for that. But he told people the
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: whole thing was overblown. He'd gone joyriding with a girl
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: and her father blew it out of proportion. And his neighbor,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Ron Owen, saw nothing alarming either. Quote, Todd was, in
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: my opinion, a likable guy, unquote. But cracks showed if
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: you knew where to look. And a woman who'd done
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: a real estate deal with him said the charm was
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: real at first. But the longer you talked to Kolop,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: the more he drifted. Guns kept coming up. And his
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: comments took on a sexual edge that made people uncomfortable.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: He was a regular at a Waffle House in Roebuck,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and the women on staff dreaded seeing him walk in.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: And eventually, the cook, a man, took over serving him
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: because none of the waitresses wanted to go near his table.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: And one of those waitresses was a young woman named
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Megan Lee McCraw Coxsey. Now, on November 6th, 2003, a
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: customer walked into Superbike Motorsports, a motorcycle dealership in Chesney,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: South Carolina. And he found four people shot, two inside
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: the shop and two outside. They were dead. And one
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: of those people was Scott Ponder, who was 30, who
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: owned the shop. And the other was his mother, Beverly Guy,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: 52 years old, the bookkeeper. And then there was Brian Lucas,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: who was 29 years old and was the service manager.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: And lastly, there was Chris Sherbert, who was 26 year
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: old and was a mechanic. And Scott's wife, Melissa, didn't
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: see him leave that morning. She was still in bed
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: and she was seven weeks pregnant. She never saw him
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: alive again. But all four died from multiple gunshot wounds.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: And investigators pieced together a theory of what happened. Sherbert
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: was the first to die, shot while working in the
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: back of the building. And Beverly Guy was next, killed
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: on the showroom floor. And Brian Lucas went down near
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the front door and Scott Ponder was gunned down outside
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: in the parking lot. Detectives collected 18 9mm shell casings
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: from the scene, a mix of brass and nickel-plated rounds,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: and two different types of ammunition, which complicated the ballistic
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: analysis from the start. The case consumed the small community
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: of Chesney, and rumors would spread fast. Some people blamed
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: a Mexican drug gang, and others whispered about a love triangle.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: The speculation crushed the victims' families, and as the years
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: dragged on, detectives ran ballistics on every weapon they thought
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: might be connected, and 27 guns in total. Not one
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: of them matched the casings from the scene, though. And
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: at one point, the shell casings crossed the Atlantic, and
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: a lab in England had advanced fingerprint technology that didn't
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: exist in the U.S. at the time, and even that
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: came back empty. Nothing worked. And Sheriff Chuck Wright later
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: explained why Colep had never been on their radar, saying, quote,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: there was no reason to interview everybody. There was nothing
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: in the gentleman's background that screamed, I did this, unquote.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: So the case went cold and it stayed that way
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: for 13 years. And when the truth finally came out,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: the motive would be almost impossible to believe because he
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle. And they
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: laughed at him when he fell over on the bike.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: So four people dead because someone felt humiliated. And while
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the Superbike investigation stalled, Kolop was quietly building something else.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: The property he bought in May 2014 sat about nine
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: miles outside Moore, South Carolina, nearly 100 acres of rural land.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: And the price tag was $ 305, 632. And then he spent
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: another $ 80, 000 on a chain link fence around the entire perimeter.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: And motion-activated deer cameras went up in the tree line
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: to monitor anyone approaching. And bear traps were scattered across
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the grounds as well. And his neighbor, Scott Waldrop, had
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: lived next door for over two decades. And to Waldrop,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the guy next door was just another survivalist type. Someone
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: who wanted to be left alone and took it more
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: seriously than most. Nothing threatening about that. Quote, he didn't
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: seem like a threat, unquote. And he would assume he
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: was a survivalist because Colep had a shipping container he
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: purchased on his property, actually that his girlfriend purchased for him,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Holly Udy. So Holly would put up the money for
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: the shipping container in 2014. And as far as she knew,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: it was just for storing supplies like food, ammo, standard
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: prepper gear. And as a convicted felon, Colep couldn't legally
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: buy firearms, so he used a man named Dustin Lawson
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: to do it for him. And over a four-year stretch
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: from 2012 to 2016, Lawson made purchase after purchase on
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Colep's behalf. Twelve firearms, five silencers, and every time he
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: filled out the federal paperwork claiming he was the buyer.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: And every single form was a lie. The weapons were
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: spread across the property, some hidden in drawers, others sitting
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: out in the open on shelving, and some mounted underneath
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: a workbench where you'd never spot them unless you were looking,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: and a gun safe, a stockpile of ammunition. So the
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: property wasn't a farm, it was a retreat. It was trapped.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: So on August 31st, 2016, the day Kayla and Charlie disappeared,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: This is what actually happened. Kayla and Charlie pulled up
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: to the entrance of Todd's property, expecting a day of
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: yard work. And Kolop told them he needed to unlock
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: the front gate first. So they followed his vehicle through.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: And after they drove through, Kolop secured the gate so
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: no one could get in or out. And Kayla didn't
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: think anything of it because they had worked for Kolop
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: several times before. So the three of them kept driving
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and a two-story garage came into view first. And then
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: a metal shipping container sitting off the side. And inside
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: the garage, Kolop handed them each a bottle of water
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: and a pair of hedge clippers. And he told them
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: he'd walk them out to the trail where he wanted
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: it to be cleared. So they stepped outside. And then
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Kolop paused and said he'd forgotten something. So he went
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: back inside by himself. And Kayla and Charlie would just
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: stand together in the quiet, hand in hand. And a
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: few minutes would pass. And then Kolep came back through
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: the door, but now he was holding a gun. And
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: he didn't say a word, but three rounds would hit
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Charlie in the chest. And Kolep was completely calm. And
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: after he shot Charlie, he would swing around toward Kayla
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: and he would take her by the hand and order
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: her into the garage. And he would tell her if
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: she didn't, she would join Charlie. So once they were inside,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: he shoved her down. Metal cuffs went around her wrists
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: first and then her ankles. And after that, he forced
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: a ball gag between her teeth. And then he stood
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: up and told her he had to go deal with Charlie.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: And meanwhile, at this point in time, the outside world
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: hadn't noticed a thing. And Kayla's phone stopped sending replies
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: on August 31st, as we know. And Charlie's went dark
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: around the same time. So for the first couple of days,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: nobody panicked. But the days kept passing and neither one
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: of them came back. And Kayla Brown and Charlie Carver
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: were now gone. And while the people who loved them
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: were beginning to realize something was wrong, Kayla was already
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: locked up inside a shipping container less than an hour's
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: drive away. So that first day after Colup handcuffed and
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: gagged Kayla, he took Kayla to that storage container sitting
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: on the property. And it was 30 feet long and
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: 15 feet wide, but pitch black inside. And a chain
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: also went around her neck. And he fastened it to
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: the wall at the back of the container. And then
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: he chained her ankle in the opposite corner. And the
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: length of the chain around her neck was two and
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: a half, maybe three feet long. So essentially, she was
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: shackled in this container like a dog. So at this
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: point in time, she's realizing that she's a prisoner and
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: also dealing with the fact that the love of her
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: life just died in front of her. And at some
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: point afterward, Kayla caught sight of Charlie's body. It had
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: been rolled into a blue tarp and he put Charlie
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: in the ground. And Kayla didn't know where. And Charlie's
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: car vanished along with him. Kolop changed its color from
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: white to brown with spray paint and then drove it
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: into the woods and buried it under branches until it
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: was very difficult to see. And Kolop killed Charlie to
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: just take him away from Kayla and to more easily
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: control her. But Charlie Carver was dead before the afternoon
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: was over. And there were rations stacked inside the container
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: and bottles of water, but that was it. No light,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: no ventilation beyond whatever crept through the metal seams. And
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: it was late August in South Carolina, and the heat
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: inside that box was suffocating. I can't even imagine. She
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: was alone in the dark for hours before he showed
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: up again. And he would tell her that if she
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: tried to run, he would kill her. And if she
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: tried to hurt him, he would kill her. And if
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: she ever fought back, he would kill her. So Todd
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Colep would come back after disposing of Charlie and his car,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: and he would repeatedly ask, Kayla, and this was just
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: the first day. But Kayla would spend her captivity on
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: two thin dog beds pushed against the wall of the container.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: And she would eat crackers and peanut butter and cheese
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: that was sometimes moldy. And when she needed a bathroom,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: all she had was a five gallon bucket. Kolop had
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: placed an air freshener on the lid. And for the
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: first seven days, the heat inside the metal box was
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: so brutal that she stripped down to her bra and
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: underwear just to breathe. And once fall arrived and the
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: air inside the container turned cold, he showed up with
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: sweatpants and yoga pants for her to wear. And Colab
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: gave her things to pass the time, like books and
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: coloring books made for adults and a small mp3 player
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: loaded with music and small comforts designed to make a
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: cage feel like something less than a cage. But his
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: routine would never change. Two times every day, he'd unlock
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the container and give her between 30 to 45 minutes
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: outside of it. And those breaks happened in a two-story
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: garage on the grounds. And she was allowed food there
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: and on some visits, access to an actual toilet. But
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: every second day, he hand her a small basin of
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: water and that was as close to bathing as she
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: got because there was no bathtub. And she was never
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: fully unchained during any of this. He would just consistently
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: put more chains on as he took her off the
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: other chains, always keeping her chained up. And every single
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: day he would often multiple times a day, which is just,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, the level of evil in this man is unprecedented.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: It's just absolutely disgusting. And at one point, he dragged
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: her across the property to show her something, and it
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: was three mounds of earth that looked like graves. And
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: he would tell her, Kayla, if you try to escape,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: you're going directly in one of those graves. But the
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: threats weren't the only tool he used. He would tell
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Kayla she was, beautiful, that she was smart, that he'd
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: chosen her specifically. He would sit her down and explain
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Stockholm syndrome to her by name. He would tell her
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: that the happiness would kick in and they would be
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: happy together at some point, just absolutely delusional, ludicrous. And
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: he laid out plans for a room with soundproofed walls,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: and that's where she would be kept long-term. And he
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: told her that someday, If she proved herself loyal, the
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: entire property would be open to her. All 95 acres.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: And then, in the same breath, he'd remind her that
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: nothing about her survival was guaranteed. But as long as
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: she served her purpose, she would be safe. And he
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: would just brag constantly about how many people he'd actually
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: killed and about how skilled he was at it. And
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: he described a woman named Megan. And she'd been locked
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: up on the same property. The Megan we talked about
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: before that worked at the restaurant. And eventually, he murdered
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: her as well. And he claimed his body count was
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: close to 100. And those people he killed meant nothing
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: to him. They were objects. There was one thing he
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: struggled with, though. Looking someone in the eye while he
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: did it. If a person was staring straight at him,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: he said he couldn't quite pull the trigger. And he
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: also told her about other targets, a woman named Holly
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: and Holly's boyfriend. Koleb said he was planning to kill
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: them both if he could figure out a way to
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: get them alone. Through all of it, Koleb kept telling
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Kayla that nobody was coming. And he just minimized everything
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: and made her feel so small and just forgotten. And
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: he just told her no one was looking for you
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: anymore and that the world had just moved on without her.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: But Kayla didn't believe him. And she would soon figure
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: out that survival meant making Kolop think he was in
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: total control. And about a month in, something shifted. And
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Kolop had made his terms clear from the beginning. No
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: escape attempts, no resistance, and she lives. So four weeks in,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Kayla finally believed him and that realization didn't make her compliant.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: He was not going to kill her, not as long
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: as she played along. And if he wasn't going to
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: kill her, then he couldn't take anything from her that
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: she didn't hand over. It made her dangerous. So in
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: those weeks, there were only two occasions where she saw
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: anything beyond the garage or the inside of a metal box.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: And once, he chained her to a four-wheeler and drove
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: her around part of the property. And after weeks in
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: total darkness, with barely enough room to shift positions, being
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: outdoors felt like something close to grace. Because every day,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: inside the container, she would talk to God. And no
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: matter what Colette told her, she held on to the
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: certainty that people on the outside were searching. And there
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: were moments where the weight of everything pressed in close
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: enough to break her. So Anderson PD's position from day
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: one was that nothing pointed to a crime, even with
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: the abandoned apartment, even with the dog, even with two
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: cell phones that went dead on the same day. The
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: official line was noncommittal. They couldn't say it was a
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: crime at this point, but they couldn't say it wasn't.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Behind the scenes, though, they were pulling data. And according
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: to police chief Jim Stewart, they had a ping request
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: running on Kayla's phone within 48 hours of the missing
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: persons report. And the phone pinged somewhere in Spartanburg County.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: And then it went dark. Two days. That was all
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: they got. So a request for the couple's cell phone
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: records went out on September 9th. And those records didn't
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: come back until September 22nd. But the data told a
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: clear story. On August 31st, both phones hit the same tower.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: And after that, neither phone registered again. Still, a ping
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: in a rural area doesn't hand you an address. It
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: just gives you a radius. And without more, investigators couldn't
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: really act on it. So Lieutenant Mike Akins was honest
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: about where the case stood, saying, quote, we tracked down
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: leads we had, but there isn't very much, unquote. And
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: one trail they did follow was Nicole Carver, Charlie's estranged wife.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Because on September 6th, investigators went to speak with her.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: And Nicole told detectives the apartment door had been unlocked
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: and she'd let herself in. And she walked out with
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Charlie's computer and Romeo, Kayla's Pomeranian. And according to Nicole,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Charlie's browser history had Myrtle Beach searches in it. And
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: detectives had heard through other sources that Nicole claimed Charlie's
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: car was parked at her place with mechanical problems. And
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: they asked to see it, but they didn't find it there.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: And on September 11th, Joanne brought detectives a set of messages.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: And she said Nicole had sent them. And one claimed
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Charlie had called Nicole from a hospital in Myrtle Beach.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: And another said his car had turned up at the
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Greenville Spartanburg International Airport. And investigators chased both leads, but
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: both would come up empty. And September 21st brought a
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: different kind of lead. Because a caller tipped off police
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: about suspicious posts going up on Charlie's Facebook account, as
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: we know. And this time, it wasn't just memes and
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: fake milestones. someone was using Charlie's account to DM people.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: And the messages said he was doing find and asked
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: for cash to be sent to Nicole, his ex. And
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: officers traced the IP address behind the activity and it
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: led to Nicole Carver's home. So one trail kept looping
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: back to the same person, but it never connected to
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: any answer. And there was another problem because despite the
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: bizarre Facebook activity, despite private messages being sent from a
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: missing man's account, Anderson police had not sought a warrant
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: from Facebook and Lieutenant Dave Creamer acknowledged as much to
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: the Daily Beast saying, quote, to do anything like that,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: we'd have to issue a search warrant to Facebook. I
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: don't know if we've done that, but I'm pretty sure
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: we have not done that, unquote. And over a month
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: into the investigation, they still hadn't. Dozens of tips poured
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: in over those weeks and people called in claiming they'd
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: seen Kayla or Charlie or the Grand Prix. And some
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: passed along spots the couple used to frequent, but none
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: of them led anywhere. And then on October 13th, something
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: different came in. And the friend who'd filed Kayla's missing
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: persons report came back to the police because she had
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: something new, a secondhand tip from someone else. And his
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: claim was specific because he said he'd run into Kayla
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: the day before she vanished and that her body was
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: on a hundred acre parcel somewhere in Spartanburg County. A
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: hundred acres. in Spartanburg County, and a body. So investigators
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: went to Kayla's Facebook page and, with a search warrant,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: combed through her messages. And inside her messages was a
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: thread with Charlie, and they'd been making plans to meet
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: someone named Todd Colip on August 31st. And he lived
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: in Moore and was supposed to bring them out to
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: a property for work. And when they ran Colip's name,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: a 95-acre property in Woodruff, South Carolina, came back under
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: his ownership. Everything clicked at once. And Kayla's phone had
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: last pinged off a cell tower in Spartanburg County. And
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: the Facebook messages placed her with Kolep on the same
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: day she vanished. And his property sat within the range
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: of that tower. And on top of all of it,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: as we know, Todd Kolep was a registered sex offender.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: And for six weeks, Anderson PD had been running the
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: investigation as a local case. It wasn't until mid-October that
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: they understood the trail led into Spartanburg County. So on
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: October 18th, Spartanburg County Sergeant Brandon Letterman got a phone call. Quote,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: You need to meet with these detectives from Anderson. I said, okay,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: for what? They've got a missing persons case that might
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: lead up here. They are here now, unquote. So they
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: walked Letterman through the whole picture. Two people who vanished
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: on August 31st. Cell data placing both of them near
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Woodruff that same day, and a tip claiming someone was
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: buried on a large rural property in his county. Letterman
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: checked the map, and there was only one property that
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: size within two miles of the cell tower, and it
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: belonged to Todd Colette. So they moved fast after that,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: and they subpoenaed Kolop's phone data, and it showed his
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: cell hitting the same tower as Kayla's and Charlie's phone
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: on the day they disappeared. And the sheriff's office sent
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: aerial surveillance over that same property the same day, and
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: first a drone, and then a helicopter. And dense forest
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: swallowed everything below, though, so they really didn't see anything.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: And two weeks later, why was it two weeks later?
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: What is going on? Letterman's court order for Colip's full
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: cell records came through and the records backed up what
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: they already believed. Colip's phone and Kayla's were pinging off
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: the same tower on August 31st, right around the same
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: time she went silent. And combined with everything else, it
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: gave them probable cause for a search warrant. So on
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: November 3rd, 2016, two teams deployed at the same time.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: A three-person team headed to Colep's house on Winsong Way
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: in Moore, and one detective from Anderson, two from Spartanburg County,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: and the rest converged on the Woodruff property. And at
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: the house, they'd sit across from Colep and start picking
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: apart his story. And at the property, they'd start cutting
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: through locks. And he didn't know it yet, but both
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: halves of his life were about to collapse at the
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: exact same moment. So on November 3rd, 2016, the search
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: party hit Colep's Woodruff property around 8.30 in the morning.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: And they would go to the barn first. And on
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: the second floor, in a loft that had been converted
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: into a crude apartment, they found U-bolt chains fastened around
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: a bed frame. But nobody was there. But the chains
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: told them they were in the right place. So they
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: moved onto the shipping container. And it was green, metal,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: and sealed tight. And one of the deputies brought a
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: sledgehammer down on the lock holding the container shut. And
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: from inside, someone screamed, help. And Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Wright was miles away when the call came in. He
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: didn't hesitate. Quote, I got there in six minutes. It
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: was 25 minutes away and I made it in six, unquote.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: And by the time Wright arrived, his deputies were already
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: working on the container door and five separate locks held
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: it shut. and they cut through every one. And body
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: cam footage shows them pushing inside, and flashlight beams cutting
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: through pitch black, weapons up, shelves lined, the walls, plastic
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: water bottles by the case, and supplies stacked everywhere. Something
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: that looked like a cage sat in the middle of
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: the space, all the way to the back of the bin.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: And there was Kayla Brown. 65 days after she vanished,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: a chain ran from her neck, to the wall and
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: her ankle was locked in a separate shackle and she
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: had on glasses and a black shirt gray pants and
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: sandals like she'd been dressed for a normal day that
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: never ended and she was surrounded by the remnants of
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: her captivity dog beds a bucket with an air freshener
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: sitting on top crackers books and coloring books that mp3
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: player and when rescuers asked about charlie Kayla didn't hesitate,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: and she said, And then, while deputies were still working
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: to unchain her, she gave them everything. And when the
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: questioning was done, she began to cry. And she told
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: them Kolop had shot her boyfriend.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: Because of her.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: So they would get the chains off of her and
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: someone wrapped a towel around her. And then they walked
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: her out into the open air. And it was the
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: first sunlight she'd seen in more than two months. Detective
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Bradley Whitefield of Anderson City Police Department was one of
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: the first people to reach her, saying, quote unquote, I
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: was shocked and amazed. And Detective Charlin Ezell was right
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: beside him. And Kayla looked at her and said, quote,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for finding me, unquote. And Whitfield
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: broke down later when he tried to describe what he'd
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: witnessed that day, saying, quote, I think we all saw
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of things that day that are going to
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: stay with us, unquote. And Kayla described that moment from
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: her side of the container wall, saying, quote, I think
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: it was nine o'clock. I start hearing noises and then
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: I heard somebody's voice and I couldn't say anything. I
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: couldn't breathe, like I panicked. Somebody came up and like
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: asked if I was in there, They said, we're going
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: to get you out, unquote. And on the way to
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: the hospital, Kayla kept talking. And in the ambulance, she
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: started giving up what Kolop had told her, a husband
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: and wife he'd murdered before she was ever taken. And
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: then she told them something bigger. Four people gunned down
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: inside a motorcycle dealership in Spartanburg County. Nobody had ever
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: been arrested. And that was 13 years ago. That shooting
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: we talked about previously. And Sheriff Wright spoke to reporters
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: that evening. Kayla was alive and well, he would say,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: but she was obviously traumatized. And when pressed again on
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: her condition later that night, he offered a small consolation.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: And he told reporters she was in good spirits and
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: that she looked good for someone who'd spent 65 days
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: in a metal box. And Wright credited two things for
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: the outcome. Finding Kayla, he said, came down to divine
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: intervention from God himself and And the rest, he said,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: was good investigative work. The kind that put boots on
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: the right piece of ground. And Dan Herron, the family
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: friend who'd been searching for Kayla since Labor Day, learned
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: the news the way most people learn impossible things. Out
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: of nowhere. Quote, unquote. and Kayla's family released a statement
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: through In Missing Pieces Network the next day. Physically, she
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: was doing well, but on the emotional side, it was
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: a different story. Quote unquote, good moments and bad moments.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine, my God.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: And they would ask for privacy. saying, quote, right now
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Kayla needs time to process and begin to cope with
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: the events that have occurred, unquote. So while Kayla was
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: being pulled from that container, Todd was sitting in his
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: living room on Winsong Way in Moore talking to a
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: different set of investigators. And they'd shown up that morning
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: to ask about his cell phone. And the conversation started politely.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: At that point, neither side knew what the other team
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: had just found. And then the phone calls started coming in.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: updates started filtering in from the team out in Woodruff,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: and each call changed the temperature in the room, and
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: the tone in the room shifted. And they cuffed him,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: and then they told him what his colleagues had just
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: pulled out of that container.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: My sergeant service, search warrant on your property.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: We have Kayla. She was locked in a container. She
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: has told us that you shot and killed Charlie. You're
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: under arrest right now for kidnapping. They're going to continue
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: to search your property. They're going to continue. They got
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: cadaver dogs down there. And when asked directly why he
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: shot Charlie, he answered, quote unquote, I didn't shoot anybody, sir.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: And they asked about the container, about why a woman
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: was chained inside it on his property. And he had
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: no answer at that time. And he asked for a lawyer.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: And the arrest happened just before 2 p.m. on November 3rd, 2016.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: And Kolob was taken into custody at his own home.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: And back on the property, investigators began tearing the place apart.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: And they found Charlie's formerly white sedan in the woods,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: and they found Charlie's grave. And a tattoo on his
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: shoulder confirmed it was Charlie. And the coroner's report told
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: the rest. His multiple gunshot wounds all clustered in his
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: upper body. And over the next few days, they found more.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: and investigators kept digging. And on November 6th, they recovered
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: a body, and on November 7th, another. And they belonged
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: to a husband and a wife, Johnny Joe Coxie, 29
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: years old, and Megan Lee McCraw Coxie, who was 25
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: years old. And the couple had been reported missing on
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: December 22nd, 2015, out in Spartanburg. And the Coxies had
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: been standing on the corner of Raidville and Blackstock Road, panhandling,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: when Cola pulled up and offered them a job on
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: his land. and both had extensive tattoos, and that's how
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: the coroner was able to identify them. And the coroner's
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: findings told two different stories. Johnny died first, a bullet
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: to the torso, and Megan survived him by about a week.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: alone on that property with the man who killed her husband.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: And she was killed on Christmas Day or the day
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: after with a single gunshot wound to the head. And
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Kolop later explained the gap. He shot Coxie on the
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: spot and And McCraw-Coxey, he tried to keep just the
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: same pattern he tried to repeat with Kayla. And his
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: reason was that she'd tried to burn her way out
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: because he'd given her cigarettes and she used them to
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: start a fire inside of the container. So three bodies
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: total recovered from the 95 acres, along with a stockpile
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: of weapons that shouldn't have existed, suppressed 9mm semi-auto rifles
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: and ammunition. so much of it that no one even
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: tried to tally the count. And not one firearm on
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: the property had a background check tied to Kolop's name.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: As we know, his friend bought them for him, so
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: obviously they wouldn't be tied to Kolop. And every weapon
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: on the property had been obtained illegally. And upstairs in
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: the second floor living area Kolop had built for himself,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: investigators opened the top drawer of a dresser, and inside
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: they would find a set of handcuffs. Now, Kolop asked
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: for an attorney the day he was arrested. But two
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: days later, on November 5th, he changed his mind and
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: he contacted Tommy Clark and Mark Gaddy himself. No lawyer,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: no conditions, just a willingness to talk. And he rode
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: out to the Woodruff property with the two detectives and
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: showed them where the bodies were buried. And his price
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: for cooperating was small and specific. He wanted to talk
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: to his mommy and he wanted to give her a picture.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: And he wanted to transfer money into the college fund
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: of a friend's child. And in exchange, he gave up everything.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: And he confessed to the mass shooting at Superbike Motorsports
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: in 2003, the cold case that had haunted Spartanburg County
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: for 13 years. Just four people executed inside a motorcycle
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: dealership and not a single arrest. And his account of
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Superbike included information no one outside the investigation had ever heard.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: And Sheriff Wright put it bluntly saying, quote, he told
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: us some stuff that nobody ought to know, unquote. And
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: he described going back through the building after the initial
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: shots and putting a single round into the forehead of
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: every victim. Quote, I proceeded to walk back into the
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: building again to clear and I went. I put one
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: round in each person's forehead, unquote. And in interrogation footage,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: his demeanor was absolutely chilling. And he spoke about the
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: massacre with the detachment of someone reviewing like game tape.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: a video game.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: It's not a game, but it's all the time. You're
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: focused on, you've been there, sir.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: You don't know what I'm talking about. My golf game
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: is weak.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: My kill game is strong.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: Jesus. Just, just throw him in a deep, dark hole.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: But he laughed after the last one, and he bragged
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: about the precautions he'd taken to avoid being caught. Every
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: round he loaded into that weapon, he did it wearing gloves.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: And that way, no prints would end up on the brass.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: And when it was over, he disassembled the gun. Each
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: piece went into a separate trash can, and he buried
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: the barrel at the bottom of a bag of dirty
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: cat litter. And for 13 years, that was enough. Investigators
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: had actually known his name the entire time. Kolep was
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: a former Superbike customer. And 10 years after the killings,
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: his name came up on a mailing list. and the
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: mailing list was for former customers. A detective sent out
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: a generic letter in 2013, hoping someone might talk, but
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: obviously he never responded. And Melissa Ponder was living in
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: Arizona by then, just 13 years of silence. And then
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: her phone rang, and it was a detective from the
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: original Superbike investigation. And he told her about the arrest,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: and the detective told her something she'd waited 13 years
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: to hear. The man in custody knew things about the
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: murders that had never been shared outside that investigation. So
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: 13 years of silence, broken in a single phone call.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: And as the scope of his confessions widened, so did
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: the contradictions. And inside the container, Kolop had told Kayla
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: he killed Charlie for control. And in those first hours
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: after rescue, Kayla told investigators something different. That Kolop had been,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: quote unquote, mad at her. And Kolop's mother offered yet
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: another version. According to her, Charlie's mouth got him killed
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: because he had a really smart mouth, she said. And
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: that was something her son would never let slide. And
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: in his own confession, Kolop gave a fourth explanation. I
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: don't know how to answer that.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: I don't know how to answer that, honestly.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: I was angry at her. I was angry at him.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: It just went very quickly.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: So four different versions and none of them agree. But
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Kolop wasn't done talking. And his mother came to see
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: him after the arrest. And he told her the body
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: count was higher than investigators had found. And she asked,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: how many? Quote, you do not have enough fingers, unquote.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: And he claimed he'd shot a man in Arizona when
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: he was 14. And Tempe PD started pulling cold case
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: files and 30 years worth of unsolved killings looking for
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: anything that might match. Beyond the basic claim, he had
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: almost nothing to offer. No names, no specifics. No charges
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: ever came from it. And after the arrest, journalists began
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: combing through Colep's digital footprint. And someone had been leaving
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: product reviews on Amazon for years. And the account was
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: registered under the name Me. And the wishlist attached to
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: it carried a different name, Todd Colep. And the first
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: review went up in 2014, the same year Colep bought
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: the 95 acres. And there were 140 of them. And
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: the products ranged from tactical gear and weapon accessories to
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: field medical kits and books on sniping, rappelling, and battlefield surgery,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: and a shopping list for someone preparing for war. And
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: the reviews included one about a lock stating, quote-unquote, solid
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: locks have five on a shipping container, won't stop them,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: but sure will slow them down till they are too
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: old to care. That is so... incredibly disgusting and disturbing
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: that an Amazon review, a serial killer is putting up
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: Amazon reviews about a victim. Just, oh my God. It
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: makes my stomach turn, holy shit. But these reviews would
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: later earn him the nickname, Amazon Review Killer. But before
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: the weekend was over, the state had four new murder
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: charges on the books. And all of them tied to
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: the 2003 Superbike Motorsports killings after 13 years of dead ends.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Solved because a woman in a shipping container refused to die.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: So on May 26th, 2017, Todd Koleps stood in Spartanburg
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: County courtroom and pleaded guilty. Seven counts of murder, four
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: counts of possessing a weapon during a violent crime, and
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: two counts of kidnapping, and one count of first-degree criminal
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: sexual conduct, and 14 charges in all. And the sentence
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: came down the same day. 17 consecutive life terms without parole,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: plus 30 years for the kidnapping of Kayla Brown. plus
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: 30 more for assault, all running back to back. Every
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: piece of it was negotiated in advance and the solicitor
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: put everything on paper and the agreement ran nine pages
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: long and everyone involved signed it. Colep, his lawyers, solicitor
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: Barry Barnett, Kayla Brown, a representative for each of the
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: seven murder victims, Sheriff Wright, and an attorney from the
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services. And
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: under the terms, Colip gave up his right to appeal
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: in any court state or federal. And parole was off
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: the table permanently, thank God, and he couldn't seek it.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: And if someone offered it anyway, the agreement required him
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: to turn it down. So there's no way this guy's
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: getting out of jail. And one more clause sat at
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: the bottom. Any escape attempt, any violation of any term,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: and the whole agreement dissolved. And the state could then
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: resentence him on every charge and put the death penalty
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: back in play, which raised the obvious question, why not
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: seek it from the start? When Barnett addressed that directly, saying, quote,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: Todd Kolop deserves the death penalty, but the reality of
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: the situation is that our state doesn't have a functioning
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: death penalty. The last execution occurred in 2011, and the
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: state's supply of lethal injection drugs expired shortly thereafter, unquote.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: So it was a practical calculation wrapped in an ugly truth.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: The plea spared Kayla from testifying on the stand, thank goodness,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: and it spared the families of seven victims from years
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: of appeals. And it meant that Kolop's confessions to the
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: Superbike killings, the cold case that had hollowed out a
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: community for 13 years, would finally stand as a matter
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: of legal record. And the families showed up, and they
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: filled the benches in the courtroom and waited for the
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: words they'd spent years needing to hear. And one of
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: Megan McCraw-Coxey's family members stood and addressed the court, saying, quote,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: today is not so much his day in court as
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: it is Megan's day of justice and retribution, unquote. And
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: he said he could never forgive Colep. Not today.
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: Not ever.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: And Kayla was also there. And her legal team told
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: the court she'd planned to be there. She wanted to
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: look at Colep directly. But post-traumatic stress disorder kept her away.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: And she agreed with the plea deal. And her message
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: to the court was delivered through her legal team. Quote-unquote,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: he's the killer, not me. And after the criminal proceedings closed,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: the civil cases began. And Kayla went after Kolob's estate
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: in civil court, and the complaint listed kidnapping assault, battery,
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence. And the initial
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: filing asked for $ 360 million. And that number accounted for everything,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: including medical costs. the pain she'd endured, and the emotional wreckage,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: and the future she'd been robbed of. And McCulloch didn't
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: respond to the filing, the court entered a default judgment,
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: and the award totaled $ 6. 3 million, roughly $ 1. 5 million in
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: actual damages and $ 4. 7 million in punitive damages. And her
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: attorney put it in perspective, saying, quote, no amount of
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: money will ever compensate Kayla for what Todd Colette did
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: to her, unquote. And Charlie's dad, Chuck, filed a wrongful
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: death suit of his own. And Cindy Coxsey, the mother
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: of Johnny Coxsey, filed another. And the families of the
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: Superbike victims filed theirs as well. And in December of 2018,
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: the Superbike families came face to face with Colette during
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: a civil damages hearing. Thomas Lucas, Brian's father, tried to
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: describe what 15 years of grief felt like, saying, quote,
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: we have some answers, we have some information, but the
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: pure heartache never goes away, unquote. And Lorraine Lucas, Brian's mother,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: refused to look away, saying, quote, I'm not afraid to
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: stare him down. He took my son's life and the
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: life of three other people for whatever stupidity. He gave
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: me eye contact. I'm sure my eyes said everything that
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: was in my heart, unquote. And to pay for those judgments,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: Colip's assets were liquidated and his personal belongings went up
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: for auction. And over 550 items in total, power tools,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: gas cans, rain barrels, books, a gun safe, an ATV,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: even a handcuff key, every item was sold. Nothing was
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: left on the table. And the 95-acre property was sold
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: separately in a foreclosure auction. And every dollar raised was
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: directed towards settlement payouts for the people Kolop had destroyed.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: But Chuck, Charlie's dad, watched the bidding and felt something
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: other than justice. The idea of strangers collecting objects connected
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: to his son's murder made no sense to him. And
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: some buyers said the money was their way of helping
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: the families, but Chuck wasn't buying it. And he figured
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: most of those people would turn around and resell what
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: they'd bought. So three months before the plea deal, Kayla
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: Brown sat across from Dr. Phil McGraw for a two-part
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: interview that aired on February 13th and 14th, 2017. And
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: it was her first time telling the story on national television.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: And she did not flinch. Quote, unquote. And she talked
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: about Charlie saying, quote, I'll always miss Charlie. I'll always
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: wonder what our life would have looked like. But as
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: far as what Todd did to me, I am not
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: going to let that man rule my life, unquote. And
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: at one point in the interview, Dr. Phil asked the
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: question directly, had she thought about ending things in that container?
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: And Kayla said Charlie's face and the image of her
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: mother waiting at home shut that door before it could open.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: And she described the moment rescue stopped feeling like a
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: dream and started feeling real saying, quote, I didn't feel
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: safe until I had mama in my arms, unquote. And
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: the public saw someone just incredibly strong, someone unbroken. But
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: what they couldn't see is that survival doesn't end when
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: the locks come off. And in the months that followed
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: her rescue, Kayla began seeing a man named Adam Mason.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: And they would get engaged, but the wedding would never
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: happen because Adam stabbed in the chest at his home.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: Oh my God, Jesus Christ. And he was rushed to
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: the hospital, but went into cardiac arrest and didn't survive.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: And later, she began dating James Devon Moore. And in
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: July of 2019, both were arrested on domestic assault charges.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: And when the Greenville News reached out, Kayla's spokesperson, Jenny Dial,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: said she had stopped taking her medication before the incident.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: And after that, the headlines stopped. And after 2019, she
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: stepped back from all of it. No interviews, no public appearances.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: Almost nothing is known now about where she is or
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: what she's doing. His trauma doesn't follow a straight line.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't resolve on schedule or dissolve under bright lights.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: The domestic incident was not excusable, but it doesn't erase
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: what she endured. And it confirms how deep the damage went.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: And Charlie's family buried him in a different way. His
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: memorial service was held on November 19th, 2016 at North
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: Anderson Baptist Church. And it was the day he would
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: have turned 33. The people who came to the service
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: remembered a man who worked at a tissue factory and
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: dreamed bigger than his paycheck allowed. A pool player who
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: competed in leagues around town. a veteran of the National Guard,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: and an author with four completed mysteries behind him, and
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: a fifth nearly done that never got finished, and a
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: son whose father said he'd hand you whatever he had.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: What this case peeled back was something most people would
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: rather not look at, because how does a man with
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: a felony kidnapping conviction and a spot on the under
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: registry walk into a licensing office and walk out a
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: real estate agent? One question on the application stood between
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: Todd Kolop and a professional career. And he lied. And
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: nobody checked. But Todd Kolop is serving seven consecutive life sentences.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: He cannot appeal. He cannot seek parole. And if those
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: terms feel redundant, they were meant to be. Because for
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: years after his conviction, he was housed at Broad River
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: Correctional Institution. And that changed in June 2025. And Fox
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: Carolina ran an investigation into what Kolop had been up
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: to behind bars. And the findings got him shipped to
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Kirkland Correctional Institution, a Supermax facility, on an indefinite basis.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: And he'd been selling merchandise, T-shirts, stamped with the letters SKTK,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: Serial Killer Todd Kolop. And on top of that, he'd
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: been talking to a producer who he wanted to help
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: him package his story for an audience. And he'd been
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: sent autographed confession documents, autopsy reports of his own victims,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: which is disgusting, and a signed Superbike Motorsports business card
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: to a woman outside the prison with instructions to sell them.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: And people were paying up to $ 65 a pop for
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: that kind of material on a website that trade in
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: serial killer memorabilia. And none of this was on the
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: Department of Corrections radar. It took a Fox Carolina news
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: team bringing the evidence to their attention before anyone inside
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: the system realized what was happening. And Kolev lost his
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: tablet privileges indefinitely And South Carolina's inspector general got involved too,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: looking into whether profiting off the murders could land Kolob
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: with new criminal charges. State law in South Carolina makes
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: it illegal for a prisoner to earn money from acts
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: that put them behind bars. And he told investigators there
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: were more victims, but he wouldn't say how many and
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: he wouldn't say where. So investigators wanted him to walk
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: them to the graves, but he wouldn't do it. And
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: a search of the property turned up nothing, and Spartanburg
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: County called it off. And Wright drew a line. His
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: department was done digging until Kolop gave them real information
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: they could actually check. He wasn't going to let a
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: man in a cage control the narrative from behind concrete walls.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: There may be names that haven't been spoken yet. Families
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: somewhere in Arizona, in South Carolina, in places no one
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: has thought to look, still waiting for someone who never
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: came home. And nearly a decade later, he says he
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: wished he'd held the line. Quote, Had I known, nine
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: or ten years later, that we would still be doing
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: the same thing, I should have stuck to my guns
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: and said, no, I'm not signing that agreement.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: Unquote.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: But the story was never about him. It was about
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: the people he took. Charles David Charlie Carver. And that
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: is it for this case. Let me know what other
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: cases you would like me to deep dive into down below.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: I always read the comments. And until next time, stay
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: beautiful and stay safe. And a big f * *
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: * you, you piece of shit to Todd Koleb. See
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: you in the next one.